Chapter 1
On my second expedition to Indonesia, I learned quite inauspiciously that the weather may turn quickly and unexpectedly. Young Naturalists should take care to note: there is nothing so dangerous as a Perfectly Ordinary Day.

—MILTON VON WIMPLE II, Notes for the National Society of Natural Things
1
Xavier T. Fletcher was an Odd Duck. A very Odd Duck. His father thought so, his older brother thought so, and most of the children he went to school with thought so too. Even his mother agreed, and mothers are not supposed to think that sort of thing—even if it might be true.

But being considered an Odd Duck didn’t bother Xavier at all. You see, the things that Xavier T. Fletcher loved most in the world were birds. He loved watching birds and reading about birds and studying birds. He’d earned his Junior Ornithological Explorer badge from the National Society of Natural Things by the time he turned eight, which, I assure you, is a very big deal indeed. So it didn’t seem to him too terrible a thing to be considered a duck—odd or otherwise. Ducks, after all, are noble creatures. They are exceedingly adaptable, just like Xavier.

For most of his life, it had not mattered that Xavier was a bit different from other children. No one in his neighborhood worried too much that he preferred long afternoons of sitting, calm and still, waiting for a bird to appear or making careful notes in his field journal or studying his scientific guides instead of running races or kicking balls or hitting other children with sticks.

After all, he had grown up with the same girls and boys his whole life, and if they thought him a bit different, it was only because he was Xavier T. Fletcher. They were used to his differentness. And anyway, isn’t everyone supposed to be different?

One day, however, all that changed.

It started out like such a normal summer day, but then Xavier’s father arrived home before dinner. In general, Xavier’s father was a creature that seemed to inhabit the Fletcher home only at night and on rainy weekend days. Arnold Fletcher spent most of his time busy at work or off at one golf course or another, so it was quite surprising for Xavier to have his father appear one afternoon at the back door, briefcase in hand and with his face looking like a crumpled paper bag. As he walked through the kitchen, his father patted Xavier absently on the head and then went up to the bedroom Xavier’s parents shared. His father did not come out that day or the next. Or the day after.

Not even to play golf.

When Xavier would think back on this event much later, he would often marvel at how there was nothing about the day that had struck him as particularly alarming. The sun was only a little bit sunny, the breeze only a little bit breezy, and the sky was only a rather usual blue. It was, in short, a Perfectly Ordinary Day. But it was dangerous just the same, for it was the day everything changed.

Later that evening, Xavier’s mother (who was best known for insisting that meals must feature overcooked vegetables and something called legumes) burned a frozen pizza and did not apologize for the blackened edges when she set it on the table. She did not even attempt to hide her secret package of cigarettes when she pulled it from the bear-shaped cookie jar high atop the refrigerator and went outside.

Xavier pretended he did not see her, as he always did.

Nicholas, Xavier’s older brother, looked at him, shrugged, and selected the largest piece of the blackened pie for himself. Nicholas was not the sort of boy who would pay attention to insignificant things like their father’s unusual arrival or their mother’s strange behavior when there were more significant things—like half-burnt, half-frozen pizza—sitting right in front of him.

Nicholas looked like their father, all dark hair and laughing blue eyes (although their father’s eyes had not been laughing that night), but he had their mother’s sharp chin and slightly upturned nose. He was fourteen—four years older than Xavier—and was already very much on his way out of boyhood. In the past year, Nicholas had grown nearly a foot and had begun to sprout hair in odd places. He had also been eating much more, which Xavier reasoned was necessary, what with all the growing and sprouting.

Xavier, on the other hand, did not look quite like anyone. He did not have dark hair like his father or light, golden hair like his mother. He did not have his father’s straight nose (his was rather wobbly, in fact) or his mother’s sharp chin. Oh, perhaps his shock of reddish hair had come from a great-grandparent, and certainly his dark brown eyes could have been from his Nana Susan, but altogether, he looked only like himself.

Once, when he had asked, his mother had assured him that of course he was part of the family, but when he looked at their family portrait, he could see exactly how different he was. He could not help but think that he looked a bit like one of those baby birds whose mother laid her eggs in another bird’s nest. Brood parasites, they were called.

Cuckoos did that. And black-headed ducks.

So maybe he was an Odd Duck after all.

He’d pointed this out once to his mother, who gave him the sort of look she used when he was meant to Be Quiet Immediately, so he never mentioned it again. Nicholas, however, had overheard the conversation and did mention it again. Often. He liked to call Xavier “Parasite” when their parents couldn’t hear. And sometimes when they could.

But Nicholas wasn’t calling Xavier “Parasite” at that moment. Nicholas was too busy grabbing a second and third slice of pizza to bother with tormenting his younger brother. Or to notice that something was seriously Not Right.

Xavier picked at the burnt edges and prodded at the still-cold cheese in the center of his piece as he watched the back door for his mother’s return. He was very good at being still and silent and observing, but that night, he did not quite understand what any of it meant.

The next few days were quiet in the Fletcher house. Xavier’s father, Arnold, did not come out of the bedroom. His mother scurried about, smelling of the stale smoke she no longer bothered to hide. Once or twice a day, she would take a tray of food up to his father.

A couple of hours later, she would bring the still-full tray back down.

On the third day, Xavier crept carefully up the stairs. He waited outside the closed bedroom door, listening, but all he could make out was a bit of low, rumbly whispering. When the door opened suddenly, his mother came out and scolded him for skulking.

Xavier tried to explain that Observation is not skulking but science, but this only seemed to make his mother angrier. She told him to go Observe his room, and so he did for the rest of the day.

Sitting on his narrow bed, Xavier wondered just how long this very Not Right thing would last. His father had never gone quite so long without a meal. Certainly, he would come around, and everything would be fine again soon. But Arnold Fletcher was a large, broad-chested man with a bit of a belly, and Xavier suspected it might be possible for so large a man to go weeks, maybe even months, without food. Bears did quite well with no food at all for long stretches of time, and Xavier’s father was shaped a bit like a bear.

As it turned out, Xavier did not have to wait weeks or months. In a matter of days, everything became much clearer (and at the same time much more muddled).

His mother called Xavier and Nicholas into the kitchen and sat them both at the table. For a long moment, she didn’t speak. She only sat and stared at her hands instead, twisting the plain gold band on her left finger. Xavier did not think to ask where the glittering diamond she usually wore had gone.

Finally, when Xavier had grown rather uncomfortable and Nicholas had grown rather restless, she spoke in a soft and surprisingly firm voice. Their father, she told Nicholas and Xavier, had lost his job. His mother made it sound as if the job had simply been misplaced, but something in the way her mouth went all tight and her eyes went all glassy made Xavier understand that it wouldn’t be found. Then his mother made it clear, and frighteningly so, that things would have to Change.

Now, sometimes that word—Change—can mean marvelous, wonderful things. Sometimes it can be filled with excitement or contain all the elements of the best possible story. But this time, when Xavier T. Fletcher’s mother said that things would Change, it sounded like the very worst thing in all the world.