by Kaela Noel
The two strangers clomped and crunched across the gravel toward Coo. The few lingering pigeons heaved up and headed in a wave toward the roof. But Coo couldn’t go with them. She had to stay put, still as no breeze, and hope these big scowling humans didn’t see her.
She almost made it. But just as the officers reached the fence, the crackling metal box one held in his hand suddenly began to speak. It had a voice. Like a human! It took all Coo had inside her not to scream. But she did jump. The bush shook.
“Aha!” cried Tully. “She’s there. Come out, Coo! It’s safe. These policemen are here to help you.”
At the very same moment, a streak of gray fuzz shot out from another bush and right through the hole in the fence. Yowling, it zipped past the policemen and Tully and disappeared up the alley.
It was the cat that had nearly eaten Burr, and for the first time, Coo was grateful for it.
“Are you sure you saw a kid, ma’am? Not a cat or a raccoon or something?”
The two officers laughed.
Tully did not laugh. She looked anxious. “Of course I know a child from a wild animal,” she said.
“Well, next time call us as soon as you see her. Or rabid raccoons or anything. Here’s my card.” One of the officers handed Tully a small flat piece of paper. “Or bring her to the precinct, if she’ll come with you. Good luck with that, though. It sounds like she’s a truant.”
“A truant?”
“Skipping school. There have been some car break-ins around here, and someone reported seeing a kid loitering near one of ’em. White, thin. Maybe it’s the kid you saw.”
“Listen, Officer,” said Tully. “She is a child. All by herself. This is serious. You aren’t going to search for her?”
The officers began to trudge back up the alley. Tully trailed behind. They continued to babble. None of it made sense, though Coo could muddle through some of the tones—joking and impatient from the two strangers, anxious and sad from Tully.
“We’ll check tomorrow, okay? If you see her again, we can do a full search of the building,” said one of the officers. “So far there haven’t been any other reports. And no missing kids or teens fitting your description. But keep in touch with us, okay? We’ll fill out a report in the cruiser.”
They vanished around the bend and their voices faded.
Coo let go of the branch she’d been clutching and realized she’d gripped it so hard she’d drawn blood. She licked her wound, watching the alley.
Coo did not dare go down to the ground again. Not later that day, when Tully returned alone, scattering seed and calling Coo’s name over and over. Not the next day, when more officers arrived and stomped and peered and shouted all over the alley and even inside the building below her, hitting the fence with black sticks and barking into their crackling boxes. Nor did she go down in the days that followed, each colder than the last, when Tully appeared looking sadder and sadder, and called Coo’s name in a quieter and quieter voice.
Coo mostly stayed cooped up in the dovecote. It felt safest. Chilled rain came, and she burrowed more deeply into her nest, trying hard not to think about Burr, or her curiosity about Tully.
She held out a crumb of hope for Burr. Hoop, the one who had been to the secret and mysterious place where the healer took sick birds, assured Coo again and again that Tully was a good human, and the gruff humans with their sticks and boxes had never appeared during Hoop’s time with her.
“Safe with human, me,” said Hoop. “Dry. Warm. Foot, healed. Gentle, human.”
“Hungry there, you?”
“Never. Kind, the human.”
“Maybe,” snorted Roohoo. “Trust a human, us? Really? Kick, humans do. Always kick.”
“Hush, Roohoo,” said Old Tiktik. “Kind, some humans. Coo, Tully, both very kind.”
It took a long time to heal, Hoop said. Many days and nights. Burr would be back, someday. Coo just had to wait.
Chapter Five
Hunger
“Gone,” the pigeons said one cold morning a few days after Burr disappeared with Tully. The roof sparkled with new frost. They’d returned to the roof with no bagels or donuts or even bread rolls in their beaks. “Dumpster gone.”
Resorting to pecking at the spills around the small bins on the sidewalks, they’d only found scraps. Nothing worth hauling back for Coo.
“Hungry, me,” said Pook, a particularly impatient yearling. “Bagels? Please?”
