Are You Hooked? #4

TITLE: Rook and Orion

GENRE: MG Contemporary

A hurricane roared outside, but the storm brewing inside was the one
Rook longed to fly away from.

"Are you listening to me, young lady?" Mom asked.

Not if she could help it. But Mom's words kept pecking at her.

Rook tied back her long, dark hair, shaking it free of the binoculars
strap, and slammed her arms down on top of the couch. The rough fabric
made her skin itch. Plywood covered the living room window, so she
pointed the binoculars through a knothole and focused them on the bent
trees outside, dark against the steel-grey clouds.

"I said I talked to Miss Elizabeth." Mom, reflected in the window,
hunched over the kitchen table. "She bought the house by the woods."

"The ugly one?" Not that Rook cared.

She tapped the leather patch on her shoulder. Orion spread his brown
wings and flapped over from his perch in the corner. He gripped the
patch, made by Dad to stop Orion's talons from wrecking all Rook's
clothes, and bent his head to preen his wing. He was used to the squalls
between her and Mom. Most were about him.

"She runs a bird rescue." Mom touched a soldering iron to the inside of
the weather radio and a thin wisp of smoke curled in the air. "I've been
talking to her about Orion."

Of course she had.

A raindrop streaked through the hole in the plywood and splatted in
front of Rook.

This argument was like the seasons—perennial.