I Kill the Mockingbird (7 page)

“That’s not what you said before.”

“Peeps cure
cancer!” Mom hollers as I head out the door.

When I arrive at the bookstore, Elena and Mort are redecorating the display window that looks out onto Main Street. From the sidewalk, I see them assembling a stubby, fake Christmas tree next to a life-size Santa Claus doll that they’ve shoved into an old-fashioned school desk.

“What do you think they’re doing?”

I turn and find Michael right beside
me. He’s wearing a pin-striped baseball uniform with grass stains on the elbows and knees. I’m guessing he already played today. I point to the green and red banner on the wall behind Santa. It says CHRISTMAS IN JULY.

“Ho, ho, ho,” says Michael.

“How was your game?” I ask.

“We got beat, but I did okay in the field. I got on base once, and I struck out twice.”

“You struck out?”

Michael smiles
and nods. “These guys are good!”

“It’s funny that striking out makes you happy.”

“The best hitters in baseball can strike out two out of every three times they’re at bat. Striking out doesn’t make me happy, but you can’t let it get you down. It’s just part of the game.”

“That’s a good attitude.”

“Plus,” he says, “even if I were unhappy, that would change when I saw you.”

I feel my face get
very warm, and I expect my cheeks are about to turn bright red. “Thanks.”

This would probably be a good moment for Michael and me to talk, but I suddenly feel like I’ve lost the ability to form coherent thoughts and sentences.

“Want to go inside?” Michael asks.

“Yes,” I say. “Sure. Okay.”

Michael looks at me oddly. “Okay.”

There are no shoppers inside the bookstore at the moment, so Mort
has the music turned up loud. He’s got the place wired up with an old-style record player and a stereo system that includes several large, boxy speakers mounted to the ceiling. Now, a vinyl album is spinning on the turntable. A huge wall of sound filled with funky horns, an orchestral string section, some massive drums, and a set of jingle bells roar out of the speakers along with an all-girl chorus
singing in perfect harmony.

Sleigh bells ring, are you listening?

In the lane, snow is glistening.

A beautiful sight,

We’re happy tonight.

Walking in a winter wonderland …

Mort sticks his head out from the doorway that leads to the window display space. “I love the holidays!”

I look over his shoulder. Elena is putting twinkly, red lights on the plastic tree. “I can tell,” I shout over
the music.

Mort turns down the volume. “I’m hoping that a little bit of Christmas will get some shoppers in here. We’ve hardly even sold any of your summer reading list books. I thought we’d go through a couple dozen of those by now.”

“Sorry,” I say.

He points at a stack of
To Kill a Mockingbird
copies. “There’s only one thing keeping me from boxing those up and sending them back as returns.”

“What’s that?” I ask.

“It’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

That makes me laugh. It’s one of the novel’s most famous lines. In fact, I can recite that entire passage from memory. So I do. “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to
kill a mockingbird.”

“That was your teacher’s favorite part of the book,” Mort tells me.

“Miss Caridas?”

Mort shakes his head. “Fat Bob.”

“Really?”

Mort nods. “He thought the author was making a joke because real mockingbirds are territorial and aggressive. They’ll peck an intruder to death if it gets too close to their nest. And as far as singing their hearts out, they do that by stealing
other birds’ songs.”

“If that’s the case, then there are a lot of characters in that novel who act like real mockingbirds,” says Michael.

“But in the book,” I say, “the mockingbird is supposed to be a symbol of innocence. That’s why it’s a sin to kill one.”

“Who says it’s a symbol of innocence?” asks Mort.

“Teachers,” I tell him. “Book reviewers, critics—”

“Wikipedia,” Elena calls from behind
the display window.

“Everybody,” I say.

“Maybe everybody is wrong,” says Michael.

“They’re not wrong,” says Mort.

Elena steps out of the display window and joins us in the shop. She turns to her uncle. “You said that mockingbirds are mean, selfish, hostile, thieving liars. Now you’re saying they’re not. Which is it?”

“Mockingbirds are creatures without a sense of right and wrong,” Mort says.
“That makes them innocent. They also behave exactly the way they were raised to behave. That means they are thieving, selfish, hostile liars. They can be innocent and wicked at the same time.”

“That’s not a joke,” says Michael.

“Michael,” says Mort, “contradiction and paradox are the building blocks of great humor.”

“So is the mockingbird a symbol of innocence or not?” asks Elena.

Mort rolls
his eyes. “Forget about symbols.
To Kill a Mockingbird
is not about symbols. It’s about people.”

“It’s about selfish, hostile, thieving liars who might be innocents,” says Elena.

Mort nods. “That’s what Mr. Nowak would say.”

“I think it’s a story about growing up,” I say, “and leaving things behind.”

“It’s about a lot of things,” says Mort. “Mr. Nowak thought it should have been titled
HOW
to Kill a Mockingbird.”

“I like that,” says Elena.

“The book’s original title was
Atticus
,” he adds.

“I don’t like that,” says Elena.

“Harper Lee changed it at the last minute.”

Elena shrugs. “Better late than never.”

Mort glances at an ancient grandfather clock he’s got propped in the corner. “Speaking of late, it’s five minutes past lunchtime. You three watch the store while I go make
us some sandwiches.” He turns away then trots upstairs.

While we’re waiting, I retrieve the mockingbird drawing from my back pocket and spread it out on the counter so that Elena and Michael can see. “What do you think?” I ask.

“That’s excellent,” says Michael.

“You really think so?”

He nods. “I do.”

Elena stands behind him and makes kissy faces at me.

“Shut up,” I say.

“What?” says Michael.

“Not you.”

He turns to face Elena.

She gives him an innocent look. “I want to borrow Lucy’s drawing for a second.”

“Fine,” I say.

