Circle of 2 Chapter1: A bird in the hand Page 24

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A CIRCLE OF TWO

1
A bird in the hand, continued

is the aggressive, athletic one. Being a year older at sixteen, and physically stronger, April has no reason to take this from Sandy. For some reason, April feels strangely compelled to comply. She begins to hunt for twigs and promptly finds a few along the roadside.
          “First page of poetry . . . first page,” Sandy mutters to herself as she scans the ground. “Dead sticks, live flowers . . .” Sandy spies a dandelion and crouches down to pick it. She stops. “No . . . that’s not right.” Standing again, her face points skyward and with closed eyes, Sandy concentrates again.
          “Red as beach tea,” Sandy says quizzically. “Red as beach tea,” she repeats. “Oh, the wild roses. They grow on beach dunes.” Sandy looks crushed. The dunes at Sachuest Beach are at least a twenty-minute run from where they are.
          April looks to where she thought she had seen beach rose bushes. The ground is still barren.
          “Stay here, I’ll find some,” April says; touched by her friend’s grief. April rushes down the lane, and then realizes, where am I going to find a beach rose bush? She breaks free of the woods and happens to come upon the first house built on this road. There, on the corner of the lot, is a beach rose bush in full bloom. It’s large, beautiful, and fragrant flowers appear a dusky red in the setting sun. Almost poppy-like, the flowers’ wide-open petals are a red contrast to the green mint-like leaves on the rest of the plant. Beach rose bushes, along with the beach grasses, are important plants for anchoring the sand dunes of the local beaches. April quickly harvests a flower, feverishly hoping that the owner, old man McGill, would not see her. There’d be hell to pay if he catches me picking his flowers. That man was born miserable, April thinks.
          Running back to Sandy, April lays the blossoms on the pile of sticks. Then she kneels down, next to Sandy.
          Sandy picks up the dying baby bird and lays it upon the soft bed of flowers. She kneels back down, next to the baby bird. Sandy again closes her eyes, as if she is trying to remember something. April is perplexed. Sandy’s got a photographic memory and never struggles to remember anything, no matter how mundane. Sandy begins to recite a poem.

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