No species names or classification info, though of course ravens are birds.
No map showing that penguins live in North America (as well as other places).
No mention of the fact that ravens are forest-dwelling scavengers.
No quote from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” (and no misspelling of his middle name!).

at’s exactly what happened—old Bailey said—and that raven was me. It’s true, they did plant the moose there precisely for us to find, but it still took talent, it took brains to find it, and then it took wisdom to use it to bring the flock together. I was a young bird back then, not even three years old, and besides, I had this red band on my wing, as well as this metal box—handicaps which to this day cause me to fly in circles. In case you hadn’t guessed, this finding of carcasses is the main thing we ravens do during the winter, and a big find like mine brings plenty to the flock and glory to the scavenger.
       I might as easily start with the story of my capture as anything else. I’d never been trapped before, never even heard of such a thing happening, neither to me nor to any of my flock, and yet I’m sad to say that they did manage to trap us—without, indeed, much trouble at all, I’m afraid. No doubt I should have suspected something, what with the meat set out so perfectly—no bones, no hide, no hair—out on a small plate, and such a small amount of it that I was almost forced to eat it all at once, rather than share the food with our flock, as was our custom. Anyway, at the time, I was so hungry, I could hardly resist. What difference did it make if there was a cage of wire half-surrounding the food? As I said, such raven-trapping was completely unheard-of in those days. So yes, I took the bait. I flew up close, then glided down low, and landed, talons in the snow before the dish. No sooner had I done this, however, than the bars snapped shut around me, and, looking back, I saw that I was caught.
       I was ashamed, it’s true, at the ease with which I’d been duped, but it didn’t take me long to get over that and gobble up the meat I’d been given. I was certainly glad to do so, because I hadn’t eaten for days. That winter had been particularly hard on us ravens, even more so than usual. You see, during the winter, we ravens are forced to become scavengers, to gain our food by searching for dead animals out in the snow—a dead fox, for instance, or a coyote, or, if we’re very lucky, a whole deer or moose. Unfortunately, however, even when we find such animals, we can’t always just chow down, for their hides are too thick for our ravens’ beaks to penetrate. Instead, we have to wait until other animals have had their fill before we ourselves can dig in. That’s why searching for carcasses is so difficult during the winter, and that’s why, in those dire days, the flock hadn’t had much luck. Back then there had been no substantial finds in weeks, and so each individual raven was forced to stay alive on whatever he could scrounge. That’s why I was so hungry when I landed on that plate of meat, and that’s why I devoured it all at once.
       After I ate the food, there was nothing to do but wait. Well, sure, I tried to escape, but not very hopefully, and not with any success. It was finally mid-afternoon when, from over the next hill, I heard the sound of truck tires rumbling, then finally slowing to a gritty halt. Shortly a woman strode over from that direction, picked up my cage, carried me off to a waiting pickup truck, and then placed me in the back, where, to my shock, ten or fifteen other ravens were also assembled, all of them caged up just like me. A terrible silence hung over us, one that did not let up until the truck’s engine roared to life, shoving us off down the dusty road. Even then it took me a few minutes just to work up the nerve to look at the other ravens. When I did, I saw, to my complete embarrassment, that they were all part of my own flock. Across from me sat Charlie, my next-door neighbor since childhood and the bird I’d always hung out with back in school, back when we were both still learning to fly. But Charlie didn’t look back at me, and in the end I too looked away, down to the rusted paint and melting snow.
       The truck made two or three more stops, during the course of which they placed ten or so more ravens in the back of the truck with us. And so the journey continued on in silence until finally we reached a large gray building. At that point the truck stopped, and the driver got out and went inside. Then, five minutes later, she came back with two other humans, who carried us into the building, cage by cage. Eventually my turn came, and they carried me across the threshold into the building. And what I saw there flabbergasted me. At least another whole truckload of ravens was stockpiled in there, all of them caged up as well. By the time our load was in, the room was stocked to overflowing. There must have been over fifty of us in there, all cluttered together in cages that took up the whole floor.
