Wringer by Jerry Spinelli Page B

and fat helps keep a pigeon warm in winter, so said the book.)
    Clean room. Leave no evidence of roommate.
    Go to school (or, on weekends, out to play). Act normal. Return home. Let Nipper in.
    Nipper walks up arm, stands on Palmer’s head. Feels good. Nipper checks out room. Nipper skids off comic stack. Laugh. Play ball with Nipper. (Nipper would perch on the basket rim while Palmer tossed in Nerf ball shots. As the ballwent by, Nipper nipped at it. Sometimes he caught it before it went through the net.)
    Go to dinner. Return to find Nipper roosting.
    Homework, read, TV. Go to closet, whisper “Good night, Nipper.” Go to bed.
    Â 
    The hardest part of the routine came each day when he left the house: Act normal. How was he supposed to act normal in a town that murdered pigeons?

18
    Act normal.
    In his room, in the streets, at school, seven days a week he whispered to himself: “Act normal…act normal….”
    But how could he act normal knowing there was a second pigeon right here in the house, a golden one that never took wing from the mantel in the den? Knowing that in this house, in this town, only the golden pigeon is allowed to roost. Knowing that he was holding inside himself such stupendous news.
    Act normal .
    He tried. Which is to say, he kept his mouth shut. He did not rap his fork on the dinner table and shout, “I have a pigeon!” Did not jump up in class and shout, “I have a pigeon !” He did not throw up his arms in the middle of the street and shout to all the world, “I HAVE A PIGEON!”
    He did not.
    But he did say to his mother one Saturdaymorning, “I think I’ll change my own bedsheets from now on.”
    His mother was standing on a chair changing a lightbulb. As soon as Palmer said it, she wobbled on the chair, her eyes rolled. He was afraid she was going to topple. She looked down at him as if he were a stranger. “Would you repeat that?”
    He repeated.
    She finished changing the bulb. She got down and sat on the chair. “Is this another sign of your maturity?”
    Palmer nodded. “Yep. And I don’t even use the nightlight anymore.”
    She whistled. “What’s next? Are you going to go out and get a job?”
    â€œJust trying to help out,” he said pleasantly. “And I’ll empty my wastebasket too. And clean my room.” He patted her on the head. “You’ll never have to do it again.” He kissed her on the cheek and walked off.
    He could feel the stunned silence behind him. He was in shock himself. Was this him? He could not remember the last time he kissed his mother. He was not the mushy type. He was acting anything but normal. And he was beginning to learn how far he would go to protect his secret.

19
    After dealing with his mother, Palmer turned his attention to the guys.
    Certain scenarios gave him the sweats. It is afternoon, and the guys are in the backyard just as…Nipper swoops in to land on the porch roof. Or the guys sneak into his room at night, as they did before, and one of them…opens the closet door.
    He toyed with the idea of coming right out and telling them they could never come to his room again. Tell them the room was crawling with cooties, or a ghost used to live there. But he knew that would never work. Telling Beans not to trespass would be as useless as telling Nipper not to peck.
    Or he could tell them his mother said they were no longer welcome in his house (a lie). Because she didn’t like them (the truth). But he didn’t have the nerve to say it.
    And so he tried simply to give them no reason to want to come to his house. One Saturday, forexample, Beans decided they should all have lunch at Palmer’s. They had done so a few times before, and Beans had always found something he loved in the refrigerator. Thinking fast, Palmer told them the refrigerator had broken, roaches had infested the kitchen, and they had nothing in the house but