Sundown

– Felix

On the day his world shattered for the second time the smile froze on Felix’s beak.

The henlings had all left, even most of the hanger-onners had gone. Just the usual smattering of seagulls remained, cleaning up the scraps.

Felix became aware of the quiet. He stared at the long shadows on the mud. The tide lapping the mangroves, the flower wilting in his wingtip, the soft wet ground at his claws. Anything but at his sister, Sarah, and Steve.

“Felix?” Amy said. He brushed at his suddenly blurry eyes. The edges of his vision turned grey. He choked back a sob and dropped the stupid violet.

“It was the crickets, wasn’t it?” He managed.

“Errr…” Amy seemed lost for words. “Did you…did you actually go inside your nest?”

“You all saw me build it.”

“She means,” Sarah said kindly. “Since you put the keypebble in the tesseract?”

“The…what?”

“The keypebble. It holds the physics together—”

“I know what it does.”

“Felix,” Steve tried. “Maybe there’s no other way to say this, but you got your TARDIT wrong.”

“What?”

“That’s why none of the henlings went inside.”

Felix heard a pounding rushing noise in his head. “What…” he whispered. It was all he could manage.

“Felix,” Sarah was even gentler now. “There was no inside.”

Panic propelled his muscles into action. He flew-hopped to his nest and ducked his head inside, his tinny groan of dismay echoing off the small chamber walls.

“See your curvature?” Steve pointed. “You cubed instead of quadding.”

Felix thumped to the ground, legs splayed, head on his chest. “How am I going to live this down?!” he cried.

“Look on the bright side,” Steve told him. “You already have.”

“So this is why she didn’t pick me.”

“Well…” Amy started. But Sarah interrupted.

“There’s plenty more crickets in the bush,” she said.

“No,” Felix said. He kicked the nest. “There’s not. She didn’t like them.” He kicked again.

“Stupid,” he said with a third kick. “Stupid, stupid, STUPID.” He kept kicking until the nest was obliterated and his toes were bruised.

“Are you done?” Amy asked.

“They’re all laughing at me, aren’t they.”

“Felix, nobird’s laughing at you,” Sarah said.

“Although,” Steve said. “You gotta admit it’s pretty funny watching a grown bird kill a nest like that.” He was probably only trying to be helpful, but Felix didn’t care.

“Bad nest,” Amy flailed her legs into the muddy mess.

What was he supposed to do now? Nothing was going to plan. Everything was falling apart.

There was only emptiness ahead. He wasn’t sure how long he stood like that, head down, but it was almost dusk when Steve gave him a glimmer of hope.

“Look at it this way,” he said. “Now you’re free to fight for what you really want.”

Felix almost heard something click into place in his brain as a new plan began forming.