Nothing to Lose (2 page)

A few days earlier, he had opened a freezer in the DARC office to show us all the birds he had collected so far this season. The small freezer was filled with plastic baggies, each one containing a dead bird and bearing a label that recorded the species, the date it had been found, and where it had been picked up. Morgan's reaction: “
Eeew!
” Mine? Okay, initially I had also thought
eeew
. But then I had taken a second look and noticed how small the birds were. One of them was no bigger than my thumb.

“That's a hummingbird,” Billy had said.

Even Morgan looked again. “It's so tiny.” She edged closer to the freezer.

“That's a warbler,” Billy said. “And that's a song sparrow. And an ovenbird. And a kinglet. . . .”

Morgan's expression had changed slowly from revulsion to admiration. Maybe she didn't care much about birds, but even she couldn't help being impressed by Billy's knowledge.

“What about the dead ones?” I said now, between sips of hot chocolate.

Billy's expression grew grim.

“I've got seventeen so far,” he said. I glanced at his backpack. It was the same one he wore to school most days. “Why don't you two take a break and warm up?” he said. “I'm going to do another walk around that building.” He nodded at the tallest office tower in the financial district. It was lit up like a Christmas tree, even though there were probably only a few security guards inside.

Morgan sipped her latte while Billy disappeared around a corner. I thought she would want to take shelter somewhere, but instead she turned to me and said, “Why don't we check out that building over there?”

She pointed to the second-tallest office tower, which was lit up like a slightly smaller Christmas tree. With our hot beverages in one hand, our bird nets in the other, and our backpacks on our backs, we set off across the street. As we patrolled one side of the building, we saw what looked like a heap of old blankets inside a bus shelter. Morgan shook her head.

“Pretty strange, huh?” she said.

“What?”

“We're down here in the middle of the night rescuing birds.”

“Yeah. And?”

“And all around us there are homeless people sleeping outside in the cold because they have no place to go. You don't think that's weird?”

I looked more closely at the heap of blankets in the bus shelter and saw that it had a head. We had also seen two homeless men scrunched up in sleeping bags on the sidewalk when we'd first gotten off the bus.

“Did you know that Billy volunteers at a homeless shelter once a week?” Morgan said.

Of course I knew. Unlike Morgan, I usually paid attention when Billy talked. After all, he was my friend.

“He's such a good guy,” Morgan said.

I knew that too.

“I've known him since—what?—second grade,” she said. “How'd it take me so long to realize what a great guy he is?” And there she was, going dewy-eyed again. “I think maybe next time he goes to the shelter, I'll go with him.”

It was hard to believe, but Morgan was perilously close to becoming a caring person.

“Uh-oh,” she said.

“What?”

She pointed. “Uh-oh” was right. I counted three small, motionless bodies, and Billy was nowhere in sight. We looked at each other, and Morgan made a face. With a sigh, I gave her my hot chocolate, shrugged off my backpack, and took out some plastic bags and gloves. One by icky one, I picked up three dead birds and sealed the bags. I held them out to Morgan.

“No way,” she said.

I put the dead birds in their plastic bags into another plastic bag. I put that bag into a paper bag meant to hold live birds. I didn't want those birds to touch any of my things. Reluctantly, I dropped the paper bag into my backpack.
Note to self
, I thought,
disinfect backpack before using it again
. I was slipping my backpack on again—and trying hard not to think about the small bodies inside it—when Morgan said, “I hate to tell you this, but I think I see another one.” She pointed to a small dark spot on the concrete up ahead.

“If it's a bird, it's yours,” I said.

“Hey!” Morgan grabbed my arm. “Look.”

A large bird—even I recognized it as a seagull—was hovering far above the street. It tucked itself in and began a tight, swift dive.

“Didn't Billy say—”

“Yep.”

Billy had said that along with cats and rats and raccoons, seagulls also prey on wounded songbirds. So when I saw the gull aim itself at that small dark spot on the concrete—a dark spot that I saw was fluttering weakly—I dropped my backpack and took off down the sidewalk. I raised my net while I ran and started to lower it as I got close to the dark spot.

Unfortunately, the seagull reached the spot before I did and opened its beak to snatch the tiny, helpless creature.

“Hey!” I shouted. I thought if I yelled loud enough, it would startle the gull off. I should have known better. The pigeons in this city are so indifferent to people that you have to walk around them. Why should the seagulls be any different? I shouted again, louder this time. The gull didn't even turn to look at me. I didn't know what else to do, so I poked it with my bird net. What do you know? It worked. The gull launched itself back into the air.

I looked down at the pavement where I had first spotted the little bird. It was gone. I looked up at the gull. Had it scooped up the dazed, wounded bird without me noticing? I didn't see anything in the gull's beak. And the gull, which had retreated to a safe height, was tucking itself up again to prepare for another dive.

I scouted the pavement frantically for the little bird and found it cowering next to the base of the office tower. The gull must have spotted it too, because it was diving directly at that spot.

I thought,
No problem. I'm a lot bigger than a seagull. I'll protect the little bird by positioning myself between it and the gull. I'll put my net over it so that it can't skitter away and the gull can't grab it.

It seemed like a good plan, but (a) I didn't know much about seagulls in general, and (b) I didn't know anything about this seagull in particular.

