by Kaela Noel
Tully helped Burr and Coo out of the taxi. Burr hopped on Tully’s shoulder, and Tully pushed Queenie into the big pocket of Coo’s puffy new coat. Nicolas drove off to find a parking spot.
The street was hushed. At the end of the block stood an even bigger building with a tall fence around it. Coo leaned on her crutches and stared. She recognized it.
“That’ll be your school,” Tully said. “It’s Aggie’s school, too.”
School. So much more was about to change.
The new building’s lobby was much bigger than Tully’s old one. The doors were dark mahogany and arched like in a castle, and once inside there were crisscrossing beams and stained glass and a black-and-white tile floor.
There was an elevator, luckily. It zoomed them upstairs to a hallway that Coo carefully clomped down. It took her so long that Nicolas caught up to them.
“This is our apartment,” Tully said in front of the door marked 5A. Coo recognized their old floral doormat. Tully opened the door, and said, “Welcome home, Coo!”
Coo peered through the doorway into a big living room.
Aggie and her brother Henry, her sister Octavia, and father Phil were there wearing party hats and holding balloons, beaming and clapping. Bright pink and gold decorations hung over a table full of snacks. Coo looked around, speechless. She saw Tully’s old blue armchair and the loveseat. She saw the pictures of Ben and young Tully on the wall, and even a new picture, one of her in the hospital that Deb or someone else must have taken. She saw Burr’s cage sitting on its small table. It was a bright, clean apartment, new and familiar at once.
“Coo!” Aggie shouted. “I was so worried about you!” She threw her arms around Coo. “I’m so glad you’re okay and here and that we don’t have to send messages by pigeon to be friends. I mean, we could still do that. But just for fun.”
Coo smiled, still too overwhelmed to speak.
“I started modern dance classes,” said Aggie as Tully helped Coo take off her coat and sit in the loveseat.
Tully propped Queenie up carefully beside Coo and helped Burr onto Coo’s shoulder.
Aggie ran to the table and grabbed two gold party hats—one big, one tiny—and helped Coo and Burr put them on.
“And Tully says when your leg heals you can come, too, if you want?” Aggie raised her eyebrows. “It would be the best if you were there.”
Coo was about to reply when she glanced over Aggie’s shoulder.
Lucia.
Coo leaned back in the loveseat and gasped.
“Don’t worry,” Tully said hastily, seeing the fear on Coo’s face. “Lucia helped us a lot.”
“It’s okay.” Lucia smiled. She took a few slow steps toward Coo. “We don’t really know each other, and I know it was probably hard to understand what was going on.”
Warily, Coo glanced at Tully, who nodded encouragingly.
“I was trying to help by bringing Camille to see Tully,” said Lucia. She smiled again and shook her head at the same time. “I hoped Camille would help Tully sort everything out. I didn’t expect to cause—”
“Don’t apologize!” Tully interrupted. “Camille was so helpful, and all’s well that ends well.”
Coo peered carefully at Lucia. She was wearing her cat earrings again, but somehow they made her seem friendlier now. “You didn’t want the police to take me away?” asked Coo.
“Let it be known far and wide that I did not call the police!” Lucia scowled. “Those awful pigeon poisoners were the ones who called them.”
“They must have written down my address,” Tully said. “Back when they looked at my ID. Remember?”
Coo felt a small chill run down her spine.
“Stan Mooney and Frank Beaumont,” said Aggie’s dad. “Mayor Doherty is claiming they went rogue and never had permission to get rid of pigeons in the first place. Stan got fired, and Frank is on unpaid leave.”
“Serves them both right,” said Henry.
“Yeah!” said Aggie. She picked up Queenie and sat down on the loveseat next to Coo. “Even Octavia agrees that they aren’t rats with wings.”
Aggie’s sister leaned against the wall and crossed her arms. “I maybe, possibly, said that once, but I never thought pigeons should die.” Octavia scrunched up her mouth and cocked her head toward Burr. “This one who lives with Tully is pretty cute.”
“Yes, he is,” said Aggie, and leaned over to tickle Burr under his beak.
“Lucia, you helped us so much. And you, too, Nicolas,” Tully said suddenly. Her voice shook like she was almost crying. “I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to thank you both enough. I’m so sorry for what I put you through.”
“Good grief!” said Nicolas. He laughed. “Enough of the apologies and gratitude, Tully. We’re just happy Coo and the pigeons are safe.”
“Exactly,” said Lucia. “I’m thrilled I could help. And now I just want to eat all this delicious food!”
With that, the party got started. There was a lentil salad made by Henry, and a fresh batch of peppermint brownies baked by Octavia, and strawberry-guava cake from a bakery down the block, and music that Nicolas found on Tully’s radio, and lots of stories from Aggie’s dad about Coo and pigeons in the news and the reluctant way the mayor was forced to apologize about the poisoning. Aggie and Coo performed the hawk attack scene from Pigeon Roof, with Coo on her crutches acting as the wounded bird. Everyone clapped.
It was starting to get late when there was a sudden tap-tap-tap on the window that led out to a fire escape.
“What is that?” said Aggie’s father. “Are those pigeons out there?”
Coo gasped and tried to stand. “My flock! I see New Tiktik, and Hoop.”
“What? How?” asked Aggie, running over to the window.
“That’s your flock, Coo?” said her father. He pulled out a tiny notebook. “Here?”
“Open the window, Aggie!” Coo scrambled for her crutches and swung across the room with Burr clinging to her shoulder. More familiar pigeons crowded the fire escape. “Hurry!”
“Wait.” Tully groaned, peering over Aggie’s head. “Is that—is that Roohoo? It is. Oh, please, no.”
Henry helped Aggie wrench the window open, and soon Coo’s flock was zooming around the room. Nothing was wrong. They were just there to join the party.
Roohoo settled on Coo’s arm.
“Been following Tully for weeks, me,” he said. “Human, her. Never noticed! Saw you at the big building. Followed you in the yellow car. Got the whole flock together, me. Miss you, us. Happy you’re back, me.”
Then he jumped into the middle of what was left of Coo’s cake and took a giant nibble.
About the Author
KAELA NOEL was born in San Francisco and grew up in New Jersey. She now lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her family. Coo is her first novel.
www.kaelanoel.com
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Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used to advance the fictional narrative. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
COO. Text copyright © 2020 by Kaela Noel. Illustrations copyright © 2020 by Celia Krampien. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
Cover art copyright © 2020 by Celia Krampien<
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Cover design by Paul Zakris
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Noel, Kaela, author.
Title: Coo / by Kaela Noel.
Description: First edition. | New York :
Greenwillow Books, an Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2020] |
Audience: Ages 8–12. | Audience: Grades 4–6. |
Summary: “Coo, a ten-year-old girl raised by a flock of pigeons, delights in finally making human contact, but quickly learns that our world is more cruel and complicated than she could have guessed”— Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019041823 |
ISBN 9780062955975 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780062955999 (epub)
Subjects: CYAC: Human-animal relationships—Fiction. | Pigeons—Fiction. |
Abandoned children—Fiction. | City and town life—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.N628 Coo 2020 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019041823
Digital Edition MARCH 2020 ISBN: 978-0-06-295599-9
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-295597-5
2021222324PC/LSCH10987654321
FIRST EDITION
Greenwillow Books
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