1. Exoskeleton EXOSKELETON
An exoskeleton is a hard protective covering on the outside of an animal’s body.

outside

Did you know

that seahorses

have two skeletons:

one on the inside

and one on the outside?

Imagine being able to

wear your skeleton on the outside

like armor,

making sure that predators know

not to come

too close.

bones

Cicadas scream in the trees

and the playground rings with laughter

and tears and promises

to be friends forever

as everyone signs each other’s yearbooks

and school shirts.

But me? I’m hiding behind a gum tree,

face pressed against the

scratchy bark.

Edie’s voice drifts toward me.

“Anyone seen Bones?

I’m going to sign her shirt.”

Her sly giggle

makes my heart fish-flop.

“What are you going to write?”

someone asks.

Edie’s voice

rings out

across the playground clamor.

“I’m going to draw a

picture of a witch,

seeing as she loves playing with bones

so much.”

More laughter

clatters toward me.

I dig my fingers into the bark.

It was Edie who gave me my nickname:

Bones.

She thinks it’s an insult

but I’ve claimed it as my own.

Bones are strong like armor.

Bones can crack but they mend.

Bones remain

when no other part of you does.

purpose

I stay silent behind the tree,

my shadow long and still beside me.

And then a familiar voice,

softer than Edie’s,

says,

“Don’t be mean,

remember her brother…

and then her mum left a few months ago…”

The voices drop to whispers,

which curl into the air.

My mum hasn’t left! I want to yell.

She’s just gone up north to the mines

to work as a cleaner

for a little while.

But I don’t want them to know I’m here.

I want to stay invisible.

I watch a line of ants

trickle steadily

down the tree trunk,

one following the other:

intent,

industrious.

They each have a purpose.

They belong.

blue-sky dreaming

Sun burns fierce

on the back of my neck

as I stop outside the school gates,

watching a lizard skitter-scatter

into a clump of yellow-dry grass.

My face always

tilts down toward the earth,

watching for the secret scurrying

of tiny creatures.

My younger brother Nico’s face was always skyward,

his eyes reflecting the radiance of sunlight,

the softness of clouds,

the endless freedom of space.

He imagined himself as

a bird a superhero a plane a shooting star.

Every night,

under our blanket fort,

he made me read

books about outer space and the sky.

His favorite was

the story of Icarus

(the boy who flew so close to the sun

that his wings melted

and he fell

to his watery death).

Nico was all head-in-the-clouds

and blue-sky dreaming.

But me:

I’m shadows and dirt and autumn leaves.

I crave the cool, earthy

smell of soil,

imagining myself scuttering

along secret passages with the ants,

tunneling deliciously deep with the worms.

I’ve come to know that

if you’re always looking up,

you’ll miss stuff—

a whole other bustling world

right

beneath your feet.

dirt

My fingers are burrowing in

the dirt,

looking for

buried treasures

for my collection,

when I hear a giggle

that scrapes at my skin.

“Still playing in the dirt, Bones?”

I sit back on my heels

and squint up at Edie, who’s nudging Aiko.

They have matching

sneakers and side braids.

But their faces don’t match.

Edie’s lip is curled.

Aiko is looking at the ground,

a crease in her forehead.

“Found any new bones lately?”

Edie sneers.

“Gonna cast some witchy spells

with them?”

She waggles her fingers at me.

“Maybe I will,” I say.

“Maybe I’ll resurrect some ghosts

and tell them to come

and HAUNT you.”

I open my eyes wide.

Is that the shadow of a smile on Aiko’s face?

It quickly slips off when Edie glares at her.

“You’re such a weirdo.”

Edie rolls her eyes,

but there’s less certainty

in her voice now.

“When you get to middle school, you’ll have to stop

all this…”

Edie waves her hand at the patch of dirt

in front of me.

“… It’s for kids.”

I wrinkle my dirt-smudged nose at her as

a familiar feathery fluttering

starts up in my chest.

Tell her we are kids, Nico whispers,

his breath brushing my cheek.

But I shrug and look at the ground again,

waiting

until their footsteps fall away

toward Aiko’s mum’s car.

photo-flick

I glance up as Aiko’s mum lifts her

hand at the car window.

Bright sparks of memory

photo-flick through me:

Aiko’s mum

flipping pancakes for me and Aiko after school

and walking us to the park.

