The Amazing Life of Birds Read online

  And saved me.

  Well, not just yet. First I went down to breakfast and there was a new cereal box. This time with some kind of cartoon character on the front and I won't even say what that turned into except to perhaps mention I'll never watch Who Framed Roger Rabbit again and perhaps ELBOWS aren't so bad….

  Father at sink. Mother eating toast. Sister studying hair.

  My father took a sip of coffee. “The principal called last night. He said there was some incident in the library but not to worry, that your urine test came back negative.”

  “Oh. Good.”

  “What,” my mother asked in that occasional mother-voice that makes you think of cobras with their hoods extended, “urine sample?”

  “The one that proves he's not human.” My sister held a strand of hair up to the light. “That he came from another world and was left on a rock and hatched by the heat from the sun.”

  “I had an accident in the library,” I said, “and the principal wanted to make sure it wasn't caused by drugs. So I peed in a jar.” I shrugged. “No big thing. I just fell and a couple of bookcases tipped over.”

  “Oh, Duane …”

  Then, to school.

  I've got to say that there was something different going on in my head. I couldn't place it at first, but there was some new feeling—not positive or negative.

  Just different.

  At first everything seemed pretty much the same. I tripped going through the front door of school and tore down a poster.

  spring fling dance …

  Was all I saw as I went down in torn paper and poster paint.

  Then my locker door jammed and when I jerked it the door slammed into my face and gave me a nose-bleed.

  I held my head up and back and went to the bathroom, which was just tempting fate—me looking up while trying to run—and God knows how many kids I trampled or bounced off of before I got paper towels to stop the blood.

  Then to class with wadded toilet tissue in each nostril.

  Same old Doo-Doo.

  But still, something different. Some new feeling. And I got through English all right, and the library class—although when I walked in, I saw the librarian wince and go stand in front of the fish tank (where the carp looked fatter).

  But—safe through that class as well. And then gym, where the teacher excused me from volleyball and let me do exercises because of my nosebleed.

  No falling. No damage.

  But then—drumroll—

  The cafeteria.

  Day Twenty

  That morning at home I had toyed with the idea of not buying lunch at all. I thought I could brown-bag it. Make a really good peanut butter and jelly sandwich …

  But everybody was in a big rush and I forgot to do it.

  I got into line all right.

  Checked my shoelaces. Tied.

  The cafeteria was doing sloppy joes and that made me pause. Adding the word sloppy to my current rhythms might be pushing the envelope.

  But I was hungry.

  I picked up my tray. The woman behind the counter plopped a pile of sloppy onto the bun. I took back the tray and then looked down.

  All by itself, the shoelace on my right foot had come untied. It was lying out to the side like a snake.

  Waiting.

  For some reason I looked up and saw the stage at the end of the cafeteria and on the stage was a microphone.

  I took a step.

  I went down, and managed to get most of the sloppy joe on a boy named Carlisle standing next to me.

  Sloppy Carlisle will probably be his nickname from now on, I thought on the way down.

  And I thought of the bird, falling off the window-sill and then flying.

  And I thought of what Willy had said about how everybody knew who I was and if I did something good …

  The microphone!

  I lay there for half a second and out of my mouth came: “All right, that's enough!”

  I slithered to my feet and stomped out of the line and up onto the stage and took the microphone.

  I turned it on. A great hissing sound came out, then a whistle, and then I could hear my own breathing over all the loudspeakers.

  Not a clue what I was going to say. Just that I was done with it all.

  Then I remembered the dream about the Puberty Anonymous meeting.

  “Hello. If there's anybody who doesn't know me yet, my name is Duane. Duane Homer Leech. Everybody calls me Doo-Doo. But I'd rather be called Duey.

  “I do not have ringworm.

  “I do not have any other disease.

  “I do not do drugs.

  “I am just having a little trouble with this whole, what, change of life thing. If you'll just bear with me I'm sure it will pass.

  “Thank you.”

  Every kid in the cafeteria stood stock-still, staring at me, but for some reason I didn't feel the least bit embarrassed. Stupid and ugly, sure, but not embarrassed.

