Look At Me

– Orville

Bumpy’s sick, Ms, Orville practiced excusing his friend as he flew to school. Stormfeather would want to know the details what with stories a new strain of Ape Flu was doing the rounds. But no sniffles, he added to his mental conversation. He’s not that sick. Nah that’s not sick enough. Oh! he exclaimed, remembering Bumpy’s light-sensitivity. He’s got a headache! Pff. A simple headache wouldn’t cut it with Ms. She’d never had a headache in her life and certainly didn’t believe in migraines. There had to be a balance somewhere. What was a good stop on the scale of sniffle-sick to migraine-sick? Hmmm. Maybe he was looking at this from the wrong end. Aha! Bumpy’s sick, Ms. He’s got the runs. Perfect. Let his friends think he had something embarrassing—sucked-in to him for putting him in this position anyway.

He lined himself up on the final approach to the grassy mound, the tiniest of zephyrs stirring the air just as he adopted his landing formation. He made a correspondingly small adjustment to his fully stretched wings, lifted his drifting legs another imperceptible fraction, and floated to earth, brushing the grass almost in defiance of gravity. He allowed himself a proud preening and a sneak look to see if the henlings were impressed as he folded his wings neatly in place.

“Well I never!” Stormfeather yelled. It didn’t matter what the cocklings did, Stormfeather always yelled. “What’s your excuse for being late today, Orville?”

“It’s Bumpy, Ms,” Orville started. “He—”

“I’m onto you, Orville. Come on. Where is he?”

Orville’s knees quivered and he nearly fell, all his careful rehearsing gone in a rush of guilt-induced adrenalin. “He’s…errrr…sick, yes. Yes that’s what he is. Sick. Ms.”

“Why? What’s wrong with him?”

“He, errrrr, he drank something rotten, Ms. It’s, errr, made him…it’s…disagreed with him.”

“Well, sick or not, don’t think you’re getting out of duetting, young cockling.” And with that, she faced his classmates. “It’s your lucky day, cocklings,” she addressed them. “Because Orville here has volunteered himself for first go. Now, who wants to join him?”

It seemed to Orville that all the cocklings experienced a sudden spate of urgent problems—Bert clearly had something that needed close inspection of the little claw on his left foot, Wilbur studiously investigated something under his wing, and hawk only knew what Douglas Douglas was doing. Orville squinted for a better look before he realized Ms was yelling again.

“What are you waiting for?” she squawked.

Orville twitched and looked at her as guilelessly as he knew how.

“And don’t look at me like you’ve soiled your hind-feathers,” she screeched. “I said, don’t let not having a partner stop you!”

“But—”

“Uh-uh-uh!” She waggled a primary feather in front of his face. “You know how I feel about buts. Now get up there, and show these henlings what you’ve got.”

Orville’s beak dropped open. “You mean…alone?!”

“Yes alone! You won’t always have a partner to compete with, you know. What happens after debut, if Felix gets a mate before you?”

Orville bit back on a laugh. The henlings, he noticed even from here, were not so successful. In fact they were openly slapping each other on the back and wiping tears from their eyes.

“Get up there!” She hollered. Lowering his head and dragging his feet he trod over to the mound, trying not to notice the henlings arrayed in judgement, especially not Durba with her beautiful snowy white chin feathers that looked so clean and neat and perfect. He’d never noticed before, but the way her black neck feathers fanned over her white chin feathers was so—hey! She just closed her eyes! She actually just closed her eyes and turned away!

“Orville!” Ms screeched. “This is your last chance. Don’t make me come over there.”

As Durba covered her face with a wing, he sighed, tapped a toe, and murmured, “Feudin’, fencin’, joustin’, go.”

But nothing happened. There was no Bumpy to raise his wings and lay a challenge. Orville raised his own wings half-heartedly. “No, look at me!” he cried.

He lowered his wings.

Nothing happened again.

“I said look at me…” He raised his wings again. He saw Durba’s eye peeking through her primaries. He kept his wings up.

“My territory’s got mites. His worms are skinny. I build great nests.”

Durba lowered her wing and smiled.

“No, look at me!” he screeched, wings still upraised. “I find great seafood! I catch big dragonflies! I find Monday chips! My chin is so black!”

One of the other henlings leaned in to whisper something in Durba’s ear and her wings rose in blush.

“My genes are strong! Mum’s clutch survived! I’ve got credit at Huma’s!”

By the time Stormfeather called ‘time’ Orville was in love. But then he saw his friends. Wilbur and Bert were hiding chuckles behind their wingtips and Douglas Douglas was pretending to be sick, jamming a wingtip down his own throat. His wings drooped.