Brushing my knotty hair

or slipping lunch money into my pocket

when Mum forgot.

I give a small wave back.

matching

Aiko lives

a few suburbs away from school,

where the houses have

fresh paint,

green-trimmed hedges

and soldier-straight mailboxes.

Aiko’s house sparkles

with light.

I know this because once

it was

me

who went to her house after school

and played with her dog

and ate her cookies and rice paper rolls.

But then…

I guess

we stopped matching.

Maybe we never really matched

the way Edie and Aiko match.

opposites

Edie and Aiko like:

lip gloss, making friendship bracelets, talking about boys.

I like:

spiders, sketching, collecting bones.

Edie and Aiko wear:

bright clothes and sparkly shoes.

I wear:

black T-shirts with skulls on them and combat boots.

They draw:

unicorns and anime characters.

I draw:

dead things and skeletons.

network

I brush dirt off my knees

and shuffle home.

I live in the opposite direction of Aiko and Edie,

where the fence palings are broken teeth

and the summer breeze

carries the smell of rubbish in the evenings.

“We’ll get outta here one day, baby girl,”

Mum said before she went up north.

“Just wait until I’ve saved up enough—

we can live in a nice house

with a garden and flowers

and all that.”

She stood in the dirty light

filtering through the kitchen window

of Nonna Frankie’s apartment,

with that faraway look in her eye.

But I’d just shrugged.

’Cause I don’t care, not really.

I like Nonna Frankie’s apartment.

I like the way

neighbors say g’day

as they walk past.

The way you can hear

doors slamming

music swirling

kids squealing.

I like the cooking smells drifting from under doors.

There’s not all that much space, but

you are part of a network

in this run-down building,

part of the muscle and bone and arteries

that keep its creaky old heart

thudding along.

too late

I’m halfway home when

I find a treasure to add

to my collection—

the husk of a cicada

clinging to the scribbly bark

of a tree.

I know that Edie and Aiko

would screw up their noses and say,

“Eww, gross!”

(Which somehow makes me like it more.)

I place it carefully on the palm of my hand,

knowing that the adult cicada

who left this shell behind

will die within a few weeks.

I close my eyes and

listen for its shrill, urgent song.

Before it left its shell behind,

it lived underground

as a nymph

in the cool, soundless dark,

drinking sap from tree roots snaking into the soil.

It was safe and cozy,

dreaming cicada dreams,

curled with its cicada siblings.

But then

it couldn’t fight that urge,

that instinct,

to tunnel its way out

of the safety of its burrow—

up

up

up

into the light above ground.

“Better to stay underground,”

I whisper to the husk,

but

it’s too late now.

nothing special

The scratched-paint door of our apartment

bangs behind me

as I burst into the kitchen.

“Look what I found!”

I hold my hand out to Nonna Frankie,

who’s kneading dough at the kitchen counter.

Nonna Frankie inspects my find

in her slow, considering way.

She’s straight as an arrow,

keen eyed and battle-scarred.

Once she rode a motorbike

and worked in a tattoo parlor.

Now she works at the corner store

but only during school hours.

“Huh,” Nonna Frankie says,

and goes back to kneading,

lean brown arms pushing into the soft dough.

A serpent tattoo slithers down her forearm.

I hold my palm up to the light.

“It’s going in the collection.”

“That collection better not start smelling bad

or it’s all going out to the bin.”

Nonna Frankie says that every time,

but I know she’d never throw my stuff away.

“How was your last day of school?”

Nonna Frankie starts rolling out the dough,

but I know by the angle of her head

that she’s listening.

I shrug. “Nothing special.

Everyone signed each other’s shirts

and cried

and all that stuff.

Dunno what for,

since most of us will be at middle school together

next year.”

Nonna Frankie looks like she’s thinking

about saying something.

But then

she doesn’t.

I look back at my cicada husk,

its hopeful glisten under the light.

worker bee

“Dinner soon,” Nonna Frankie says

before I swing out of the room.

She always used to add,

“We’ll leave some in the fridge

for Mum.”

Before Mum went up north,

she worked late

cleaning offices

after everyone had gone home for the night.

At bedtime

I’d lie awake and imagine her:

a busy worker bee buzzing through

the empty neon-lit offices.