This wasn’t the first time a dumpster had disappeared. Coo’s stomach rumbled loudly just thinking about it. Long ago, there had been a closer dumpster, one that yielded much more than bagels and donuts: it had bananas, bread, cupcakes, cheese, all in clear sacks that two pigeons working together could haul the short block back to the roof.
Memories of those foods lived in Coo’s memory like a distant summer.
Coo had never seen any kind of dumpster in person, and the pigeons weren’t particularly clear in describing how they looked except that they were the same color as the roof, so she spent hours and hours imagining them: big shining grayish clouds on the ground that spit out delicious food.
Until they didn’t. One day the pigeons had gone to that dumpster, the one with such miraculous variety, and discovered it had vanished. Flown away. Dissolved.
The days that followed had turned into weeks of gnawing, headache-making, frightening hunger, a long, terrible time spent living on nothing more than a few muffin crumbs from a sidewalk trash bin or a beakful of raw dough from an unreliable dumpster far away, before the pigeons found the new one. The bagel-and-donut one.
Now that dumpster had vanished, too. Coo’s heart quickened. She tucked Tully’s red hat snugly over her ears, then retied the brown scarf. Whenever she was worried, she rubbed the scarf’s soft ends against her cheek, and it helped her calm down.
“Back tomorrow?” she asked hopefully. “One gone day, not so bad?”
“Dumpsters? No,” said Roohoo. “Gone now, gone always.”
“Hush,” said Hoop. “Maybe.”
But Roohoo was right. The pigeons returned over and over, at all hours, for days, but the bagel-and-donut dumpster had disappeared for good.
“Eat, you.” Ka dropped a mushy, blackish-yellow object at Coo’s feet. A banana. She hadn’t seen one in so long it was hard to remember what they tasted like.
This one was brown and purple inside and nearly beginning to rot. Coo inhaled it. It was the first big meal she’d had in more than a week.
“Grateful, me,” she said between bites. “Thank you, Ka.”
“Searching hard for you, us,” he said. “Hungry, too, me. Hungry, all.”
“Know it, me.” Coo’s cheeks burned. She stopped chewing and hastily pushed the last bits of banana toward Ka. “Grateful, me. Very grateful.”
It wasn’t like the flock to expend so much energy on just one member. Coo suddenly felt huge and helpless, like a ridiculously overgrown squab refusing to leave the nest. When Burr was around, she’d never felt this way, not once. He always reminded the rest of them how much she mattered and made her feel special. But Burr was gone. Maybe forever. And hardly anyone else seemed to notice or care.
Even New Tiktik was acting a little distant and tired.
“Hard work looking for food,” she said when she brought Coo a soggy, flattened muffin one rainy morning a few days later. “Can’t eat seed, you? Really?”
Coo had long ago discovered that the seed Tully scattered most days did nothing but give her tummy aches. The pigeons still tried bringing her some from time to time, and she felt bad turning it down, especially when they had to look so hard for anything else.
Half-gnawed bagels, torn and dried pizza slices, a few banana chunks. The flock flew farther and farther every day to find food for themselves, and most of the time it was too far to bring anything back for Coo. One evening New Tiktik dared to steal a craggy brown apple core from a squirrel in the rail yard, and Coo ate it gratefully, even though it tasted vile.
; She had stopped playing Find Food. No pigeon besides Burr was ever very encouraging about it, but now the others avoided her when she started. It was sad playing alone. Besides that, pretending about food was no fun when you wanted the real kind and couldn’t have it. Looking at rocks that were supposed to be donuts made Coo’s hunger pains worse.
“Miss Burr, me,” she said wistfully.
“Find him, you,” said New Tiktik. “Down on the ground. Get food, too.”
“What? Cats there. Cars there. Scary! No.”
“Not scary,” said New Tiktik. “Go on, you. Ask human, you. About food and Burr.”
“Can’t ask human, me. Remember? Don’t speak human.”
It confused New Tiktik as much as it did Coo. If Coo was really a human, like Roohoo said, why couldn’t she understand Tully? Pigeons never had trouble understanding other pigeons, even from different flocks.
Coo puzzled over this again, rubbing her head, but it was hard to think when she was so hungry.
