Flip the Bird

by Kym Brunner

  “Here.” Maddie sniffed, holding out Liberty’s hood and two gloves. “I could only find two left ones, though. I hope that’s okay.”

  “It’s fine. Perfect. Good job, girls,” I said, my voice shaky, not bothering to explain that falconers wore gloves on only one hand. “Now go check and see if any of the other birds are missing or hurt—​and then come back and tell me.”

  Frickin’ Haley. It had to be her. I knew Lucy was mad, but she would never have done this to me—​not after we’d kissed and everything. Or would she? I guess that no matter how well you know someone, you can’t really know for sure what they will or won’t do. Take myself, for example. Anyone who knew me would never have thought I’d go to an animal rights protest, but I had. For all I knew, even Reed could have been in on this. I just didn’t know for sure. About anything.

  The girls ran off, leaving me the task of rescuing Liberty on my own. Her chest heaved with each breath, like a runner in last place. I had seen many sick birds before, and to my untrained eye, Liberty looked a lot like the ones who ended up dying.

  “Aargh, I hate you!” I cursed under my breath. Liberty jerked slightly, and I knew I needed to calm down. I slid on the gloves, the one on my right hand facing backwards, and approached Liberty.

  “Shhh, it’s okay, Lib. Settle down now.” I wasn’t sure what to say to calm an eagle. I inched toward her, shushing her with each step. Liberty’s eyes widened, and she opened her enormous yellow beak in defense, trying to flap her wing to get away from me. When I got close enough to touch her, I waited for the right moment to place the hood on her snowy white head. My opportunity came a few seconds later when she closed her beak to swallow. In a flash, I slid the hood under her beak and over her head, pulling the knot in back securely.

  Liberty calmed down instantly, as if she’d been given a mask of nitrous oxide. I placed my hands around her chest and lifted her ever so gently, being careful not to put pressure on her lungs. She flapped her wing twice, freeing herself from the bush.

  I wanted to cry out with joy, but to my horror I saw a fresh stream of blood race down Liberty’s chest. I nudged my fist against her breastbone, grateful when she stepped onto my forearm. Fourteen pounds of bird caused my arm to plummet, so I quickly braced my left arm by holding it up with my right and hobbled into the rehab center as fast as I could.

  I nearly choked on my own saliva when I saw the garage door wide open on the opposite side of the rehab center. Had HALT opened all the cages and let the birds out through there? And what if the birds had started crabbing—​the larger birds attacking the smaller ones? The thought that all of our birds might be gone or dead made me feel like I might pass out. Blurry splotches popped in front of my eyes like camera flashes as dizziness swirled through my brain. Resting my butt on Dad’s wooden stool, I took several deep breaths until the out-of-control feeling had passed. Keep it together, Mercer. You’ve got to take charge.

  Maddie and Hannah knelt on the ground behind the sink. “Come on, Rusty, stop hopping away,” Maddie coaxed.

  A sliver of hope slipped in through all the rage. At least Dad’s kestrel was still alive.

  “He won’t come to us, Mercer,” Hannah complained. “How do you catch him?”

  “Put your fist right up against his chest and he’ll hop onto it,” I called out, stepping around an overturned scale. “If that doesn’t work, grab a little piece of meat out of the fridge.”

  “I can’t do it, Mercer,” Maddie cried. “You gotta help me.”

  “I can’t. I have to help Liberty now. You can do it, Maddie. Keep trying.”

  I hurried to the examining table, placing Liberty up on the largest perch. I needed to stop the bleeding under her wing fast. A bird didn’t have much blood in its scrawny body, not even one as big as Liberty. If I screwed up and she died, Dad would get blacklisted. That meant the DNR would never give him any more birds to rehabilitate. A shiver ran up my spine. It would devastate Dad. There was only one thing to do: claim full responsibility for this event, even if that meant that the DNR would revoke my falconry license permanently. My stomach acids twisted and roiled, making my gut ache.

  I yanked open drawer after drawer looking for gauze pads. Why hadn’t I paid more attention to where Dad kept his supplies? My hands trembled as I opened the glass cabinet door, wishing I could hurry up. I finally found gauze pads along with a few other supplies I thought I might need. Pulling the hinged light closer to Liberty’s chest, I began my search for the wound.