       Then the humans stepped off to a side room and left us alone. In their absence we all just sat and regarded each other silently. We felt as humiliated as before, but somehow this time the mood was different. There in that room—dark, cold, and clammy as it was—our hearts moistened to a state of alertness and fear. We all wondered what would happen next, and we all feared that too soon we would find out.
       In a few moments, a man came from the other room and removed two cages from within our group. With the two birds gone, our hearts beat faster, and our minds reeled with thoughts about what might be happening to them. We grew more and more agitated until finally our fear came to a head when the man returned five minutes later—without, however, carrying the other two birds. We gaped at his empty hands, overwrought with the possibility that our comrades might be dead—and yet, for all our fear, from the outside we showed only rage: a burst of cackling and fluttering so sudden and severe that the man flinched with surprise. But still, he didn’t change his course. He only picked up two more cages and hauled them out as quickly as before. And then, few minutes later, he came in again, and then, a couple minutes later, again, and no matter how hard we crowed and beat our wings against the bars, he only seemed to come in faster as time went on. Eventually the time came when all the cages in front of me were gone, and the man bent down to pick up my cage. To my surprise, I found myself not crowing but merely slouching back, breathing shallowly and feeling weak as I bobbed up and down in the metal cage.
       The next room was bright with fluorescent light. The man set my cage down on a countertop, where a woman and another man stood waiting. As soon as my cage touched down—the sharp metal clanging against the cold, bright surface—the woman opened it up, and before I knew what was happening she had her hand around my ribs, strangling me with the strength of an eagle and wrenching me out of the cage. It was then that the man fastened this red band around my wing—as well as the metal device underneath it—hindrances which remain there yet. After that, everything happened in reverse. They put me back in my cage and carried me off to a third room, which was filling up with ravens as fast as the first was emptying out. In an hour they carried us all back off to the wilderness and set us free.

At this point I should tell you something about us ravens. As I said before, we are the smartest of all birds. We’re also among the proudest, and one of the things we’re proud of is our appearance. Now, we’re not like the peacocks, you understand, those stuck-up birds with their tail-feathers in the air. I didn’t mean pride in that sense, or to that degree; I just meant that—well, I suppose it’s hard to explain. The point is that we take pride in our looks, even to the point of mocking those who look differently. Crippled and injured birds, for instance, are often rejected by the flock. So it was that after the humans released us, I looked down at the red band on my wing and shook my head, feeling sadly certain that it would not be looked well upon. In fact, I feared the worst, even though we captured ravens accounted for practically half the population of the village. Yes, the village: that was where we all lived, just about five miles north of where we were released. Most of the other ravens flew back there right away, but I was afraid to. Instead, I angled off for an aimless cruise through the hills, testing out my newly-bound wing for a couple of hours, until finally I gained the courage to return to our northern settlement.
       When I did, I saw immediately, even from my first glimpse down from the sky, that things were much worse than I’d ever imagined. I saw unbanded ravens running through the streets, gathering in packs around banded ravens, and then systematically beating, pecking, and kicking them until they were nothing but a black heap of feathers, and after that leaving them in the street to die. The whole spectacle was so overpowering that as I watched it, I grew paralyzed with horror, stuck in a trance for several long minutes while I plunged down to within a few hundred feet of the city streets. Only at the last minute did I snap to attention and swerve off behind a nearby building, mere feet from the furious mob.
       Suddenly I wondered: why had I come? I could, after all, simply have turned away at the first sight of danger. At first I couldn’t think of an answer, but then it hit me: Susie. That’s right, Susie. Don’t think I’ve been so old and gray all my life! I was a regular ladies’ bird back in those days, always out with the hen-ravens until way past midnight. The hen I was with at that time was named Susie. We’d been together for almost two months, and now that I thought of her, I knew that I couldn’t leave town without talking to her, even if it meant marching through streets of blood. Carefully, slowly, I started off down the road. No sooner had I made a few steps, however, than a loud, clear voice echoed from behind my head: “Hey, there! You, with the red wing!”
       I froze in my tracks, afraid to turn back.
