Two mornings later, Lockley woke up to find what looked like half the fish in the ocean piled up outside his door. He wondered if he had slept through several days of tax collections, when suddenly a fleshy storm of fish rained down upon him, knocking him to the ground. He looked up at a squadron of pelicans soaring away from him.
“What in the name of Sedna is going on?” he wondered aloud, and then noticing winged shadows swooping over the ground, he looked up just in time to see a second squadron descend and open their mouths, bombing him again with cold fish.
“I think we have a problem,” said Lockley, ducking back inside his burrow. Lucy poked her head out of the kitchen.
“What’s the matter, dear?”
“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” said Lockley, “but I think we may need more walruses.”
Starting that day, Lockley, Lucy, and the team were so busy making smidgens they barely had time to eat or sleep. The fun of it quickly disappeared for the young birds, and Lockley could hardly force them to work. That left fewer laborers for more smidgens.
To save time, they began using Egbert’s avalanche of a body to smash the raw fish, but the results were disastrous. A typical new batch had entire fish eyeballs or tail fins sticking out, more scales than bread crumbs, and overall the smidgens began to taste more like walrus hide than fish. Even Egbert turned his nose up at them.
“What are we going to do?” said Lucy. “These will never satisfy Rozbell!” Lucy didn’t just fear Rozbell’s wrath. Her strong sense of pride made her hate the fact that she was churning out a product unworthy of her.
“He’s got to have piles of smidgens by now waiting to be eaten, even if he’s feeding every owl on Tytonia,” said Lockley. “Maybe we have some time before he gets to the wonky batches.”
That was small comfort to Lucy, who felt compelled to take over most of the prep work as well as the cooking. Lockley hated to go behind Lucy’s back—she had forbidden him to ask the Great Auk for help—but he felt he had no other choice. And so he waited until she was distracted, and then he grabbed one of the remaining good batches of smidgens and quietly left the burrow.
After his wobbly landing, Lockley sploshed across the wet rocks to find that the Great Auk already had tea for two set out. “I gather you heard about Rozbell’s visit,” said Lockley.
“I saw it,” the Great Auk replied. Lockley wasn’t sure if he meant saw as in he’d seen it, or saw as in he’d dreamt about it.
“Then you must know what’s happened since. We—Lucy—can’t keep this up. Something has to be done.”
“Indeed,” said the Great Auk.
“Yes, well that’s why I’m here,” said Lockley, hesitating. “We all share the fish tax of course, but the real work is Lucy’s—making all those smidgens, day after day. If you could see her wing tips…”
“And what do you plan on doing about it?” said the Great Auk, turning to Lockley for the first time.
“This, actually,” said Lockley. “That is, I thought you could help. It would be unseemly, of course, for me to ask the colony to help make the smidgens, in addition to paying their taxes. But if it came from you…”
The Great Auk seemed to slump a little, and returned his gaze to the sea. “Lockley, what would happen if I did that?”
“Well, as I figure it, we would go from the unfairness of one auk making all of the smidgens to all of the auks making some of the smidgens, thus easing Lucy’s burden and allowing us to regain some normalcy in our lives, outside of the fish tax and the owls and all that.”
“I see,” said the Great Auk. And then, after a pause: “I have to say, Lockley, I’m very disappointed that your concerns are so small.”
Lockley felt the irritation all the way to his underfeathers. “With all due respect, I don’t think Lucy’s well-being is a small concern at all. You haven’t had to watch your wife turned into a virtual slave by Rozbell!”
“No, I haven’t,” said the Great Auk. “But tell me this, Lockley. What happens after I do this? Isn’t the fish tax still in force? Aren’t the owls still intruding on our lives?”
“I suppose.”
“And what does that likely mean?”
Lockley thought about it for a moment, then admitted, “They’re owls. And not just any owls. Owls With Hats. Which means they are likely to keep intruding.”
The Great Auk nodded. “And what is injustice, even if spread evenly?”
“It’s still injustice.”
