to at least have a place where she could go and shut the door and not have to worry about anyone watching her. She hated when they gathered in here.
“Let’s take a road trip,” Kristi said. She rol ed over and sat up. “I know! Let’s go to Vermont.” She pointed at Abby. “Come on, we’ve never been there. I want to see the farm.” She started bouncing up and down on Abby’s bed. “Come on! Please! Let’s go to the farm!”
“You guys, it’s so boring there,” Abby said. She tried to stay calm. “You think it’s boring here? You’l real y die there.”
But the girls kept insisting and Abby didn’t want to protest too much, in case that would seem weird, and so it wasn’t long before the three of them were in Kristi’s car on the way to Vermont.
Abby knew as soon as they arrived that it would be a disaster. Her mom answered the door with unbrushed hair, wearing thermal pants and a Tshirt. “Welcome, girls,” she said when they walked in. She hugged each of them, and Abby noticed that she wasn’t wearing a bra. “We’re so glad you could make it,” she said. “Leonard is off somewhere, but he’l be back for dinner.” The girls nodded and fol owed Abby upstairs with their bags.
They stared out the windows at the farmland, and Abby wished she’d grown up in a suburb.
Her dad never returned, and so they started dinner without him. “I just don’t know where he could be,” her mom kept saying. They were almost done eating when he got back. “Mary Beth, I need your help,” he said. Then he turned to look at the ful table and said, “Oh, hi, girls. Welcome to Vermont.” Isabel a and Kristi smiled at him and said, “Thanks for having us,” but he wasn’t listening.
“Dad, what’s going on?” Abby asked.
“The neighbors are neglecting their exotic birds,” her dad said. He stood in the doorway and stamped his feet on the welcome mat. “The neighbors are neglecting their exotic birds,” he repeated, and her mother just nodded, as though this was a normal thing to say. “I know,” she said.
“It’s so sad.”
“The neighbors have just let the birds out of the pen. They’re wandering al over the property and we need to get them. Mary Beth, can you help
me find a flashlight and a bag large enough to fit a peacock?”
Abby wanted to die. This was worse than she ever could have imagined. Isabel a and Kristi sat in silence and her mom got up to gather supplies.
“The neighbors have these birds,” Abby started to explain.
“Exotic birds,” her dad said.
“Right,” she said. “Exotic birds. And they aren’t taking care of them.” She turned to her dad. “Are you going to steal them?” she asked.
“No,” her dad said. “We’re just going to convince them to come here. Bob up the street is helping me.”
“Bob’s a vet,” Abby explained to Isabel a and Kristi. She felt like she was interpreting.
“We have to wait until it’s dark,” her dad said. “Peacocks are blind at night, so we can just put it in the bag and get it to the truck. The peahens are easy. They fol ow wherever the peacock goes. Did you know that?”
“Fun farm facts,” Abby said under her breath.
“Be careful,” her mom said. “I don’t want you to get arrested because of the peafowl.” Her dad nodded, took the bag, and he was gone. Abby looked at her friends and tried to think of something to say.
“Your parents are so cool,” Isabel a whispered to Abby later that night. They were lying in bed after smoking her dad’s pot on the back porch. Kristi was passed out in the other bed. Abby had offered them the pot as soon as they were done with dinner. It seemed the least she could do after the exotic bird hoopla.
“They real y aren’t,” Abby said. “They’re horrifying.”
Isabel a laughed. “That’s not true,” she said. “You just can’t see it because they’re your parents.”
“You wouldn’t feel that way if they were your parents,” Abby said. “Trust me.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But I think they’re great.”
When Abby stayed at Isabel a’s house, her mom made them spaghetti and meatbal s and they ate at the kitchen table with the whole family. They watched movies in the basement, and Abby slept in a guest room with a flowered comforter that matched the wal paper border in the room. Her mom wore a bra the whole time. It was the perfect weekend.
Later that night, Abby heard her dad’s truck drive up the road. She got up and went to the window. Isabel a got up and stood next to her. Kristi snored behind them. “What’s going on?” Isabel a asked.
“I think my dad has the birds,” Abby said.
They watched as he unlatched the back door to the truck and then stepped back and began making a series of loud noises.
“Oh my God,” Abby said. “He’s making bird noises.”
“How does he know how to do that?”
“He doesn’t.” But they watched as a peacock bobbed its way out of the truck and fol owed her dad to the pen.
“Oh!” Isabel a said. “Oh!” The two peahens hopped out after him. “Look at that,” she said. “Look at that, they’re fol owing him!”