But now

she’s a busy worker bee up north,

preparing meals and cleaning

at a mine site in the outback

where there’s red dust,

white-scorched skies,

and very bad phone reception.

“At least the pay is good,” she’d said.

Mum emails

almost every day.

When we get our own place,

we’ll grow daisies and sunflowers and herbs,

so that our garden is always full

of bees and butterflies.

I imagine us

lying on our backs

with the sky above,

blue as the eye

of a bowerbird.

trapped

We moved in with Nonna Frankie two years ago,

when Mum couldn’t afford rent

on our apartment anymore.

Nico and I shared the bed

in the spare room,

while Mum slept on the pull-out couch.

But Mum was a trapped bird in

Nonna Frankie’s apartment,

fluttering from window

to window.

I knew her heart dreamed

of wide sunlit spaces,

stretching out

to the horizon,

and glittering nighttime skies.

A place where she could fly.

collection

I pull my suitcase

from the dusty dark

beneath my bed.

It snaps open

with a secret click.

Inside is my collection of dead stuff:

• a crab claw Nonna Frankie and I found on a beach trip
• some smooth, swirly moon snail shells
• a few dried leaves and flowers (autumn brown and crispy crinkly)
• a handful of birds’ feathers (the startling red from a rosella, the glistening blue black from a crow)
• a mouse spider, found in the community garden (dead but perfectly preserved).

And, finally, my most valuable treasures:

• my animal bones (a tooth, a claw, a rib—dug up from the mud down at the wetlands)
• the spiky ribs of a snake (still attached to the head and backbone, which I found on a mountain walk)
• a pile of rat bones (bleached clean after Nonna Frankie found a dead rat under the stairwell).

weirdo

I suppose you’re wondering why I have

a bunch of dead stuff

in a suitcase under my bed.

You probably think

I’m a weirdo.

(Like Edie does.)

And maybe I am.

Did you know there are heaps of synonyms for weirdo?

Our fifth-grade teacher, Mr. Hawker,

told us about synonyms.

He said it’s when a word has the same meaning

as another word.

Some synonyms for weirdo are:

Wacky

Eccentric

mIsfit

fReaky

oDd

Offbeat

I guess I’m all those things.

I collect and draw dead stuff.

I know how to sterilize and clean animal bones

to get the germs off them

(so you don’t get sick after touching them).

Pretty weird,

right?

still matter

The last time Aiko came to my house,

I was laying my animal bones out on the floorboards,

nudging the bones

into the shapes they had once been,

imagining the lives they once had.

I didn’t hear her come into my room—

I only knew she was there

when I heard the sharp intake of breath:

“What are you doing?

Are they… like… actual bones?”

A sick feeling blossomed in my stomach

as I saw Aiko near my bed,

holding her bracelet-making kit.

Her eyes skittered over to

my open suitcase

full of dead stuff,

and then across to my sketchbook—

its pages filled with labeled sketches of

animal skeletons.

“It’s just…

I’m just…”

I wanted to tell her that

dead things still matter,

that they show us

what the animal had once been,

that by looking at their bones we can imagine

where they had lived,

and the things they would be doing

if they were still alive.

It was my way of

honoring

them.

But my mouth didn’t say any of these things.

And I knew by the way Aiko

stepped backward,

her eyebrows drawn down,

that she was now as far away from me

as Neptune is

from Earth.

moon snail

After that day,

I curled away from Aiko

like a moon snail sheltering in its shell,

drifting along the currents

far out in the ocean.

Things between us had already started to change

after Edie came to our school,

the pieces of our friendship

shifting and rearranging.

Edie didn’t want to share Aiko with me.

I didn’t want to share Aiko with Edie.

So mostly

I just walked away.

husk

I gently place the cicada husk

in the suitcase,

which is lined with

sky-blue paper.

It looks cozy in there,

Nico says

over my shoulder.

Lying on my stomach,

dirty feet in the air,

I carefully draw the husk

in my sketchbook.

Sun and shadows

flicker in through the window.

movement

I’m tidying up my pencils

when I hear movement outside:

car doors closing,

voices sliding across the

still-hot late-afternoon air.

I peer through my window.

There’s a moving truck parked on the street,

people carrying boxes

back and forth back and forth,

a straggly haired kid in bright clothes

jumping on and off the back of the truck,

someone (the kid’s mum?)

with spiky red hair

cheerfully yelling out orders and directions.

