56. Bertram
Bertram
Lovey’s cyst healed without issue, and her wings grew stronger and stronger every day.
Helena trained with Lovey diligently every day, having her open and close her wings over and over again.
Bertram could see that Lovey’s muscles were getting stronger, could feel the air whoosh past his face as Lovey’s flapping became more and more powerful.
But day after day, Lovey did not yet rise into the air.
She needed more than strong wings—she needed to actually see someone fly.
“Hey, Diana,” Helena said, cautiously, the next time a lumber delivery came in. “Um. I kind of have a favor to ask you . . .”
“Is it a sexy favor?” Diana asked, disembarking her bicycle.
Helena blushed. “No. Just the regular kind.”
“Ah man,” Diana said with audible disappointment. “Okay, tell me what it is, and I’ll see if I’m still interested.”
Helena briefly explained their problem—briefly only because Bertram would interject with a warning “Helena” whenever she was about to go off on a completely unrelated tangent—and what she hoped Diana could do to assist.
“So”—Diana’s eyes lit up—“you’re asking me to teach a baby owl-bear to fly?”
“If you want to,” Helena said.
“Of course I do! That’s adorable as shit!”
“We can pay you, for your time spent training with us instead of making deliveries—” Bertram began, but Diana cut him off with a wave of her hand.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I would pay you to let me hang out with this cute little munchkin.”
Almost right on cue, Lovey peered out from behind Helena’s tent where she had been lurking.
“Hi, baby! Come here!” Diana bent down and extended her hand.
Lovey cautiously stalked over, head down, neck extended. Bertram tensed, ready to step in if Lovey decided to attack Diana.
Lovey reached Diana with a few quick strides.
“Hi sweetie-pie baby angel,” Diana said.
Lovey rubbed her beak against Diana’s shoe, purring happily. Then she flopped over onto her back and wiggled, staring up at Diana with immediate delight and adoration.
Bertram dropped his hammer. “No fucking way.”
Diana laughed.
Bertram shook his head. “No. Absolutely not. Do you know what I had to go through just to get her to allow me to come within five feet of her without being attacked?! And she just goes right up to you and purrs?”
Diana shrugged apologetically. “What can I say? Animals like me.”
“But that’s—that’s—” Bertram sputtered.
“Stimulus generalization!” Helena jumped in. “We did such a good job training Lovey to be okay with you, that it probably just transferred to Diana, as well. It’s nothing personal, I’m sure.”
“It might be personal.” Diana grinned, and there was a slight edge to her smile. “I’ve been around so long that I’m practically otherfolk myself. Certainly closer to otherfolk than I am to human.”
Helena and Bertram exchanged looks.
“I can’t quite tell if you’re joking or not,” Helena said.
Diana laughed. “Me neither! Now let’s teach this baby owl-bear how to fly!”
“So,” Helena said, “I’ll stand behind you and cue Lovey from there.
That way even if she’s looking for me for the visual cue as well as the spoken one, you’ll still be right in her line of sight.
When I say ‘owl,’ open your wings, too, if you would please, and then when I say ‘bear,’ close them.
And then I guess when you’re ready, just sort of slowly start rising into the air?
And we’ll see if she’s able to follow you? ”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Diana said.
She stepped in front of Helena, slightly to the side, and turned so that her wings were in profile to Lovey.
“Ready? Owl!” Helena signaled with her hands, and both Lovey and Diana opened their wings. “Bear!” Helena closed her hand into a tight fist and both Lovey and Diana closed their wings. “Owl! Bear! Owl! Bear! Owl! Bear!”
Bertram watched as Helena steadily increased the pace of her cues until both being’s wings were flapping quite rapidly.
Slowly and deliberately, Diana lifted into the air, hovering just a foot or so off the ground.
Lovey continued opening and closing her wings but walked over to Diana until she was almost right under her. She stared up at Diana with her big silver-ringed amber eyes. Bertram couldn’t help but interpret her intense stare as longing.
“See? It’s cool what she’s doing! Right, Lovey?” Helena asked.
“Mraw!” Lovey answered, beating her wings even faster.
“You’re doing great, Lovey! Owl! Bear! Owl! Bear!” Helena called.
“MRAW WROARWH!” Lovey chirped. She hopped into the air, beating her wings frantically. It slowed her descent just a little.
It wasn’t quite a flight, but it was something.
“Good, Lovey! Good!” Helena said, encouragingly. “You’re doing great! Just keep trying! Owl! Bear! Owl! Bear!”
Lovey beat her wings even faster and hopped up and down.
