The Curious World of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly Read Free Book Online

bath in a shallow pan of warm water, and the bird thrashed about in great delight. They spent more and more time together out of the pen. We grew used to seeing Travis with streaks of white on his shoulders, to our maid SanJuanna’s vexation. He even took Jay to show-and-tell at school, where he proved to be a big hit, although Miss Harbottle flinched every time he screamed or flapped, fearing for her black dress and lofty coiffure, with good reason.
    Jay took special delight in taunting the cats, but for some reason, he particularly singled out Idabelle, swooping down and screeching at her whenever she went outside to take some sun. Viola told Travis more than once, “You keep that devil bird away from my cat.”
    Then, of course, the calamitous, the gruesome—and the entirely predictable—happened. Idabelle ran through the back door bearing a limp bundle of blue feathers in her mouth.
    Now, you can’t exactly fault a cat for eating a bird, can you? That doesn’t seem fair; it’s just the way Nature goes. There wasn’t much to bury, only a wing and a handful of tail feathers.
    I’d never attended an actual funeral (and by that I mean for a real person) and had always wanted to see one, but after our ceremony for Jay, I changed my mind. Travis’s grief was terrible to behold. And although I felt disloyal for thinking so and would never have said it aloud, I suspect that all the rest of us were relieved to see the end of Jay.

 
    CHAPTER 5
    RARA AVIS
    The jaguar is a noisy animal, roaring much by night, and especially before bad weather.
    I WOKE UP with a small thrill of anticipation coursing through my veins. It took me a moment to remember why, but then it came to me: I was due to crack open a new Scientific Notebook. I’d jammed my first one chock-full of many Questions, a few Answers, and various observations and sketches. It had been my faithful companion for the past year, and it included my notes about the brand-new species of hairy vetch that Granddaddy and I had discovered, the Vicia tateii . Maybe one day the book would be an object of scientific and historic interest. Who could say?
    But now it was time to bid adieu to the old one and start the cheerful new red one Granddaddy had given me. I opened it and inhaled the smell of fresh leather and paper. Could anything top the promise and potential of a blank page? What could be more satisfying? Never mind that it would soon be crammed with awkward penmanship, that my handwriting inevitably sloped downhill to the right-hand corner, that I blotted my ink, that my drawings never came out the way I saw them in my head. Never mind all that. What counted was possibility. You could live on possibility, at least for a while.
    I crept downstairs, avoiding the treacherous spot in the middle of tread number seven that cracked like a pistol shot. The house was just beginning to stir. If I hurried, I could have some time alone to myself. I eased the front door open and stepped outside into the freshness of the morning to make my notes.
    And there, to my surprise, stood a strange gray-and-white bird on the front lawn. It was about the size of a chicken but of an entirely different shape. The plumage was sleek; its beak was curved and wicked and reddish in color; its legs were yellow and ended in, of all things, webbed feet. So it was a bird that could swim as well as fly. And that beak, it didn’t look as if it was meant for picking fruit or catching bugs, but rather for tearing flesh. So, a carnivorous bird? A flesh-eating duck? I sat down on the porch, moving slowly and quietly so as not to alarm it. I opened my new book and wrote, Saturday, September 8, 1900. Vy cloudy, SW winds. Strange bird on lawn, looks like this:

    I worked hurriedly to finish my sketch before my subject flew away. I was shading in the finishing touches when the front door opened and Harry came out. “Pet,” he called, “it’s