  “Gotcha!” Maddie squealed in delight. “Come on, Rusty, back to your mews.”

  “Good job, girls!” At least something had gone right. “How are the rest of the birds?”

  “I don’t know.” Maddie held up her hand with Rusty on her fist. “After we chased Sasha back into her mews, we went after Rusty.”

  Hannah offered, “But we can go look now.”

  They ran off right as I located the puncture wound under Liberty’s wing. Bright red blood still trickled out like juices on a freshly carved turkey. I’m no doctor, but I did know that to stop the bleeding in humans, you had to apply direct pressure. I hoped it was the same for birds. Grabbing a few gauze pads, I held them tight against the hole. Liberty flinched, but I didn’t let go. I wiped my sweaty face on my shoulder, waiting. Please, please, please be okay, Lib.

  After several scary minutes, I peeked underneath. The cloth had a deep red circle on it, but the bleeding appeared to have stopped. Uttering a silent thank-you, I placed a fresh pad over the wound, using surgical tape to keep the cloth in place. I wasn’t sure if that was the correct procedure, but it’d have to do for now.

  Maddie and Hannah arrived, out of breath and with new tears. “Mercer! Bullet’s missing, and so are Bella, Troy, and Flip!”

  Flip was gone. It was as if a knight had taken a sword and made a giant X on my chest. I was about to let out a slew of curse words but held back for the girls’ sake. All that work for nothing! There went any possibility of my hunting trip—​Dad and Lincoln’s too. I should have known our hunting birds would be gone—​they were the only ones who weren’t disabled. When those HALT people came in here and frightened them, of course they’d take off.

  “Um, okay. Let me finish here and then we’ll go look.” Then I remembered Bullet. Without his medication, he was a goner. A third rehabbed bird injured or dead? They’d surely take Dad’s license away for that! I had to get out there fast and find Bullet, but not until I’d finished bandaging Liberty.

  Maddie’s bottom lip trembled. “Let’s call Dad now, Mercer. He’ll know what to do.”

  “No!” I quickly softened my tone. “Just give me a little more time to fix this on my own, or Dad will never trust me again. I’ll take care of this, Maddie, I promise,” I pleaded, sounding more confident than I felt. “All the rest of the birds are in their mews?”

  “Yep. All the rest seem okay. What should we do now?” Maddie looked around.

  “Go outside and see if you can spot any of our birds sitting on a tree or a post nearby. I’ll be out in a minute to check.”

  After they’d left, I decided to “sock” Liberty, the way Dad does to keep injured birds from moving around. I found a queen-size pantyhose in the drawer, snipped off one leg and then the toes, creating a long hollow tube. Sliding the nylon tube over her chest and wing, I made sure to keep her appendage tight against her body. Taking two pieces of special spongy tape, I secured the nylon around her neck and by her tail. Right or wrong, that was all I knew how to do.

  I carried Liberty back to her own mews, electing to keep her hooded so she wouldn’t move around and start bleeding again. The scary thing was, she didn’t feel as heavy to me this time, which meant either she had lost a lot of blood or my adrenaline was giving me strength. I prayed it was the second reason.

  “Relax now, Lib,” I said, backing out of her mews. “And please don’t die.”

  I was worried that the other birds, wherever they were, could be in life-threatening circu
mstances, too. Whoever had done this hadn’t removed the birds’ mews jesses from their legs and replaced them with field jesses the way we did when we went hunting—​a death sentence by itself. The slits in the birds’ everyday leather straps could get caught up in trees and chainlink fences, leaving the birds to hang upside down, which is how Monocle had met her demise. Dad had said birds could last only ten minutes before their lungs stopped working and they suffocated. Before I left to find the other birds, I brought Monocle in and gently laid her under her perch. No way was I going to let a scavenger eat her while I was gone.

  “Goodbye, Monocle,” I told her. “I’ll get even with them, I promise.”

  I grabbed all the supplies I’d need, shoved them into my waist pouch, and ran to see if the girls had been successful in locating any of the birds. Maddie and Hannah had their hands cupped over their eyes, scanning the sky.

