“AH!” 
Kerry Green bolted up in her bed. That awful dream...the bird… it was just like that “incident” 3 months ago, at the start of school. If she hadn’t tried to help...she would’ve never had this dream. All that blood, the seemingly broken neck...the human screams in her dream that replaced the squawks in reality...Kerry did not like remembering. But she had had this nightmare so many times…
Sighing, Kerry put on her glasses, out of bed and got dressed, tossing a sweater over a henley. Then she headed to the bathroom to get ready. When she got out, though, she looked at the old grandfather clock in the hallway. 7:35. Shoot. She was almost late.
Kerry looked around in the kitchen, dining room, and living room. As usual, everyone had already left. Kerry grabbed the banana on the counter, then hurried out the door. She glanced down at the banana. It looked mushy-ew. But Kerry just sighed and peeled the banana, scarfing it down. Maylin was going to be mad-she was running late, and Maylin was definitely not going to appreciate walking by herself. Even after nearly 4 years in Los Altos, Maylin was still pretty shy around the Californians .
The sharp air bit her; it was only October, and already cold. Almost, Kerry thought grumpily, like it had just went down 10 degrees because the earth thought it was winter. She already regretted wearing her leggings-Kerry had thought it was still legging weather, but nope, it wasn’t, it was a chilly 60 degrees outside. For Los Altos, that was. Still, it was better than living somewhere like New England, or just somewhere that had snow. The Bay Area never had snow. Kerry felt a breeze-and it felt dark, too. She looked up. Darn it, the gray, gloomy clouds loomed on top of her, inducing misery.
A crow was blocking Kerry’s path. Uh, birds. They were the ones always giving her the nightmares, so she really hated them. And this crow-wait, was that a dead rat next to it? God, these crows were stupid. Kerry angrily marched passed the crow, eyeing Maylin’s house now. Maylin, well, she loved birds. When Kerry had met Maylin in 5th grade, she had been the new girl, awkward and from Texas, but without the classic Southern drawl. She had been just the new girl for a week, nothing special, shy and scared. However, by the next Monday, Lilly and Jess had already befriended her, so naturally Kerry followed her friends’ footsteps and befriended her, too.
That had payed off. Now, in 8th grade, they were best friends. Speaking of Maylin-there she was, standing on her front porch. The sun, by now peeking from behind a cloud, was shining dazzlingly on her. Upon seeing Kerry, Maylin immediately headed toward her.
“Hey,” said Maylin, sliding next to Kerry, “Guess what. I was on Mr. Lundburg’s website, and he pushed Friday’s test to today.”
Kerry’s jaw dropped. “WHAT?!” she screamed. “WHAT?! But I procrastinated! Like usual! I didn’t study at all! Oh my God, I’m like, totally failing science right now. My mom’s really gonna kill me, like swear in Chinese and, uh, force me to play 5 hours of piano or somethin’.” Kerry briefly stopped her rant to glare at Maylin. “And YOU should’ve called me last night. I could’ve tried to study!”
Maylin rolled her eyes. “TRIED to study. Yeah, right. Knowing you, you’d just goof off somewhere after 10 minutes. Besides, chillax. Science is 3rd period. We can just study once we get to school.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“See? No biggie. Now, hurry!”
“But we have literally, uh, like half an hour.”
“Whatever,” Maylin said, pulling Kerry along. “I just wanna go find Lilly and Jess and give Sydney back her book. And, hello, idiot, study for the test!” The two quickly crossed Quinpool Road and onto Wellington street. As they walked along the crunchy gravel, Kerry smiled as she thought about the many times Maylin had reminded her about a test. In fact, it had just happened last Thursday. Kerry brushed away the thought. Who even cared about tests. Grades only mattered in high school.
“Oh,” Kerry startled suddenly, remembering the morning. “There was this crow, and it was eating a dead rat, and it was absolutely disgusting. The rat was like half chewed up, and-”
“Ew!” Maylin exclaimed. “Don’t tell me anymore!”
“But don’t you love love love birds? Thought you loved them so much that you would like this!” Kerry teased.
“Ugh,” Maylin said, throwing her P.E. bag at Kerry, “Be serious, bird hater.” Kerry winced at this. She really did hate birds. They mostly died in front of her-and her only.
Kerry’s earliest memory was of her screaming at three after seeing a pigeon being run over by a Walmart truck. At four, there at been FIVE incidents involving dead birds, including a gruesome turkey fight at this Thanksgiving festival that the Green family had gone to-and only Kerry had seen it, her parents buying hot dogs while she faced the other way and witnessed the horrifying event. When she started Kindergarten, she was the only kid to see the dead swan-all the other kids had been shielded from it after Kerry screamed. Through 1st to 7th grade, there had been a total of 13 bird incidents, the worst being a couple of baby blue jays being eaten by another, very obese blue jay. Who knew that birds resorted to being cannibals?