She never managed to fly upward. Some hops were just high enough that she floated down rather than fell, while other hops were too small to allow to get any real time in the air.
Lovey managed to do her biggest hop yet but ended up crashing to the ground with a hiss.
“Bwargh!” Lovey said.
Then she turned to the table where Bertram was working.
He was splitting his attention between watching Lovey try to fly and working hard on a new puzzle box for her.
Lovey hopped up onto the bench, then onto the table, took the half-finished puzzle box in her front talons, bit clean through it with her sharp beak, and threw the splintered pieces across the campground.
“Hey!” Bertram said. “You’re the one who fell! What are you taking it out on me for?”
“LRS, Bertram,” Helena reminded him.
“Why?” Bertram countered. “Aren’t you the one always saying that the enrichment I build is meant for her to destroy it? Why would I LRS her for destroying enrichment if that’s the case?”
“Fair point,” Helena agreed.
She looked over to where Lovey was sinking her talons into a nearby tree and ripping at the bark.
“This is quite the tantrum,” Diana said.
“I’ve never seen her do anything quite like this,” Helena said. “I know we’re not technically supposed to assign feelings to our subjects . . . but it’s hard not to interpret this as her being frustrated.”
“I would say that’s a fair assumption,” Bertram said as he tried to clear his workspace of the many, many splinters Lovey had left behind in her fury. “Even in the most neutral terms, I think this behavior could fairly be described as ‘agitated’ and ‘destructive.’ ”
“I agree,” said Helena. “And if I were to be very un-neutral and this is between us three as friends and not something I would put in my report the fact that she seems frustrated that she wasn’t flying when Diana was gives me hope that Lovey does want to learn to fly.
I was worried she wouldn’t even know it was an option for her.
But now she does and she wants it, I think, so Diana, if you’re willing to keep trying, I think this might be very good for her. ”
“My pleasure and honor!” Diana said cheerily. “Do you want us to try again?”
Lovey broke a small branch off a tree, clamped down on it with her beak, and swung her head back and forth so that the branch repeatedly hit a bush.
“Um. I think maybe that was enough for the first day,” Helena said. “But this was a really great start, I think, unless I’m projecting, which I might be, but if I wasn’t projecting, hopefully, then this was a really great start.”
Diana left with promises to return, even between deliveries, and said she would accept payment of food if they absolutely insisted, but nothing more than that.
“Diana’s amazing, isn’t she?” Helena said.
“Yeah. She is,” Bertram said, though he found Helena to be significantly more amazing.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do with Lovey if she’s in a mood like this the rest of the night.”
“Actually, I think all the flapping and failing and raging against the world tired our little gremlin out.” Bertram gestured toward Lovey, who was curled up in a little ball and sleeping soundly.
“Aww, cutie.” Helena sighed deeply with relief. “It’s always nice when she falls asleep before I do. Gives me a little time to myself.”
“Do you mean time to yourself-yourself,” Bertram asked, “or just time where you’re not worrying about taking care of Lovey?”
Helena wrinkled her nose. “What do you mean?”
“I mean . . . do you want to go . . . relax alone, or do you want to . . . hang out? With me? You know, socially?”
Bertram mentally kicked himself. Why was he suddenly so awkward?
He and Helena worked together every day, they spent time together all the time. Of course, this was him explicitly asking her to spend time with him because she wanted to, and there was something vulnerable in that . . .
All the more reason he should have said it in a way that made it seem more casual and normal.
Bertram’s tongue darted out over his top tusk, and Helena smiled.
“I would love to hang out. With you. You know, socially,” Helena said.
Bertram breathed an internal sigh of relief and returned Helena’s smile.
“I’ll start the campfire if you grab us drinks and snacks!” Helena said, brightly.
“Absolutely.”
The expression on Helena face seemed so sincere, so hopeful, so . . . joyful. She looked overjoyed that Bertram had made such a simple overture.
Bertram found himself overjoyed that she was overjoyed.
He headed over to the OmniBox, finding himself strangely giddy to be spending time with Helena.
He was always spending time with Helena.
But the fact that they were choosing to spend time together, and not only that, but acknowledging that they were choosing to spend time together, made it feel different and special.
Delicate and new. Bertram grabbed pretzels, popcorn, and drinks.
When he returned, Helena had a fire blazing. She smiled brightly at his return, looking at him as if his retrieval of snacks had been an epic feat of dashing heroism.
If Bertram had to guess, Helena might be as giddy as he was.
Which was going to make his next move all the sweeter.
“Here. For you.” He handed her a drink.
“Thank yo—oh for fuck’s sake, Bertram!”