  “Did you see any of them?” I asked, hoping for a miracle.

  Maddie sighed loudly. “No, not yet. Sorry, Mercer.” She squinted up at me, her young face full of sadness.

  “Here, take these.” I handed her a set of binoculars, keeping another pair for myself.

  Hannah looked at me, her freckly face streaked with dirt and dried tears. “We saw lots of birds around here, but no big ones.”

  “Thanks for trying, girls!” I called out, racing toward the garage. “I’ll be back soon.”

  “Where are you going?” Maddie chased after me.

  “I’m going to look for the birds. Stay here and keep an eye out. If you find one, try to get it to come to you by using meat chunks. Wear a glove, though!” I hopped onto Dad’s ATV, the one with the bird carrier he’d rigged on the back. I flew down the driveway, searching the sky, a seemingly impossible task ahead of me.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  I RODE DOWN TREE-LINED BACKCOUNTRY ROADS INTERSPERSED with an occasional farmhouse, all the while keeping an eye in the sky for large birds. Nothing but geese and sparrows. I drove back and forth along County Q, praying they hadn’t flown to the opposite side of the highway. If that had happened, I would be looking forever.

  Thirty minutes later, I still hadn’t retrieved any of our birds and despair was gripping my chest. Because we hadn’t planned on them being set free, none of the birds were wearing the telemetry devices we hooked onto their tails to track them while hunting. Of course not. That would have made my life too easy. And who knew at what time they’d been released? They could have been flying around all night, for all I knew. My anger toward HALT spiked rapidly, making me stomp on the accelerator.

  I finally spotted a large bird sitting atop a telephone pole about a half mile ahead. I grabbed my binoculars and zeroed in. My hope soared when I saw a juvenile red-tail. Could that be Flip? My heart beat even faster, matching the speed of the ATV. I had to get there before the hawk flew away. Please be Flip. Please, please, please.

  I sped down Thistle Lane past several residences, the houses closer together here than by my house. Fifty yards farther on the hawk was still there. I put the pedal to the floor, the vibrations in the handlebars increasing under my hands, but I kept watching that bird the whole time. That’s when I saw a blond girl out of the corner of my eye.

  Lucy.

  She stood by her front gate in pink pajama pants and an oversize yellow sweatshirt, newspaper in hand. I stopped the ATV, rage bubbling over inside of me.

  “So this was how you got back at me for keeping falconry a secret?” I asked her, shouting over the roar of the engine. “Going to my house and releasing all our hawks?”

  “What?” Lucy stepped toward me, faking confusion.

  I wasn’t falling for her innocent act. “You heard me. Someone broke in last night and trashed our rehab center. Released all our birds. And now four are missing, a bald eagle’s at home bleeding to death, and my great horned owl’s”—​my voice cracked, so I swallowed and tried again—​“dead.”

  Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my God. They killed your owl?”

  I nodded, not trusting myself to speak about Monocle without tearing up again.

  A bad taste filled my mouth when I rewound what she had said. “Wait. Who’s ‘they’?”

  “HALT members.” Lucy glanced back over her shoulder at her house. “But that doesn’t make sense because I know they’d never hurt any animals they were rescuing.” She bit the edge of her nail, looking worried, as if she was about to cry.

  The stupidity of this statement floored me. “Rescue them? By letting them go?” I threw my hands into the air in frustration. “Freeing disabled birds is like helping a person in a wheelchair by pushing them down the steps! The birds can’t make it on their own, which is why we house them permanently!” I yelled, “Who the hell did this, Lucy? Do you know?”

  She clutched the newspaper to her chest, her bottom lip trembling. “Stop yelling and I’ll tell you.”

  It took all my energy to not grab her by the shoulders and shake the information out of her. I fought to get my emotions in check. Speaking more calmly but between clenched teeth, I said, “Fine. Talk.”

  Her eyes darted down to her hands and then back up at me. “Well, Friday night after you left, Haley started saying how all of us should go to your house and let your birds go free. That it was cruel to keep wild birds locked up and all that. At first I went along, thinking she was just talking smack.”

  “That’s just great. Thanks for that,” I snapped.