But nothing, nothing had been like the incident. It had happened at the beginning of 8th grade, in August. Kerry had 2nd period P.E, and was doing the warm up jog with Jess, and then Jess ran ahead, when...Kerry wasn’t ready to think about it again.
“Anyway,” Kerry continued, “You know what Leiser is making us do today? Leg lifts. For the whole hour. And then, Coach Gina told us yesterday that she was gonna make us do 50 pushups before getting into the pool, and Coach Gina’s never joking.”
Maylin smirked. “Too bad for you. That’s why I don’t swim.”
They were getting closer to Addison Middle now. When they turned onto Loyola Drive, they could see their school.  Some crows were cawing in the random berry tree in the Masons’ backyard.  “Ooo,” Kerry said. “Hurry Maylin, hurry!” The crows were bothering some random, small bird. Kerry ignored them, and began to walk briskly. “MAYLIN! Get over here! We’ve gotta go and meet Lilly and Je-”
The bird fell.

It fell in slow motion, almost, and Kerry gasped, horrified. It was a house finch, barely a fledgling. It fell squawking, and it made her feel sick. The crows circled overhead, cawing gleefully at the injury they had just caused. The house finch was choking and was attempting to shoot around, looking like it had a broken wing. The crows were cawing even louder now. They looked almost giddy with delight with this new prey. If they were human, by now they for sure would be celebrating, acting like they’d just won the World Series or something. It was really painful to watch, the bird now choking up some blood. And...and...it was almost exactly like that fateful day 3 months ago.
“Oh my God.” came the shout that brought Kerry out of her daze. She snapped her head and looked behind her. Maylin had dropped her P.E. bag and was also staring horrifically at the house finch. Now she was running to where Kerry was, not even bothering to pick up her bag. “Maylin-” Kerry started to protest. But Maylin just pushed passed Kerry and picked up the finch, who by now seemed to be unconscious.
“Maylin!” said Kerry sharply. “Drop the freakin’ bird!”
Maylin looked defiantly at her. “Why should I? Kerry, you gotta help save this!”
Kerry took a step closer to Maylin. “‘Cause it’s a-”
“You do know that the bird probably has tons of diseases, right, Maylin! I mean, listen to Kerry for once. Drop the bird.”
Both Kerry and Maylin spun around, Maylin still, almost frantically, clutching the bird. There stood Jess, hand on a hip, chewing her gum, an ordinary routine of her’s, looking mad, but not at both girls. Only Maylin. The stormy clouds behind her perfectly explained her mood.
“I mean,” Jess started, chewing her gum, “Maylin, be serious. Wasn’t there that bird flu epidemic somewhere in China like that year? Ask Kerry-she should know; she’s Chinese. Know the risks, girl. Imagine killing yourself just ‘cause you were trying to save some stupid bird.”
Maylin continued to clutch the bird, but was looking a little unsure herself. It was like Kerry could almost read her mind- ‘do I really wanna save this thing? It’s probably gonna die anyway. And Mom and Dad would tell me to ‘drop the dirty thing, because it has germs and you’ll get sick’, just like Jess right now. Hmmmm, but the bird...I love birds...Never mind, maybe I should drop it.’
And suddenly, almost frighteningly coincidentally, Maylin dropped the bird. Oh, never mind, she literally just dropped it by accident. Maylin quickly scrambled to pick the bird up again, and stood up, legs shaking. “You guys,” she said, almost stammering. “I want to save this thing. It’s so innocent, and I think it should get a chance to live.”
Jess snorted. “Yeah right. Look, Maylin-a,” she said, using the nickname their group of friends used for her, “it’s just a bird. Nothin’ special. I agree with Kerry. You know she’s like, waaaay more sensible than you. I mean, really, just picking up a random, practically dead animal and wanting it to be healthy again? God, Maylin, wow.” Small raindrops were falling from the sky, slightly fogging Kerry’s glasses.
Maylin’s eyes flashed, like they were on fire. “NO. I’M NOT JUST LEAVING THE BIRD. I’M GONNA SAVE IT. IT’S GONNA LIVE. ‘CAUSE OF ME.”
“Maylin-a, no one’s on your side. Last week, Kerry saw the dead bird, and she didn’t try to save it.” Little did Jess know that that wasn’t true.
“Jess!” Maylin argued. “Who cares!”
“Wow, no one cares. Oh you little idiot, I knew you’re stupid! Who cares about the bird!”
“JESS!”
“Maylin.” Maylin and Jess looked behind them.