“As you can see, foresight is really just a product of reasoning,” said the Great Auk. After a pause he asked, “Do you know why the Cod Wars were fought?”
“Cod, I guess,” said Lockley.
The Great Auk sighed deeply as he turned back toward the sea. “Owls don’t eat cod,” he said, which Lockley had always wondered about. “It was a tax on cod.”
“There was another fish tax?”
“Yes, for the privilege of using Murre Mountain. Can you imagine? Our ancestral home. Settled by the first Great Auk. And they wanted to rent it to us.” His voice was filled with disgust. “One of the things I’ve always liked about you, Lockley, is your appreciation for the Stories. And not just because it flatters an old bird like me to have someone listen to him. The Stories are important.”
“I know,” said Lockley.
“You think you know. The colony can’t always rely on me to tell them what’s important and what’s not…what’s worth remembering and, most critically, what’s worth fighting for.”
Then who? thought Lockley.
“If more auks had a passion for our heritage,” said the Great Auk, “where we came from and how we got here, they would perhaps be more passionate when a creature like Rozbell threatens to alter their way of life. The wave laps the rock, and the rock does nothing, except erode.”
“Yes,” said Lockley, who certainly agreed that some of his fellow auks did remarkable impersonations of rocks. “I do think, whatever our failings, we still have enough pride to resist injustice when it confronts us.” He wanted to remind the Great Auk that that was why he’d come down here to begin with, but he decided that would be rude.
The Great Auk again looked at Lockley. “Those who fought the Cod Wars were willing to die to live independently of owls. Are you to that point yet?”
Lockley was chastened, but also still irritated that the Great Auk thought his concerns were trivial. “Are we really independent? We’re still a colony of Tytonia.” He couldn’t help himself.
Returning his gaze to the sea, the Great Auk said, “Sometimes compromise is necessary. Fanatically embracing any idea, even a noble one, can be dangerous.”
“I’m sorry,” said Lockley. “I spoke out of turn. We have been independent. We’ve hardly been aware that owls even exist, much less govern our territory. That’s why it’s so discomfiting when they do step in, like that whole unpleasantness with the cranberries. And now this. We don’t know quite what to do.”
“I’m not sure I do either, if that’s what you’re getting at,” said the Great Auk. “I can’t tell anyone what they should be willing to sacrifice or for what end. But as for your present concern about Lucy’s labors, that may resolve itself.”
“What do you mean?” said Lockley.
“Sedna will not tolerate this demand on her generosity,” the Great Auk explained. “Rozbell doesn’t understand this, for obvious reasons. Meanwhile, the auks invoke Sedna’s name as a matter of habit, but I’m not sure they understand the price of gluttony, either.” He glanced at Lockley, as if to assess whether he fit this description.
“What’s the worst that can happen?” said Lockley.
“The worst that can happen? Not only would there be no fish smidgens, there would be no fish. Period. We would have to migrate to a new territory to find food. And as you know, for any birds that are pregnant, or have laid their eggs or hatched their young, this would be impossible.”
“So we would starve.”
They finished their te
a before the Great Auk spoke again. “Lockley, I need you to understand something. Those times when you’ve spoken up, as with the cranberry tariff…others may have seen you as petulant, but I see in you a willingness to stand up for what you believe is right. Something inside you smells injustice the way you can smell a sand eel, and rebels against it.”
“Sand eels?” said Lockley.
“No, Lockley. Injustice.”
“Oh yes, of course.” Lockley blushed. Or at least he would have, if puffins could blush.
“You’re right that the burden of the fish tax is unfairly shared,” continued the Great Auk. “But so is the burden of leadership, Lockley. You see what’s at stake, even if the rest of the colony can’t, or refuses to. And the fact that this is so personal for you gives you the authority to act.”
Leadership? Authority? Lockley thought he must have seaweed in his ears. Perhaps Lockley’s kindness and curiosity and occasional pluck made him different, but a leader of the colony? A puffin with the title of Great Auk? The mere thought would have sent a laughing gull on a three-day bender.
