Birdy, p.1
Birdy, page 1
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Text copyright © 2026 by N. West Moss
Interior illustrations copyright © 2026 by Carrie Shryock
Morning glory border © Stacey Lynn Crary/Shutterstock.com; book vector © Saramix/Shutterstock.com; line ornament © MF production/Shutterstock.com.
Cover art copyright © 2026 by Carrie Shryock.
Cover design by Jenny Kimura.
Cover copyright © 2026 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Interior design by Michelle Gengaro-Kokmen.
Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Christy Ottaviano Books
Hachette Book Group
1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104
ChristyOttavianoBooks.com
First Edition: February 2026
Christy Ottaviano Books is an imprint of Little, Brown and Company. The Christy Ottaviano Books name and logo are registered trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
Little, Brown and Company books may be purchased in bulk for business, educational, or promotional use. For information, please contact your local bookseller or the Hachette Book Group Special Markets Department at special.markets@hbgusa.com.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Moss, N. West author
Title: Birdy / N. West Moss.
Description: First edition. | New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2026. | Audience: Ages 10–14 | Summary: After losing her mother to cancer and moving in with unfamiliar relatives for the summer, cautious Birdy struggles to adjust while her younger brother, Mouse, quickly grows attached to their new home, until Birdy’s fears lead her to make a mistake that could threaten their future.
Identifiers: LCCN 2025018985 | ISBN 9780316446419 hardcover | ISBN 9780316446617 ebook
Subjects: CYAC: Grief—Fiction | Siblings—Fiction | Foster parents—Fiction | Family life—Fiction | LCGFT: Novels | Fiction
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.M67768 Bi 2026
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2025018985
ISBNs 978-0-316-44641-9 (hardcover), 978-0-316-44661-7 (ebook)
E3-20251212-JV-NF-ORI
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
June 1: Endings and Beginnings
2: Spring Peepers
3: “Home”
4: Birdy’s Heartbeat
5: Scoping Things Out
6: Nighttime Worries
7: The Coffee Can
8: Shadow
9: New to U
July 10: Money, Money, Money
11: Celebrating Fourth of July
12: The Book Club
13: The Stream
14: Uncle Clay and the Animals
15: Signature Things
16: Alma’s House Again
17: Crowded-House Gladness
18: Mighty Oak
19: Alone
20: Fireflies
21: Potatoes and Poutine
22: The Skunk
23: Social Insects
24: Picking Up Twigs
25: Planting Potatoes
26: The Bad-Idea Haircut
27: Sprouts
28: Actual Mail
August 29: Birdy Writes a Letter
30: A Plan
31: About Time
32: Four Thumbs-Up
33: Different Greens
34: Clay Returns
35: Ms. Rachel Teasdale
36: Setting Up Alma’s Home
37: Prosper
38: Friends Maybe
39: Fireflies 2
40: The Missing Money
41: Bad Timing
42: Birdy Speaks Her Mind
43: Mitzie’s Rules
September 44: The Track
Acknowledgments
About the Author
To Warren Balgooyen
Who taught me to love Nature
. 1 .
Endings and Beginnings
Birdy sat in the moving train, staring out the window, sucking on a strand of hair. She tried to tune out the obnoxious guy on his cell phone a few seats back. She had a lot on her mind. Quiet would be nice.
It was nighttime, and the train was leaving New York City behind as she and Mouse rode upstate with “Aunt” Mitzie. Birdy was eleven, and leaving the city was a big deal. They’d never lived anywhere else. She knew every sign, every store owner, every garbage can on the streets of her Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, knew all the people in all the apartments in her building, knew how the subways and buses worked. All her memories with her mother were there too—and here she was on a train hurtling away from all of it, probably forever.
When they told her that her mother had finally died, Birdy lay on the floor of the McGraths’ apartment (they had been next-door neighbors for Birdy’s whole life), sirens wailing outside, and thought the world would stop, but it hadn’t. After a while, she heard noise on the street below: people shouting, taxis honking. The world kept spinning. When the McGraths brought home chocolate ice cream that night, it tasted good, which was surprising. Life moved forward.
Her mother had said, “When you see the moon, Birdy, I want you to think of me,” which had sounded lovely, but now it made Birdy sad to see the moon out the train window. She looked down at her little brother asleep against her. He was scrawny, with those long eyelashes of his. He’d asked her a hundred times, “Do you think they’ll like us?” What could she say? How should she know?
She wished that the guy on his phone, going on and on about “derivatives,” would shut up. Her mother had decreed that “shut up” was a swear. Shut up, she thought toward the phone guy. Shut up.
