Chickadee Read online

  “Howah! And this plump bine, too! Did my little men hunt this bird?” Omakayas smiled at her twins, who looked up at Zozie.

  “We tried!” said Chickadee.

  “Zozie knocked it down with a rock,” said Makoons.

  Omakayas laughed and brushed the snow from Zozie’s hair.

  “Her mama was always a deadly aim with a rock, too!”

  Omakayas was remembering the sting of Two Strike’s pebbles when her cousin was angry, but that was long ago.

  Zozie smiled, but looked around anxiously and said, “My uncle is not back.”

  “He can take good care of himself,” said Omakayas.

  But everyone noticed that, when Omakayas made the stew that night and dished it out, she put a little makak out for the spirits and a full bowl on the mat with the other food. That bowl was for Animikiins. No one touched it, but they all watched the bowl as the steam rose from the delicious meat and then, slowly, cooled.

  The snow came down so suddenly that Animikiins knew that he was trapped. He was far from the camp. He didn’t dare walk so far in a disorienting blizzard, even to bring meat to his family. No, he had to camp where he was. And he’d better seek shelter fast. Luckily, he was in heavy spruce, and spruce branches could be made into a lean-to. He broke off an armload of boughs, took a hatchet to some larger branches, and quickly built himself a lean-to. He set it against a great rock, only a few feet from the place where the moose had died. With the snow falling thickly, there was no possibility of building a fire. Animikiins heaped snow into a circle, high as he could. The snow was good insulation. He would sleep on a bed of boughs with thicker boughs to cover himself. At last, just before he nestled into a shelter as wind tight as he could make it, Animikiins drew his knife and sliced out the moose’s tongue and liver. He brought both into the shelter, heaped snow against the opening, and ate a bloody, raw, satisfying meal before he dozed off to sleep.

  One day. Two days. Three days of snow. The first night, the little family ate half the pot of stew. The second night, they ate the rest of the kettle and scraped the bottom with a knife. The third night, with great misgivings, they divided and ate the bowl of stew that had been sitting by the fire for Animikiins. Then they fell asleep. It wasn’t much, and their insides gnawed.

  Halfway through the night, Omakayas woke, restless. Outside the snow drove down and the wind still growled and shook the branches of the trees. The snow was heaping higher and higher around the entrance of the wigwam. The dog, who had chewed up and devoured the already gnawed bones of the rabbits, was curled at the door with his tail over his head. It was still snowing, but Omakayas thought she heard something, someone. She shivered as a trickle of fear went up her back.

  Sometimes when the trees cracked and the snow came down hard, the spirit of winter, Biboonang, was out walking. It was a harsh spirit, and Omakayas didn’t want to challenge it. She crept from her blankets and built up the fire. They would have to find some food tomorrow.

  The day dawned bright, the snow was finished. Although the air was hard and cold the twins were elated to walk out on top of the drifts. There was no knowing where Animikiins had gone to, but Omakayas decided to set out after him anyway. She put on her snowshoes, took the dog with her, and told the twins and Zozie to set new snares and to gather balsam and melt snow for hot tea when she got home. She pulled a toboggan behind her and had a keen hatchet in her belt, which was lucky, for she hadn’t been walking half an hour when Animikiins hailed her.

  “Ahneen,” she yelled with happiness.

  They hurled themselves together and held close. They had known each other since they were children, and they treasured each other very deeply. They swore that they had known they would be married ever since Omakayas had given food to the hungry boy who would become her husband.

  Animikiins had glared at her, starving, on that day so long ago, but her gift of food had eventually melted his glare, and his heart, too.

  Now Omakayas rejoiced. They had real food. A moose would last them the rest of the winter. Piece by piece, the family hauled back the moose using the toboggan. Everyone also carried chunks of frozen meat with carrying straps. By the time they cached the meat near their camp, hoisting some into a tree, burying some in snow, they were warm and excited.

  Omakayas brought in the tenderest pieces of meat and began to make a feast. The rest of the family had been hunting in the next bay. Now they gathered.

