After the Birds

Chapter Two

Remerton

NY, USA

2024

Andrea

“But everyone else is going.” Andrea looks pleadingly at her mom. “For sure. Ebba, Molly, and…and Ayesha and Hadyn, even. And their mom is much stricter than you. Normally.” Sullen now, since it looks like mom isn’t going to give in, Andrea kicks at one of the kitchen table legs.

“You’re only thirteen and not used to being downtown on your own.” Mom pushes back her shoulder long hair and creates a messy bun with one of those ugly clasps that makes her look frumpy. “Besides, someone said at work that this year’s flu vaccine hasn’t been as effective as they hoped. A ton of new virus strains out there. We’ve had so many kids in the ICU—really sick. From what I’ve heard, they have more patients than ever in the infectious disease department. Being among a crowd of strangers if you don’t have to…the last thing we need right now is that one of us gets sick when we’re going to Florida soon. You know how much your brother looks forward to  Disney World.”

“You’re one to talk,” Andrea says. “You work at the hospital among all the sick people. I’m just going to walk around the mall and check out some clothes. H&M have a sale and Ebba said that they don’t have very many of those cardigans I saw online left. You know? The one that Taylor Swift wore on Jimmy Fallon. They’ll change their inventory to spring clothes soon and then they won’t have any cardigans at all until October. Do you want me to be cold all the time until then? I have my own money that grandma sent me for Christmas.”

Mom looks hesitant. Maybe she’s trying to understand the importance of having a long cardigan that almost reaches the floor.

“How long are you going to be downtown, if I say yes?” Frowning, mom locks her gaze on Andrea. “And I want to know the truth, Andy, or this will be the last time I let you do something like this before you turn fifteen.”

Andrea smiles now. She knows mom so well. Now she must negotiate and be smart about it. “We’ll take the noon bus in, and the three o’clock one back. That’s like two and a half hours at the mall.”

“And you’ll stay inside the mall the entire time?”

“Sure. It’s so cold anyway and the rain’s all icy. Not very cozy to hang out on the sidewalks then.”

“I’m going to call the twins’ mother and make sure she knows they’re really going.” Mom looks determined. “You’re right about Nadira being a lot stricter than I am. Not without reason, I’d say. Her girls have been wild as startled chickens ever since you all were in kindergarten.”

Andrea knows that Mom is right. Ayesha and Hadya seem to take turns when it comes to being their leader and neither of them ever slowed down. She and the other four girls have been friends since they were five. Now they are almost always together at recess and after school. It’s very cool that they all live on the same street in Remerton.

Andrea, mom and her little brother, Theodor, live in a two-bedroom apartment in one of the high-rises, and so do Ebba and Molly. The twins live in an apartment in the lower buildings and no matter their reputation for being wild, neither of them has ever dared to go out on Andrea’s balcony on the eighth floor.

Mom looks pointedly at Andrea’s foot that has kept kicking at the table leg without her realizing it. She stops immediately and finishes the last of her cereal. Mom is trying to persuade Andrea to switch to oatmeal like she and Theodor have, but the idea of forcing down that grey goo makes her gag. No, it has to be crunchy when you chew. Ice cold milk or yoghurt on Cheerios or cornflakes, that’s the deal.

“Okay,” mom says to after talking to the twins’ mom. “It looks as if everything is on the up and up, so I’ll say yes if you promise you’ll be back on the three o’clock bus. If you miss it, or if something happens, you will call me. No exception. Mom uses her ‘this is serious and if you screw up…’ tone.
Andrea nods eagerly. “We’ll be mindful of the time.”

“And if one of you is late, then you’re all late. None of you leaves anyone alone or behind in town, all right?” Mom is always particular about things like that. Sticking together and safely in numbers.

“I know. They know. You’ve said it before, and we understand. For sure.” Andrea carries her bowl to the dishwasher and puts it away. This is her chance to show mom that she appreciates the trust she puts in Andrea since it looked dicey there for a moment before mom softened.

“Have fun now, then. I suppose you’ll eat at McDonalds?”

“Probably. If not, I’ll grab something when I get home.” Andrea hurries into the bathroom to put on makeup and do her hair. Especially Ebba is always so well put together and now she must make sure she can measure up, even if Andrea knows she could never be even one percent as pretty as Ebba. When Andrea studies her reflection, she sees to her dismay that she has a new pimple showing up on the side of her nose. Mom says they heal twice as fast if you don’t touch them, but it is damn near impossible not to. Fortunately, Andrea has recently discovered the magical power of concealer and puts some of the smooth cream where it is needed.

She is pleased with her brown eyes and when she puts on tons of mascara, she almost gets an aura of mystery. Her long hair, unfortunately in the same boring brown shade as mom’s, of course, is at least super-long. In a few months, she’ll be able to sit on it.

After adding some lip gloss and blush, she doesn’t look too bad. It’s stupid to compare herself to someone like Ebba—that is a surefire way to ruin the day. No, she’s going to go to the center of Remerton, to the big mall next to Central Station, with her friends. She’ll get her hands on the cardigan of her dreams if she has to fight some suburban mother for it. Maybe also those multicolored socks at Forever 21. Andrea giggles. This will be fun.

#

The mall is full of people of all ages out to do some post-Christmas shopping on a Saturday. Trying to get over that the cardigain she coveted was sold out, Andrea stands in the very center of the mall, waiting for her friends. Above her, some weird sculptures are suspended on barely visible lines from the tall glass ceiling. She always thinks they look like people falling into a volcano where they are turned into fused-together lumps. Creepy. She shivers and looks around for Ebba and Molly. The twins are inside the shoe store behind her, but Ebba and Molly are taking their sweet time.

