Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the property of Disney and are only used for fan related purposes.
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The Sparrow
When Sarah disappears, it's up to David to go looking for her.
With only a simple clue to where she could have gone, and the understanding that he's in over his head,
it won't take him too long to discover that his sister wasn't the only one with a secret.
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I wasn't sure I heard I heard her right. A sparrow? A sparrow has Sarah… and she's in trouble?
"What?"
I took another look at the scrap that she was holding out to me. As soon as she said the word 'sparrow' I could imagine that the picture was a crude rendering of a bird. But that didn't offer me any other information. I think I heard what she said but I sure didn't understand it. What would a bird want with Sarah?
Glancing up at her, I shrugged my shoulders and offered the scrap back to her. She was staring apprehensively over at me, and I could tell that she really expected me to know what she was talking about, expected me to be nervous because Sarah was with a little brown bird.
Rachel shook her head but refused to take the paper back. "I don't think you understand, David. You have no idea, do you?"
"I know what a sparrow is," I said, a little annoyed that she would think I was so simple that I didn't know what a sparrow was. I may not have earned my education on the street but I did get an education in a classroom.
Pointing at the blue drawing of a little bird that I still held, I said, "See. Here's a picture of one. It's just a bird."
"I thought that's what you'd say." She pointed at the scrap but didn't touch it. "Yeah, a sparrow's a bird, right, but I wasn't talking about a sparrow. I was talking about the Sparrow."
"Is there a difference?"
She let out a short laugh before moving quickly to her left, walking past me and looking out into the busy street.
I don't know what she was looking for out there but she didn't return to face me for a minute or two. I felt silly, standing in the darkened alley, listening to one of Skittery's girls talk to me about birds but she'd mentioned Sarah—Rachel seemed to think that one particular bird had my sister.
She was right. I didn't understand at all.
Rachel mustn't have seen whatever it was she was looking for because, after what seemed like forever, she came back to stand in front of me. She was nervous, I could see, and her dark eyes continued to move back and forth in an alarmed, yet haughty, way.
"Of course there's a difference, David. The Sparrow's not a bird, you know."
"If he's not a bird," I asked, curious and confused, "then what is he?"
She blinked once before giving her head a tiny shake. "He's a man, of course. It's called a nickname, David."
A nickname. Why didn't I think of that?
I mean, there was Jack, who went by Cowboy, and Racetrack and Mush and even Crutchy… all of the newsboys seemed to have nicknames, most of them strange and curious. I hated to admit it, especially since it had taken me so long to catch on, but it was entirely possible that there was a street kid running around who called himself the Sparrow.
I swallowed and some of the nerves I'd been experiencing settled. In fact, I almost let out a little chuckle. The name 'the Sparrow' didn't really make me too nervous, I have to say. Maybe if she was telling me that someone called Killer had Sarah, I would have been more upset.
It was going to be a mistake on my part, but I didn't know that then. As far as I was concerned, Sarah was with a fella named after a bird. How much trouble could she really be in?
"Well, is he really bad? Is it really that terrible that he might be seeing Sarah?"
"I didn't say he was seeing your sister. I said that I think the Sparrow has your sister." She didn't choose to answer my questions, I noticed. Instead, she just repeated what she told me before. "I… I really do think he's got your sister, and that's… that's not good."
I still didn't understand.
"Why? Who is this Sparrow guy?"
Rachel had folded her hands behind her back and she was staring down at her heeled shoes now, purposely avoiding my questioning gaze. When she spoke, she was muttering. "It's not Sparrow, David. It's the Sparrow… and I—I can't tell you who he is."
"And why not? If he's got Sarah and you tell me that's not a good thing, then why won't you tell me who he is?"
Slowly lifting her head, I could see her face. Rachel was biting her bottom lip, though her chin was thrust out in a defiant manner. "It's not my place. You're going to have to figure that one out on your own."
She still didn't answer my questions and that worried me. Was she lying? Was this all a big joke? She called me into an alleyway to tell me that she thinks Sarah's in trouble but she won't tell me anything else. What was going on?
I'd never seen this girl before and I was suddenly reminded of that fact. She didn't know me and I was pretty sure she didn't know Sarah, but she was acting like she knew exactly what was going on with my sister. I needed to know how; otherwise, I wasn't sure that I would be able to accept anything that Rachel Harpen was telling me as the truth.
"Fine," I ceded, holding my hands up in defeat, "you won't tell me who the Sparrow is. Can you at least tell me how you know he's got my sister?"
"That's his sign, David. The blue drawing that your sister gave to Jack was the sign of the Sparrow."
"Wait. You're telling me that my sister had the sign of the Sparrow," I began, lifting that stupid piece of paper up—Rachel flinched when she saw it, "and she gave it to Jack so that he would know that she had it. But," I added, remembering what happened back at Tibby's, "he doesn't know that she had it because he never saw it. You," I said, pointing at Rachel now, "picked it up off the floor and didn't show it to him. You're showing me instead… but why?"
There was a second when I didn't think she was going to speak up again. Despite the dim lighting I was able to tell that she was surprised at my direct question. She obviously was expecting me to know more than I did; when I didn't, she must've thought that I'd leave it alone.