The two had forgotten Kerry. There she stood, her eyes cast onto the ground, standing there looking almost like a shy 3rd grader or something. “Maylin, you gotta listen to me. I wanna tell you about ‘the incident.’ Jess is wrong.
“I was running with Jess, well, walking. And Jess was just Jess and decided to run ahead, and I just wanted to walk, so I lagged behind. And there’s always that big bunch of crows, and they were there that day, like usual.
“But then a pigeon just fell out of the tree, and it was screaming like hell. And it was just flapping around, and since I was lagging behind so much, no one else gotta see it. And Maylin, it was so bad. So, so bad. Because then it started choking up blood, and it stopped squawking, and the crows were so happy, just like this-”Kerry looked up, where the crows were still cawing like mad on the Masons’ tree. “I almost threw up, and there was so much blood- its neck was basically broken. An-and it...it just died in front of me. Died. And you both know how much I hate birds. B-b-but, I did try to help it. Tried. Jess doesn’t know that. .And the thing  still died, so now I hate them even more, ‘cause even if I want them to live, they still die. And my nightmares...I even had one this morning, I can’t stand it.” Tears were falling, masked by the fat raindrops also falling.
Maylin looked aghast. Jess looked anguished. Although she had seen the dead pigeon, she hadn’t seen it die. Neither had Kerry ever told Jess in detail what’d happened.
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” Jess said. “It must’ve been awful.” She hugged Kerry. Maylin looked thoroughly discouraged now, like she was thinking-What if this bird dies? Besides, what good would it do if I saved it?
Maylin dropped the house finch.
“Let’s go.” she said flatly. “I guess we should just leave this thing.” The three started to leave, teardrops hitting their faces sharply. The rain had turned into a downpour.
“AHH!!!” Came the shriek from behind. Kerry, Maylin, and Jess all looked behind their shoulders.
“Oh. Leena. You know, from science. Sorta goody-goody.” said Jess, trying to be sassy, but her comment died with the wind and the rain. They saw Leena bend down and scoop up the poor bird with one hand, keeping her umbrella upright in the other. The fledgling was clearly dead from this angle, but maybe Leena didn’t know. She ran toward the trio, pushing past them, drenching them with the raindrops on her umbrella, and it looked like she heading towards Principal Bergantine’s office. Kerry could see Maylin looking like she could throw up any minute. Jess was just bowing her head, ashamed. From Kerry’s angle, it even looked like there were some tears falling. Even Kerry herself wished that she’d saved the house finch. But they all just sighed, tightening the grips on P.E. bags, lunch boxes, and clarinets. Then they headed toward school.

____________________

“You know,” Maylin said quietly, picking up a fallen leaf and playing with it in her hands. “We should’ve saved that bird.”
“I know.” was Kerry’s soft reply.
“You guys, I don’t understand it. You could’ve just saved the birds. Jess, you’re an idiot. Who cares if you just pick up a bird for like, a second? Look at Maylin-is she dead? Is she sick? NO. If I were there this morning, I would’ve sided with Maylin, and it would be us, not Leena in the principal’s office, and with a living house finch fledgling, not a dead one.” Lilly said haughtily. “We’ve wasted like, half of Brunch just boo-hooing over a dead bird. And you could’ve saved it. Oh my God, you guys are all soooo stupid.”
Jess was crying a bit, looking weird, and all the tiny 6th graders were staring at them. Jess surprisingly, Kerry thought, was the most upset out of the three about the bird. Normally Jess was definitely not an emotional person over “small” incidents like the once this morning, but she sure was today.
There was a long lull in the conversation.
“You know, when I was in like, 3rd grade, my dad brought this weird, beat up, almost dead puppy home.” Maylin said, breaking the silence. “ I thought it was disgusting, and so did my sister. But my dad told us that he’d found the dog on the side of I-56 and it was almost dead, but my dad saved it. And you know what? That’s the same dog we still have 5 years later. Yup, Foolish is that dog.
“I think that all life matters, and we should try to save anything, animal or human. Think-look at that ant right there,” All heads turned at where Maylin was pointing. “Okay-I mean, I think we don’t really need to save an ant anywhere in the future, but still, that ant probably has a family of like, 10 kid ants, and if it died right now, it’d probably make a big, big impact on the colony. Probably. I’m only guessing.”
“I thought about that in science, too. I probably failed the test ‘cause of that bird, but I think it was worth it. It’s probably karma. I’ll help you with any other animal crisis forever, Maylin-a.” Kerry said, cracking a smile.
Jess started sobbing again. A double rainbow was brightly shining above them. Kerry and Maylin both gave Jess a group hug.
Lilly smacked her head with her palm. “You guys are all morons.”