Of a Feather Page 6

  “Let’s take a look at him,” she says, placing the owl on an examining table. She removes the blanket and quickly places a smaller towel over the owl’s head. She checks his back, then extends each wing, all while holding his body still. Dr. Cho then folds the wings in and turns him over. She blows on his spotted chest feathers.

  “Why are you doing that?” I ask.

  “To see his skin,” she says.

  “If it’s scaly,” Beatrice says, returning after having changed into a set of scrubs, “he’s dehydrated.”

  “Which he is,” Dr. Cho says. “Well, you diagnosed it as far as I can tell. He hurt his wing—it looks like a puncture from a talon. He may have fallen out of his nest while branching and been attacked by another bird of prey . . . though he’s a bit old for that.”

  “Branching” is when a baby bird moves from the nest to hopping around on the branches of the tree the nest is in. It’s the bird equivalent of crawling.

  “He’s had the wound for a day or so. But he hasn’t eaten or had a good drink in longer than that.” She touches what would be his breastbone if he were a human. “His muscle tone is poor.”

  “But we can save him, right?” I ask, practically falling off my bench listening to the diagnosis.

  Dr. Cho smiles as she places the owl back on his feet. “We can try,” she says.

  I do not like her lack of commitment.

  The doctor stuff starts. Dr. Cho pulls out this syringe with a length of tube off the end of it instead of a needle. She shoves the tube down my owl’s throat. “Hydration,” she tells me. I cringe, dig my fingers into the underside of the bench. She finally pulls the tube out, then begins working on the wing. While she cleans my owl’s wounds, Beatrice retrieves from the back a large dog crate with solid plastic walls. Once satisfied with her work, Dr. Cho puts the owl into the crate.

  My owl shuffles and flaps to the back of the crate, then huddles against the back wall, big eyes glaring at us.

  “Now it’s up to him,” Dr. Cho says.

  We all look at the lump of feathers with the enormous eyes, and he scowls back at us.

  Fight, I tell him, as if our eyes can communicate. You fight and I’ll fight with you.

  * * *

  We take him home and Beatrice leads me to the dining room. I see now why she keeps it closed off. The room is mostly bare and the windows are shuttered, so it’s dim as evening even though it’s midday. There’s a table on one end and a smallish stained couch on the other. Its upholstery looks like it’s been hit by a cheese shredder. In the center of the room is a perch.

  “This is my training room,” she explains, lowering the crate to the floor near a wall. “If there’s too much stuff in it, the hawk gets nervous. Same about exposure to the outside, or light.”

  “We should feed him,” I say, kneeling in front of the crate. My owl is still hunched at the back: a petrified owl statue with great golden eyes. “Maybe some lunch will help him feel less afraid.”

  “Some lunch will help me,” Beatrice says, and walks out of the room.

  I drop to my knees and then stretch my legs back so I’m on my stomach in front of the crate. I rest my face on the backs of my hands. It’s just me and the owl.

  Rufus.

  The name just comes to me.

  The owl has looked away, his head rotating to inspect the walls of the crate. Did he tell me his name?

  No, of course not. That’s insane. But I like the name: Rufus. He looks like a Rufus.

  “I’m Reenie,” I whisper.

  His eyes are instantly back on me, staring down my face like just a look from him could kill.

  I bet he makes every animal in the forest run screaming with that look.

  You are one tough little owl, I think to him. You can do this, Rufus. You can get better.

  “You making friends?” Beatrice has returned with a plate full of dripping-wet diced meat.

  “Rufus needs a friend.”

  “Rufus?”

  “He looks like a Rufus.” I scooch up to sit on my butt and reach out a hand for the food. Beatrice hesitates, but then gives it to me. I open the crate door and slip the plate in.

  Rufus’s eyes don’t leave me. He doesn’t make a move toward the food, either.

  “Do you think he knows what we just gave him?” I ask.

  “He knows,” she says. She kneels down, peeks in on Rufus. “He might be too weak to eat.”

  My heart cramps hearing her say that. But this is my owl, and we’re in this fight together. “So what do I do?”