The apartment across from ours

on the ground floor

has been empty for weeks.

I guess we have new neighbors.

Maybe they like birds? Nico whispers,

and his breath is stardust and birds’ feathers.

And planes? And stars? And rockets?

I shrug,

nose pressed against the glass,

until the kid spins around—

like they can feel me watching—

and stares straight at me.

I duck down fast,

leaning against the wall,

pretending

I was never there at all.

pineapple

I help Nonna Frankie

put pizza toppings on rolled-out dough.

Olives and mushrooms on mine.

Salami and peppers and mushrooms

for Nonna Frankie.

Nico always picked ham and pineapple.

He said it tasted like holidays and sunshine.

“Huh,” Nonna Frankie would say.

“Pineapple doesn’t belong on pizza.”

Because that’s what her dad used to say to her.

(Nonna Frankie wasn’t born in Italy,

but she says there’s some stuff

that’s just in your blood.)

Mum would laugh her sudden husky laugh and say,

“Don’t knock it till you try it!”

other side

“It smells so good.”

I peer through the oven door,

watching the cheese melt and bubble

on the pizzas.

Nonna Frankie wipes her hands on a paper towel.

“They’ll be ready soon.”

She hasn’t said it,

but I know this is a special dinner

because it’s my last day of elementary school.

(And also because Mum can’t be here,

even though she rang this morning

to wish me luck.

But the phone cut out

before she could

say goodbye.)

Next year I’ll be at the local middle school:

a school with sun-warmed bricks

and sloping green lawns.

Aiko and I used to walk past it with her dog,

talking about all the stuff we’d do

when we got there.

“I’m going to study dance and drama,”

Aiko would say, staring longingly through

the fence,

like middle school was the place

where her real life would begin.

I was excited about the science labs:

white coats and goggles,

scalpels and microscopes.

Drawing carefully labeled diagrams

with sharp pencils.

But now Aiko’s going with Edie

to the posh school for girls

on the other side of town.

They’ll ride the bus in their blazers and hats,

polished as river stones,

glossy as magazine covers,

and as far away as the moon.

not ever

“We have new neighbors,”

I tell Nonna Frankie

while we eat at the kitchen table,

surrounded by paper and pencil shavings.

Nonna Frankie nods, chews.

“Yep, heard ’em. Just across the hallway.”

I nibble my crust.

“There was a kid.”

Nonna Frankie sips her water.

“Go say hi.

Could be good to hang with someone

over summer.”

I keep chewing.

“Nah. I’m just gonna draw and

go down to the wetlands and stuff.”

I pick up my pencil and

start scribbling on the paper next to my plate.

Nonna Frankie clears her throat.

“Maybe you could take your bike down

to the dirt hills too.

Ride with the other kids.”

That dark fluttering stirs in my chest.

Nonna Frankie knows I’m never

going back there.

Not ever.

dumpster diving

After dinner,

I shuffle outside to the dumpster,

which smells like old socks and overripe bananas.

I lift my arm to chuck the bag of trash in

when…

“Watch it!”

a voice echoes from the dumpster.

I stumble backward.

“Holy humerus!”

A head pops out of the dumpster.

It’s the kid who’s just moved in.

Wide mouth and freckles,

baseball cap pulled down low over straggly hair.

“Holy humerus?”

My bony armor tightens across my chest.

“A humerus is an upper-arm bone.”

The kid loudly chews some gum.

“I know.

I’ve just never heard anyone say that before.

And you almost dumped that on my head!”

I push back my bangs

with one arm.

“What are you doing in there anyway?

Dumpsters are for garbage, not people.”

My voice jolts out of me,

sandpaper rough.

The kid shrugs,

blows a strawberry-colored bubble.

“Dumpster diving.

You’d be amazed what people throw away

that can be reused.

So wasteful.

Watcha got in that bag?”

The kid reaches for the bag and

I step back.

“Just some kitchen scraps,” I mutter.

The kid pulls themself onto the dumpster edge,

legs dangling

in denim cutoffs.

“Well, go on. Chuck it in then.”

I throw the bag into the dumpster.

It lands with a squelchy thud.

The kid stares at me, blowing another gum bubble.

