The Feather Behind the Blue Label

Chapter 1The Empty Place

The long gray feather was missing.

Yesterday it had lain between a small spotted feather and a picture of a goose. Now there was only a pale strip of felt.

Mendy pressed closer to the glass case.

His class had made the bird exhibit for the school corridor. Each feather had come from a collection their teacher had checked and supplied. Nobody was allowed to open the case alone.

The blue labels named the birds. The gray feather's label still stood upright.

"The best one is gone," Mendy said.

His friend Shloimy looked through the glass.

"Maybe Mr. Adler moved it."

"He said the case was finished."

Mendy stepped back. At the end of the corridor, a younger boy was looking at a white feather in his hand.

Chapter 2A White Feather

Mendy walked toward him.

"Where did you get that?"

The boy closed his fingers.

"My teacher gave it to me."

"Which teacher?"

Shloimy caught up. He looked at the boy's feather and then at Mendy.

"Ours was gray. And longer."

Mendy looked properly.

The boy's feather was white, with a short curved tip. It did not resemble the exhibit feather at all.

"I thought something was missing from our case," Mendy said.

"This is for my picture."

The boy opened his hand, but Mendy did not ask to touch it.

He and Shloimy went back to the case.

The pale strip of felt was still empty.

Chapter 3One Glass Wall

Mr. Adler arrived carrying a stack of exercise books.

Mendy told him about the empty place.

"I have not removed anything," Mr. Adler said.

He put the books on a shelf and took the case key from his pocket.

Before opening it, he asked the boys to show him exactly where they had looked.

Mendy pointed through the front glass.

Mr. Adler leaned down. He looked through the glass at one end of the case, then through the other.

The boys followed him.

From the right, Mendy could see behind the blue label. Something gray lay along its folded paper base.

He went back to the front.

From there, the label hid it completely.

Chapter 4Under the Fold

Mr. Adler opened the case and lifted the label.

The gray feather came with it.

Its thin central shaft had caught beneath the folded base. Most of it lay flat behind the sign.

Mendy let out a breath.

"But it was here yesterday."

"Yes," Mr. Adler said. "When we stood this label upright, the feather must have slipped behind it."

Yesterday the label had lain flat while its glue dried. Mendy remembered reading the bird name from above.

Shloimy remembered the teacher raising it before they left.

Neither boy had checked the whole feather afterward.

Mr. Adler set it back in the open space.

The feather was not damaged. It had not left the case at all.

Chapter 5A Better Place to Stand

Mr. Adler tried the label farther back.

It still covered the feather's narrow tip when viewed from the front.

Mendy moved to the place where a smaller child would stand. He bent his knees and looked again.

"It hides even more from down here."

Mr. Adler shortened the label's folded stand. Shloimy held it while the teacher fixed it beside the feather rather than in front.

They stepped away before the case closed.

From the front, both the bird name and the feather were visible. From either end, nothing disappeared behind the sign.

Mendy checked from the smaller child's height once more.

Then Mr. Adler locked the case.

The key went back into his pocket.

Chapter 6The Corridor Guide

That afternoon, the younger class visited the exhibit.

The boy with the white feather was among them. His feather was now pasted on a drawing of a bird, which he carried in a folder.

Mendy showed the class the long gray feather.

"This one was hiding this morning," he said.

"Inside the case?" the boy asked.

"Behind its own label. I only looked from one side."

Shloimy pointed out the spotted feather next.

The younger children moved along the corridor, asking questions about wings and nests.

When they had gone, Mendy stood at the right end of the case again.

He could see the blue label's folded base. There was nothing beneath it now.

At the front, the gray feather stretched across its felt strip.

Mendy liked being the exhibit guide. This time, he waited until he had looked before telling anyone what was there.