by Kaela Noel
A murmur of anxiety rippled through the flock.
“Rest now, you,” Burr said to Coo, gently pecking at her hair. “Help you, us.”
“Get food after a rest, me,” Coo said weakly. “Find food for all, me.”
Burr crawled back into the pouch in her coat. Coo sighed. At least something was warm and familiar.
Night fell. The woods were dark, much darker than anywhere Coo had ever been before. Twigs snapped. Pigeons murmured and shuffled their wings. Instead of comforting her like they did in the dovecote, the sounds spooked Coo. She began to shiver with cold. Her eyes grew heavy. At Burr’s urging, her flock covered her body as best they could, just like they always had in snowstorms.
She thought of Tully. A new ache ripped through her that felt almost as bad as her injuries. She hoped the police had let Tully go when they realized Coo had run away.
“Better off without me, her,” Coo mumbled to herself in pigeon, just before slipping into sleep. “Help the birds at least, me.”
“There she is! In the tree! Those pigeons are all over her, but she’s moving.”
“She looks injured. Quick, tell the others! Get the EMTs!”
Voices. Human voices.
Coo tried to open her eyes. The sun was bright. She quickly shut them again. At least her leg didn’t hurt anymore. She couldn’t feel it at all.
She heard the sound of pigeons beating their wings and lifting into the air. Human hands grabbed her. Someone began hacking at the tree limbs around her. Slowly she felt herself being lowered to the ground.
“My name is Aviva. I’m here to help you. What’s your name? Can you speak?”
Coo managed to focus on the person talking to her. A woman with large worried eyes and dark hair pulled back in a tight bun.
“We’re getting you out of here, sweetie,” the woman said. “Don’t worry. Don’t move just yet.”
“No! Need to stay in the woods!” Coo gasped, using what little strength she had left. “Have to help the pigeons keep away from the poison! Far from humans! Up north!”
“Up north? Far from people?” Aviva frowned. “You’re in the big nature preserve next to the city. It’s just across the river.” She pointed. “The wilderness in the north is hours and hours away. This is the suburbs.”
Coo blinked. Nature preserve? The suburbs? She tried to sit up, but it hurt too much.
“The pigeons are in danger!” She felt Burr shift in his pouch as she shouted. “The mayor wants to hurt them all. Help them! Need to stop him!”
“Shh, try to stay calm, and stay still,” said Aviva.
Coo looked down at her leg and gagged. It twisted strangely, like no leg should. She felt dizzy, even dizzier than she had been when she was at her hungriest on the roof.
“Tully,” Coo whispered. Strange spots were swimming around her vision, and she shut her eyes. “Help me, Tully.”
“Help is coming, sweetie.” Even though Coo could feel Aviva’s hands on her shoulders, the woman’s voice sounded farther and farther away. “Just stay with me.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Healing
It took a long time to sort everything out.
It started in the hospital back in the city, where Coo had to go so that the doctors could fix her leg.
“Pigeons!” she told everyone she met in her first delirious hours there. “The pigeons are in danger! The mayor is trying to kill them. We must stop the poisoning. Listen to me!”
“Hush, don’t worry now,” the nurses and doctors told her, if they said anything at all. Most looked at her with worry etched all over their faces, worry as intense and frightening as the endless beeps and alarms going off all around her.
“Where is Burr?” Coo asked anyone she met. “My pigeon, Burr! Where is he?”
No one answered her. She tried desperately to remember the moments after her rescue from the tree and where he had gone, but it was all a horrible blankness.
“Tully?” she asked a group of people who came into her room and talked over her head. She clawed at the strange, squeezing plastic sleeve someone had put on her upper arm. “Is Tully here? Is she okay?”
“You need to lay down and relax,” a woman said as she leaned over Coo. “Everything will be fine. There’s nothing to worry about.”
Coo shut her eyes, her heart pounding. All of her worst fears had come true. Burr was missing, and Tully had abandoned her—or maybe she had been arrested. How would anything ever be okay again?