  Mikwam, Ice, was Omakayas’s father. She called him Deydey. Yellow Kettle was her mother. But nobody called her grandmother yet because Nokomis, Grandmother, was still alive and strong. Old as she was, Nokomis kept up with Mikwam and joked that when she smelled the meat roasting she’d come running and leave him behind on the trail.

  There was Omakayas’s beautiful sister, Angeline, and her husband, Fishtail. Angeline had survived a terrible illness, smallpox. She had no children, and this made her sad except when Zozie came to live with her. Zozie called three different women Nimama, and nobody thought that strange.

  The whole family gathered that night. The wigwam was crowded and noisy, and everyone ate and told stories late into the night. Chickadee and Makoons curled together under one fluffy rabbit-skin blanket. Warm and full, lulled by the grown-ups’ voices, they fell into a charmed sleep and dreamed, as they always did, together.

  FOUR

  SMALL THINGS

  Winter and spring went back and forth that year. Nokomis said that the spirit of winter was struggling harder than usual to keep his claws of ice on the world. Still, the maple sap began to run one warm day, and the family was ready. They had already made camp at the same great stand of sugar maples where the twins were born.

  Chickadee watched his namesake hop from twig to twig in the branches of the sugar maples. He had managed to sneak away from the close watch of his mother. He had evaded his father, ditched his grandmother. He had hidden from his aunt, his uncle, his grandfather, and even his twin. There was nobody to tell him to keep hauling sap from the trees.

  “Haul sap! Haul sap! More sap!”

  But the real reason he’d snuck away was that he’d heard the old man Zhigaag laughing at him. Every year Zhigaag came to sugar, sometimes bringing his brutish sons. Zhigaag watched everyone work, but did nothing himself. He just complained until someone gave him sugar to quiet him, and every year the old man’s taunts and jeers grew worse.

  “Look at that weakling! He’s scrawny like his namesake!”

  Chickadee’s face burned with shame when he heard that, and he stumbled. He spilled some sap from the makak he was carrying. The old man gave a mean laugh. Chickadee had hauled makak after makak of sap from the taps in the trees to the great boiling kettles, taking care every time not to splash himself or spill. Now the mean remark made him clumsy with embarrassment.

  He had done nothing wrong, he thought with fury. Of course, every so often he had paused to drink the strengthening and delicious, faintly sweet sap, but everyone did that. Sap was a spring tonic. He’d been a good worker and did not deserve the old man’s comment.

  So he’d sneaked away.

  Couldn’t a boy have some respect? And a minute or two for rest? Couldn’t a boy have a little while to lie in last year’s newly warmed, fragrant maple leaves? Couldn’t a boy spend a little time gazing into the swaying tops of the maples?

  Chickadee’s thoughts turned darker. He didn’t really mind the work. It was that mean old John Zhigaag whom he wanted to get away from. A fitting name for a cranky old person—John Skunk. It was Zhigaag who called him scrawny, Zhigaag who picked on young boys with his nasty temper, ruining the good time they had running wild and sneaking bits of sugar or bannock or the choicest bits of meat. Zhigaag was always there to point them out, to catch them at their tricks, to scream out, “There they go, catch them!”

  Yes, it was Zhigaag who embarrassed him, Zhigaag who always got them in trouble. Even worse, the old man had those two powerful sons who enjoyed trouble just as much as their father.

/>   But for a moment, Chickadee was hidden from the old man’s eyes, and everybody else’s eyes, behind a small hillock of stone. And there he continued watching his namesake. The chickadee had begun its spring song, which was a sweet and lilting song, not the mischievous scolding of winter. Every spring when this happened, Chickadee felt a wash of happiness come over him. It was a promise of warmth, food, berries, summer, swimming, and fun. But this time, as he listened, he heard old Zhigaag’s words.

  “Scrawny? Am I scrawny? Are you a weakling, my namesake?”

  As he watched his tiny namesake hop from twig to twig, Chickadee felt disappointed for the first time. Why couldn’t he have a protector like the bear or the lynx or the caribou or the eagle? Why was he singled out by such an insignificant little bird? He had a sudden thought that appalled him—he would be a grown man and still be called Chickadee! What kind of name was that for a powerful warrior? He groaned.