       “Yeah, you!” the voice shouted. “Is that you, Bailey? Come over here! I want to talk to you!”
       For a moment I stood stock-still, my heart pounding pulses through my ears. Then, in a wingbeat, I was off. Down a narrow sidestreet I ducked, then back behind an ancient warehouse, and finally down along an empty alleyway, which I then hurtled along at all due speed. And for a minute I actually succeeded in getting away. But then I saw the shadows of three birds—yes, three of them—closing in on me from the sky. Before long I could hear them on my tail. And yet, although I flapped my wings, although I pushed my body with all my strength, the red band kept getting in my way, and I knew I couldn’t keep ahead for much longer. Finally, just as I was starting to lose steam, I saw Susie’s house in the distance, and that gave me the energy to fly the final stretch. When I finally reached the house, I landed, turned around, and glared down my three pursuers as they settled down in a circle and landed around me.
       “Now, Bailey,” one of them taunted, “you know Caleb doesn’t like it when birds fly away.” (Caleb was the oldest bird in the village, the uncompromising ruler of the town.)
       “That’s right, Bailey,” a second one chimed in. “What’s the matter? Are your wings going to turn yellow next?”
       At this they all had a good laugh.
       But then a third voice rang out from behind my back, as loud and clear as a whooping crane. “No, I know what it is. He just wants to see Susie.”
       I whirled to face this speaker, and sure enough, it was Danny. He stood a foot from my beak, glaring me down like a hawk. The two of us had been rivals since childhood, always breaking out into schoolyard fights. More often than not I’d sent him home crying, but now that he had his two friends there to hold me down, it seemed as if old Danny might yet get the upper hand.
       “He wants to see Susie,” he repeated. “But she doesn’t want to see him, not with that red band around his wing.”
       The other ravens laughed again. Just then I thought about pecking at one of them, or rushing out between them, or perhaps rushing upwards into the sky. But I knew it would be pointless. They would just catch up with me, as they had before. And so I simply stood my ground and kept staring into the sky beyond Danny’s head, waiting for his next move.
       The old bird surprised me, though. He didn’t budge an inch, but only raised his voice to a loud call and shouted, “Susie! Hey, Susie!”
       I cast my eyes to the bedroom window of Susie’s house. Could she really be there? It was inconceivable—so I told myself—too horrible to be possible, that she might see me here with these rapscallions. And yet, in my mind, I knew that it was possible, and that, moreover, it was likely. After all, this is where I’d been headed in order to see Susie. Still, even so—her bedroom? Was she really right there, behind that window? No, impossible. It couldn’t be. And yet . . .
       “Hey, Susie!” Danny shouted. “Susie! It’s your old pal, Bailey boy, come to take you away!”
       I winced at the vulgarity of the old wretch, but still I kept my eyes pinned to the window, all the while trying to imagine what I’d do if she saw me like this. The prospect made me shudder. Still, I was glad to buy a little time before I had to confront the three bastards. Anyway, she probably wasn’t there at all, or so I hoped . . .
       Then another of them screamed, “Susie!” and before long all three were chanting it, over and over. By this time all four of us were staring at the window—they chanting, I focusing all my concentration up there, as if by doing so I could keep it closed. Then, just when Danny’s companions were starting to run out of steam, I thought I saw the curtains rustle a little bit. Obviously the other three saw it too, because the next instant they all erupted into shrieks and howls. And yet, the longer we looked after that initial rustling, the more motionless the curtains seemed to be. Had it just been a draft, a mere fluke of the wind? I stared with all my might, but I couldn’t see anything. Or, wait, was that a shadow on the curtains? I blinked. I blinked again. I counted my heartbeat three times. Then, suddenly, just when I was beginning to catch my breath, the curtains parted, revealing a lone raven in the darkness beyond . . .