“Give you food anyway, Tully.” New Tiktik and the other pigeons knew the healer’s human name now. “Show you Burr, too, her. Both humans, you. Go down.”
“Don’t want to, me.”
Coo thought of the strangers Tully had brought into the alley and shuddered.
“Starve on roof, you.” Ka landed next to her. “All struggling, us.”
“Get her own food, Coo,” Roohoo said, hopping down next to Ka. “Human, she is! Remember?”
Coo stared at her hands. The air was frigid. Her fingers were thin and red.
Ka wasn’t mean like Roohoo, but he was stern.
“Not a squab, you,” Ka said quietly. “Time to get food like a big pigeon, you.”
The next morning Coo stared over the edge of the roof, looking for Tully. The healer came less and less frequently these days. Coo was growing so weak, it hurt to think about climbing down the fire escape. Her stomach was as dry and empty as a broken eggshell.
At last she heard Tully coming down the alley. She peeked over the side and watched her scatter the birdseed. Hungry, every last flock member zoomed down to eat. Coo was alone on the roof.
She leaned over the fire escape, hesitating. Without New Tiktik to encourage her, or Ka to nudge her, the trip down was daunting. Worse, she felt dizzy. She steadied herself and closed her eyes.
Suddenly she heard Tully’s voice.
“Coo! Is that you on the roof? I see your hat!”
Coo startled. All at once her head felt as light as a plastic bag twirling in the wind. She sunk down against the low wall that ran around the roof and closed her eyes. Tully’s voice sounded very far away. She thought about Burr and other sick pigeons she’d known. How frightening it was to feel ill! She tried to call for her flock, but panic stole her voice.
She lay curled in a ball for a long time. Eventually Tully stopped calling for her. The flock returned from feasting in the alley. Most of them ignored her, but New Tiktik and Hoop brought her some sweet crumbs they’d found a few blocks away. It was enough to revive her so she could stagger back to the dovecote. None of the other pigeons talked to her.
With Burr gone, she had learned things about the flock and her place in it that she’d never known—or wanted to know—before. Some of it was going to be hard to forget.
Chapter Six
Snow
The next morning the air felt unusually thick and still. There was something ominous about it. Even Coo could feel it where she huddled deep in her nest. But it was too soon for snow, so she didn’t worry.
“Storm,” said New Tiktik, zooming in and out of the doorway. The pigeons always knew the weather before Coo did. Even young ones like New Tiktik. “Big snow! Soon.”
Snow. The worst word. Heart pounding, Coo stumbled out onto the roof. The sky was heavy and gray. The clouds were so dense and low that the faraway skyline and its lights had disappeared. The air was frigid. Coo shivered, and not just from the cold. She was scared. Really scared.
“Snow?” Coo asked Hoop anxiously. “Too early. Leaves on trees, now.”
Snow rarely came before all the leaves were gone from the trees Coo could see from the roof, and quite a few brown, red, and yellow ones still hung on the branches.
“Snow,” Hoop replied. “Much snow.”
Scarier than hawks, scarier than metal-jangling human strangers, scarier than anything, was snow.
Coo’s earliest storms were icy whirlwinds, pigeons blanketing her three birds deep in the dovecote to keep her from freezing to death. As she grew, she learned to burrow into her nest, pile on insulating newspapers, and wait it out in chilled fear.
Just the year before she had survived a bad blizzard: two nights and three days trapped inside the dovecote with only half a soggy sesame bagel and barely enough old clumps of newspaper packed around her to save her from turning into an icicle.
Even after that horrible storm stopped howling, it took weeks for the snow to melt off the roof and months for Coo’s bones to really warm up. And that was back when she had regular food. And Burr, who always looked out for her.
Who would look out for her now?
She stared across the roof toward the alley.
Tully.
Ever since she’d become dizzy trying to climb onto the fire escape, she’d been too weak and scared to try to return to the alley. But now there was a storm coming.
Could Tully give her some food and more things like the hat and scarf to keep warm? Maybe Tully even knew how to stop the snow before it arrived. Could humans do that?
“Tully!” Coo hobbled across the roof and called down into the alley. “Help me, you! Tully!”