  She winced almost imperceptibly and fiddled with one of her rings. “But instead of dropping it, Haley started naming possible times and locations where we could meet up, and I knew she was serious. Reed said no, that it was going too far, and I agreed with him. Trust me on this, Mercer—​I seriously thought that was the end of it.”

  At least Reed had spoken up. Still, he should’ve called and warned me. “Did Charlie know about this?” If she said yes, I’d have to wonder if I had any true friends.

  “No. He was in the restroom when Haley brought it up.” She glanced nervously at her house, and then back at me. “But then yesterday afternoon, my parents came home from this big HALT fundraiser, and they asked me what I knew about your dad’s business. That’s when I realized that Haley told her parents about all of the birds housed at your place, and they must have spread the word.”

  I started to get the picture. “Wait a second. Are you saying your parents did this?”

  Lucy nodded, tears forming in the corners of her eyes. “I think so.” She took in gulps of air, speaking between sniffles. “I explained to them that your dad helped sick birds, but they must not have believed me. I saw my dad bring his toolbox into the garage right before my parents left to see the late show, but I just figured he was fixing something. Now I’m guessing that they must have gone to your place instead of to the movies. But I swear I didn’t figure it out until just now, Mercer!”

  If I were a lizard, blood would’ve squirted from my eyes. “That’s just great! Maybe I should run inside your house and poke sticks under your parents’ armpits and hang them from a bush and see how they like it!” Angry as I was, I realized that me and my big mouth had created this whole mess. I had practically handed Haley and her henchmen an invitation to destroy my house, my family, and all that my dad had worked so hard to create. I gripped the sides of my forehead, going over the whole scenario in my mind. “I’m so fricking stupid!”

  Tears rolled down Lucy’s face. “I’m so sorry, Mercer.”

  “You know what? I’m sorry too.” I looked her straight in the eyes. “Sorry I didn’t take a stand for my family and falconry sooner. I love nature and everything in it, but I can’t say the same about HALT. Maybe there are some good animal rights’ groups out there, but HALT isn’t one of them. They are a mentally effed-up organization without any common sense and I quit!” I cranked up the throttle. “I don’t know how you can be a part of HALT either, not when they do crap like this.” I kicked the front panel. “To hell with all of you!” Switching into drive, I gripped both
handlebars, confident that I’d never speak to Lucy or Haley again. Nor Reed, if he’d known about this and hadn’t told me.

  “Wait!” Lucy clutched my arm, her eyes wild. “Let me get my shoes.”

  “What? No! You’re not—” Before I could say another word, she’d sprinted across her front yard. As I watched the girl who’d consumed all my available brain space for the past two weeks, I doubted my ability to think straight with her around. Why did she want to come with me? She ducked into the house and I waited for her, keeping the ATV in first gear with the brakes on. If she brought her parents out to talk to me, I was out of there. I kept my eyes steady on the house, ready to peel out if anything at all didn’t seem right. Seconds later, Lucy came flying out through the front door, still in pajama pants and sweatshirt, but with white sneakers on her feet, racing full speed across the lawn. As she neared the gate, her dad came dashing out of the house in a blue bathrobe, waving his fists.

  What was going on? I was about to take off when Lucy shouted, “Make room for me!”

  Before I could weigh my options, I scooched my butt forward, and she hopped on behind me, screaming, “Go!!”

  Her dad was halfway across the front lawn. “Get back here now, Lucy!”

  “You sure?” I asked, my hands on the throttle.

  “Yes!! Go!” My heart pounded in fear, but Lucy wrapped her arms around me and placed her head against my back, bracing herself for speed. So I opened the throttle and roared off down her street, leaving him standing there, inhaling my exhaust.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  AS WE SPED AWAY, MY EMOTIONS CHURNED. What was I doing with the girl whose parents had trashed my place? Was I a traitor, or flat-out foolish? I glanced over my shoulder in time to see Lucy’s dad racing back toward the house.

  It was difficult, not to mention illegal, to drive with a passenger on a single-rider ATV. Luckily, we both had scrawny butts, so it wasn’t a huge problem. Now that the immediate danger was over, I had a few things to sort out with my pretty stowaway whom I had vowed not two minutes ago never to speak to again. But I had to get Flip first. My questions could wait.