       At that moment I kicked Danny in the face, dug in hard with my claws and knocked him to the ground. I pounced on him, trampled his neck, and kicked him in the face, once, twice, three times, until his beak was down in the dust. By this time, the other ravens were closing in, frowning and puffing their wings. I tried to fend them off while standing on Danny’s body; I flapped my wings, I pecked their faces, and for a while I was successful—amidst my wingflaps they got in only scratches—but soon they figured out how to outmaneuver me, and then their talons slashed my sides, progressively harder until at last I felt a terrible peck down from underneath my breast, and then I looked, and then I saw Danny, grinning back monstrously and suddenly rising up with a talon-blow that knocked me dizzy. After that the others followed with pecks as sharp as eagle talons, one, two, three of them, until finally I fell down into the street, where the three of them clawed and kicked me to unconsciousness.

When I awoke I was lying flat on my side in a snowy forest clearing. From where I was, I could see maybe two or three other banded ravens standing around in groups nearby. I tried to get up, but the next instant my whole body burst into pain, and I fell back down into the snow, wincing and panting. Just then I noticed how raw my throat felt, filled with a vicious substance which I tried to clear out by coughing, but which, in doing so, I only managed to make all the worse, and soon I couldn’t stop; the coughing built up to an enormous hacking noise—like the quack of a choking goose—an unhealthy eruption of phlegm that caught the attention of all the nearby ravens, who then huddled around me.
       I’m not sure if I remember anything at all from the next few minutes. Vague images, yes—the shape of their huddled heads, and maybe a few scattered words—but nothing specific. The first thing I recall, after emerging from that haze, was a few ravens telling me what had happened: they’d found me on the edge of town, they said, strapped to a barbed wire fence, and from there had carried me off to this forest clearing, where they’d set up camp. The villagers had rejected us, they said—for good, or so it seemed. Many of the others had been killed, and most of the rest were out now searching for food. I was the only wounded raven left; the other slain birds had either already recovered or had died. Aside from me, the camp was filled with a bunch of mothers tending their chicks, as well as a few leaders and guards to keep the place in order. To my surprise, I learned I’d been unconscious for almost a whole day. The others had done their best to keep me warm, had dressed my wounds with sheets stolen from clotheslines, and had tended me with the best medical care they knew how. I had no broken bones, I was glad to hear, only cuts and gashes everywhere. And I would have gotten some food, too, except that there was none to be found, not anywhere. Everybody was anxious for some, but at least in this regard we were better off than the villagers. We who’d been captured, remember, had taken nourishment from our bait, whereas the villagers hadn’t eaten a single scrap of food in who knows how long, and by this time were probably in sorry shape indeed.
       That day, as I lay there in the snow, was undoubtedly one of the strangest days of my life. Hour after hour I spent lying on my side, never strong enough even to walk, much less to fly. I was so devoid of energy that I seldom cared even so much as to lift my wings. And when I did lift them, they were as heavy as trees, and tingly, as if I’d just woken up. Still there was a certain lightness in my chest, a strangeness, which seemed ready to carry me off and lift me among the clouds. Later, the other birds told me they didn’t know if I’d make it through that day. I felt delirious—but no, that’s not the right word; I felt—well, I was dreaming awake. I was flying, but on the ground. I was dying alive. How can I describe my mood that day, that mood which made me content to lie there like a rock, and yet to see the stars and clouds above me as if painted there in the brightest blue? That day, as I look back, still holds mysteries. And the bird who really helped me get through that day was a hen named Greta. It was she, I found out, who’d patched my sores and kept me warm while I was unconscious. Today I remember Greta as if from a still-shot, glancing back at me with a warm smile that made me forget all my troubles. No doubt I looked a wreck, but she never showed it. She stayed with me constantly that day, and that night she slept by my side, partly for warmth, and partly, I felt, for more intimate reasons. That night, let it suffice to say, was the most peaceful night I ever spent with a hen-raven.
