The Summer of the Falcon by Jean Craighead George Page B

June threw the next pancake at them.
    Charles ducked, told her that was unladylike, and she had to pick it up. He chuckled to his brother. “She’s mad. We’d better help her with the dishes, or we won’t get any lunch.”
    “That’s true!” June screamed.
    “We’re sorry.” They smiled and patted her head. Then they picked up their dishes, walked out the back door, across the yard, and washed them in the creek.
    “They’re done!” they called. “We washed, you dry!” and they hopped into the canoe and skimmed up the creek. The plates sat on the landing. June called out in anger and in frustration, “Bring them back, please bring them back!”
    Uncle Paul, who was ransacking the cupboard for breakfast food, stopped his search and walked across the floor. June could feel her shoulders shaking in her fury.
    “Well, the first thing you have to learn about housekeeping is to get the human affairs in line. Why don’t you call ‘Thank you’ and then ignore them?” June turned to him, grabbed him, and cried on his arm. Finally, she realized the possibilities of his suggestion and lifted her head. She stepped to the door.
    “Thank you very much—for setting the table!” she yelled. “I’ll serve your dinner there!”
    “That’s not being quite grown-up,” he said, “but that’s awfully close for an almost fifteen-year-old,” and he chuckled for her side. June felt better, swished hummingly through the dishes and swept the floor.
    Hands on hips, she surveyed her domain. “This is so simple,” she said. “Anyone can keep house. I have hours to do nothing...I’ll fly Zander.”
    Forgotten were her unmade bed and her parents’; unnoticed were three dirty cups on the table. She felt only as if she had built a pyramid.
    Gently she held her hand for her falcon. He stepped on it. She closed her fingers on the jesses, untied the leash at the circlet on the ground and walked to the field with him. The sun was hot, the day so still it seemed ominous, as if a great weather change was on its way. The air was water-filled.
    And yet there were only blue sky and barn swallows.
    Suddenly there were no barn swallows. They spotted the falcon the moment June stepped into the field. They gave their thin high cry “danger, danger, danger, danger” and vanished from sight.
    Far out in the mowed alfalfa, far away from the house and the brooms and the dishes, June threw her bird onto his wings. He climbed the sky.
    “All right. Let’s try it. You’re on your own!” she called to him.
    She held her arms back and out, placed her feet wide on the earth and watched the falcon fly. He fanned first one wing against a wall of air, then the other, dug into the sky as if his wings were canoe paddles and swept straight up, up, up.
    As he climbed, June went with him. She felt the wind in her face, the draughts and gusts of the air avenues, the lightness of her body. As Zander circled high above the field he darted like a wind-blown leaf, stopped, plowed the air with his wings, and waited on! He stood still above her. He scooped the air with the tips of his feathers so that he did not go forward or backward. He stood in the sky, waiting for the game to be stirred.
    June stood transfixed in the yellow-green field. With her head back, her arms slightly lifted, she stared at the waiting bird.
    What are we doing, beautiful falcon? she said to herself. Are we talking to each other? Why, why, why are you doing as you were told?
    June’s world was white and yellow as she beheld with wonder the miracle of what she was about. She too was of the earth. She was part of its green grass, its water to drink, its air in her lungs...and for joy, its wild birds above her head. Like a blade of grass, like a flying bird, June knew she was no less, nor any more, than the earth and the sun that she came from.
    And she was glad to be part of it, and part of the bird that waited on. She ran, he followed. She circled, he circled. She went backward, he