– Felix
Felix flew through air too hot. And too still. There were no sweet smells of food.
Today was no longer the day.
He readied himself for landing, gritting his beak, unclenching his feet, and trying not to think of what could go wrong. He studied the grass, tried to analyze its thickness over the hard packed ground. Mmmmm…grass, with its delicious smell of green leaf volatiles, that sweet scent made by plump crawling creatures chewing on their green leafy breakfast. His belly rumbled. Using his left eye to look out for obstacles he used his right to hunt down a snack. It was impossibly hard, almost like…like searching-for-a-caterpillar-in-a-grassfield hard. He spotted a flock of crested pigeons and briefly considered landing among them. They’d concede ground and he could eat whatever they’d found. Of course, he reminded himself, you should never lose sight of the big picture, never forget what you’re doing, how dangerous it is being this close to the—
The shock of the crash twisted his ankles, jarred his legs, and drove him beak-first into the ground. At least the ringing in his ears drowned out the laughter of his so-called friends, he thought, as he beaked bits of grass out of bent and bleeding flight feathers. He sauntered towards them now, hoping they’d misinterpret his limp as a sassy new walk-move instead.
But they weren’t even watching him. They were watching Stormfeather.
“Get a load of this,” Orville said to him with a smirk. “Looks like we’ve got another one.”
Felix turned his head 180 degrees, his breath catching at a spasm of pain when yesterday’s muscles protested. A trio of lapwing hens were ushering a small cockling over to their teacher. Felix, his eyes never leaving the lapwings, turned his body to line up with his perfectly still head. He strained to hear what they were saying.
“Go on, Bumpy,” Orville whispered. “Start taking bets. I’ve got a great idea for this one.”
Felix, crash landing already forgotten, grinned and turned to his friends. “Ten to one on this one,” he said. “He looks like a right Rube.”
Stormfeather called the class to order. “The sisters have delivered a new student,” she said in the nice voice she reserved for birds who didn’t know her yet. “So please put your wings together and welcome the newest member of the eastern melody: Igor.”
Their classmates alternated between excited wing-clapping and frantic bet-slapping while Felix took the bets and Orville took out his new wind-up robot.
“Hey!” Felix whispered harshly. “That’s mine!”
“It was,” Orville agreed. “Until yesterday when you so generously gave me everything you own.”
“But—”
“Happy to talk about what happened if you are,” Orville replied with a guileless smile.
Felix glared but closed his beak.
“So, Igor,” Stormfeather continued, extending a wing of welcome, “introduce yourself to the class.”
Orville wound the robot.
“I’m Igor,” the newcomer’s tiny voice squeaked.
“Bet he flies in circles, too,” somebird at the back called to general laughter.
Stormfeather yelled. “Douglas Douglas! I’ll get the cappers down here to give you a talking to if I have to!”
“It wasn’t me this time, Ms!”
“Right. That’s it. Hover practice for you. Right now, Mister!”
Douglas Douglas grumbled and stared at his feet.
“Up you get,” Stormfeather screeched. She watched him lift off. “Higher,” she said, craning her neck to watch.
“Now stay right there until Professor Louis arrives!” She kept her head cocked to side-eye her hoverer but lowered her voice to talk to the newcomer sweetly. “So tell us why you’re here, Igor.”
“I lost my nest and family,” Felix thought Igor said as Bert winged over two large dead cicadas. “In yesterday’s strong winds.”
“One’s for Wilbur,” Bert whispered. “I don’t know what Orville’s got planned, but we’re on him getting it.”
“That’s very sad,” Stormfeather continued.
Carlos slipped a wingful of mollusc shells into Felix’s open wing and whispered, “He’s so getting this!”
Denny disagreed. “I reckon this one’s smarter than he looks.” He slipped a piece of red glass into Felix’s pile.
“Me too,” Al said, winging over a stack of grain.
“Now we already have our duet pairs arranged,” Ms was telling Igor, “but we’ll be able to share you around. Bert and Wilbur?” She looked to the pair. ”You can look after Igor today.”
Bert and Wilbur waved at Igor while Orville placed the robot.
