Flight of the Bluebird Read online

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and may be obtained from the Library of Congress.

  ISBN 978-1-4197-3144-0

  eISBN: 978-1-68335-391-1

  Text copyright © 2019 Kara LaReau

  Illustrations copyright © 2019 Jen Hill

  Book design by Pamela Notarantonio

  Published in 2019 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

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  for all my fellow

  Daughters

  —K.L.

  THE SIX PRIMARY FLIGHT INSTRUMENTS ARE THE ALTITUDE INDICATOR, THE AIRSPEED INDICATOR, THE TURN-AND-BANK INDICATOR, THE HEADING INDICATOR, THE VERTICAL SPEED INDICATOR, AND THE ALTIMETER.

  TAKING OFF! with Trip Winger

  Jaundice was going to throw up.

  “I’m going to throw up,” she said. These words were muffled, as they were spoken through Jaundice’s hands, which were pressed over her mouth.

  Kale understood her sister immediately. She had herself thrown up a short time ago, when the sisters had been aboard a pirate ship, and she had consumed a significant amount of questionable stew. Now it was Jaundice who looked pale and sweaty.

  And now, after their most recent adventure on a certain express train, the Bland Sisters were in an airplane, piloted by a woman sent by their parents to rescue them from some unknown pursuer.

  “I’m Beatrix, by the way,” the pilot informed them from the cockpit. “Beatrix Airedale.”

  Beatrix was wearing a leather helmet and goggles, so most of her face was hidden, except for her smile. While Kale found this smile reassuring, Jaundice could only groan.

  Unfortunately, throwing up on an airplane is not as easy as throwing up on a ship. On a ship, you can just do it over the railing. Kale looked around frantically for a container. All she could find was what looked like a large, overstuffed backpack.

  “Here,” she said, handing it to her sister. “Maybe you can throw up in this.”

  Jaundice offered her mumbled thanks, and managed to keep one hand over her mouth while grabbing the backpack in the other.

  “How’s everything going back there?” asked Beatrix. The Bland Sisters had only been in the air for a few minutes. It took those few minutes for Jaundice to go from feeling exhilarated, to confused, to nauseated. Kale was still exhilarated.

  “It really is quite something,” Kale said, looking out the window at the clouds floating below them. Next to her, Jaundice had just finished retching. “We can’t contain our excitement,” she added.

  “Do you have any . . . water?” Jaundice managed to ask. The pilot reached down and grabbed a canteen. She tossed it to Jaundice, who only barely caught it.

  “Not everyone takes to flying right away,” Beatrix explained. “I’ve never been airsick, and I’ve crashed my plane twice!”

  “Twice?” Jaundice said weakly. This news did not instill her—or her stomach—with confidence.

  “Well, the first time wasn’t exactly a crash. I just ground-looped during my takeoff run, so I ended up colliding with a tractor,” the pilot explained. “The crew tried to blame it on me, but it turned out to be a blown tire.”

  “Ah,” said Kale. This made her feel ever-so-slightly better.

  “But the second crash was definitely my fault,” Beatrix said. “Though I can’t feel too bad about it, since that’s how I met your parents.”

  “Our parents?” the Bland Sisters said.

  “Whoopsie!” said Beatrix.

  At this, the plane shuddered. Jaundice began to moan.

  “No worries, kids. Just a bit of turbulence,” the pilot explained.

  Everything in the plane began to jostle, including the Bland Sisters. Kale felt her head hit the ceiling of the aircraft on more than one occasion. And then, in a few minutes, it stopped.

  “See?” said Beatrix. “Easy peasy.”

  “More like ‘easy queasy,’” said Jaundice, holding her stomach.

  “It should be a smooth flight from now on,” Beatrix promised.

  She was right. It was so smooth, in fact, that Jaundice began to feel tired. She imagined her mother was there with her. Lately, the Bland Sisters had been thinking about their parents more than usual, and realized they’d been missing them more than a little. Jaundice felt a distinct ache as she remembered how her mother had taught her and her sister to fall asleep.

  “Close your eyes, and imagine you are floating up, up, up an invisible staircase, and into a cozy nest made of feathers and velvet,” she would whisper in their ears each night. It worked like a charm.

  As Jaundice closed her eyes, she imagined her mother whispering these very things—but not before she pulled out the green scarab she’d slipped into one of her smock pockets before their last adventure. This scarab was coveted by the unknown pursuer who ransacked their house. And this scarab, the Bland Sisters recently learned, allowed them to communicate with their parents in their dreams, as long as they placed it close to their heads. Despite the scarab’s distinct lumpiness, Jaundice promptly fell asleep.

  In her dream, it was snowing, and very, very cold. Jaundice’s teeth chattered as she walked up the steps of what looked like a castle. She opened the door and went in, but once she was inside, she found herself outside again, though in this outside, it was warm and sunny. Her parents were on their hands and knees in a wide field blooming with flowers and plants. Her mother looked like she was digging in the dirt, and her father was looking at Jaundice quite urgently.

  He nudged Jaundice’s mother. “Look, darling. I think it’s Jaundice.”

