The Anatomy of Wings by Karen Foxlee

whistling kite. I needed to take the feather to the town library because Mum wouldn't buy me
A Field Guide to Australian Birds,
volume 1 or volume 2. It was a long feather that was honey brown. I immediately looked in the sky to see if the bird was still around but instead there were just two very plain sparrows.
    The whistling kite has a very distinctive call. It sounds like it is asking the question “Where you?” Iteven sings the question in a proper tune. It sings Where you? Where? Where? Where? Where? It sings it higher as it goes. It is my sixth-favorite bird in the world.
    There was a mirage at the end of Amiens Road hovering glass blue above the pavement but the closer I walked to it the farther it moved away. I went back to my bike and sat down.
    Inside Marco closed his bedroom door and put the chair in front of it. His teeth were very white. They shone inside his mouth. Everything was overflowing in the bedroom. Clothes spewed out of open-mouthed drawers. The sheets tumbled onto the floor. Newspaper stuffing erupted from half-unpacked boxes. He lay on the bed beside her.
    A lady came out of the house behind me. She was about my mother's age but brown-haired and very plain. She had no lipstick on. She had dark-rimmed glasses like Nana Mouskouri's.
    “Are you all right?” she asked.
    “Yes, thanks,” I said, and I picked my bike off her footpath because I thought maybe she was angry at me because she had nice grass almost like on a bowling green. My mother would have liked her lawn because, after Hobbytex and dancing, watering the lawn was her third-favorite passion.
    “Are you waiting for someone?” she asked.
    She didn't sound angry.
    “My sister,” I said, and pointed to the house across the road.
    “Oh,” she said. “Do you want to wait inside? It's very hot out here.”
    I fingered the burning beans in my pocket and tried to imagine burning her but it didn't seem right.
    “No, thanks.”
    “Well come onto the porch and I'll bring you a drink,” she said, and I followed her.
    On the front porch there was a tile on the wall that said HOME SWEET HOME. The lady went inside and I stood outside and waited and she came back with orange soda in an old Vegemite glass, which was comforting because that is exactly what our mother did with old Vegemite jars. We sat on the steps together.
    “How many sisters have you got?” said the lady with Nana Mouskouri glasses.
    “Two. And five cousins but only one that lives here. She is only a little bit retarded.”
    “Oh,” said the lady.
    “She's pretty normal really. Only sometimes she has rages.”
    “Oh.”
    “And my other sister just got curvature of the spine and has to wear a Milwaukee back bracetwenty-three hours a day even though she is trying to find a cure.”
    “I see,” said the lady. “This sister here?”
    “No,” I said. “That's Beth. She's normal. Only last year she fainted at the lake and my nanna said she may have seen an angel.”
    Inside Beth felt scared. She was scared by his glowing kisses, which were small. It was like being nibbled by a fish. He kissed her all along her jaw and lightly on the mouth. His whiskers tickled her face like a feather. Whenever he stopped he drew his head back and looked at her with a half-puzzled smile. The sun shone through the blinds. His face was crossed with lines of light and shadow. Sometimes the shadow fell upon his eyes. Sometimes across his mouth.
    He was shaking hard. She tried to push him off but he held one arm across her chest. His breath burned her skin. He pulled down the red corduroy pedal pushers. She watched the white ceiling. A dirt-colored cloud moved slowly between two slats of the blinds.
    When he had finished he lay beside her.
    “You're not supposed to cry,” he said. “You're supposed to enjoy it.”
    In the backyard Miranda waited beside Tony's car, which had no wheels. After a while Beth camedown the back steps and waded through the long grass toward her.
    When she came out