“What’s your name?”

I lift my chin and meet the kid’s eyes.

“Bones.”

The kid smiles. “Cool. I’m Tenny.”

“Oh.” My shoulders loosen a bit.

Tenny kicks their legs against the dumpster,

just staring and chewing gum.

I don’t know what else to say,

so I turn to go.

But Tenny says to my back,

“I found some awesome stuff

in the dumpster across the road.

Stuff I can fix up. Wanna come see?”

I turn around.

A magpie warbles.

A truck rumbles by.

A dog goes arf arf.

I shake my head.

“Nah. Got stuff to do.”

I shove my hands in my pockets

and shuffle away.

chance

After washing up, I take Nico’s old BMX bike,

with its broken bell

and scratched paintwork,

down to the wetlands.

Riding Nico’s bike

makes me remember

his whoops of joy

when he landed a tricky jump,

and the way he’d whoosh past me yelling,

“Look, no hands!”

My own bike sits neglected

in Nonna Frankie’s storage cage.

Nonna Frankie says I need to be back before dark,

joking that otherwise

she’ll send Raze after me.

Raze lives in the apartment above us.

He has scars on his face

and washes car windows on the main street.

“He looks like someone

you wouldn’t want to meet

in a dark alleyway,” Mum said

when she first saw him.

But then we realized

he’s the type of person

who wouldn’t even step on a spider

in his own home.

“He’s a good guy,”

Nonna Frankie often says.

“He’s made mistakes in his past,

like we all have.

It’s what you learn from them

that matters in the end.”

When she says that,

I don’t say what I’m really thinking,

which is that we don’t always get a chance

to learn from our mistakes.

Nico didn’t.

surface

My toes squelch in slippery mud

and slender gums gleam like exposed bone

in the last gold threads of sunlight.

The wetlands

are the best place to be

in summer.

The water is too dirty to swim in,

but the air hums with insect buzzing

and birdsong,

and, best of all,

sometimes I find hidden treasures

in the damp dirt.

For a moment everything inside

feels still and calm

like the surface of the water.

I skim a flat stone,

watch it skitter skip scatter.

The sun is starting to slip below the horizon,

staining the clouds

cotton candy pink.

I guess I’d better get back home

before Nonna Frankie sends out a search party.

As I reach down to pick up

Nico’s bike,

something catches my eye:

It’s sharp and white,

just poking out from the dirt.

Using a stick,

I dig around the exposed tip of

a curved claw.

My heart hops

with anticipation.

I carefully pull the claw out.

But it’s not just a claw:

The claw is attached to a bony foot,

which is attached to a spindly leg.

There is also a frail backbone with ribs,

and the gentle slope

of a tiny skull.

They’re the bones

of a small bird.

My breath catches in my throat.

This is special—

it’s rare to find animal bones already cleaned

by the water.

I can’t wait to add them

to my collection.

I carefully tuck the bird skeleton into my pocket

and wipe my hands on my shorts.

A sharp snapping of twigs

behind a clump of trees

makes me stop still.

Then there’s a softer, stealthy sound,

like someone is there

but trying not to be seen.

My pulse races.

“Who’s there?” I yell,

clenching both fists.

A ganggang calls out

like a rusty gate hinge

and then

someone steps out

from behind the trees.

exposed

My eyes widen.

The someone is in a baseball cap

and cutoff shorts.

“It’s you!

Did you follow me?”

Tenny shrugs

like it’s no big deal.

“What did you find?”

They eye me curiously,

hands in pockets.

I think about showing them

my new treasure.

But then straightaway

I also think

about Aiko—

the way she looked at me

when she saw my collection

of dead stuff.

My hand drops down

to cover my pocket.

“Nothing.”

My voice comes out

as spiky as a snake’s ribs.

“Gotta go,” I add,

picking Nico’s bike up.

“Oh,” Tenny says.

“I thought we could take our bikes

down there …” They point

toward the track that leads

to the dirt hills

and the dark fluttery thing

bangs about like a grenade against my chest.

“My nonna said I’ve gotta be home

before dark.”

I jump on the bike and start pedaling

before Tenny can say

another word.

lonely planet

Nonna Frankie comes in as always

to say good night.

She sits heavily on the side of my bed,

puts a hand on my hair.

She smells like flour and oranges.