“Why do you doubt yourself, Lockley?”
“I don’t understand what you’re asking,” Lockley replied. “You’re still the Great Auk, the law-speaker.”
“The Great Gray Owl and I wanted the same thing—distance from each other. I’m afraid Rozbell may have started a chain of events that I don’t have the strength to resist.”
Before Lockley could protest, the Great Auk said, “There’s something I’ve been meaning to give you.” And he held out a sealed clamshell attached to a lanyard. “I have a notion it might prove useful to you at some point.”
Lockley took it. “Shall I open it?”
“Open it when you need to,” said the Great Auk, and so Lockley placed the clamshell around his neck, tucking it into his breast feathers, hoping very much that he would know when that time was and what to do with whatever it was.
“Consider what’s happened so far,” said the Great Auk, “and think hard about all that could be lost. Deep down, the colony knows the owls are to be feared. But right now they fear taking action more.”
Lockley left the Great Auk realizing that he fit that description as well. Why else would he have flown to the Great Auk for help? He returned to his burrow muttering to himself again (a bad habit of his), and walked right by what he thought was the empty kitchen. But when he went to the bedroom, Lucy wasn’t there, either. It wasn’t possible she could be out, thought Lockley. She had barely had time to stick her bill through the door for fresh air since the pelicans started raining fish outside.
He walked back to the kitchen, and there was Lucy, slumped on the floor, sobbing quietly, a tray of smidgens upturned on the floor next to her. “Oh dear,” said Lockley as he bent to help her up. She pulled her wings away.
“Just leave me here. Leave me alone,” she said, barely audible.
Lockley stood back for a moment, looking at Lucy. Except for her belly, every part of her looked thin and worn. He could see the skin at her elbows and wing tips. He felt his gizzard grinding, and he tasted venom on his tongue. He reached for her again and pulled her up. She didn’t resist this time. He led her to the bedroom and helped her lie down. “You’ve made your last smidgen,” he said, covering her with blankets. “Rest yourself. I’ll be back.”
Lockley walked onto his ledge and looked out over the sea. The sun was near its highest point, its bright light making the ocean’s surface seem sheer and translucent. Normally at this time of day Lockley could look into the middle distance and see the frosty blue water darkened with ribbons of fish, the colony’s lifeblood. But what the Great Auk had warned him of was already apparent—the waters had been overfished; the blood was thinning.
Lockley stood there and thought about the promise he had made to himself to protect Lucy and their egg at all costs. He felt foolish for believing that accommodating the owls would accomplish this. They only wanted more. The problem was, how could he get the rest of the colony to react? Their burden had actually lessened—the snowy owls didn’t seem to care whether the auks contributed any more fish to a pile that was already overflowing with pelican catches. So what, in the Great Auk’s words, would they be willing to sacrifice to help Lucy and Lockley?
He gazed again into the distance and wondered just what might happen if the fish disappeared. The worst that could happen is we all starve. It was a sobering thought. Had he, like his ancestors, reached a point where he was willing to die to live independently of owls? If the Great Auk was right and the overfishing continued, it might not be up to them. Maybe he could get that to sink in with the rest of the colony. If not to help Lucy, perhaps they would act to save their own skins.
It was on this foundation of logic that Lockley built an idea.
“Say that again?” said Egbert, who couldn’t believe his ears.
“I said, you were right,” Lockley repeated.
Ruby buzzed close to his ear. “Are you sure about that? I don’t think we want to encourage him.”
“I’m sure,” said Lockley. “I want to take this to the beaches.”
“To the commoners?”
“Why just the common murres?”
“Not common murres. Commoners,” said Egbert. “And I insist you let me help craft your speech. Just because you want to speak to the commoners doesn’t mean you have to speak like them.”
“I never called the other auks commoners,” Lockley asserted.
