Read Sunshine Picklelime Online
Authors: Pamela Ferguson
Sunshine Picklelime
To all the beloved younger members of the Ferguson, Pearce, and Coombe clans, spread around the world from the USA to Britain, from Lithuania to Singapore, and from South Africa to New Zealand. And to the younger members of the Winiker clan in Switzerland
.
—P.E.F
.
10.
Ruth
11.
PJ’s Search
13.
Blackbirds
14.
The Art Show
picklelime and lemon piePJ Picklelime lives in
a village very close to you. Meadows are knee-deep in wildflowers in early springtime. Summers are hot and dreamy when golden peaches the size of melons hang from the trees. Snow drifts like powdered sugar down the mountainside in winter.
PJ lives in a cottage with stone walls and stone floors that keep the family Picklelime cool in the summer and slowly absorb warmth from the sun to keep the family cozy in winter. The Picklelimes have barrels outside to catch rainwater in spring, summer, and autumn and snow in winter. A barrel on the roof pipes sun-heated water directly down into the shower below.
Families from all over the world live in PJ’s village because a computer company on the other side of the mountain brought people in from Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and North America.
PJ looks different from other kids, as she was born with a crop of thick, black curly hair, inherited from the darker side of her mother’s family. “Oh, she’ll lose that,” said neighbor Shanti Patel over the fence one day. But PJ never lost her hair, and it continued to grow each year like a wild bush around her head, even wilder when winds heavy with salt came off the nearby ocean. Every time her parents tried to cut it, PJ covered her hair with her hands and screamed out loud until they put down the scissors.
“PJ, no one can see who you are under all that hair!” said her mom.
“Think of the money we could get if we sold PJ’s hair to the pillow makers,” said her dad.
PJ clapped her hands to her ears so their words just sounded all muffled and marshmallowy. “My hair has a job,” she insisted. “You don’t understand. My hair has work to do.” She wouldn’t tell her parents exactly what that work was.
You see, one day she had found a tiny little bird, a yellow warbler, peeking unhappily between the branches of
the yellow Lady Banks rosebush that had burst into bloom to fill an entire corner of their back garden.
“Why do you look so sad, little friend?” PJ asked, stroking the bird’s yellow breast, which was a shade creamier than the roses that clustered around it.
“Because I can’t warble,” cheeped the bird. “Listen to my silly voice. All the other warblers left me behind when they flew south. They said I couldn’t be a warbler because I couldn’t warble, so I had to find my own way. But I don’t know where to go!”
“I have plenty of space for you,” said PJ. She made sure her parents weren’t watching from the kitchen window, then she bent over and parted her hair to make room for the tiny bird.
But the bird hesitated. “I’ve never lived in hair before, only a nest made of twigs and branches and old string and wool and bits of this and bits of that.”
“Well, let’s say my hair is a new kind of nest, ready-made and waiting for you to move in. You don’t even have to pay rent,” PJ told the bird.
So the little bird hopped off the branch of the bush and landed in PJ’s hair. PJ let go of her curls and they sprang around the warbler protectively, thick enough and black enough to hide his yellow feathers.
“This
is
different,” said the bird. “Soft and springy! I think I’m going to like this!”
“Just one problem,” said PJ.
“What’s that?” cheeped the bird. He dipped his head to burrow through PJ’s curls.
“There’s no bathroom on board. You’ll have to fly in and out. Make sure it’s when we’re alone and before you go to sleep. If my parents see you, they’ll make you go away. This is our secret, OK?”
“OK. Done!” said the bird.
“Now, the next thing we need to work on is your voice,” said PJ.
“My voice?” cried the little bird. “But I don’t have one. That’s why the others left me behind!”
“Nonsense,” said PJ. “They were just too impatient. Would you like me to teach you how to sing?”
“How can you? You’re not a warbler!”
“No, but I know how to sing!” PJ said.
“Well …,” said the little bird.