“You can all get to know each other while we wait for the Professor,” Stormfeather told them. “Not you!” she yelled at Douglas Douglas. As soon as Ms turned her attention back to the lapwing trio Orville let go of the robot. It marched across the ground, away from the students.
“Hey,” Felix whispered to Orville frantically. “It’s going the wrong way!”
“Shhhh!” Orville whispered back. “Watch.”
Bert and Wilbur introduced the newcomer to Felix. “Hello,” Felix greeted him.
The robot whirred and trundled while the gathered birds pretended to focus completely on the orphan.
“Hi,” the little bird squeaked.
Thunk! went the robot, smacking into a pole. It wasn’t a loud sound, but the nearest crested pigeon found it unexpected.
“Hello,” Al said, offering a wing to shake.
The crested took fright, her wings whistling a pigeon alarm of the highest order.
“Thank you for taking me in.”
Understanding dawned in Felix’s eyes as the entire flock took alarmed flight: cresteds flying in every direction, wings whistling, cloacas emptying. His friends, already on alert, ducked and avoided the white deluge.
“Yuk!” Igor copped a splotch in the face, tripped over, and earned himself another splotch. “What in the hawk?!”
Bert stifled a laugh while Felix reached a wing out to the unfortunate youngster. Orville scooped up the robot and snatched the pot; the others milling about as he paid the dividends.
“Not a bad return, Bumpy,” he said as he winged him his cut.
“That wasn’t…I mean, I know we play jokes on newbies, but that was…” Felix tried.
“You saying you don’t want your cut?” Orville said. Felix looked at the pair of blue shells he’d earned.
“Well, it was mean!” he protested.
“Any meaner than the time we set up whatsisname?”
“That was different,” Felix protested.
“Why, because him falling over that rock was your idea?”
They were interrupted by a galah calling overhead.
“Look—it’s Professor Louis,” Bert said. Douglas Douglas floated to the ground, Felix snatched up the robot, the galah circled in to land, and Stormfeather told them to make Professor Louis feel honoured to visit the eastern melody.
“Especially,” she added, “as the Professor has kindly brought the henlings with her.”
“Which one’s Durba?” Felix whispered to Orville.
“There,” Orville pointed. Durba winged back at him.
“Oh. She’s alright I guess.”
“I’m glad that’s all you think. Otherwise natural selection says we’d have to fight.”
“Not necessarily. There’s always that other way. You know. The Maynard Smith one? The Sneaky—”
“Ok, cocklings, listen up!” Stormfeather called, her voice still nectar-sweet. “You are privileged to have such a glorious parrot to instruct us, and while there’ll be no EMS file today, you will still all be listening closely. Professor Louis is here to teach you about intelligence, so please, put your wings together to welcome her.”
Professor Louis strutted in front of the class, primary flight feathers tucked securely under her wingpits.
“Flight,” she said. The cocklings took that as their cue that their obligatory clapping was complete. “I just can’t tell you how important it is. I spend most of my summers doing the rounds of the melodies to explain it to maiden cocklings just like you.”
Felix wondered why the Professor thought something that came so naturally to birds had to be explained. Maybe flight was different for adult birds? Maybe in the northern hemisphere you had to fly the other way? Or maybe backwards? Oh. The northern hemisphere. His shoulders drooped. He tried again to picture his life with eggs, with no foreign breezes stirring his feathers on a vast, endless wetland—
He shook himself. Orville was right. He should graduate. Let Bobbi pick him. He glanced at the henlings and Bobbi looked right at him. He beaked a smile at her and she beaked one right back.
“Flight!” The Professor said again, and Felix wasn’t the only birdling to jump. “You won’t find the topic on the normal teaching scale. It’s harder than teaching etiquette to seagulls, way harder than instilling stillness in lorikeets.” She paused mid-strut and turned to the class. “And do you know why that is?”
On impulse, Felix put his wing up.
“Yes, you. What’s your name?”
“Felix P Brown, Professor. I would have thought—”
“What does the P stand for?”
“Nothing,” he said. “I would have thought flight was—”
The Professor cut him off. “Can a more mature cockling tell me why it’s so hard to teach the importance of flight?”
Felix’s wings rose. He resolved to stay silent for the rest of his life.
Evolution: it's for the birds 