Plumage by Nancy Springer Read Free Book Online Page A

You’re not going to poop on it or something?”
    â€œJust never mind. Are you going to help me, or do I go to Silly Willy?” This was the self-deluded boss man whom Sassy had seen reflected in a mirror as a lyrebird.
    Racquel’s broad shoulders sagged. Plaintively he asked, “May I at least go home and change first?”
    â€œPlease do .”
    Sassy felt her position of power over another human being hanging unfamiliar and exhilarating in her chest as she leaned on the mezzanine railing and waited for Racquel to return. Blankly staring, she was not really watching for the parakeet, not yet—but there it was. Perched in the nearest tree. Staring back at her.
    It had a brilliant yellow head with an orange mask over the eyes. A green body with blue primaries on the wings. A bright yellow butt. A few yellow markings on its long pointed tail. No striations. None of the usual teardrop mottlings around the throat. It looked like a parakeet—no-necked, big-headed, high-browed yet clownish—but its coloration and markings were nothing like those of any of the parakeets in any of Sassy’s books.
    Of course, with all the new variations the breeders kept coming up with, this was understandable. “Some sort of sport, are you?” Sassy queried it.
    The parakeet gazed back at her.
    She was not expecting a response. Her questions were rhetorical. “You really are watching me, aren’t you? I mean me specifically. You’re hanging around me.”
    The parakeet cocked its head. Perhaps it chirped at her. In the echoing atrium, it was hard to tell.
    â€œYou’re stalking me,” she told it. “That’s not nice .”
    The parakeet shifted uncomfortably on its perch. Its dainty vermicular toes, Sassy noticed, were mauve, like Racquel’s makeup.
    â€œYou did mess up my reflection, didn’t you?”
    The parakeet dropped its gaze, looking down and to one side.
    â€œI think you understand every word I’m saying,” she told the bird. “You and I need to talk.”
    â€œIt’s not going to move until daybreak,” Racquel complained to Sassy. “We might as well go home.”
    Perched opposite the fifth-floor balcony from which they watched, the parakeet made a hunched silhouette against the dimmed, midnight decorator lighting: with its head facing its tail and its beak tucked between its wings, it slept.
    Even though it didn’t move, Sassy watched it intently. “How do they do that?” she muttered.
    â€œWhat? Sleep standing up?”
    â€œCrank the head around 180 degrees.” Effortlessly. And sleep that way.
    â€œI was watching a robin one time,” Racquel said, a droll quirk in his voice, “just kind of watching it hop around, and I said to myself, How does that thing get around on only two legs?”
    Sassy laughed. She was trying to maintain a brisk and businesslike stance toward Racquel but she couldn’t help it; she had to laugh. Get around on two legs, indeed. And there he stood in platform clogs. Fuchsia open-toed platform clogs with gold-braid trim. And gold-braided scarlet toreador pants. And a scarlet bolero. Racquel’s idea of changing his clothes for a covert operation did not seem to include either practicality or subterfuge.
    â€œThey’re going to wonder what we’re doing if we keep standing here,” Racquel said. “We might as well go home—”
    â€œThey wouldn’t notice us at all if you weren’t dressed like a road flare!”
    â€œThey would too. They’d spot the glare off your glasses a mile away.”
    â€œNot as bright as that getup!”
    â€œWhat did you want me to wear,” Racquel complained, “a chador?”
    â€œYou could have come as yourself and nobody would know who you were.”
    â€œHuh?” In general, Racquel seemed like a genuinely easygoing—guy or whatever, but now he became somewhat wrought. “