Moonlight slopes in through

the window.

There’s a twitch at the edges of the thin curtains,

like Nico’s there,

looking up at the basketball-hoop moon.

Nico used to spend ages

peering at the sky through his wonky telescope

(which Mum found at Vinnies).

“Did you know that Neptune is the farthest planet

from the sun?” he once said.

“I want to go there.”

I’d frowned at him

from where I lay reading in bed.

“Why?”

Nico had shrugged, still squinting

through his telescope.

“?’Cause it’s probably lonely,

so far from the sun.”

I’d rolled my eyes.

Only Nico would care about a planet being lonely.

I know he’s standing by the window now,

imagining himself

free floating in space

in his bulky astronaut helmet.

Weightless

serene

bathed in moonlight.

Nonna Frankie looks at the window too,

and I want to ask her if she

knows that Nico is there.

But we both stay quiet.

superman

Nico’s free-falling downward,

arms and legs out straight

like he’s a bird or a plane

down down down

the air rushing past him

down down down

toward the hard, flat ground

and then

I’m sitting bolt upright in bed,

tangled in sweaty sheets.

Mum used to crawl into bed with me

when I woke from one of my dreams.

I had so many of them after Nico died:

Nico falling through space and time;

Nico standing in the blue shadows of my room,

wearing his cardboard bird’s wings,

saying with his gap-toothed smile,

“It was all a dream, silly. I’m still alive!”

Mum would stroke my back while

my breath came out in big rolling waves,

and then she’d curl beside me,

smelling faintly of disinfectant,

still in her work shirt

with the stiff collar.

“I’m here now, baby, go back to sleep.”

In the light of the moon, I’d notice

the square line of her jaw,

her long dark hair on the pillow,

and the way her mouth drooped downward

even as she slept.

breathe life

Now Mum’s up north,

sleeping in shared rooms

with other workers,

the air shifting and sighing

with their mingled breath,

while they dream separate dreams.

Wide awake now,

I sit on the floor,

holding

the hollow bones of my little bird.

My heart bursts

at the tender curl of its toes.

I wonder what would happen

if I could imagine the bones back into

a living, breathing bird.

If I could cover the bones in skin and downy feathers.

If I could softly breathe life back into the tiny lungs.

If I could gently hold the bird in my cupped hand,

and feel the kick start of its heart

as its eyes blinked open.

I’d feed it with a tiny liquid dropper

and watch it grow stronger

and stronger.

Then finally the day would come

when my

bird would push off my hand

and flutter up

toward the sun

without ever looking back.

wish

I kneel and carefully place the

bird bones on my desk.

The air feels electric

with some sort of longing

I can’t even name.

It’s that crackly, pent-up feeling

that comes

before a storm hits.

My gaze lingers on the bones of my bird

like just wishing could make it

real.

No longer dead.

A silver wash of moonlight

softens its hollow spaces.

I close my eyes for a moment,

then whisper

with all the longing in my heart,

“I wish I could talk to you.

I wish you were alive.”

not alone

I wake again

and something feels

… different.

I sit up, hold my breath, listen.

All I can hear is the clumsy bumping of moths

against the outside light.

But I feel like something—

or someone—

is shifting in the shadows.

My skin prickles.

I turn the lamp on.

Soft yellow light

washes over my room.

And that’s when I see it:

the skeleton

of my little bird

perched on the windowsill.

dreaming

A scream

starts to rush out of me.

I quickly press my hand to my mouth.

The bird tilts its bony skull

to look at me

with empty eye sockets.

“Oh,” it says, in a teeny voice,

sweet as a young child.

“You’re awake.”

My pulse races.

The skeleton bird is talking.

What on Earth…?

I grip my bedsheets,

drawing my knees up

to my chest.

“I didn’t mean to wake you.

I just needed to stretch my wings.”

The bird spreads out

its bony limbs.

I stare and stare.

This.

Cannot.

Be.

Happening.

I must be dreaming again.

If I turn out the light

and snuggle back down,

I’ll fall asleep.

And then in the morning

the bones will be back on my desk.

I’ll get up

and Nonna Frankie will pour me a large glass of milk

(because calcium is good for your bones)

and I’ll do some drawing.

I flick the light off,

lie back down,

and close my eyes.