  “Oh, my namesake, why did you choose me?”

  Suddenly, the little bird flew away. Chickadee turned over and closed his eyes. He sensed the great strong roots of the maple trees drawing water from the earth and sweetening it with their own sugar. He should have felt joy. But he was laughed at, overworked, unappreciated, and deserted even by his namesake. His eyes stung with pity for himself.

  “Ah, there you are!”

  Chickadee sighed and sat up, brushed the leaves from his hair. At least it wasn’t old Zhigaag who’d found him.

  It was Nokomis, which was not so bad. She was very good at getting around with her little walking stick, and she never told him what to do. His great-grandmother was so old that she had dim eyesight, though, uncannily, she never mistook him for his twin, the way other people did. She put her hand in her little buckskin bag for a treat.

  “Did I give you your sugar lump, my boy?”

  “Oh, no, my Nookoo, not yet!” Chickadee hid the sugar lump he already had in his cheek and put out his hand.

  “You are a good boy,” said Nookoo. “But you can’t fool me, Chickadee. I’ll give you extra anyway. And here, give this other lump to your brother. What are you doing here? This is my secret place!”

  Chickadee was amazed that his great-grandmother, who tottered around and couldn’t see or hear very well anymore, had noticed his lumpy cheek, and more, that she had a secret place. Why would she need a secret place?

  “I used to come here when I was a little girl,” said Nookoo, settling herself against the rock. “We Anishinabeg have been coming here since time began. Did you know that these trees are the children of the original spirit trees who understood us and told us how to gather their water and boil it into syrup and sugar so long ago?”

  “Gaawiin, Nookoo!”

  Chickadee was more curious than most boys, who might have run off right after getting an extra treat.

  “Why have you hidden yourself away?” Nokomis asked. Although she was ancient, his great-grandmother always saw into his heart.

  Because she always listened to him, Chickadee always told her the truth.

  “Old John Zhigaag said that I was scrawny, a weakling, just like my namesake.”

  “What!”

  Great-Grandmother’s eyes filled with a cloudy fire. Her back straightened. She thumped her walking stick on the ground.

  “This is very bad, my boy, very bad!” she cried. “Doesn’t the old fool realize that you must never insult the chickadee?”

  “Oh?”

  Chickadee remembered that he himself had been disrespectful to the little bird, and that it had flown away. Uneasily, he scratched his head and sat closer to Nookoo.

  “Why is it you must never insult the chickadee?” he asked in a low voice.

  His great-grandmother gave him a surprised look. “Don’t you know? Haven’t you realized yet? Small things have great power.”

  Chickadee was struck by this. He sat back on his heels. Small things have great power sounded good, but made no sense.

  “But I am scrawny. I am a weakling. And the chickadee is little too. It has no teeth, no claws. What can it do?”

  “The chickadee stays awake all winter in the cold,” said Nokomis. “He survives on the smallest seeds. He is a teacher. The chickadee shows the Anishinabeg how to live. For instance, he never stores his food all in one place. He makes caches in various places. He never eats all of his food at once. We do that too. The chickadee takes good care of his family. The mother and the father stay with their babies as they fly out into the world. They stick together, like the Anishinabeg. And there are other things. The chickadee is always cheerful even in adversity. He is brave and has great purpose, great meaning. You are lucky to have your name.”

  Chickadee put his hands on his face. “Lucky! Great-Grandmother, I insulted the chickadee! I told the bird he was a weakling. I asked why he had chosen me!”

  Great-Grandmother now looked extremely grieved.

  “What can I do?”

  She rummaged in her carrying bag and took out three hazelnuts. Giving them to Chickadee, she said, “Crack these into small pieces and place them on this rock. I will put tobacco at the base of the rock. Then, we wait.”

  Chickadee followed her instructions, and just as she had said, they waited. The sun went behind a cloud. The shadows grew cold. The chickadee did not appear. Finally, Nokomis spoke out loud.

  “Oh, chickadee. Please accept our offering! Your namesake is young and had his feelings hurt. He did not wish to offend you. Please don’t reject him! He needs your counsel!”

  “I am very sorry,” whispered Chickadee. “Please come back to me.”