It turned out to be the Terminator of the seagull world. Nothing—and no one—was going to stop it from getting what it wanted, especially not a mere human like me.

One minute my feet were firmly planted, my arms were flapping, and I was yelling, “Shoo, shoo, shoo!” The next minute—the minute I realized that this gull was prepared to go through me if it couldn't get around me—I was cowering, shielding my head, and screaming as it flew right at me.

I must have looked at Morgan because I have a clear memory of seeing surprise and then horror on her face. I know I saw her drop my cup of hot chocolate and her bird net. Then I saw her turn, still holding her extra-large latte, and run away. Thanks a bunch.

With my free hand, I swung at the seagull with the long handle of my bird net. Here's something you might not know: seagulls are exceptionally sturdy birds. When I swiped at that gull—and, bird lovers, I swear it was self-defense—I was astonished at how solid its body was. On first whack, nothing happened. Then it dropped to the ground and lay motionless on the pavement.

My first thought:
Way to go, Robyn. You dragged yourself out of bed before the crack of dawn to rescue birds and what do you do? You club one to death.

My second thought:
This seagull really
is
the Terminator
. Because just as I breathed a sigh of relief (sorry again, bird lovers), lowered my net, and turned toward the little bird, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. The gull was stirring. Its broad wings fluttered and it righted itself. I looked back at the little bird trembling on the concrete beside me. It had fluffed out all of its feathers, maybe because it was cold or maybe because it was trying to look bigger than it actually was to scare off predators like the gull and (as far as the little bird was concerned) me. I raised my net slowly and lowered it quickly over the tiny creature.
Easy
, I thought.

Then something struck me on the shoulder. The gull squalled around me, flapping its wings and screeching. You don't realize just how big and hard and sharp-looking a gull's beak is until it's right in your face. And do you know what's at the end of those big seagull feet? Big, sharp seagull toenails. And they were right in my face.

I threw my hands up to protect myself. My net was still lying on the ground, the mesh part of it covering the little bird, which sat perfectly still. Maybe it was frozen in terror. Or maybe it felt safe under the net—I don't know. I looked down at the little creature that I was supposed to be saving and then up at the larger, screeching creature that was preventing me from carrying out my mission, and I got angry.

Very angry.

I flailed at the gull with both arms and screeched back at it: “Shoo, shoo!”

Then I heard a screech behind me: “Grah, grah!” I turned and saw Billy coming toward me at a dead run, waving his net. Morgan chugged after him, still clutching her extra-large latte. She hadn't deserted me after all. She had gone for reinforcements.

“Grah! Grah!” Billy shouted again. I followed his lead. We were two supposedly sane people, dancing in the early morning darkness, shouting ourselves hoarse until the seagull finally gave up and wheeled away.

“Thanks, Billy,” I said.

“Gulls can be pretty aggressive,” he said. “I read about a seagull in Britain that killed a dog. And there was another story about a woman who had to go to the hospital because a gull attacked her and its beak was embedded in her skull.”

I thought he was kidding, but he looked completely serious.

“One time,” he said, “I saw a gull walking down the sidewalk—
walking
—doing exactly what we do when we come out here. It was looking at the bottoms of buildings for dazed or hurt birds. Some of those gulls are pretty smart.”

“Well, that gull was going after this little guy.” I pointed at the dazed bird beneath my net.

Billy called to Morgan and asked if she had any paper bags in her backpack.

She handed one to him and they crouched down together on the cold concrete. I stepped aside and let them worry about transferring the little bird from my net to the brown paper bag. They made a pretty good team: calm and competent Doctor Billy and his faithful, if squeamish, assistant Morgan. While they worked, I looked around to make sure that the gull was gone for good.

That's when I saw someone dash around the far corner of the office tower, carrying
my
backpack.

I
pounded down the pavement after the thief, yelling, “Hey! Hey!”

The person with my backpack glanced over his shoulder at me. He had a hat jammed down over his head and a scarf pulled up over the lower part of his face. His dirty jeans flapped around his scrawny legs as he ran. His thin jacket looked more suited to a sunny spring afternoon than to a cold November morning. When he looked back at me, his eyes were big, and for a moment, I even thought he
was
going to stop. But instead he poured on the speed.

“Hey!” I shouted again. “That's mine!”

A homeless man curled up in a sleeping bag over a subway grate raised his head, looked around, and then lowered his head again, uninterested in my personal drama.

The thief rounded a corner up ahead. I raced after him, determined to reclaim my backpack. It held my wallet, with all of my ID and money, my extra sweater (handmade, robin's-egg blue—get it?—brought back from England for me by my mother), and a whole lot of Billy's stuff. Oh, and three dead birds.

I rounded the corner a few seconds after the thief and found the streets completely deserted. No cars. No buses. No pedestrians. And no thief.

When I rejoined Billy and Morgan and breathlessly told them what had happened, Billy's expression was more stricken than mine had probably been.

“Tell me they didn't take
everything
,” he said.

“He stole my backpack, Billy,” I said, as patiently as I could. “He didn't empty it first.”

“You mean he got all the banding equipment?” he said, as if this were the most precious thing I had been carrying.

I nodded.

Morgan positively beamed.