003. Meet an eagle. (Sneak peek!)
A teaser excerpt from Some Guy Wants to Buy the Fourth of July.
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From Chapter 5:
... Allie, Patty, Oliver, Bonnie, and Tucker sidled around the platform to where Elbridge the American Bald Eagle still sat in his massive cage. Maybe, Allie said, he would have a clue as to who was behind the selling of such a national tradition as the Fourth of July.
“Huh?” retorted Tucker. “Even if he knows something, how could he tell it to us?”
Allie shrugged. “I don’t know. I just had a feeling that maybe he could talk to us.” She thought for a moment, then added, “I mean, Ms. Lorna did say that you never know what can happen here in Washington, D.C. Anyway, it’s worth a try.”
But they had to wait, since Gina from New Jersey and Crystal from Colorado had rushed up, with their well-heeled mothers, to be the first partakers of a photo opportunity with the eagle. They weren’t quick about it. Gina and Crystal demanded photos singly, and then together, and then with their mothers, and then from different angles and exaggerated poses.
In the meantime, Oliver offered his educated guess about the eagle’s namesake: “Elbridge Gerry (he pronounced the surname with a hard G): once governor of my home state of Massachusetts; merchant and Revolutionary-era patriot; signer of the Declaration of Independence; delegate to the Constitutional Convention; assisted in drafting the Bill of Rights; diplomat; fifth Vice President of the United States. Also known as the dubious inspiration for the derisive term ‘gerry-mander,’ meaning a redrawing of representative district lines in favor of one party or another.”
“Whew,” whistled Tucker, impressed.
When at last the picture-party had moved off, Elbridge looked sideways at Allie and her friends.
Allie came closer to his cage and whispered with careful respect, “Hello, Mr. Elbridge Eagle. Can you talk with us for a minute?”
Elbridge took a moment to consider Allie and her companions shrewdly. Then he seemed to make some kind of a decision, and the intensity of his golden eyes softened just a bit. He muttered, “You want your pictures taken too?”
“Oh, no!” gasped Allie in sudden sympathy for the caged bird. “At least, that’s not why we’re here.”
“Well,” Elbridge asked irascibly, “what do you want, then?”
Tucker, astonished to note that Allie had been right about a talking eagle, replied respectfully: “Firstly, Mr. Elbridge, sir, we’d like to thank you for being here. We’re very glad to see you. I’ve never met an eagle before.”
“You don’t need to thank me,” Elbridge snapped. “It’s not as if I came here of my own free will.”
The five kids looked at one another uncertainly. Even Oliver didn’t quite know how to respond.
In a slightly less bitter tone, Elbridge added, “I only meant: You all are free. I most obviously am not.”
“But you’re free, too, Elbridge!” cried Allie unguardedly. “Goodness, you’re a symbol of freedom!”
“No. Look at me,” said the venerable bird sourly, twitching his cramped, dark-feathered wings. “I was foolish. I let them catch me once, when times were tough for me. I believed what they told me about what a good life they’d give me, and how I wouldn’t have to work hard for it, so I let them put me into this cage, and feed me, and look after me. And now I can’t get out. My wings are too weak now. I couldn’t fly properly even if I did get out of here. Even my eyesight isn’t what it used to be. I’m not free.
“Besides,” added the big eagle with a sudden tinge of rebelliousness, “I don’t want to be anybody’s symbol of anything. Don’t ever let someone make you into a symbol. If you do, you won’t be free.”