“I never thought pigeons could raise a kid,” a nurse named Simone said as she gently changed some of Coo’s bandages late one night. “Let alone fly one across the city! I couldn’t believe it when I heard about you. You’re something else.”
“Pigeons? Pigeons are safe?” Coo reached out and gripped Simone’s hand. It was hard to tell time in the hospital, but several days had passed, she guessed, and no one had answered any of her questions about the birds, much less mentioned them to her.
“Safe? Safer than they were before you came along, that’s for sure.”
Coo would have leaped out of bed right that moment, but her leg was stuck in a frightening mess of hard plaster and suspended above the bed in a tangle of ropes and metal sticks the nurses called traction. She could hardly move at all. “Mayor is hurting them! I need to help them! You help me?”
“Shh, dear. Don’t get worked up. You don’t know anything that’s going on, do you?”
In the dimly lit hospital room, Simone’s face was both worried and kind. “Hold tight a moment,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
She returned with a box of orange juice and a small bag of cookies in one hand, and a giant stack of newspapers in the other.
“I don’t know if I’m supposed to be doing this,” Simone said, shuffling through the papers. “But it’s ridiculous they’re keeping you in the dark. Aha, here’s one from yesterday. See?”
Coo recognized the newspaper, but she was shocked to see what was staring back at her from the front page.
Her own face!
Scratched, leaf littered, and dazed, but her. The photo must have been taken just after she was rescued from the tree. Gathered all around her was a blur of pigeons—hundreds and hundreds of pigeons.
“There’s a whole article, too,” said Simone.
“Can’t read all this,” said Coo, scanning the photograph, desperately looking for Burr.
“I can read it to you when I’m done with my rounds, but look.” Simone pointed to the page. “Half the world saw you fly across the city. Everyone is fascinated by your story. And believe me, thanks to you everyone knows about Mayor Doherty’s plan to hurt the pigeons.” Simone smiled. “He’s not going to get away with it.”
Coo lay back on the stiff hospital pillows, stunned.
Burr was missing, her leg was broken, and Tully was obviously so angry that she wanted nothing more to do with her, since she hadn’t come to the hospital even once, but maybe everything wasn’t a total disaster.
Maybe she had managed to help the pigeons after all.
“You eat these cookies and drink your juice,” said Simone. “And try to rest, okay? You’ve been through a lot. You need to heal.”
The next morning a woman named Deb appeared. She was small and prim and tidy, like a young pigeon, even though the wrinkles around her eyes made Coo wonder if she was older than Tully.
“I’m here to help you, Coo,” Deb said, smiling. “I’m your caseworker, okay?”
Coo’s eyes widened. Caseworker. That word was familiar. Deb was like Lucia before she retired.
“First, let me know what you have questions about,” said Deb. She pulled a pen and a big folder of papers from her tote bag.
“Where is Burr?”
Deb looked confused, so Coo tried again.
“My pigeon. He is also named Milton. Milton Burr. Where is he?” Coo held her breath. If Deb didn’t know where he was, who would?
“Oh, of course!” Deb grinned. “What a kind littl
e bird he is. I can tell you firsthand he’s just fine. I met him recently. He is at Bettina Tully’s apartment.”
Tears burned Coo’s eyes and her scratched cheeks. She leaned back against the pillows and exhaled.
“I can see you’re really attached to him,” Deb said softly, and made a note on her papers.
“What about my flock?” Coo asked, rubbing her eyes. “Roohoo? New Tiktik? Hoop?”
“Sorry, sweetie.” Deb frowned and shook her head slightly. “I’m not familiar with those names. But Tully did tell me that the pigeons you lived with were okay.”
Coo’s tears of relief about Burr and the flock mixed with aching sadness about Tully. Clearly Tully was angry at her. Otherwise, why had she stayed away? Why wasn’t she here with Deb?
“Do you have any questions about Tully, Coo?” asked Deb.
“She is not here,” whispered Coo. She shrugged and stared at her leg until her eyes blurred.
“Well, she very much wants to adopt you,” said Deb. “But it’s going to take time to sort out, and you can’t see her quite yet.”
“She . . . she still wants me?” Coo looked up.