Mitzie sat across from Birdy, her mouth hanging open as she slept. She had curly white hair and cherry-red glasses. She looked kind of sturdy to Birdy, but she reminded herself that this woman was a total stranger. Until the social worker intervened a few weeks ago, none of them had even known about one another. She’d come to get them the day after school ended—the same day they got on the train. “I’m not exactly your aunt,” Mitzie had said when they were introduced earlier that morning in New York City. She had on a long, bright red cotton dress that matched her glasses, and wore a hundred bracelets that clacked around when she moved her arm. “I’m more like a third or fourth cousin once removed on your father’s side, but calling me Third-or-Fourth-Cousin Mitzie would be a mouthful. Well,” she’d said, when no one laughed, “where are your suitcases? We have a train to catch.”
There had only been one suitcase between them, filled with stuff the McGraths had bought them: new toothbrushes, pajamas, a little bundle of important papers stuffed in a Ziploc bag. Mouse’s science textbook from the lost and found was in there too (he was super smart, a “brainiac”), as was a bag of walnuts in the shell. The McGraths had given that to Birdy as a farewell present. She’d said thank you, even though it was pistachios she loved. Her mother had kept a big glass bowl full of pistachios on the kitchen counter, when there had been enough money.
It wasn’t the hugest deal on earth that the McGraths had gotten it wrong, except that it showed how no one really knew them anymore. And well, pistachios were one of the easiest things to know about Birdy. Like, if you didn’t know that about her, chances were you didn’t know anything about her.
Birdy twirled a piece of hair and made a list of all the endings she’d had recently.
Her mother was gone, had been dead for six entire weeks. There was no ending on earth bigger than that.
Goodbye, New York City. Another ending.
The school year had been over for twenty-four hours. Good riddance.
Then she thought about beginnings.
Moving to Constable in upstate New York.
A new school.
A new home with Mitzie and Shadow. (She wasn’t ready yet to call them “Aunt” and “Uncle.”)
She and Mouse were supposed to stay with them for six months until the social workers figured things out, but now that Shadow was in the hospital with a broken ankle and maybe a broken hip, who really knew?
Birdy never said it out loud to anyone, but her mother’s death had been a little bit of a relief—a horrible thing to think, but still true. She had been in and out of hospitals for years fighting her cancer, and it was awful to always worry about her, awful to watch her hair fall out, to listen to the watery cough that eventually turned into something worse.
It was still shocking and sad. Every day Birdy had to re-remember that her mother was gone for forever, that her mother would never fix her hair in a loose braid at the back of her head again, would never share a bowl of popcorn with M&M’s in it again.
She leaned her face against the cool window, remembering how her mother hadn’t ever been ideal, even way back when she’d been healthy . Everyone wanted Birdy to look at the bright side, to pretend that things had been perfect before Mom was sick maybe, before Dad (whom Birdy didn’t remember except from pictures) had died, but they’d never been perfect, and she didn’t like people trying to cheer her up.
She made a list in her head of things that she knew were true.
True
Her mom had worked hard at some awful jobs to try and make life better.
Her mother had tried to keep pistachios on the counter for her.
They were always so worried about money.
Her mom had been sick, when you counted the first time she had cancer, for pretty much as far back as Birdy could remember.
She’d also been mean sometimes, mostly when she was sick.
She’d been overwhelmed.
Nice memories? She had to think.
Well, the whole reason her mother worked so hard was because she loved Birdy and Mouse, that was for sure. She hugged really well, and had smelled like lemon peels and the way cotton curtains hanging in a sunny window smell—heaven. Sometimes Mom would lie on the couch and let Birdy climb under the blanket with her. Her mother would read to her, or twirl pieces of Birdy’s long hair with her fingers.
“Waaaaay upstate,” the social worker had said, explaining why they’d never met, much less heard of, these distant relatives, Mitzie and Shadow. Birdy knew this beginning might be horrible, but she also knew she’d survive it.
She scrunched down in her seat, moving Mouse’s head so she could get comfortable. He blinked his eyes open and asked, “Where are we?”
“On a train,” she whispered, not wanting to wake Mitzie, whose red glasses were sliding down her nose.
“A train?”
“Yes. To Constable, remember?” She’d told him this a thousand times. His torn-up cuticles made her feel tender, though, and the scab on his knee, and his long, long eyelashes. “Eyelashes like a movie star,” their mother had said. No one had seen them the way their mother had.
“Go back to sleep.”
“Do you think they’ll like us?” He yawned.
“They’ll like you for sure.”
The urgent thing was to stay together. The only thing they carried with them of any value now was one another.
Once his eyes closed, she put the hair back in her mouth. The guy on the phone had finally stopped squawking. Everyone around her was asleep, so she could do what she wanted. Birdy closed her eyes. The way the train rocked, and the noise it made clattering around on its tracks in the misty dark, helped Birdy’s mind settle down until she could finally fall into a light sleep.
. 2 .
Spring Peepers
“May?” Mitzie was leaning over Birdy, whispering into her ear. “We’re getting off at the next stop. Time to get up.”