“Then let’s get started.” PJ didn’t want to waste any time. “Now, you have to fly back into the roses while we work. I can’t talk to you when you’re buried in my hair since I can’t see you or hear you properly.”
With a tiny flutter of wings, the little bird untangled
himself from PJ’s curls and flew into a cluster of roses a few inches from her nose.
“Perfect.” PJ smiled. “You match the flowers! No one can see you except me. OK, first things first. What’s your name?”
“I don’t know. I’m just the yellow warbler who can’t warble,” said the bird.
“Hmmm.” PJ thought for a moment. “What name would you like?”
“Something sweet?” asked the bird.
“Lemon Pie?” PJ suggested.
The little bird giggled so much, roses bounced around him.
“Right, Lemon Pie it is. Now then, Lemon Pie, let’s start with your breath. Don’t think about your voice. Just your breath. Breathe in, two, three, pause, then breathe out, two, three. Let’s try that together. Breathe in, two, three, pause, and breathe out, two, three. Wasn’t that easy?”
“Not easy. Dreamy. I’ll fall off my branch if you go on like this!”
“Then snuggle against the petals so you feel safe. Let’s try that again, but this time, add a little humming sound. Keep your beak shut and
hummmmmmmm….
”
“Huu, hum, hum, hum, cough cough, huuuuuuuuu…”
“Beak shut, Lemon Pie. Try to turn
huuuuuu
into
huuummmmmm.”
“Huuu-u-u-mmm.”
“There, you see, breath becomes hum!”
“It makes my chest feel all warm.”
Each day for several days, PJ and Lemon Pie went to the rosebush after PJ got home from school to
humm
and
aaaah
and
ooooo
and
eeeee
and
ayyyy
at one another, until the bird sort of lost himself in sound and forgot that he didn’t know how to sing. But this wasn’t really singing. It was a way of practicing different sounds and having fun.
Sometimes at night, Lemon Pie stayed out late and practiced alone under the twinkling stars before flying through PJ’s open window to snuggle into her hair against the pillow to sleep.
PJ’s mom would stand by the kitchen window and say, “That’s an odd-sounding bird out there.”
“It isn’t a bird,” said PJ’s dad. “It’s a baby raccoon.”
Mrs. Patel, their neighbor across the road, thought it was an owl. PJ’s art teacher, Pablo dos Santos y Sanchez, who lived on the next block, said it sounded like a young dove. Mr. Splitzky, who lived behind the Picklelimes, said, “It’s a singing rosebush!” Blossom, his dog, kept
scratching at the corner of the fence where the yellow rose branches draped down gracefully onto his lawn.
Nobody could ever spot Lemon Pie in the clusters of yellow petals. When he wasn’t there, he was tucked inside PJ’s curls, which grew even bushier to hide him as he grew bigger through the days of springtime.
“Next time ocean winds blow in from the south, they’ll whisk you into the sky if you don’t let us cut your hair,” said PJ’s dad.
“But if I get whisked into the sky, my hair will be like a parachute. You’ll see me floating and swaying down into the garden,” said PJ.
Her mom laughed, but her dad said, “
Don’t
encourage her, Maura,” and shook his head.
One morning an oil tanker broke up along the nearby coast and hundreds of seabirds and pelicans struggled to survive. Oil covered them and the waves like a huge carpet, black as night. An immediate appeal went out to all the local haircutters and barbers in the area to bag up everything they swept off the floor to help soak up the oil slick.
PJ’s parents took her aside and explained the situation and said everyone with long hair was running to the local barber for a quick cut.
“PJ, the community needs your hair,” said her mom. “The seabirds need your hair. The waves need your hair. We could fill an
entire
bag just with your mop of curls!”
PJ stood there in silence and asked if she could have a few moments outside to think. Feeling even more protective of the little bird nesting in her dark curls, she walked into the back garden to talk to Lemon Pie near their favorite rosebush. Lemon Pie sat quietly listening to the news, then untangled himself from PJ’s hair and hopped onto a branch to be at eye level with her.