“Of course.” Deb’s eyebrows rose. “Yes, very much, Coo.”
“But she is not here.”
“She can’t be here.” Deb shook her head. “I know it’s confusing. Until the judge reviews everything, she isn’t allowed to contact you at all. I’m sorry, honey.”
Coo stared at Deb.
“A lot of people want to see you two back together,” said Deb. “But there’s a process. We have to make sure everything is done right.”
“I will live with her?” Coo swallowed. “Soon?”
Deb paused. She looked very serious. “I can’t promise it just yet.”
“I want to go home,” Coo whispered. She could barely hold back more tears. “Right now, please.”
“Soon, I hope,” Deb said. She paused, then rummaged through a tote bag in her lap. “I do have some mail for you.”
It was a big flat envelope with small cat stickers all over the front. Reading still came slowly for Coo, but she recognized AGGIE in the top left corner at once. She ripped open the envelope.
Inside was a glittery card, a pack of more cat stickers, and a book called Pippi Longstocking. Deb helped Coo read Aggie’s card:
Dear Coo,
Seeing you fly was the scariest thing ever! But it was also amazing. I’m so happy you are okay. Did falling hurt a lot? I am thinking of new dances for you with crutches. My dad did a story on the pigeons. The mayor is in trouble. I hope you like the book I got you, Pippi is brave like you.
I hope your leg and everything heals fast.
I MISS YOU.
Love,
Your friend Aggie
P.S. I have been trying to get Milton Burr to teach me pigeon. I think he says he misses you.
“Oh, and most important of all,” Deb said, reaching into her bag again. “This is for you!”
“Queenie!” Coo buried her nose in her doll’s yarn hair.
Queenie wasn’t Tully, or Burr, but she smelled like home, and all at once Coo missed her old life with an ache that made her gasp.
“Lonely, me,” she whispered to Queenie. “Want to go home, me.”
Could Deb be right? Did Tully really want her back?
Coo hugged Queenie even tighter, hardly daring to hope.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Surprise
Days passed into weeks before the doctors said Coo’s leg was ready to come down from its complex tangle of pulleys and bars. It was still broken, and she still needed a cast, but she could start to move around on crutches. The nurse named Simone helped her make a little sling out of some old sheets for Queenie, who rode on her back while Coo practiced inching down the halls.
One morning soon after, Deb arrived and said, “Good news, Coo.”
She stepped aside and through the doorway appeared—
Tully.
She looked exactly the same, even though everything had changed. In her hands she held a familiar pile of wool. Coo’s old hat and scarf.
“I’m here to take you home, Coo,” said Tully, smiling. “Finally. I’ve been waiting for this day for so long.”
Coo blinked, too shocked to speak.
“I would have come back sooner, but they wouldn’t let me in.” Tully’s voice broke. “I was so worried about you!”
“Thought you were mad at me,” Coo said when she found her voice. “Thought you didn’t want me.”
“Mad at you? What? Coo, no.” Tully’s eyes filled with tears. “You’re my family, and you were trying to help. I could never be mad at you for that.”
“I messed up,” Coo said, her voice catching. “Ran away—flew away—caused you trouble—”
“Coo, stop. You did the only thing you knew how to do.” Tully paused. “But please, never do it again!”
“You are really not mad?”
“No! I love you, Coo.”
Tully enveloped her in a hug, a hug that smelled just like Tully, like nothing had changed, and Coo never knew she had so many tears inside herself. A whole puddle full of tears, a puddle she’d been collecting all during her time in the hospital and even before.
“We’re going home.” Tully was crying, too, and her words came out warbly and fast. “I love you forever, Coo. We’re each other’s family, and we’re going home for good.”
Outside the hospital, the city noises were sudden, loud, and jarring. Coo shrunk into the wheelchair the nurses had insisted Tully use to bring her down in the elevator. Coo held her crutches across her lap. It was spring now, but there was a damp, cold wind blowing through the busy street. The trees had shredded Coo’s comfy red corduroy coat from Goodwill, and she missed it with a sudden pang. She wore a new puffy pink coat Deb had brought to the hospital for her. It was warm but felt unfamiliar. Keeping the crutches balanced with one elbow, she wrapped her old scarf more snugly around her neck and draped one end around Queenie.