But I didn't. I couldn't. I was after answers now, and I wanted her to give them to me.
Rachel cleared her throat before moving away from me. She wasn't meeting my eyes as she talked; she kept her attention on something that was behind me.
"You're her brother, ain't you? That's family, it is, and I believe in family," she told me, and there was earnestness in her tone that had been missing before. "I got brothers of my own and if I ever got mixed up with the Sparrow, I'd want one 'em to come lookin' for me, not someone who got me in that mess in the first place."
I heard what she said and I could figure what she was implying. I knew Jack had to have something to do with this—I'd known it right from the start, right from the moment when I found that envelope addressed to him.
"What did Jack do to Sarah?" I asked, sounding a lot more demanding than I meant to. I should have been grateful for her information but I wasn't. I wanted to know more.
Rachel's eyes widened as took a step away from me, frowning. "You're gonna have to ask him about that. I've told you too much as it is."
Her voice was wavering and it only just dawned on me what she had done. She seemed to be afraid of this Sparrow person but she'd gone out of her way to warn me about him, warn me that he might have Sarah. I bet that was why she kept looking out into the street, and why we had to have our conversation in a darkened alleyway in the first place.
"In that case," I told her, "I should get going. If I hurry back I can probably make it to Tibby's before Jack leaves. But thanks, anyway."
I didn't really mean anything by that. I was appreciative of her; she told me more in our few minutes of conversation than I'd learned since finding Sarah's cot in such a mess. It would have been nicer if she was a little more honest with me but she'd mentioned the name of the person I needed to find: the Sparrow. Maybe, if I was lucky, I could get Jack to tell me more now that I knew that name.
I may not have meant anything but Rachel turned away from me when I said that. That one action made me uncomfortable and I suddenly knew that there was more to this than she was telling me, something that she was expressly hiding from me.
I was getting frustrated with the way that everyone was hiding things from me. Crossing my arms over my chest, I said, "You told me too much, you said? But is there something that you're not telling me?"
She was rocking on her heels, looking everywhere but at me. She looked like she was trying to make a decision and I hurried her on by tapping my feet.
Rachel exhaled. "Fine. There is something else, but I shouldn't tell you. You know, I could get in a lot of trouble if anyone finds out I did."
"No," I said quickly, "you won't. I'm not going to let anyone know how much you helped me. But I need to know, I need to help Sarah. Don't you want me to do that?"
Almost resigned, she nodded. "I… it wasn't only the scrap that I saw today at Tibby's," she admitted. "I caught a peek at that letter you gave Jack."
"You did?" I asked, surprised. With a relieved smile on my face, I said, "That's great! What did it say?"
"460 Madison Avenue"
"An address?" I was confused. "All there was…there was an address written down?"
She nodded again. "Yeah. It was hard to read, there was ink blots on it. But I'm pretty sure that that's what I read." She paused before adding quickly, "Can you remember that? Here, repeat it back to me."
"460 Madison Avenue," I repeated immediately. She sounded so urgent and, besides, she told me what was on the note that Sarah gave to Jack—I would have done whatever she told me to do in gratitude.
"Good. Now, I've really told you all I co—"
Rachel stopped talking mid-sentence. Her eyes were still wide as she inhaled deeply before reaching forward and grabbing my arm. "Move," she said franticly, pulling on my arm.
She was a thin thing, her arms as thick as a sliver of wood, but she was much stronger than she looked. Her tiny hand was wrapped around my arm and, before I knew it, she'd pulled me right to my knees. She dropped down right beside me just as I saw something whizz over our heads.
There was a loud noise, a quick crash followed by a second thud. It was as if something had missed hitting us and, instead, had smacked right into the brick wall of the alley.
Rachel was trembling again but she was braver than me. As soon as I heard the thud she was up on her feet, hurrying toward the alleyway's mouth. I saw her silhouette from my place on the dirt ground; her hand was shielding her eyes as she searched the crowd for whoever had thrown something at us.
I stayed low to the ground—just in case—as I half-crawled, half-dragged myself over to where I'd heard the thudding noise. It was darker the farther I went but not too dark that I didn't see the black rock standing out against the brown dirt.
Someone had thrown a rock at Rachel and me.
My hand closed around it automatically. I picked the rock up and brought it close to my face so I could get a better look at it.
It was a pretty big black rock, about the size of my fist. I turned it over; there was a small crack on one side where it had hit the wall. I barely paid it any attention, though—there was something on the other side that made me stop and stare.
Someone had, using white paint and a steady hand, drawn a small, spotted bird on the underside of the rock.
Someone had drawn a white sparrow on the black rock… and then they'd thrown it at us.
Holding the rock in my hand, I stood up slowly. "Um, Rachel?" I said, turning around to show her the rock. "Look at th—"
I stopped talking. There was no point, after all. No one was standing there anymore.
Rachel was gone.
Author's Note: I want to thank Biddy for letting me use Rachel in this story. Hopefully this won't be the last we see of her ;) And, look at that—we have a little bit of information on this mysterious Sparrow fellow. And another clue for David… this should be interesting!
I also want to offer my thanks to Rae, Biddy, Roman, Swindler, Peg and Pokey7 for reviewing the last chapter!
-- stress, 04.20.08