On Becoming Ernest
My second grade teacher wrote my name in cursive on a folder. Seana. She drew a beak on the capital S. I added eyes, legs, and feathers until my signature looked like a cross between a peacock and an angel, with long upsweeping wings and an enormous tail. With repetition, my signature became simpler—one stroke for the beak, two for the legs, one for the wing, and a dot for the eye. A friend told me that Betty, a crow, had learned to bend a piece of wire into a hook, using it to hoist a bucket of food within reach. At that moment, my bird signature became permanent. I knew that if I were caricatured, I would be a bird.
Logically, I should have started with Ernest's feet and finished with his head. But as I held the lump of soft clay, I dented eyes with my thumbs, flattened the top of his head, and pulled out a beak. I held a squawking face. I lengthened his neck until he looked like a large hand puppet. I stopped, unsure. I studied the disintegrating chicken skeleton in my biology classroom and borrowed books on anatomy. My bird grew, top down, until he stood as high as my knee. Pretending to stretch, I hunched my shoulders, extended my arms, and imagined how his wings might flap. Finally, I shaped his wings. I gently curved them until they beat the air. I made his feet last, prodding the clay into ankles, knuckles, and webbed toes. I was afraid to separate the digits. The year before, I had made a baby dragon with a squat, twisting body, large head, grasshopper legs, and webbed hands. His look of resigned disbelief made me wonder if someone had drained his pond. When I had cut the webs from between his fingers, separating them, many of his fingers had broken. Each had to be scored, dabbed with vinegar, and rejoined. I resolved that the bird would have webbed feet.
When my mother called him "Big Bird," I decided he needed a name. First I christened him "Adam," for the Original Bird. It didn't suit him. With his stubby wings, reaching the apple was out of the question. He belonged on the ground, foraging. Still gulping his last mouthful, with one foot slightly raised, he peers forward, flapping his small wings. With his huge orange feet, red body, and raised yellow crest, he looks ridiculous. Adam was too staid a name for him. I renamed him Ernest. Standing on the living room floor, he seemed out of place. He needed a reason to be earnest. I searched online for emu farms in Australia. Several weeks later, I lifted a large, dark green egg from its cardboard box. I set it before him. He craned his neck, gulped in amazement, and opened his beak in a silent squawk. Ernest had found an egg.