  Jaundice’s mother looked up and smiled. “It is!” she exclaimed.

  As Jaundice looked closer, she could see that her mother wasn’t really digging; she was poking at something with a tiny trowel. In her other hand she held a small, thick brush, which she was using to unearth whatever it was she was poking.

  “Oh, I wish I could give you a big hug right now, but we can’t always control what we do or say in dreams,” Jaundice’s mother tried to explain.

  “And in dreams, a lot of what you see means something else. It’s a bit like a game,” said her father, shuffling a pack of blank playing cards. “We’re hoping you and your sister can figure it out together. There’s so much to do, and we have very little time.”

  “Figure what out?” said Jaundice.

  Out of nowhere, a boy and girl appeared. They had very dark skin and hair, and they were wearing beautiful pleated white linen robes with heavy, bejeweled necklaces. They looked at Jaundice and rolled their eyes.

  “She has a lot to learn,” the boy said to his sister.

  “Who are you?” said Jaundice.

  “The Sacred Scarabs of the Twins are now in use,” the boy said. “When the scarabs are in use, their rightful owners are summoned.”

  “The scar
abs belong to us! Return what was stolen!” said the girl.

  “All in good time, children,” said Jaundice’s mother. “All in good time.”

  MAKE SURE NO ONE WILL BE STRUCK BY THE ROTATING PROPELLER BY LOOKING OUT THE WINDOW AND SHOUTING “CLEAR PROP,” THEN ENGAGE THE STARTER. LISTEN TO THE ROAR OF THE ENGINE AND THE PROPELLER.

  TAKING OFF! with Trip Winger

  When Jaundice finally woke up and looked around, she almost expected her parents to be right there next to her. To her disappointment, this was not the case. The plane was still in the air, and outside, the sun seemed to be rising. Had they been flying all night?

  Kale was reading a big, thick paperback she’d found near the backpacks; it was called TAKING OFF! with Trip Winger, and the author was touted as some sort of aeronautical expert. Kale was always eager for something to read, and the text of this book was perfectly dry, and supplemented by complicated diagrams and illustrations. From the get-go, she was hooked.

  “Are you still feeling sick?” Kale asked her sister.

  “Ugh,” said Jaundice. “Now I feel sick and confused.”

  “We’re landing in a few minutes. Evidently, we need to refuel,” Kale informed her sister.

  Beatrix pulled off her goggles. “I’ll meet you at Ricky’s after I fuel her up. Breakfast is on me; order me the Barnstormer.”

  Ricky’s, it turned out, was the café in the airport in a place called Casablanca. And “the Barnstormer” was a platter of three pancakes, three eggs, three pieces of toast, three slices of bacon, three pieces of sausage, three slices of ham, and a corn muffin. Two servers were needed to bring it to the table.

  The Bland Sisters ordered their standard breakfast: oatmeal with weak, tepid tea.

  “I suppose we should wait for Beatrix,” Kale said, looking down at her steaming oatmeal bowl.

  “It would be the polite thing to do,” Jaundice replied. She touched her teacup and frowned. “Besides, it will give everything a chance to cool down. And I can tell you about the dream I had.”

  Jaundice told Kale about the snow, and the castle, and the field filled with flowers and plants. She told Kale about seeing their parents, and about the weird way their mother was digging. And she told her sister about the boy and girl in the white robes.

  “I can’t make heads or tails of it,” Jaundice said. She patted the pockets of her smock, which she’d made from an old curtain and the upholstery of a long-since-discarded couch; said pockets were known to contain all manner of seemingly useless items. Jaundice pulled out a long piece of string, with which she began tying and untying knots. The tying and untying helped her think.

  “Well, I’m just as confused as you now,” Kale admitted. She placed her trusty backpack (which now contained TAKING OFF! with Trip Winger, her new favorite read) on the back of her chair. As she did so, she couldn’t help noticing the man sitting behind them. He had very large, dark eyes, which seemed to be focused on the Bland Sisters.

  “There’s a man sitting behind us,” Kale whispered to her sister, raising her eyebrows.

  “So?” Jaundice asked.

  “He’s staring at us,” Kale whispered again.

  Jaundice craned her neck to get a better look.

  “Don’t be so obvious!” Kale warned.

  But it was too late. Jaundice locked eyes with the man. He smiled and tipped his hat.

  “He’s just being friendly,” she informed her sister.

  Beatrix made a grand entrance, greeting all the servers in the café and slapping the cook on the back. When she got to their table, she took off her leather helmet and scarf. It turned out she was very beautiful, with dark skin and very short, black, curly hair. But just as she was beautiful, Beatrix was also all business.

  “The Bluebird’s ready to go,” she announced. “Now it’s time for this bird to fuel up.”

  At this, she began shoveling food into her mouth at an alarming rate. The Bland Sisters took some tentative bites of their oatmeal. It was not as cold or congealed as they would have liked, but they were too hungry to care.

  “So, what were you saying about our parents?” Kale asked.

  “Well, I was due to land on Howland Island, but there was a little glitch in the navigational system, so I ended up having to land on Gilly Guns Island instead.”