She takes the sketch and brings it to the desktop copier near Mort’s computer. She hits a button, and now there are two drawings. She gives the original back to me then takes a thick, black marker. “What if we do this?” she asks. Slowly and carefully, Elena draws
a set of rings around the copy of my mockingbird. Now it looks like the bird is sitting at the center of a target. At the top of the page, Elena writes, HOW TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. Below the mockingbird’s feet, she prints WWW.KILLaMOCKINGBIRD.com, then she pushes the paper back toward Michael and me. “There.”

We both study the little poster. I take the marker. “May I?” I ask.

“Of course,” says
Elena.

When I’m done, the sign says, I KILL THE MOCKINGBIRD, and the web address is www.iKILLtheMOCKINGBIRD.com.

Elena grins. “You’re right. That’s better.”

“I kill the mockingbird?” Michael finally says.

“It’s the name of our conspiracy,” I tell him.

“All good conspiracies need a name,” adds Elena.

“Is that so?” he asks.

“Area 51?” says Elena. “Watergate? Roswell? Fluoridation?”

Michael
looks at me. “Do you know what she’s talking about?”

“Mostly sometimes.”

Michael just shakes his head.

I point to the web address below the mockingbird’s feet. “How are we going to get a website?”

“How hard can it be?” says Elena.

Michael clears his throat. “I took a web design class at the community college last summer.”

“Seriously?” I say.

“See,” says Elena.

Above us, we hear Mort moving
back toward the stairs. Elena leans forward and sticks a hand out in front of her as if we are in a huddle. “What do you say?” she asks Michael and me. “I kill the mockingbird?”

I place one hand on top of hers. “I kill the mockingbird,” I say.

Michael glances back and forth between the two of us.

“Come on,” I tell him.

“This is crazy,” he says.

“No mockingbirds will be hurt in the making
of this conspiracy,” Elena promises.

Michael puts his hand over the top of mine. “I kill the mockingbird,” he says, “but it’s not the mockingbirds I’m worried about.”

11

Literary Terrorists Need Office Skills

Over the next few days, I look for an opportunity to spend some time alone with Michael, but between baseball games and helping Mom and working at the bookstore, we just don’t get a chance.

In the meantime, Michael, Elena, and I are able to bike, bus, and walk to various libraries in West Glover, Windsor, Simsbury, Bloomfield, and a few others,
too. We wander around the stacks, identify our targets, and then place
To Kill a Mockingbird
copies on new shelves where nobody will ever look. Back at the River Road Mall, we revisit Mr. Dobby’s store and assign new locations to his books as well. In their places, we leave I Kill the Mockingbird flyers and then hope for the best. In fact, we use so many flyers that we’re going to need more. That’s
why we sneak into the empty St. Brigid’s School building while my dad is away for lunch.

“You’re sure the building is empty?” Michael whispers. We are creeping up the stairwell that connects the basement cafeteria to the first floor. Our footsteps echo like drumbeats inside a cave.

“Positive,” I say.

“Really positive?”

“For the millionth time,” Elena growls at Michael, “she is absolutely certain.
All the teachers are on vacation. The school secretary is away on a cruise. The janitor is in the hospital having cosmetic surgery.”

“Back surgery,” I correct her.

“Whatever,” snaps Elena.

Michael stops at the doorway that leads into the main part of the building. “And the principal?”

Elena leans into the door, which swings wide open. She grabs Michael’s sleeve and pulls him through. “He is
at home having lunch with his lovely wife. We. Are. Alone.” Elena punctuates the last three words by poking Michael in the chest. “Okay?”

“Okay,” he says.

“Good. Because—” Elena is interrupted by a loud clatter and banging from somewhere nearby. “Somebody’s coming!” she cries.

The three of us throw ourselves into the closest classroom. We scatter and hide behind anything we can find. I drop
my backpack to the floor and squeeze beneath a folding table while Elena tries to press herself against a wall. Michael ducks behind the teacher’s desk at the front of the room. The three of us hold our breaths while we wait to see what happens next.

“A folding table is not a good hiding place,” Elena finally whispers at me.

“It’s better than a wall!”

“Shhhh!” says Michael. Of the three of
us, he’s the only one who’s really concealed.

Elena edges toward one of the tall classroom windows and peaks outside. Her shoulders sag and she starts to laugh.

“What is it?” I say.

She points outside just as a big old garbage truck rolls past. “I don’t think Majewski’s Sanitation Service is after us.”

Michael peeks his head around the side of the desk. “Are you sure that’s what we heard?”

“I’m sure.” Elena leads us out of the classroom and down the hallway toward the main office. When we get there, I pull Dad’s set of spare keys out of my pocket and unlock the door. The three of us slip inside where I open my backpack and pull out an updated version of our flyer. I hold it up so that Michael and Elena can see.

“What do you think?”

The paper holds my stick figure mockingbird drawn
on top of a black-and-white target. I also snipped letters from magazine titles and newspaper headlines to create a sort of ransom note. At the very bottom of the page, fat block letters spell out our web address.

“That’s awesome,” says Elena.

“I updated the website last night,” says Michael.

“The links to Facebook and Twitter and Instagram all work?”

“I’m doing my best,” he says. “It’s not
easy setting all this up under my mother’s nose. If she finds out what we’re up to, I am dead.”

“We’re not breaking any laws,” says Elena.

Michael gestures at the dark office around us. “We are breaking and entering. We are trespassing. We are about to use school office equipment in order to create an impression that West Glover has been targeted by a group of mysterious literary terrorists.”

Elena grins. “When you put it like that, it sounds even better!”

“Let’s just make our copies
and get out of here.” Michael approaches the big duplicating machine against the back wall. “Do you either one of you know how to turn this thing on?”