Sparrow: Chapters 1–4

The only sign that my mother is in any distress at all are the sunglasses perched on top of her head. They should be in her purse, in their black carrying case with the special cloth.

“Well, I’m afraid that’s the best option for Sparrow. She’s past the obligatory stay for suicide watch, and she hasn’t been responsive to our questions here.”

I wasn’t being unresponsive; it’s just that everyone kept asking me why I’d tried to kill myself. Every time I explained that I didn’t try to kill myself, the doctors, nurses, shrinks, they’d all say, “So, what were you doing on the edge of the roof?”

They’d start talking about denial in their horrible, even voices like they knew they were right all along.

We live in the top two floors of a brownstone, and I check to see if George, our first-floor tenant, is home.

If it weren’t for the weird blanket of fog and fatigue that’s settled itself on me since the hospital—it’s the drugs they gave me, I think—and the fact that I can’t quite get myself to meet my mother’s gaze, this would seem like a typical Sunday morning at the Cooke house.

“Honey, I just picked you up from the psych ward. I love you. I trust you. But you’re not okay.”

I’m crying, but the tears won’t come. I just have the lump in my throat, shoulders heaving. My face is completely dry.

I hear that hard line in her voice, the same one she gets around new men in the neighborhood, the one that says, Hurt my child and I’ll kill you. That says, Underneath this Burberry coat and silk scarf I am ferocious.

I have a strange feeling at the back of my throat; it’s closing up. My eyes are watering. I seem very aware of my proximity to the Kleenex.

The kids all rushed in, mostly girls and a smattering of Magic: The Gathering boys.

She tamed it all with the cardigan she always wore, the only hint that she was (a) an adult and (b) a librarian.

“Ornithology! Why didn’t you say so?” She practically skipped over to the section. “Here you go, as many books as you could want on the topic of avian wonder.”

“Ornithology! Why didn’t you say so?” She practically skipped over to the section. “Here you go, as many books as you could want on the topic of avian wonder.”

These were reference books, she explained, you were only allowed to take one home at a time.

I hear an owl. I open the window and wait for it. Owls rarely come for me. They’re just not that interested in a fourteen-year-old girl with insomnia.

I walk in and feel blinded by the fluorescent lights, deafened by the slamming of lockers in unison, the shouts and high fives...

It’s funny how when you’ve been out of school for a little while—just two and a half weeks—what was second nature a few weeks ago feels like a different country with strange customs and rituals.

I cannot, cannot be the person who walks in late and everyone takes a minute to look at you and then maybe they stop to think, “Huh, where’s she been?” and then the teacher is like, all solemn, “Glad to have you back, Sparrow,” and then you have to go and think about really killing yourself this time.

I never mind those times, those fifteen-minute inquiries into what he was like in high school or the Yankees.

Happily, it’s a big chaotic mess, and I can just shuffle in with everyone else.

A spitball heads toward Mr. Garfield, not at him, not a suspension-worthy offense, just a warning shot.

She’s young—a lot of the teachers at my school are—and she’s West Indian, which the rest of them aren’t—and she has dreads down to the middle of her back, and ironic horn-rimmed glasses.

Naomi finds me and calls “Sparrow!” across the cafeteria, which causes other tables to look up and look at me, and I swear I see Janae mouth “hospital” to Brianna, who mouths “crazy” to Rebecca, and I drop my tray and leave. Not the inconspicuous exit I was hoping for.

There’s nowhere to go without a hall pass. I duck into the first bathroom I see. I find a stall and tuck my feet up like a fugitive.