  “Wait,” said Jaundice, looking at her sister. “We’ve been there.”

  Kale nodded. Not too long ago, an evil pirate queen had marooned the Bland Sisters on Gilly Guns Island, if only temporarily.

  “So you know how spectacular it is,” Beatrix said. She sighed. “I could have stayed there forever, exploring and researching the flora and fauna. But then I ran into your parents, and we all escaped together, with the help of one of their friends . . . she was named Captain Ann something—”

  “Captain Ann Tennille!” Kale said, remembering the heroic privateer who had rescued them, too.

  “That’s the one,” said Beatrix, buttering her corn muffin.

  “Did our parents say where they were going?” asked Jaundice.

  “Your mother said she needed to confront an old nemesis,” said Beatrix. “She and your father talked about you two, and how they couldn’t wait to see you again.”

  The Bland Sisters put their hands over their hearts and looked at each other. There was that ache again. Kale closed her eyes, as the memories came flooding back.

  She remembered a moment when her father had taken her and her sister outside their house and sat them on a blanket in the grass while he did some yard work. She’d been crying about some particularly bright flowers, and so he’d shielded her eyes and brought her back inside. His hand, she recalled, smelled like the lavender he’d been pruning. The scent was overwhelming to her then, but she remembered it now with a certain fondness.

  “You two should be glad you have parents who encourage you to explore the world,” Beatrix said. “Mine stopped talking to me when I took up flying.”

  “They don’t talk to you, at all?” Kale asked. At least the Bland Sisters’ parents sent them letters, and talked to them in their dreams.

  “They didn’t even like it when I was just a journalist. Though when someone finally hired me as a reporter, they only wanted me writing puff pieces. You know: what’s the latest fashion, how are women wearing their hair these days, what’s the best place to get married, et cetera, ad nauseam. I wanted to write about serious things, real news. And then my boss had an idea: I would fly around the world.”

  “That sounds exciting,” said Kale. The mere mention of flying gave Jaundice a small wave of nausea. She put down her spoonful of oatmeal.

  “Well, there was one catch: I wouldn’t be doing the flying. They just wanted me to write about being a passenger on this new luxury plane. They had a photographer onboard to take pictures of me wearing different outfits. I felt like a doll, not a journalist. The only good part of it was that I got to travel to so many different places. Once I got home, I knew I just had to go out and see the world again. But on my own terms. So, I quit my job and signed up for flying lessons. My parents think that flying is dangerous.”

  “But it’s not?” asked Kale.

  “No, it is,” said Beatrix, spearing some pancakes and sausage with her fork. “That’s why I like it! Life’s not worth living unless we’re taking risks and challenging ourselves. Don’t you think?”

  The Bland Sisters considered this. If one took too many risks, wasn’t one in danger of not being alive at all?

  “I left everything behind to pursue my aviation training abroad—no one would teach me back home,” said Beatrix.

  “Why not?” asked Jaundice.

  “Because of the color of my skin,” Beatrix informed them.

  Jaundice and Kale looked at each other, then at the pilot. Beatrix put down her fork.

  “You do know what prejudice is, don’t you?” she asked.

  Kale thought for a moment. “It’s hostile or unfair thinking or behavior, based on untrue ideas,” she said
. “That’s what it said in Dr. Nathaniel Snoote’s Illustrated Children’s Dictionary, may he rest in pieces.” Not long ago, the Bland Sisters had lost their beloved dictionary, but they would never forget its helpful definitions.

  “Well, reading about something and experiencing it in real life, all your life, are two different things,” Beatrix said.

  “By staying at home all those years, we missed out on quite a bit,” Kale noted. “Not all of it good.”

  “We still have a lot to learn,” Jaundice said.

  “Clearly,” said Beatrix, raising an eyebrow. “I’ve spent my life flying around the world, learning everything there is to know about it, good and bad. Now, I’m on a special assignment for the Egyptian Antiquities Service. I’m supposed to fly over the Valley of the Kings in Luxor and look for illegal digging sites. That’s how I met up with your parents again.”

  “What does that have to do with our parents?” Jaundice asked.

  Beatrix looked at them both. “You don’t know? About your mother?” she asked.

  Jaundice and Kale shook their heads.

  “Your mother was born in Cairo—she studied archaeology there,” Beatrix explained. “And she worked on sites in the Valley of the Kings.”

  “Archaeology is the study of history, through excavation and analysis,” Kale said to Jaundice.

  “And excavation means digging,” Jaundice replied. “I wonder if that’s what our mother was doing in my dream.”

  “Wait,” said Kale. “If our mother was born in Cairo, does that mean we’re . . . Egyptian?”

  “Half Egyptian,” Beatrix said, looking the Bland Sisters up and down. “Though you two look a lot more like your father.”

  “All this time, we thought we were one-hundred-percent from Dullsville,” Jaundice said.

  “But it turns out there’s another part of the world that’s a part of us, too,” said Kale.

  “Hattie and Bert met in Egypt, I think,” Beatrix explained.