  “You?” Beatrice’s eyebrows lift. She lowers a towel over the crate’s door. “Maureen, this is different than with Red. This is a wild bird. It doesn’t understand what’s happening to it, it’s scared, and it will lash out. You need to promise me you’ll leave this owl alone, let me handle it.”

  My jaw clenches down so hard, I worry my teeth might shatter. Who is this lady to get between me and Rufus? “But I can help you. You let me hold him.” I give her a Rufus glare.

  “Maureen, I’m a licensed rehabber. I can’t—”

  “Please,” I snap.

  She considers the situation a moment longer, and then maybe she finally gets that there’s no way I’m not doing anything and everything to make Rufus better, because she stands and grabs something from the table at the end of the room.

  “Here,” she says, and hands me a pair of long metal tongs. “Pick up a tidbit and hold it out to him.” She lifts the towel and opens the crate door.

  Just removing that metal wall sends tingles all over me. I pinch a bit of meat from the plate with the tongs and hold it out to Rufus. He’s looking at me the whole time.

  “He doesn’t even seem to notice the food.” I give it a shake and nearly lose the tidbit from my tongs.

  “Imagine if two giant, feathered monsters plucked you out of the grass, stuffed you in a box, and started poking you. You might not want to take your eyes off them for a minute.”

  She’s right. I have to get into my bird brain—my owl brain. What do I even know about owls? He’s glaring at me, but when I move, he moves his whole head to follow, not just his eyes—can he move his eyes? I wonder if he can even see the tidbit that close. I decide to try something I saw in one of the YouTube videos I watched about training hawks: I rub the tidbit right up against Rufus’s beak.

  That startles him a little, but he snaps onto the tidbit and gulps it down.

  “Good,” Beatrice says, kneeling beside me like a coach. “Now try a second bite.”

  I get him to eat everything on the plate.

  He seems sated. At least, his eyes are slightly less terrified and slightly more satisfied.

  And I did that.

  “See?” I say to Beatrice. “I helped.”

  “You did,” she says, though in a way that sounds like maybe she thinks this was a fluke.

  “So I can help you?” I want guarantees.

  She glances in at Rufus. “Looks like I don’t have a choice.” Her mouth quirks up at the corner. She doesn’t look or sound angry. She almost sounds happy. Whatever.

  “Can I stay with him?”

  She flips the towel over the door. “If you want.” She leaves.

  I peek in through the strip of grating along the side of the crate. Rufus is staring right at me, like he knew I’d be there.

  I spend the whole rest of the afternoon just sitting there, watching him watching me.

  8

  Rufus

  The furless creature has fallen asleep. Its bare face is half covered by the frizz of brown hair that sprouts from its head. It is my chance.

  I must escape this cave and find a place to pellet. The cave is larger than any tree hole I’ve lived in, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to foul my nest. There are standards to be maintained. Even for the Absolute Worst Great Horned Owl in All of Owldom.

  I creep forward and the cave shifts. Its walls groan and scratch. This cave does not seem to be stable.

  The ope
ning of the cave is blocked by some kind of web—the same web that had protected the mouse that trapped me. My talons are no use on it.

  Pellets.

  So I am stuck in here? The furless creature is going to force me to foul my nest?

  I WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS!

  My screech has woken it up.

  It pushes aside the skin that hung down over the outside of the web and peers in at me, growls something. It looks away, howls for its mate: the big one with the gray fur tail dangling off its head.

  They grumble to each other. I keep up the chatter to remind them that THINGS ARE DESPERATE. They must remove this web.

  The one with the gray tail kneels in front of the cave and fiddles with the web. Some agreement must have been reached regarding my freedom. It grabs my feet in one thick, rough paw, wraps the other around my wings so I have no chance to fly, and carries me across what appears to be an even larger cave that my small nest-cave is inside to another small cave in the opposite corner.

  So these are my options? Pellet in this nest or pellet in my own? These furless creatures are ruthless. The first chance I get, I am escaping this nightmare.

