Read an Excerpt
What I want to be true
She stared into my eyes and kissed my cheeks. But she was sad because, for some reason, she couldn’t keep her newborn baby boy—me.
What is true
The hospital emergency room was where she brought me when I was only one day old, making me a Safe Haven Baby and a Ward of the State. I was given a number instead of a name.
My foster parents, Thelonious and Willow Garnette, took me home with them the very next day. They decided to adopt me right away, but it would take almost a year before I was no longer a Ward of the State. In front of a judge, my adoption was finally made official, and I became Cooper Jaxon Garnette—a.k.a. Coop.
1
Almost Twelve Years Later, Los Angeles, California
The First Monday of Summer Break
“Coop!” Pops hollered.
I moaned and pulled the covers over my head.
“Coop! Up! Now! I can’t be late for rehearsal!”
If Mom were here, I would have been able to catch a few more summertime z’s, but on Saturday she headed off to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music to teach piano in their summer youth program, like she does every summer. I yawned and stretched.
A very loud whistle was his third warning, and having no choice, I rolled out of bed.
In no time, I was dressed, heading to the car, chomping on one of my pops’ homemade breakfast burritos, and sipping on some OJ. Like the prized possession it was, he carefully slid his trombone onto the back seat, and we were off to G-Pop and Nana Garnette’s place.
Los Angeles, like me, was now wide awake, and as usual, morning traffic was bumper-to-bumper. I checked out my pops as he drove. Today, he was wearing lime-green jeans, a bright Hawaiian button-down shirt, purple suspenders, polka-dot socks, and geometric checkerboard Vans. The way he dresses used to embarrass me until he explained that playing in the Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra for a living, where he could only wear black and white, had transformed him into someone who dressed in a magical way whenever he wasn’t working.
As for me, there was nothing magical about the way I dressed. In fact, there was nothing magical about me at all. I, Coop Garnette, was just a regular kid in almost every way. And unlike the rest of my family, I was not musical at all. No matter how hard I tried, I just wasn’t. I even sang way off-key, and trying to learn to read music had been like trying to read hieroglyphics. There were times when I thought that maybe I’d been adopted into the wrong family and worried that the Garnettes were secretly disappointed that they hadn’t gotten a kid who was magical or at least musical.
Like he normally does when he drives, Pops was singing along with some old-school music on the radio. As I stared out the window, I looked forward to tonight’s game with the Meteors, my youth b-ball team. Last week, I’d surprised everyone, including myself, with my first ever three-pointer. I pictured a repeat and smiled.
2
We pulled up to the curb. Nana, my pops’ mom, who was working in the garden of her duplex, saw us and smiled her big smile.
“See ya, Pops,” I said as I climbed out of the car.
“Later, Coop,” he replied, and after saying, “Hey,” to Nana, he zoomed away.
She peeled off her gardening gloves, planted a kiss on my forehead, and together we headed upstairs to the second story, where they live. As usual, jazz music was playing.
G-Pop, short for Grandpop, was sitting on the back balcony, sipping coffee. He smiled and asked the same question he normally does when he first sees me. “How’s my favorite grandson today?”
As usual, I replied, “I’m your only grandson.”
His next line was “And therefore, my favorite.” Finally, like always, we butted knuckles.
G-Pop shook his head and chuckled. “I think we need to come up with a different jive, Coop.”
I knew what he meant. “Yeah, I think so too.”
“The next time I see you, I’m gonna greet you with some brand-new jive.”
“I’ll believe that when I hear it,” Nana said playfully, then asked, “You had breakfast, Coop?”
“Just ate,” I told her.
I had started to head to the den to play video games when G-Pop said, “Before you rush off to that game cave, there’s something you oughta see.”
“What?”
“That northern mockingbird finally laid her eggs.”
Since G-Pop retired earlier this year, he’d started playing at bird-watching. Nana called it playing because she claimed it was the same as the way he’d been amusing himself with his five-string banjo most of his life, just enough to get a nice bit of enjoyment from it.
At first I had absolutely zero interest in birds, but G-Pop had gotten me and Zandi, the girl who lives downstairs, curious. Together we’d watched the two birds gather twigs and other stuff to build their nest in the tall backyard tree.
G-Pop handed me his binoculars. “Have a look-see, Coop. They’re as pretty as can be.”
I adjusted the binoculars until the nest came into focus. There they were, four mockingbird eggs, light blue with brown blotches.
“Why are they called mockingbirds, anyway?” I asked.
“Because they mimic other birds and sounds. They’re musicians of sorts.”
“Do you think they built their nest here because they like listening to your music?”
“Hadn’t thought about that, Coop, but you just might be right.”
I stared intently at the eggs.
“Well, well, well, Coop Garnette, would you look at us. Seems like we’ve gone and become gen-u-wine bird watchers. In about two weeks, according to my research, we should have us some hatchlings to spy on.”
“Zandi has to see them!” I exclaimed, and dashed to the door. Zandi is a little older than me, and her mom rents the downstairs unit from G-Pop and Nana. I rang and knocked but no one answered. Disappointed, I headed upstairs and went back outside onto the balcony.
Patiently, I watched and waited and waited some more until one of the birds finally came back to the nest and sat on the eggs. “G-Pop,” I said, “he’s sitting on the eggs.”
“That’s called incubation,” he explained, “and only a mama mockingbird incubates, so it’s a she.”
“Oh . . . the mama . . . she.”
Suddenly my birth mother popped into my mind, the way she does now and then. It was probably seeing that mama bird sitting on her eggs that made it happen this time. I asked myself the usual questions. Where is she, somewhere close by or far away? Does she ever think about me? Would I recognize her if I saw her? Would she recognize me?
3
Hours later, the Atlanta Braves, G-Pop’s favorite baseball team, were playing the Houston Astros, and he was pacing back and forth in front of the television, shouting at the umpire, the way he does whenever his team is losing.
From the other room, where she was playing her cello, Nana hollered, “Calm down, Miles, before you get your blood pressure up!”
He plopped down in his recliner but kept on fussing.
Earlier today, I’d thought about sneaking outside to do something. I, Coop Garnette, had discovered a while back that being successful at sneaking is more likely to occur when no one’s watching. And now, with G-Pop and Nana preoccupied, their eyes elsewhere, it seemed like the perfect time.
I really wanted to touch those eggs. No—I had to. I snuck to the door, crept downstairs, and hightailed it to the backyard.
Because I’m pretty good at climbing, I figured it’d be a cinch. I pulled myself up to the first branch and then the next and then the one above that. “Just don’t look down, Coop,” I told myself, and kept going. At last, the nest was within reach.
And just as I was about to touch the eggs, Zandi yelled out from below, “Coop, what’re you doing way up there?!”
“The bird laid her eggs! They’re incredibly amazing! C’mon up, it’s easy! Don’t be scared, Zandi!”
“I am not scared!” she said, and began climbing.
Then, suddenly, from out of nowhere it appeared—one of the mockingbirds, flying straight at me, squawking its head off. To avoid a collision, I ducked, and moments later, when it swooped again, just missing me, I swatted at it and screamed, “Cut it out!”
“That is one mad bird, Coop! You should come down fast, before you get hurt!” Zandi warned.
I was about to take her advice when the mockingbirds double-teamed me. I tried my best to avoid them, leaning this way and that. But in the end, it was unavoidable, and down I went.
Zandi screamed.
Seconds later, I crash-landed, and it was lights-out for Coop Garnette.
