Books
Thunderbird Feather
by Kimball Fisher
Zachary None finally gets the break he deserves when he becomes the star of his basketball team. His position at the top of the seventh-grade social ladder is virtually guaranteed despite--or perhaps even because of--his deformed, yet oddly strong left hand. But his hopes of sports fame go up in smoke when a sinister bird-shaped cloud burns down his group home, the fourth such fire. Under suspicion of arson, Zachary and his foster sister, Cricket, are transferred to the Thunderbird Alternative Middle School for juvenile delinquents in Portland, Oregon. The school is just a half-court shot away from an eerie Native American landmark called “The Longhouse.” If the rumors are true, it’s haunted.
By the time Zachary discovers that his peculiar hand is a count-down to demonic possession, it may be too late. Each fire has disabled a finger. Only one more thunderbird strike remains before a dark spirit known as Talon takes over his body. But his reluctance to confront Talon in the Land of the Dead dissolves when the demon kidnaps Cricket from the longhouse. Zachary arms himself with a sacred thunderbird feather and launches into a bone-shaking adventure that brings him face-to-face with skinwalkers, part-human monsters, Sasquatch, and a perplexing trickster.
Ultimately, Zachary’s quest is successful. And in order to free Cricket, avoid becoming possessed by Talon, find his long lost family, beat the arson charges, and heal his hand (as well as his heart) he learns much about friendship, family and what is more important than basketball.
To save his friend and family, Zachary must solve the mysteries of an ancient Native American tribe called the Tillichicket. The Tillichicket are fictional, but their legends and culture are similar to the First Nation people of the Northwest Coast (such a this bridal party from about 1900).
A note on Tillichicket language
The Tillichicket words in Thunderbird Feather are a modified form of the Chinook language. Chinook jargon was used by the early traders in the Pacific Northwest during the late 1800s. It combined words from Nootka, Chinook, Salishan languages, French, and English. Even a secret tribe would have been familiar with it. But the Tillichicket version of Chinook is slightly different to show their isolation from other Native American Nations. In Chinook, for example, the word for wolf is leloo or lelu. In Tillichicket, the word adopted an additional "i" sound to turn into "Leiloo," Guide's true name.
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