No one replied. The alley was deserted.
Coo shivered, and her stomach rumbled. If Tully came, would she even have the strength to climb down the fire escape?
A few snowflakes whirled from the sky. Coo gave one last look at the alley and stumbled back into the dovecote.
Coo awoke blinking and shivering. Something cold and sharp was prickling her cheeks. Her hair was damp and heavy. So was the rest of her body.
Snow! Lots of it. Just like the pigeons had said. Coo tottered to her feet. Clumps of snow tumbled from her body. She was numb with cold everywhere except for her head and neck, which were covered by Tully’s hat and scarf.
While she’d slept, the wind had lashed great drifts across the roof and into the doorway. The dovecote shook. Pigeons muttered around her.
No matter what happened, the flock would survive. Snow was one of those things that pigeons—healthy ones—handled better than humans.
The wind gusted another spray of ice pellets onto Coo’s cheeks. Suddenly she wondered about Burr. If he was still alive, was he warm and dry? Was Tully keeping him safe?
“Storm. Not good,” Coo whispered. “Bad, bad, bad.”
At the sound of her voice, pigeons hopped down from their perches and huddled around her.
“Poor you,” said Hoop. “No feathers.” She extended her brownish dappled wing over Coo’s shivering shoulder.
“Scared, me,” Coo murmured.
The snow was colder and icier than it had ever been before. How was that possible? She closed her eyes. Time was different, too—it was slower.
She thought of the sandwich Tully had given her. She thought of Tully’s face and her soft hands, and her voice. Coo pulled the red hat so far down over her face it almost reached her mouth.
The wind screamed past the dovecote, shrill as a cat, and Coo jumped.
She started to cry, then made herself stop. Tears froze and hurt her skin.
“Stay warm, you.” New Tiktik landed on Coo’s head and nuzzled her ears. “Okay, you. Strong, you.”
Kind words helped.
Coo took a shuddering breath. Storms always ended. Snow always melted. It was just a matter of getting through it.
Hours passed. Coo got very sleepy. She fought to stay awake. She knew sleep was bad. Weak, sick pigeons who fell asleep in storms never woke up. She blinked and pinche
d herself.
Suddenly there was a great bang as if a part of the roof had collapsed. The pigeons lifted up in the air, jumbling together in the dovecote, and settled back on their perches. Coo’s hands, despite their numbness, began to tremble. She had never in all her years heard such a noise on the roof.
“Coo!” a faint human voice shouted. “Where are you? Goodness, what is a dovecote doing on this old roof? Coo? Are you in that thing?”
Coo pushed through the snow and wind until her head poked through the doorway. Night had fallen. The whole world shrieked with swirling snow. She squinted and blinked as a plump black shape, a big garbage bag with legs, appeared in the whirlwind. A bright beam of light zigzagged around it. It flashed directly into Coo’s eyes, blinding her, and then vanished.
“Coo!” the garbage bag screamed.
Tully!
“I knew I’d seen you on this roof! Those police officers wouldn’t come check,” Tully said as she stumbled to the dovecote. “You live here? All alone? My God!”
Tully pulled Coo into a warm hug and stuck her head through the door. “Hello? Is anyone in there?”
The flock hooted softly.
“Oh, you poor baby. You would have died! Come with me. Hurry.”
They staggered over the rooftop snowdrifts toward the tower with the forever-shut door.
Now the tower had a big black hole in one side, and the door was a flap of metal swinging in the snowy wind.
“Going, you?” Tiny New Tiktik, just a ball of gray struggling to stay aloft in the howling wind, had followed Coo out into the storm. “Where, Coo?”
“Back to the dovecote, you!” Coo cried. “Too windy!”
New Tiktik bobbed for a moment, then turned and zoomed into the wall of snow. She would make it to the dovecote just fine, Coo knew. Healthy young pigeons always did.
But humans? What happened when they left the dovecote?
Coo took a deep breath. She was alone with Tully now. Whatever happened next was beyond anything she’d imagined.
Tully pushed Coo through the doorway and slammed the slab of metal behind them. They plunged into a silent pitch-blackness. Never had Coo been in such darkness.