Egbert sat down and began scribbling feverishly, occasionally putting his quill pen to his lips as if in deep consideration of a brilliant turn of phrase. Finally, he stood up and positioned himself at his full height, and in his most dramatic speaking voice declared the following:
“I, Lockley J. Puffin, despite being a puffin, with all its attendant shortcomings, having taken it upon myself as a plenipotentiary of the island of Neversink, whose heretofore thought-of independence is lately threatened by the usufructuary actions of certain owls, to require that the aforementioned owls both cease and desist such actions, forthwith and posthaste!”
The surrounding area went deathly quiet. Even Ruby sat down. “I think that’s a great starting point,” said Lockley. “But I may…edit it a bit.”
“Yeah,” said Ruby, “like take out all those words no one knows. Basically everything after ‘I, Lockley J. Puffin.’”
Egbert’s whiskers bristled. “Fine, simplify, if you must.” And he slouched off in a huff.
“What are you going to do, Lockley?” said Ruby.
Lockley gazed out across the ocean toward Tytonia, a place to which he felt an ancestral bond though he had never lived there. “We’re going to have another party.”
“I think Egbert may have given party a bad name,” said Ruby.
“Just get everybody to the meeting place in a hour,” said Lockley. “You’ll see.”
THE WORST PARTY SINCE CHAPTER 4
Lockley was pacing back and forth, working a rut into the middle of his burrow. Lucy was practically tracing his steps, trying to hand him a cup of tea.
“Lockley, take this right now before it’s all sloshed out.”
He paused long enough to take a sip.
“I added some lemon and honey, for your voice,” said Lucy.
Ruby appeared in the doorway, followed by Egbert, who was brandishing his pen.
“What’s that for?” said Lockley.
“I think this rises to the level of an official meeting,” said Egbert. “You need someone to keep the minutes. For posterity.”
“How do you keep minutes?” said Ruby. “And where? In an hour, I suppose, but then where do you keep your hours? And what does your posterior need with them? Is that where you keep everything? Is that why it’s so big?”
“That’s enough, you two!” said Lucy. “Lockley is under enough stress as it is.”
“Thank you, dear.”
When he finished his tea, Lucy took the cup from him and then turned him toward the door.
“They’re all waiting on you,” she said. “And we’re right behind you.”
They rubbed their bills together, and Lockley emerged from his burrow. The whole colony was there, or so it appeared. Hundreds of puffins, guillemots, murres, and razorbills, along with a few curious seals and other seabirds as well. There hadn’t been a gathering like this since, well, the birthday party. But before that, it had been a really long time since there had been such a gathering.
“Exactly how did you get everyone here?” Lockley asked Ruby.
“I told them the Great Auk called the meeting,” she explained. “Let’s face it, no one was showing up just to see you.”
On that inspirational note, Lockley took a deep breath and walked boldly up to the same high rock where Rozbell had introduced the colony to Feathertop. Astra and Oopik perched above the crowd, betraying no emotion.
Algard Guillemot, naturally, was the first to protest. “Where’s the Great Auk?” he asked. Others nodded, wondering the same thing.
“Ruby may have misspoken,” said Lockley, his voice unsteady. When murmurs of complaint began to work their way through the crowd, he raised his voice and said, “Can you do nothing for yourselves without the Great Auk’s counsel?”
“What is it we’re supposed to do, exactly?” said Algard.
“Stand up for yourselves. Not let yourselves be bullied by owls.” Lockley pointed in the direction of the formidable snowy owls as he said this. He managed to keep his legs steady, even though the pit of his stomach reminded him of the time Egbert had given him some bad clams.
“Or maybe some of you are grateful to finally have a ruler who takes such an interest in us. Who oversees our every move. Maybe some of you need that kind of attention.”
The remark was met with a mixture of nervous laughter and low hissing. Lockley paused and cleared his throat, trying not to lose his confidence. “Rozbell ends the Peace of Yore. Rozbell imposes the fish tax. Rozbell takes one of our own and then leaves snowy owls here to remind us that any one of us could be next. He has you marching in file like penguins, but your response to this erosion of our way of life is to say, Don’t Make Waves!”
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