  Once I have expelled my pellet, the gray tail snatches me up and puts me back in my nest-cave. The web is resealed over its opening. The brown-frizz creature resumes its watch.

  I’ve seen animals play with their meals, but these furless creatures are taking things to an extreme. First, I’m poked and stretched and blustered by the smallish one with the black fur on its head. Then these two put me in this cave within a cave. I sense other owls have been trapped in here. Or at least other birds. There are talon scratches in the walls of the cave.

  Is this what happened to my mother? She was taken by a furless creature. The shadowy silhouette that emerged from the rumbling monster was the same as these creatures’ forms. And now, having been inside a rumbling monster myself, I realize that she was not eaten by the monster. She was . . . or will be . . . eaten by the furless creature.

  I wish Mother were here. I mean, not that she should be trapped with me or eaten, but just that, if we’re both to be trapped and eaten, I wish that we could have been trapped and eaten together.

  This is how bad things are? My one wish is to die with my mother at the hands of these skin monsters?

  I huddle as far from the cave’s web as I can get and glare at the furless creature. I may be the Absolute Worst Great Horned Owl in All of Owldom, but I am still a great horned owl. I will not be taken down without a fight.

  * * *

  The furless creature has produced a squarish, flat rock that glows like moonlight on water. It taps the flat stone with its featherless wing-toes, the light flashes, and noise comes out of the rock. It sounds like . . . Great Beak, there are owls in that stone!

  I start chirping quietly. Maybe the furless creature won’t notice . . . Maybe the owls will hear me and bring help.

  But the furless creature notices. It puts the flat rock down, and the rock goes dark. The other owls cease to hoot.

  Pellets.

  The furless creature growls softly, all the while staring at me with its tiny brown eyes. It pinches a bit of mouse in its long, sharp, shiny removable claw and shoves the morsel in through the web.

  “No way, Skin Monster,” I squawk, clacking my beak and retreating to the back of the cave.

  I will not fatten myself up for its dinner. The furless creature can go choke on a bone.

  But the furless creature is undeterred. It growls again, puts its face right up to the web. And then it does the strangest thing: It eats a nut. Or at least, something squishy and squarish that smells nutty. And right in front of my cave. I may not be able to smell much, but I can smell that! It chomps away on nuts like some overgrown squirrel that shed its fur like a leaf tree in winter.

  This creature is taunting me.

  Then again, it seems to really be enjoying those nuts.

  Could it be that the furless creature is not keeping me here to eat me?

  The smallish creature with the black hair on its head did seem to be surrounded by all sorts of animals. I heard everything from a rabbit snuffle to a coyote’s snort while in its cave. My wing does feel less hot and stingy after whatever the creature did to it. And the creatures were awfully nice about not making me foul my nest earlier.

  Could it be that the furless creatures help other creatures? And eat nuts?

  The furless creature puts its nuts away. It slips one big, rough paw over its naked little wing-toes and then picks up a mouse morsel. It fiddles with the web and then the web opens a crack. The paw reaches in with the mouse.

  The meat does look good.

  And I am a bit peckish.

  I chance a step toward the paw.

  The paw holds still. The mouse beckons with sanguine odors.

  I chance another step. The noise of the furless creature’s huge heart pounding in its chest rattles my skull. What is it so nervous about?

  Stretching my beak, I snap onto the morsel and gobble it down.

  The creature gives off an excited squeak. It slips the paw back out of my cave, grabs another mouse morsel, and slowly, ever so slowly, moves the mouse toward me.

  That one bite has got my gizzard screeching. I snap at the paw.

  The creature grumbles, pulls the paw back.

  Is it afraid of my beak?

  I ruffle my feathers, lay back my ear tufts. “Okay, furless creature,” I chirp. “I promise I will not bite your paw.”

  The creature must understand Owlish because it slowly brings the paw closer to me. I let it get right up near my beak and then carefully, not scraping even a scrap of that doofy paw, peck the morsel off the paw and gobble it down.

  The creature squeaks again. Its face contorts into this creepy sneer. It looks happy, though. Its heart has slowed down.