  I turned the microphone off and put it back in the little stand, took one step onto my shoelace, went down like a gut-shot moose—or how I suspect a gut-shot moose would go down—rolled to the front of the stage and onto a table, then onto the floor.

  Somebody started it in the back, a slow, even clapping, and then the whole cafeteria was doing it, laughing but not in a bad way, yelling: “Doo-Doo! Doo-Doo rules!” But in there I heard a few voices shouting, “Duey rules!”

  I was flat on my back and I blinked a couple of times before I saw Rachel standing over me.

  “You all right?” she asked. “Duey?”

  “I think so.”

  “Can I help?”

  In my head: Yesssssssssss.

  “Umm, sure.”

  “Here, take my hand.” She pulled me up.

  “Thanks.” In my head: Don't let go! Ever!

  “Come on and we'll find a hose to clean you off.

  ” And she walked off while I tied my shoelace and then followed her.

  The Spring Fling was a week away.

  I could ask Rachel. To go to the dance. With me.

  It could happen.

  All I had to do was quit falling down, learn to dance, get rid of every zit and grow perfect hair to cover the cowlick.

  Piece of cake.

  Or, as Willy would say: Cool.

  About the Author

  Gary Paulsen is the distinguished author of many critically acclaimed books for young people, including three Newbery Honor books: The Winter Room, Hatchet, and Dogsong. His novel The Haymeadow received the Western Writers of America Golden Spur Award. Among his Random House books are The Time Hackers; Molly McGinty Has a Really Good Day; The Quilt (a companion to Alida's Song and The Cookcamp); The Glass Café; How Angel Peterson Got His Name; Caught by the Sea: My Life on Boats; Guts: The True Stories Behind Hatchet and the Brian Books; The Beet Fields; Soldier's Heart; Brian's Return, Brian's Winter, and Brian's Hunt (companions to Hatchet); Father Water, Mother Woods; and five books about Francis Tucket's adventures in the Old West. Gary Paulsen has also published fiction and nonfiction for adults, as well as picture books illustrated by his wife, the painter Ruth Wright Paulsen. Their most recent book is Canoe Days. The Paulsens live in New Mexico, in Alaska, and on the Pacific Ocean.

  Published by Wendy Lamb Books

  an imprint of Random House Children's Books

  a division of Random House, Inc.

  New York

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents

  either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales

  is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2006 by Gary Paulsen

  Chapter opening illustrations © 2006 by Souther Salazar

  All rights reserved.

  Wendy Lamb Books and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  www.randomhouse.com/teens

  Educators and lib
rarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at

  www.randomhouse.com/teachers

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Paulsen, Gary.

  The Amazing Life of Birds: (the twenty-day puberty journal of

  Duane Homer Leech) / as discovered by Gary Paulsen.

  p. cm.

  Summary: As twelve-year-old Duane endures the confusing and

  humiliating aspects of puberty, he watches a newborn bird in a nest

  on his windowsill begin to grow and become more independent,

  all of which he records in his journal.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-51251-2

  [1. Puberty—Fiction. 2. Self-perception—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction.

  4. Birds—Development—Fiction. 5. Diaries—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7. P2843Ama 2006

  [Fic]—dc22

  2006004544

  v3.0

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Other Books By This Author

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Foreword

  Chapter 1 - Day One

  Chapter 2 - Day Two

  Chapter 3 - Day Three

  Chapter 4 - Day Four

  Chapter 5 - Day Five

  Chapter 6 - Day Six

  Chapter 7 - Day Seven

  Chapter 8 - Day Eight

  Chapter 9 - Day Nine

  Chapter 10 - Day Ten

  Chapter 11 - Day One

  Chapter 12 - Day Twelve

  Chapter 13 - Day Thirteen

  Chapter 14 - Day Fourteen

  Chapter 15 - Day Fifteen

  Chapter 16 - Day Sixteen

  Chapter 17 - Day Seventeen

  Chapter 18 - Day Eighteen

  Chapter 19 - Day Nineteen

  Chapter 20 - Day Twenty

  About the Author

  Copyright