“Take a few big breaths, baby,”

Mum would whisper

if she were here now.

I breathe in.

Out.

In.

Out.

The air in my room

settles into silence.

Until…

There’s a bone-on-bone

crunch and clatter.

“Ouch!” a small voice chirps.

“Wooden desks and bony heads

do not mix.”

Holy humerus.

This definitely

does NOT

feel like a dream.

I fumble for the lamp switch.

Light falls over

the bird skeleton

now clawing its way

onto the end of my bed.

summoned

My heartbeat thrums,

loud as a million drums.

“Umm… wha… how…?”

The bird regards me

with a tilted head.

“Have you forgotten

how to speak?”

“No!” I whisper-yell.

Across the hallway

Nonna Frankie coughs.

I breathe in.

Out.

In.

Out.

“I just need to know

what is happening! I mean…

you’re… you’re…

a talking skeleton!”

“So it seems.

I’m sorry to give you a fright.”

The bird hops toward me.

“Let’s start over.

Hi. I’m Bird.

And I am here

because

you summoned me.”

misunderstanding

Did you know

that if you wish aloud for something

in the stealthy shadows of your bedroom,

if you whisper the words

soft as the brush of a moth’s wing,

if you feel the words rush through your blood,

your wish might come true?

No?

I didn’t know that either.

But this is what

must have happened.

“When you said you wished

I was still alive,

it seems

that you wished me into being,”

Bird explains.

“Oh…

umm… I guess I meant

I wished you were alive

the way you once were,

with feathers and skin and…”

Bird stares at me

with his hollow eye sockets.

“Well, you could have specified that.”

And then I feel bad

for not being more careful.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Bird replies kindly.

“I suppose it was

just a misunderstanding.

All you need to do is help me go back

to what I was.

Before you wished me into

a speaking skeleton.”

I frown.

“Umm… how exactly do I do that?”

Bird clicks his beak.

“Your guess

is as good as mine.”

Silence falls across the room

as we realize

we may have

a teeny

tiny

problem here.

unwish

This is how I find myself

sitting cross-legged on my bedroom floor

in the middle of the night

with a talking skeleton,

trying to work out

how to undo my wish.

Bird suggests,

“Maybe you need to say

the opposite

of what you wished for?”

So I close my eyes and whisper,

“I wish you were NOT alive.

I wish you were just bones again.”

I hold my breath,

then open one eye.

Bird is still there,

looking at me.

“You could try saying the wish

backward?”

So I close my eyes and say,

“Alive were you wish I.”

Silence.

Silence.

More silence.

And then…

“Still here,” Bird whispers.

“Oh.”

I open my eyes

and press my lips together.

“Well… how about I light a candle?” I suggest.

“I’ve seen that in movies

when people want to do magic.”

Bird bobs his head up and down.

“Yes! Good idea.”

I creep out to the kitchen

to find matches

and a tea light candle.

Back in my room,

the yellow flame

makes shadows dance

on the walls.

“Okay,” Bird tweets,

and he hops up on my chair

and from there onto my desk.

“I’m ready.”

I pause, hands hovering

over the candle.

“We should both close our eyes this time.”

Bird looks back at me

with his vacant orbs.

“Right.” I clear my throat.

Bird nods.

I close my eyes and say,

in my most proper voice,

“I wish to reverse this accidental wish

and return these bird bones

to their previous lifeless form.”

I’m not sure

how I knew to say that

(but it sounded good).

Then

there’s a clacking of

claws on wood.

I open my eyes.

Bird is flapping his wing bones

and hopping

up and down.

“Sorry… you were sitting with your eyes closed

for so long…”

I sigh

and blow out the candle.

“Nothing seems to be working.”

We sit there,

wondering how

we’re going to find a way

to unwish

a wish

that I never intended to make.

full moon

I walk over to my bedroom window

and lean out to breathe in

warm currents of air.

Crickets scrape sharply in the grass.

Hey, it’s a full moon,

Nico whispers in my ear.

“Magic happens on the night

of a full moon,” I say aloud.

This is what Nico said

on the night of every full moon

as he looked at the moon phases chart

taped to our bedroom wall.

“What did you say?” Bird tweets

from behind me.

I turn from the window.

“Oh, it’s just… it’s a full moon, and

the moonlight was shining in

when I wished

you were alive.