       When I woke up the next morning, my head was much clearer. I stretched my wings, and found that they responded more sensibly. Upon my request, Greta gently helped to pull me up, so that, finally, with a strenuous twist of my belly-muscles, I managed to stand on my feet. Then, too, by moving my skinny legs from side to side, I managed to walk, though it was devilishly painful. Most of that day I spent testing my strength—walking from here to there, jumping, stretching my legs, and so on. By mid-afternoon I even succeeded in flying a few meters, although at first it felt like my wings were going to catch fire. Back up there in the air, I felt invigorated. By early evening I was making laps around the camp. That night Greta and I slept together again. Unlike before, however, this night could never be called “peaceful.” Let’s just say that if Greta came to me for warmth, then I dare say she got it; if she came for intimacy, then I dare say she got that as well.
       When I woke up on the third morning, I was famished. Even then there was no sign of food. That morning I decided, against Greta’s objections, that it was time for me to go out and forage with the others. I said goodbye to the camp, then flapped my wings and sailed for the sky. Just like yesterday, it felt great to be up there again. Even from only a few hundred feet, I could see a whole panorama of forested hills, trees, and fields; and I would sail to the end of one panorama to find myself in another, so that within minutes I was enthralled once again by the endlessness of this wilderness, which, after so many days of confinement, seemed as beautiful to me as some iridescent lake. And yet, despite the beauty, I was not long distracted from the task of searching for food, and I scanned every snowy hillside with the sharp eye of a hawk.
       Occasionally, as I flew, I saw my comrades out circling the distant sky. If they wore red bands, I nodded to them as I soared past. Occasionally, too, I stopped to rest my bruised wings. Once, out scouring the landscape, I spotted a huge sagging form in the snow below. Immediately I grew excited: perhaps this was food! A quick descent, however, deflated all my hopes. This thing was nothing but a bare skeleton, strewn over with a few flaps of brown hide, and mostly entombed by snow. As I sat there looking at that icy fossil, I realized just how far off track I was. Just imagine, I thought, how many birds had come there, seen this very sight, gotten distracted like me, and met with the same disappointment! Probably all of them had done so, and probably three whole days ago, so that by this time they were probably scattered around everywhere within fifty miles. At that moment, as I sat there by those barren bones, I was sure that if I continued on my present path, I would never find anything. But I also remembered something else, for there was a place, not very far away, where just three days ago I’d succeeded in finding food, and without much trouble at all, either. I flapped my wings, and within seconds I was off—to the place where so recently I’d been captured.
       The place was beyond a few hills from there, a few panoramas, and each time I broached the brink of a new vista, my heart beat a little faster. The suspense grew until finally I reached the point where the site lay just beyond the very horizon. I soared ever closer, until at last a white line of snow appeared beyond the last hillcrest. But what was within that line? I squinted tight, I strained my eyes ever harder to see it, until before long it widened to a thin band, and then broadened to appear as what it was: a broad valley between hills. But was there anything moving? No, nothing. And there weren’t any dark spots, either, that promised to be anything but trees. Not even so much as a footprint. The whole landscape was as bleak and as barren as the sky.
       I sighed and cursed my luck, but still I didn’t lose hope. Four days ago, I hadn’t been the only raven trapped; in fact, the traps had been all over these hills. If the humans really were really out there, I might have to search for hours, even a couple of days, before I found them. And that was exactly what I was prepared to do. For where there are humans, there is treachery, but there may also be food.
       All that morning I searched the surrounding hillsides, wherever I guessed the humans may have been. I searched for hours, until my fervor turned to mere dim excitement, then finally to drudgery. Morning gave way to midday, and midday to early afternoon. Then, finally, when I was starting to lose patience, at last I spotted some movement in the snow, and this time there was no doubt. Humans. Two of them. But what were they doing? I could tell they were hunched over something. Hunched over some big brown mass. Was it a moose carcass? Yes, a big bull moose carcass, that’s what it was! But what were they were doing to it? It was something with their hands; I couldn’t quite make it out. But wait—they had knives. Oh, my—! Could it be? They were carving the skin away! I was shocked to the core. They were sitting there on top of the moose and carving its skin off, precisely as if to lure us in again! I shook all over, from wing to wing, overwrought with fear and dread. For a few moments I couldn’t think, but only glided on, hypnotized by the cruel sight. The farther I flew, the clearer it all became: these horrible humans had finally decided to exterminate the flock, once and for all. There was no other explanation. Why else would they bring in a whole mountain of bait? An icy shiver ran through my body, and for a moment I was paralyzed. Then, finally, I wheeled around and headed back to camp.

