Migration Day

– Orville

“Bumpy!” Orville yelled, banging on the knot that was Felix’s window. “Are you coming or what?!” But there was no answer. He raised his clenched primaries to bang again when Amy stuck her head out of her own knot-window.

“Good luck,” she told him. “He didn’t get up for breakfast, and mum even made him his favourite.”

“Is he sick?” he asked.

“Circle knows,” she replied. She stepped up onto the knot-ledge.

“What was it? Breakfast I mean.”

“Mashed maggots.”

“Thoundth…” Orville lisped, and sucked up drool before trying again. “Sounds like maybe I should…you know…look after it for him?”

“Watch this,” Amy said instead as she turned to face the trunk, stretched her wings wide, and allowed herself to fall backwards. Orville tensed—he loved Amy’s trick-flying but his heart was always in his mouth when she did it. She pirouetted a series of full turns, almost floating in the thick summer air until finally she somersaulted and flew a dozen tight flaps backwards before spreading her wings and darting away.

Orville chirped her a salute.

The air in Felix’s hollow was sickly sweet. Felix himself didn’t smell any better. He was huddled on his perch, with his eyes squeezed tightly shut.

“Bumpy?” Orville crept closer.

A sound came from Felix’s beak. “Mmmfmmm mffmbbs. Sistbbd ssn.”

“What?”

“Cob. Webs,” Felix groaned. “Stabby. Sun. Ow.”

“Are you—”

“Shhhhh,” Felix said.

“So you’re not coming to school then?”

“No,” he grumbled. “I’ve got the—oh hawk it!” he cried. Then ‘Ow,” as he clasped his head. He rocked back and forth, wincing in pain, but still managed to ease himself off his perch. “The curlews!” He said just before his swinging perch hit him in the pygidium. He half staggered, half fell, lurching to his water dish, groaning in pain, and slurped.

“What happened last night?!”

“I wish I knew!” Felix complained as he eased himself up again. He fumbled about, water dribbling from his beak, as he jammed his cockpurse under his wing, and looked around to see what else he should pack. Aside from a chest-of-matches, his feed and water dish, a few interesting pieces of string and a newsleaf article on earthworms, there was only his toy collection.

“You can have it all.” Felix waved at it.

“I thought we—” Orville stopped. “Is that…is that a wind-up robot?” He picked it up and gave it an experimental wind. It whirred.

“Ow! Stop it.”

Orville’s mind glittered. He clutched the toy to his breast. “I thought the curlews said you couldn’t go with them,” he said.

Felix didn’t seem to hear him. He headed for the knothole and flung the cobwebs aside.

“Aggh.” He winced, flinging them closed again. “Is there a solar flare today?”

Orville drifted to the knothole after him. “Bumpy—”

Felix turned to face him. “I guess this is goodbye.”

“You’re not really going through with this, are you?”

“Tell everyone goodbye for me and I’ll be back next spring,” he stretched his wings.

“Are we even in the same conversation?!”

“Oh—but not until after class! I don’t want anyone trying to stop me.”

Orville jumped up. “Wait. Bumpy!” Felix was poised at the porthole in that stupid too-scared-to-fly stance of his. “Bumpy, this is crazy! They said you couldn’t.”

“They can’t say no if I just go anyway,” Felix said.

“Isn’t this is all a bit sudden?”

“For you maybe,” Felix said.

“But you haven’t even had breakfast!”

Felix leaned further, teetered to the point of no return, waved his wings in a desperate attempt to change his mind, and fell, screeching. Orville jammed his new toy into his cockpurse, took off, and waited for him above the trees.

“Bumpy, please,” he said when Felix finally joined him, puffing. “Think this through. All that stuff they wanted you to study, don’t you think it’s for a reason?” Felix flew a few slow circles in silence as though lost. “Bumpy! Listen to me! You’re going to die!”

“No!” Felix side-eyed him a look. “Orville, please just listen to me for a change. This is what I want to do, hawk it. Please don’t try and stop me!”

Orville watched as he flew away. West. He was still watching when Felix confidently corrected his heading to south, and only left when he’d finally turned an even more confident north.