I wonder if it was some kind of…”

“Moon magic?” Bird prompts.

“Maybe. But I don’t know how to

use the magic again

to unwish my wish.”

Bird inclines his head toward

the open window.

“I think you mean

curse.”

curse

“Curse?” I repeat

in a small voice.

Bird nods.

There’s a pulse in the air,

which could be

the river-rush of my heartbeat.

“The light of the full moon

must have streamed in on me through your window

when you made your wish…

I mean,

curse.”

I clench my hands together,

remembering the way

the moonlight fell bright

across the bird bones

on my desk.

“But I wished you were alive!

How is that a curse?”

Bird sighs.

“Wishing for a once-living thing

to be alive again,

the way it was,

goes against the laws of nature.

I cannot be as I was,

so the moon’s power has transformed me into

something

no creature should be.”

Heat blooms in my face

as I realize that

I have indeed

cursed this poor creature.

“I know you didn’t mean to,”

Bird says gently,

but somehow his sweet voice

makes me feel even worse.

“There must be some way

to change you back.”

I look around the room.

My eyes fall on the bookshelf,

with Nico’s

books about space

lining the bottom shelves.

Remember

the Encyclopedia of Moon Magic?

Nico’s whisper leaves a silver trail.

We used to read it

under the blankets.

“Yes!” I say aloud.

With a fresh flicker of hope,

I reach over

and shuffle through the books.

A heavy hardback

thuds onto the wooden floor.

Bird and I jump

like startled jackrabbits.

There’s a pause in Nonna Frankie’s snoring

and then

my bedroom door starts to open.

sterilize

Nonna Frankie steps into my room.

Out of the corner of my eye

I see Bird flop

onto the floor

and lie

still.

I try not to look at Bird

as Nonna Frankie asks,

“What are you doing?”

I twist my hands together.

“Oh… we were just…”

Nonna Frankie has a crease

in her forehead.

“We?”

“I mean… I… I was just…

playing with my animal bones.

And I accidentally dropped one.”

And that’s when Nonna Frankie spots Bird,

gleaming in the lamplight.

She sniffs.

“Did you sterilize that thing?”

I shake my head.

“Huh. First thing tomorrow then.”

“First thing,” I echo,

my hands still twisting.

Nonna Frankie nods toward my bed.

“Sleep. This can wait.”

She stands still

as I slide back into bed,

pulling the sheets up to my chin.

Nonna Frankie switches my lamp off

with a click

then reaches to pat my arm.

“Want me to stay?”

Now that Mum’s not here

it’s Nonna Frankie who often sits

on the edge of my bed

until I fall asleep again,

immoveable as a mountain.

But this time I shake my head.

“Nah. I’m okay.”

I close my eyes,

waiting for Nonna Frankie’s footsteps

to shuffle

back across the hallway.

moon magic

As soon as Nonna Frankie’s snoring starts up again,

I slip out of bed,

fumbling for my flashlight

in the bottom drawer of my bedside table.

Nico and I had used this flashlight

for nighttime reading under our blanket fort.

But now

the light sputters weakly

when I switch it on.

“Needs new batteries,” I mutter

as the light finds Bird.

The glow shines straight through

his hollow eye sockets

(which looks kind of weird

so I lower the beam).

“What were you looking for

on the shelf?” Bird whispers.

“I’m searching for

the Encyclopedia of Moon Magic,”

I whisper back,

edging over to the heavy book

on the floor.

“I think this could be it!”

I flip the book

to show the cover

and shine the flashlight over it.

“Oh,” I sigh.

It’s a book about how

black holes are formed.

Not moon magic.

Bird hops down to me.

“Keep looking,” he urges.

I shine my flashlight over the spines

of the books lining the shelves.

There are books about

birds

and planes

and the planets

and our universe.

But no Encyclopedia of Moon Magic.

I lower the flashlight beam.

Flap flap flutter flutter

go the dark-edged feathers

against my rib cage.

“Maybe we should take a break.”

Bird’s voice shimmers

like moonlight on water.

“We can continue tomorrow.”

I nod and yawn,

suddenly aware of how

bone-achingly tired

I feel.

Bird shuffles away

to the dark space

under my desk.

Eyes heavy,

I lie back on my pillow

Soft birdsong falls

into the blue dawn.

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