Nurses and doctors came to say good-bye. Simone gave her a hug. Tully held Queenie and helped Coo stand up on her crutches. Coo’s leg pinched and ached. She felt a flicker of begrudging gratitude for cars. And she thought of Burr. His injury must have been so much more painful than he ever let her know.
Nicolas was waiting in his taxi. He helped Tully maneuver Coo into the backseat and put her crutches in the trunk.
Coo noticed a small white cage sitting on the floor, just like the ones Nicolas had used to transport the sick flock. Tully pulled it up from its bed of towels and opened the latch.
“Someone came along to say hello,” Tully said.
Coo’s heart was beating very fast. She could hardly speak.
Burr!
He hobbled right up onto her shoulder, just as though nothing had ever changed.
“Safe, you!” he said. “So worried, me.”
“Sorry, me.” Coo gulped back sobs. “Made such a mistake, me. Flying—woods—”
“Hush,” said Burr. “Don’t worry, you. Trying to do good, you.”
“Went all wrong.”
“Don’t belong in woods, pigeons,” said Burr. “Belong with people, pigeons. For good or bad. Always knew this, me. But scared, too, me.”
“Pigeons safe now,” Coo whispered. “No more killing. Mad at me, flock?” Coo held her breath.
“Mad?” said Burr. “No. Fun adventure, woods! Hungry. And fun.”
“Happy to be going home, me,” Coo said, sighing with relief. “Always care for you, me. Always! Never apart again, us.”
“Home always now, you,” said Burr. “You and me.”
Coo cuddled Burr while they drove. The traffic made everything very slow. At a red light, Nicolas turned around and grinned at Coo. Coo blushed.
“Nothing to be shy about.” Tully patted the seat beside her and Coo hesitantly, then with relief, snuggled in closer. “We’re all just glad you’re here. We’ll be at our new apartment in no time.”
“Y
ou can just talk in pigeon if you want,” said Nicolas, smiling in the rearview mirror. “None of us mind. I want to learn. Nothing could be more useful to a veterinarian!”
Coo laughed and felt a little less awkward.
She held Queenie up to the window, and they watched the city stream by. So many humans walking and talking and running across the streets. Flocks of pigeons arced overhead and pecked at the paper and plastic spilling from the trash cans onto the sidewalks. She wondered if any were among the many who had traveled with her. From the corner of her eye, she was startled to see a pigeon who looked exactly like Roohoo, resting on a parking meter and staring back at her. But before she could look more closely, the light changed and the taxi took off again.
“My flock,” she asked Tully, turning away from the window. “Back on the roof okay?”
“As far as we can tell,” said Tully. “Nicolas and I went over and tried to count them all. Burr helped, too; he seemed to be trying to tell us no one was missing.”
“The pigeons who followed you seemed to head back to the city just fine within a few days,” said Nicolas. “But it was very odd until they did.”
“What do you mean?” asked Coo.
“So many pigeons left. Everyone noticed,” said Nicolas. “The city felt empty. People missed the pigeons. It was all over the news! You were all over the news, too!”
Coo smiled. Burr was right—humans were more good than not.
“Coo, I should tell you something ahead of time,” Tully said, breaking the happy, humming silence in the car. “I hope it’s okay. Everyone insisted, and maybe I should have said no, but . . .”
“But what?”
“Oh my goodness, it’s nothing bad! Just a surprise. You’ll see.”
Nicolas turned down a tree-lined street and slowed to a stop in front of a big, ancient-looking brick building. It was dark burgundy, with many windows and plants and vines in front. Bobbing on strong green stems in the flower beds under the windows were big cup-shaped blooms in every shade of jelly bean.
“Our new home. Forty-one–forty-two Forty-Second Street. Funny address, right? The kind to drive a postal worker mad.” Tully smiled. “It’s not far from the rail yard or our old apartment. It’s a quick walk to visit the flock, or Aggie.”