When I told the other ravens of my discovery, at first they got so excited that they wouldn’t listen to me. Finally, when they quieted down, I shouted:
       “Remember, this was close to the place where I was trapped just four days ago. I saw those men out there stripping away the hide, as if they wanted to lure us in again. I think there’s a good chance that this time they want to put an end us all.”
       “Then why didn’t they kill us before?” one raven yelled.
       “Yeah,” another bird said. “It’s not as if they didn’t have us trapped.”
       “And what if they do kill us?” shouted a third. “Would it be worse than starving out here in the snow? At least when they trapped us before, they gave us something to eat!”
       “That’s part of what I’m saying,” I said. “I think that this time . . .”
       “Oh, come on, Bailey!” another voice shouted. “Who’s ever heard of abandoning a full-grown bull moose? And right when we’re practically dying of hunger!”
       Other birds called shouts of agreement. I tried to tell them they were exaggerating, that it wouldn’t hurt to be cautious, but amidst their shouting I couldn’t make myself heard. Then old Benjamin approached, one of the camp’s top officers. He shook his wings to quiet the crowd, then addressed me. “Tell me about this carcass,” he said. “You say the skin was carved away?”
       “They were carving it away when I got there.”
       “And what about cages?” he asked. “Did you see any sort of cage surrounding the beast?”
       I considered. “No. No cage. But that’s because . . .”
       “I say we go there now,” he shouted, “before those bastards set the trap! Where did you say this moose was?”
       I sighed. “I’ll lead the way,” I mumbled.
       And so I did. In less than an hour, we were all within sight of the food. This time I saw no motion—no humans, or so it seemed from this height—but still the moose was there, now with its skin carved completely away, and no cage in sight. As soon as they others caught sight of the feast, they all danced around me in a shower and darted straight for the meat. I shook my head at them and winced, unable to believe their foolishness. With meek despair I fluttered over to a nearby pine tree, where I cringed and waited for all the others to die a grisly death. But when they finally reached the food—clustering around it in a big black swarm—nothing happened. No trap sprung. And clearly the birds took delight in the red flesh, ripping it off the carcass without disturbance for several minutes, until finally even I grew convinced that there was really nothing wrong. Only then did I realize how hungry I was, and how tempted I was to help myself to a big meal of venison, right then and there. At the same time, however, I remembered something else, and I decided that before I could eat, there was something I had to do.
       The villagers, remember, were starving. They had not been hand-fed free meat, as we had, but on the contrary had wasted away their energy persecuting us, and by this time were probably in very sorry shape indeed. I don’t want to get too specific, but let’s just say that the villagers, on failing to scavenge their food from wolves, were probably content by this time to eat the refuse that those wolves left behind them: the very foulest refuse, that is, which none of us would ever eat except out of desperation. Probably, even, some of them were starting to die from hunger. At that moment, as I sat there in that snowy pine, I decided I couldn’t allow myself to feast until I provided the same life-giving nourishment to those birds in the village. In other words, to use a vulgar human expression, it struck me that I could “kill two birds with one stone,” could, that is, use the moose not only to feed my flock, but also to reunite it.
       With that in mind, I took to the sky once again and flew north towards the village. As soon as I got there, I singled out one house in particular, then darted straight towards it. This was not Susie’s house, but rather another house I knew well, though I’d never actually been inside. A quick spiral landed me flat on the doorstep. Then I pecked on the door with my beak. After a long pause, it opened.
       Before me stood Caleb, the oldest bird in the village and the uncompromising ruler of the town. He looked squarely at my red band, and his old face stiffened. He paused for a second, then growled, “We don’t need your kind around here.”
       “What kind do you mean?” I asked. Then, abruptly, as if I’d just remembered, I glanced down at my red band, and gasped, “Oh, you mean this—the red band!” Then I took a step towards him, looked around, and added in a hushed tone, “Do you realize what this is?”