Birdy sat up and said, “Come on, Michael.” He looked around, red-eyed. “Just follow me. And don’t pick at your knee.” He pulled his hand from his scab. “Pull up your socks,” she whispered. He never pulled up his socks.
It was after midnight when they stepped off the train, and the nighttime air smelled wet and sweet.
Mitzie asked, “Can you hear the peepers?”
“Peepers?”
“Okay, well, listen for a second.” Mitzie bent down between the two kids. “You hear that chirping sound?”
“Peepers?” asked Mouse.
“Yup. They’re frogs,” she said, straightening up. “They come out as soon as things thaw around here in spring, and then they sing all summer long.” Birdy could see that Mitzie looked tired, which made Birdy feel uncertain. “I used to camp out on the porch in summers when I was a kid and I loved listening to the spring peepers. You feel like you have company when they’re out.”
It was dark in the parking lot, and Mitzie fumbled around with the keys. “I don’t usually drive,” she said. “Shadow’s the driver.”
The kids buckled their seat belts in the back seat as Mitzie started the car and adjusted her rearview mirror. “What happened to him?” Mouse asked, Birdy shushing him.
“Oh, well, he was helping me set up your bedrooms last night and fell backward… slipped is all. Nothing big, but he landed funny and broke his ankle and they’re keeping him in the hospital to make sure his hip’s okay.” Birdy could see Mitzie’s eyes in the rearview mirror, and they didn’t look like everything was going to be fine. Birdy tried to make her eyes smile when they met Mitzie’s in the mirror. “Oh, but he’ll be okay. I just wish he was here with us now, is all.”
“I’m cold,” Mouse said. Birdy shushed him again, and put her arm around him as Mitzie backed up and began the slow, careful drive through the darkness to their new home.
. 3 .
“Home”
They pulled onto a long gravel driveway that went through the woods to a little red house with a screened-in porch.
They followed Mitzie (who was carrying their one suitcase) into the house and upstairs.
“This is May’s room,” she said, flipping on the light. It was a big, almost-empty room with a large bed in the far corner by the window. It was so big and empty it was almost echoey. “We have to find you some more furniture,” she admitted. “And right over here is Michael’s room.” It was tiny as a closet. She flopped the suitcase on his bed and unzipped it. “Okay, looks like you have your toothbrushes here and something to sleep in.” Birdy had followed her into Mouse’s room. “You don’t have much, do you? Hmmmm.” Mitzie tapped her finger against her lip, thinking.
“We don’t need much,” Birdy said. There were a few T-shirts, but not much else, which was pretty embarrassing.
“We’ll have to find you two some clothes after Shadow gets back.” She pointed over her shoulder with her thumb.
“The bathroom’s just over there. There are towels in the closet. Anything else you need? Are you hungry?” Mouse was yawning, and Birdy could hardly keep her eyes open. “Okay, then, brush your teeth, go to sleep, and I’ll wake you up for breakfast. We’ll go over things in the morning.” She started to leave the room but hesitated in the doorway. “If you want to, leave the bathroom light on. Leave your doors open.” She looked apologetic. “Whatever you want to do is fine.”
“Okay,” said Birdy. She thought of saying a lot of things, like thank you for taking us and thanks for keeping us together and thank you for coming all the way to New York City even with your husband in the hospital, and for not asking a lot of questions, but Birdy hated saying thank you all the time. It made her feel needy, which she guessed she was. “Okay,” she said again, to fill the quiet of her missing thank-yous.
“Good night, you two.”
. 4 .
Birdy’s Heartbeat
Birdy lay in bed in the dark, her heart still beating on New York City time, out of sync with the quiet around her. Not even a TV was on, and there were no horns honking or trucks backing up outside her window. There were no streetlights either, or car lights, or billboards blinking. It was dark and quiet, and she thought she might suffocate.
She didn’t want to worry about clothes or whether these people would turn out to be jerks. A guy named Shadow was probably ominous, right? What if they’d want to talk about her emotions or her grades? Would they hassle her about sucking her hair, or would they find new things to bug her about, things that she couldn’t even yet imagine?
Every single inch of her body and mind were so exhausted that she didn’t think she had any room for something new to worry about. She wanted to wrap up inside twelve blankets and just rest for forever.
She tried not to think about her mom dying all alone in the hospital without the two of them there, coughing a lot probably, no one to hold her hand. The painful thoughts spooled out from Birdy like she was a ball of misery twine. She didn’t want to think about how much she missed her mother, or how mad she was at her for dying, or for being so sad, or for leaving Birdy in charge all the time. She was mad at her mother for having to work so much, and for being impatient. Once, she shouted right into Mouse’s face when she’d been in one of her moods. Birdy could still see his long eyelashes blinking against the shouts. “Are you stupid?” Mom had shouted at him. Shut up, Birdy thought. Shut up!
