Tricia Springstubb - The Most Perfect Thing in the Universe

L oah Londonderry lived in a house with three chimneys and one alarmingly crooked turret. Built of mud-colored stone, the house sat in a small, dark forest of tall, looming trees. Spooky was the general opinion. Classmates from town, who no doubt lived in tidy homes with trim lawns, dared one another to spy through the windows. More than once, Loah had looked up from her laptop to see a pair of wide eyes staring at her. Loah would give a timid wave. The child would flee.

Loah herself was the least spooky person you could imagine. She was short and stout and shy, with curly brown hair and a left eye that wandered. She lived in the house with her mother, Dr. Anastasia Londonderry, and with the Rinkers, who took care of her when her mother was away, which was often. Dr. Londonderry was an ornithologist specializing in birds of the Arctic tundra. Not many species of birds lived there to begin with, and the ones that did were having a terrible time. Ground that had been frozen solid for tens of thousands of years was rapidly thawing and shrinking. Try to imagine helplessly watching your home disappear before your eyes, and youll have an idea how the Arctic tern, spoon-billed sandpiper, and gyrfalcon feel.

Loahs mother could not single-handedly stop climate change, but she was a tireless, determined woman, and she did all she could to help the birds. She gave lectures. She wrote books. She went on numerous expeditions sponsored by the university where she was a professor. When she came home, she described her adventures to Loah: Navigating thick fog in small, flimsy planes. Sleeping in tents on rocky ground while wolves howled. Scaling cliffs. Eating lichens for breakfast and dried caribou meat for dinner. Dr. Londonderry would describe calving glaciers and fickle winds. Hungry bears. Killer whales.

Torture, in Loahs opinion.

Loah was a homebody. She didnt take after her mother or her father, whod died before she was born, in a horrible mountain-climbing accident she didnt want to hear about, thank you. Loah would never climb a mountain, not if she could help it. Both feet on level ground was her motto. Her favorite activities included knitting, doing home repairs, and watching old episodes of One and Only Family.

Actually, she didnt love doing home repairs. Does anyone? Yet she did love her home, the nest shed lived in for her entire eleven and a half years, and when you love something, you take care of it.

It was late June, the beginning of summer vacation, which meant she got to be home every day. This morning she woke to hear birdsong pouring through the open windows. Loahs parents had bought the property not for the house but for the trees, which were home to countless birds. (We got it for a song, her mother would say with a warm, wry smile.) The birds serenaded Loah as she walked along the hallway with its peeling wallpaper, to the bathroom with its unreliable plumbing, down the staircase with its faded carpet of cabbage roses (which resembled, if you looked at them the right way, cheery pink faces), across the entry hall with its stag-head chandelier (not a real stag head, thank goodness), and along another dim corridor to the kitchen, where the floor was checkered black-and-white tile and the Rinkers E-Z Boy recliners took up much of the space.

Loah looked out the window. The summer morning was fresh and blue, and the birds were jubilant. Actually, they were always jubilant in the morning, but today they were absolutely fizzy with joy. If youve ever shaken up a pop bottle, then unscrewed the cap? That kind of joy. Along with her team, Dr. Londonderry had been on her current Arctic expedition for fifty-seven days (Loah was definitely counting), but she was due home the day after tomorrow. Somehow, the birds seemed to know. Dr. Londonderry was their hero, after all. Their champion.

Loah herself had mixed feelings about birds. Ask her to name her favorite animal, and she would say cat, which was too bad for her, since cats are the number one predator of songbirds and under no circumstances was she allowed to have one.

Not to mention, birds were the reason her mother had been away for fifty-seven days and counting.

This morning, though, Loah and the birds were united in happiness. Soon, she and the Rinkers would drive to the airport, where her mother would sail through the gate in her all-weather jacket and hiking boots. When Loah hugged her, a hug that would go on for a long time, shed smell of moss and midnight sun. Back home, theyd sit side by side in the houses library, eating sunflower seeds (Loah had already set them out on a little table) while Dr. Londonderry typed her expedition notes (using nine and two-thirds fingers, since shed lost the tip of one to frostbite) and Loah worked on a knitting project. Theyd eat their meals outside beneath the trees, which Dr. Londonderry always rejoiced to see after the tree-less tundra. Shed twist her little red wooden bird call, and a black-capped chickadee would fly down to take a sunflower seed from her hand.

At night, Loahs mother would tuck her in, then sit beside the bed. Outside, the screech owls would call back and forth. Often, Loah would wake to find her mother still there, watching her sleep. Mama would smile and put a finger to her lips, and Loah would drift back into contented dreams.

Loah had been counting the days. Now she was counting the hours. Her mother had promised not to go away again till next spring. Long, lovely months stretched ahead.

Standing by the kitchen window, she watched Miss Rinker prowl the yard with her scythe, looking for weeds to chop down. (If youre unsure what a scythe is, look up the Grim Reaper.) Meanwhile, Miss Rinkers brother, Theo, tenderly tended the hummingbird feeder. Both Rinkers were old, scrawny, and white as napkins. Theo was as delicate as Miss Rinker was tough. Her dentures didnt fit right, and when she wore them her upper lip was always slightly raised, as if she had to sneeze. Miss Rinker refused to get new ones, though. Thrift and sacrificethat was her motto.

The phone on the counter began to ring, but Loah ignored it. Shy as she was, she didnt like talking to people in general, and talking to a disembodied voice was even worse. She opened the refrigerator and peered in, hoping to find something good to eat. In vain. Miss Rinker shopped at Bargain Blaster, where the food was cheap and weird. Thrift and sacrifice!