       Caleb stared into the sky beyond my head.
       “This—this red band—is a mighty badge, which the humans have given to us, as a symbol of our newfound ability to track food. You see, when the humans captured us, they gave us a special gift. Now, with the slightest effort, we can locate whatever food there is within fifty miles.”
Caleb remained silent.
       “You don’t believe me?” I asked. “Watch.” With that, I lifted up my wing and revealed the metal box underneath. “This is it, right here, advanced human technology. I don’t know how to describe it, but believe me, it works. It’s like—well, it’s like looking into a reflection in some dark pond. If there’s any food out there—say, a dead bull moose—well, it’s just like you see it there in your mind, and you know exactly where to go in order to find it.”
       Caleb scowled. Just then I noticed how frail and gaunt his body was, how truly hard the famine had been on him. “If you’ve got all these damn powers,” he growled, “why don’t you go and find this bull moose of yours.”
       “I can show you where it is,” I replied. “I’ll take you there directly.”

And so I did, and it meant the reunification of both our flocks. In the coming days, over a hundred ravens ate at that moose, villagers and banded ravens alike. Now you might naturally suspect that there were some hard feelings between the two groups, and there were, especially at first. When Caleb returned to the moose with me, he was, to say the least, poorly received. The others yelled at him, drove him back, even threatened to kill him, but after a moment of panic I managed to quiet them down. Then old Caleb was moved to make a plea, which the others finally listened to. This was a crucial day in the history of the flock, he announced. Some of the villagers had already died, he said, but most could still be saved, whereas after today—well, better not to think about it. And then Caleb looked at me before continuing. Also, he said, there’s one more thing. Bailey here tells me you have these special powers . . .
       And that point I interrupted. Yes, that’s right, I said; I was going to tell you all about this before, but you didn’t give me a chance to explain. You see, I finally figured out how to use this metal device under my wing. I would get these premonitions, you see, and at first they thought they were just my imagination, but then, later, when I went out foraging, I found that they led me directly to the food. I mean, didn’t you guys notice what these metal things are? They’re food locators! And the red bands—they’re nothing but badges, for our newfound abilities! I say we let the villagers eat a little of our supply, so long as they salute us and acknowledge our superiority, as Caleb has so graciously done . . .
       The others followed this suggestion completely. In fact, they responded to it in a way I never could have dreamed. These ravens—well, they actually believed me! No, honestly, it’s true! These banded birds who dared to call themselves ravens—some of them, after my speech, literally cocked their heads up with stupid pride and strutted about as if they were something special. Later, I even heard some of them saying things like: yeah, these boxes, they work pretty well; I mean, I could have told you about these premonitions, too, you know . . .
       As for the villagers, they really didn’t have much of a choice. If they didn’t want to starve, then they flew to our moose and ate their fill, acknowledging us as equals in every important way. And I was flabbergasted again in this case, for I found that the villagers believed me as well—literally without exception, or so it seemed. Indeed, some of them even took it to a ridiculous extreme. After that, some of them would come up to me and ask for my advice, saying things like: “Listen, Bailey, when you go out hunting, how high do you fly? I mean, I always fly about five hundred feet off the ground, but old Reg here says it’s better to fly lower, for better visibility . . .”
       Naturally, you might expect that my lie was found out as soon was we failed to find a heaping ton of food that winter. Actually, however, we did find food, gobs and gobs of it throughout the next few months; in fact, for a while, bodies were cropping up all over the place! The other birds were convinced that it was because of the metal boxes, but only I knew the truth: it was the humans! Almost every animal we found bore the signs of their knife-carving. And we found a lot of them, too: moose, sheep, goats, even a couple of full-grown cows—you wouldn’t believe all the animals we found that winter, and always with the skin carved completely away. Those humans served us more food than I could even describe. Why did they do it? I don’t know. But I do know that they did it, and that’s my secret—for you, young birds—and now your secret, too.

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Copyright © 2001 by Greg Boettcher.
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