  Now it seemed to him that all of his life he’d heard the chickadee’s call near him. His namesake had always been around, looking after him. It was strange not to hear that voice, strange only to hear the distant cries of humans and other birds. A shadow fell across his heart.

  “Where are you?” Chickadee whispered.

  All of a sudden there was a swift motion, a small flutter, and the chickadee came down onto the rock. It did not peck up the nuts but stared intently at its namesake, then at Great-Grandmother. She stared back just as hard at the bird. They regarded each other for what seemed like the longest time to Chickadee. Then the bird decisively pecked up a bit of the hazelnut, and flew to a nearby twig. It held the nut against the twig with its small black claw, and ate it quickly. Then it flew right back for another piece.

  “We can go now,” said Nokomis, sighing in relief.

  FIVE

  SONS OF ZHIGAAG

  As Chickadee and Nokomis walked back to join their family, they passed John Zhigaag sitting on a stump. He leaned on a long, thick stick. As the two passed, he stuck the stick out right in the path of Nokomis. He meant to trip her and his snaggletoothed grin showed that he would enjoy seeing her sprawl at his feet.

  “Nookoo, watch out!” cried Chickadee. She stepped forward.

  Crack!

  Instead of tripping over the old man’s walking stick, Nokomis used her own. Her walking stick came down on John Zhigaag’s head, smashing down his lumpy, frayed, treasured top hat.

  “Yow!”

  The hat smashed down so hard that it ripped. Zhigaag’s ears stuck out the fragile sides. The old man looked so comical that Nokomis and Chickadee couldn’t help laughing. Once they started, and once John Zhigaag began to stamp and bray, they laughed even harder. They laughed so hard that tears came into their eyes. Old John Zhigaag raised his stick in the air and threatened to run them down. In his rage, he began to sputter and choke on his own fury. As Nokomis and Chickadee stumbled away, they had to hold their aching stomachs. They were still weeping with laughter when they reached the family camp. Nokomis sat down and tried to regain her breath.

  “What is it? What happened?” Omakayas took her grandmother’s hand, alarmed, and patted it anxiously.

  Nokomis tried to speak, but every time she spoke the name of John Zhigaag she burst out laughing again. She pointed at Chickadee.

  “He will tell you!”
she cried.

  So Chickadee told the story of how John Zhigaag tried to trick Nokomis, and how she had known exactly how to use her stick even though she was half-blind. Chickadee described Zhigaag’s hat and Omakayas could not help laughing too. That hat was Zhigaag’s symbol of prestige.

  Chickadee told his family how Zhigaag had tormented him that day, and how he’d gone off to hide. Makoons, especially, was immediately infuriated by the insults the old man had given to his brother.

  “You’re not a weakling! You’re strong and bold, like me!”

  The truth was that both twins, who had started out so tiny, had never grown as big and strong as most boys their age. John Zhigaag knew this, thought Omakayas when she heard the names he’d called Chickadee. But he should never have shamed her son. She was glad that Nokomis had given the old man a sore head and had ruined his pride and joy, his hat.

  But even as Omakayas was thinking this, Makoons was thinking the same thing. He was thinking how unfair it was of Zhigaag to insult his brother, and how very bad it was that he tried to trip Nokomis on the path. She could have been hurt. It showed a lack of respect.

  “There is only one way to make him respect us all,” muttered Makoons. He slipped away. It was dusk and a slim boy could hide near the old man’s shelter. There was still time to play one more trick on the old man, a trick that would make him leave Nokomis and Chickadee alone for good.

  That night, while everyone was asleep, Makoons crept into Zhigaag’s tiny bark shelter. First, he untied the old man’s dangling moccasin strings. He was sleeping in his moccasins, so this was a very difficult task. It took Makoons quite a while to undo the string. Then he had to wait while the old man snuffled and snorted and turned over in his sleep. Finally, he managed to tie the moccasins to each other. While he was doing this, he had another idea.

  Makoons took a piece of loose birchbark off a tree. Then he slipped back to his family’s camp and crept up to the fire, which was banked for the night and gave off just enough warmth for the family to sleep by.