  This is what it wants? To have me nibble off its paw?

  There’s a hoot in my head that it is unbecoming of a great horned owl to eat off any animal’s paw. But, then again, I am the Absolute Worst Great Horned Owl ever. And I am still feeling off—weak and thirsty and hungry as a bear coming out of its sleep cave.

  Perhaps eating off a paw is not such a bad thing. Perhaps, given recent events, I don’t give a hoot whether it’s becoming or not.

  The creature grabs some more mouse with its paw and we go back and forth like this, me carefully nibbling off the paw, the creature squeaking with delight at each bite, until I am as full as I have ever been in my life.

  When I can’t suffer another beakful, I hoot quietly, “That’ll be good morning,” and shuffle to the back of the cave, where I’ve scrunched up the thin, nubby matted fur on the bottom of the cave into a bit of a nest. I snuggle down into myself, let my eyelids drift up, and catch the furless creature outside the web snuggling down into itself, its eyelids drooping.

  It’s nice to go to sleep with another heartbeat in your ears, even if it is the heartbeat of a giant furless beast.

  9

  Reenie

  Beatrice wakes me with a shake of the shoulder. “You slept here all night?”

  I wipe sleep from my eyes. “I don’t mind sleeping on the floor.” I push myself up onto my elbows. Rufus is still snoozing at the back of the crate.

  “You fed the owl again?” She picks up the empty, blood-smeared plate I used last night.

  “He ate off the glove,” I say, the words bringing the excitement back in a wave.

  Beatrice does not look quite as pleased. “You stuck your hand in the crate?”

  “Only with my glove on.” I curl my knees into my chest. “He wouldn’t eat off the tongs.”

  “Maureen, I said you could help. Help means help me, which means I have to be here if you do anything.”

  “But he was hungry. And nothing happened.”

  Beatrice kneels down, looks in on Rufus. “He’s weak, so he’s not going to put up as much of a fight, but trust me, birds of prey are not pets. If he wanted to, he could do some real da
mage with those talons.” She holds out her arm, which bears a few roundish, talon-shaped scars.

  “I’m not stupid,” I say. I don’t want a lecture. “I thought the whole point was to try to train a hawk.”

  “A hawk,” she says, getting a little loud. “Not a great horned owl. Owls are notoriously hard to train. Plus, it’s illegal. This is a rehab bird. We make him better and then we release him back out to his wild life.

  “I need to know you’ll follow my rules with this. You can’t just do whatever comes into your head. There’s a bird’s life at stake here. And your own safety,” she adds.

  She stares at me and I glare back, but the buzz fires up. What if she sends Rufus away? Gives him to Dr. Cho or some other rehabber? Because of me . . .

  “I just wanted him to eat something.” My stomach has wrenched into a fist. “I won’t do it again.”

  Beatrice’s shoulders slump. “I’m not angry,” she says. “I just—I don’t want you or the bird to get hurt.”

  “I was careful,” I whisper.

  She sighs, turns the plate in her hands. “I’m sure you were,” she says, and stands. She walks the plate into the kitchen.

  I sit there, curled tight, and watch Rufus sleep. It’s dark in here, even with the door open a crack. But I can tell from the light in the kitchen that the sun’s been up for a while.

  “What time is it?” I ask, stretching my legs.

  Beatrice doesn’t answer. I hear water running. My foot kicks the tablet I borrowed last night to research owls. I tap the screen. It’s past nine.

  I jump up and scramble into the kitchen. “Don’t we have to get to Rutland?” Visitation started fifteen minutes ago!

  Beatrice turns off the water. “The social worker called. Your mom—” Beatrice shakes the plate, puts it on the drying rack. “She wasn’t feeling great.”

  “Is she sick?”

  “She was . . . she had to go back to the hospital.”

  I hold my face together, but something inside me wilts. For a whole month at the treatment center, she had been doing better, and now she’s back in the hospital? Obviously, this has something to do with me. I should never have told her about Phil and the plate. I’ve been taking care of Mom for my whole life—how could I have been so careless and let that slip?