Boy, Snow, Bird

Bird is excited for Thanksgiving, and she is not alone, as “Everyone who remembered Snow seemed glad to hear she’d be back” (248). Boy grows tired of Olivia’s gloating and, as a result, stops attending her coffee hours. Bird, likewise, feels angry, but her anger is “about the things people were saying, the way they were making Snow sound like some kind of ornament […] being passed around” (250).

In September, Bird attends a joint birthday picnic for Louis and another classmate; Boy lends her a “blanket-sized U.S. flag in exchange for [her] promise that [she’d] guard it with [her] life” (249). The blanket is likely the one Charlie gave her, but Bird is unaware of its significance. After eating—and having a food fight—everyone falls asleep, Louis resting on Bird’s stomach. Bird doesn’t sleep, only rests, and pays attention as everyone leaves. When Louis leaves, she looks around and is alone. She sits up, and the flag is wrapped around her by someone unseen, even though she looks right at this person. She feels the person’s arms around her, and the person kisses her. She is unsure what to make of the situation, later, and she doubts “those kisses were even meant for [her]. They must belong to [Boy]. You know when you put on someone else’s coat and old train tickets fall out of the pockets […] maybe it was like that” (252).

The following week, a man with “an un-American accent” calls the house asking for Boy Novak, but Bird assumes it’s a prank call and tells the man there aren’t any Novaks there. The next day, Bird is playing with her family outside and finds herself up a tree with a hula hoop; once everyone leaves, a strange man sees Bird and tries to pull her down, asking her who she is. He has a syringe with clear liquid and forces Bird to stay quiet until other people leave, then asks her again who she is. She tells the man that she’s Bird, Boy’s daughter, which seems to make the man sick to his stomach; he then reveals that he is Bird’s grandfather, Frank.

Frank and Bird go to a diner, for lunch; Bird only agrees to go after Frank promises to tell her how to catch rats and about what Boy was like, as a child. Bird takes notes during the conversation. She doesn’t see her mother in Frank at all, which she finds strange because she finds Frank to be a forceful man. He denies having a syringe; Bird notes that she went back to the spot a few days later and wasn’t able to find it. Frank claims that a rat bit him on the face as a boy, which Boy had never heard. Frank believes that Boy is evil, but not the “powers of darkness or something you can protect yourself from with crosses and holy water”; rather, Boy is a kind of evil that “studies the ordinary and imitates it” (261).

Arturo shows up at the diner, worried sick about Bird. When Frank is forced to introduce himself, Arturo grabs him by the arm and throws him out, telling him not to look back. Frank wonders why he would want to. As it turns out, the waitress, who had previously been Bird’s babysitter, had called Arturo.

Bird overhears Boy talking to Charlie on the phone. Boy had called Charlie believing that he had told Frank where to find them (he had not). They spent some time catching up with one another. Charlie is happily married with kids. Bird hears Boy tell Charlie she loves him, to which he asks why, which Bird believes to be “the worst thing that can happen when you tell someone you love them” (266). She notes that Boy wears sunglasses for several days following that.

Shortly thereafter, Bird calls Mia to try to get her to come over to make her mother feel better, as Mia hasn’t been around lately. She tells Mia about her encounter with her grandfather, and that Frank had said Boy is evil. Mia asks Bird to put Boy on the phone, but Boy is sleeping. Boy and Arturo fight about her relationship with Mia and whether or not Mia is being a good friend. Bird mails her notes from the diner to Mia; when she doesn’t acknowledge them, she believes they got lost in the mail.