Andrea checks the time. Half an hour until their bus leaves. Sure. It’s only fifteen minutes to ride back to the outskirts of Remerton from the Central Station but have to factor in the walk to the station to reach the bus depot in time. Mom won’t let her out of the apartment in two fucking years if she’s late coming home. She makes sure her cell phone battery isn’t depleted. It shows thirty percent left, which is okay if she to bite the bullet and call mom.

Something touches her leg and Andrea looks down. At first, she thinks it’s a cat that has manage to get into the mall and now is stroking against her legs, but instead it is a pigeon that walks straight into her. Acting strange, the bird wobbles around to the right of Andrea who smiles at the bird who looks entirely drunk. She gasps when the pigeon suddenly sits down on its butt and then falls over on its side. Crouching, she studies it closer. Jesus. Is it dead? It looks like it. She has seen dead birds and rodents before, and this one isn’t breathing. Andrea looks around for someone who might work at the mall. A janitor, or a maintenance worker—somebody. Over by the popular candy store, two policemen are talking to ta couple of young boys who look scared. One of them is crying and pointing over to a woman, sitting slumped on a bench. The cops are clearly busy and besides, she can’t very well ask the police to take care of a dead pigeon. That’s hardly their job. But it can’t stay where it is. It isn’t sanitary.

“What’s that…oh, ew!” The twins show up and look disgusted at the dead bird. “Have you stepped on it, or something?”

“What? No, of course I haven’t. I’m an animal lover. It just walked into me and then dropped dead.” Andrea glares at the twins. Why would they think she'd step on a poor bird?

“But why?” Hadya extends her hand as if to poke at the pigeon, but Andrea slaps her fingers. “Ow! Are you nuts?”

“You should never touch dead animals with your bare hands. My mom says so.” Mom, being a nurse at the children’s hospital, knows these things. “You have to wear gloves or use paper towels, or something.”

“I have napkins from McDonalds.” Hadya pulls up a thick wad of paper napkins. That’s her thing. For once her manic gathering of can-be-useful napkins is…well, useful.

“I’ll do it.” Andrea takes at least ten napkins and manages to grab one of the pigeon’s feet. “Is there a bin somewhere?” She holds the bird far from herself.

“Let go of the bird at once!” A male voice roars and Andrea loses her grip of the pigeon, and it lands with a soft thud on the floor. Some feathers loosen and whirl through the air. Both police officers she saw before are running toward them. “Step away. Don’t touch it.”

Andrea has dropped the napkins too and they are covering half of the bird like a blanket. Or a shroud, she thinks and shudders. She hears one of the police officers talk on his radio.

“It has to be the twentieth pigeon I’ve seen drop dead today.” The police officer covers his mouth with the crease of his arm and coughs. “Yesterday, we saw at least forty go the same way, and about ten seagulls, just during our shift. It’s damn weird.” He coughs again.

Andrea remembers many of the other customers at H&M coughing, and the girls at the check out as well. She looks around them. She has at least a hundred people within view and Andrea can easily count at least fifteen that are coughing. That is fifteen percent. She thinks about what mom said about the flu shots not being very effective. Could it be that everyone in here had the beginning of the flu—just like that?

“Andy! Ebba! Hadya isn’t feeling well.” Ayesha is sweaty as she’s pulling her pale sister along. “We poked our heads inside Forever 21 to check out those socks you bought, Andy, and she felt faint. She didn’t really want any salad at McDonalds, remember?”

Andrea pushes up the sleeve of her jacket and presses her forearm onto Hadya’s forehead. Her friend is burning up. She thinks Hadya’s may have at least a hundred-and-four degrees. “We’ve got to get her onto the bus and go home. Now.”

“Is the girl ill?” one of the police officers ask, looking as worried as if Hadya was his own kid. “Did it come on quick?”

“Super quick,” Ebba says. Molly is holding everyone’s bags and looks unhappy. She is shorter than the others and quite shy. She only nods.

“Did she touch the pigeon?” The policeman looks concerned down at the floor where the napkins now cover the entire bird.

Andrea blinks. The pidgeon? “No. None of us has touched it.”

“The girl should go to the hospital anyway,” the other police officer says. He’s making a move toward his radio but stops halfway when a woman's scream echos from the north part of the mall. “My husband! Can someone help me, please? It’s my husband! He just fell!” A woman sounds panicked.

“Wait here. We’ll be back soon. Make her sit down on the floor for now.” The police officers rush toward a group of people outside McDonalds.

“Sit her down? Are they crazy? On the floor next to the yucky, dead bird, or something?” Andrea takes a firm grip around Hayda’s waist from the other side. “We’re leaving. We've got to go to the bus before they come back. If Hadya needs a doctor, your mom will take care of that. My mom is off work today and can have a look at her.”

They first walk with Hadya between them, but then they’re forced to carry her by gripping each other’s wrists, to get to the bus station in time. Andrea holds her friend tight and wonders how many around them are getting sick. Perhaps she is imagining it, since she is listening actively for it, but it sure sounds as if almost everyone is coughing.

Just as they reach the bus station outside the mall, Ayesha loses her grip of Andrea’s wrists, and Andrea barely manages to place Hadya on a bench before she slumps to the side. She is just about to scold Ayesha when she sees the other twin bend over and gasp for air.

And then Ayesha starts to cough too.

Continued behind door 3

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