38

Fledging

Fledglings develop differently depending on resources, climate, and many other factors.

—G. Gordon’s Field Guide to the Birds of the Pacific Northwest

Aiden stood at the front of his class with his drawing tacked to the board behind him. It was the image of a boy and a crow. He had his story memorized, but he’d written himself some notes just in case. He held them in his hands now to reassure himself. Then he fixed his eyes on the wall in the back of the classroom and began.

“You don’t have to look at people,” Mrs. Proffet had reminded him. “Just look like you are looking at them. Look over their heads if their faces are too distracting.”

“Hi my name is Aiden Magnusen today I’m going to tell you a story I wrote called ‘Crow Boy,’ ” he said all in one go.

He stopped and looked at his teacher.

“I forgot the periods,” he said.

She told him it was okay, and he could start over.

“Do you want me to clap the periods for you?” she asked.

“No, thank you. I can do it in my head.”

He took a deep breath and began again.

“Hi. My name is Aiden Magnusen. Today I’m going to tell you a story that I wrote called ‘Crow Boy.’ ”

He paused and saw the whole story in his mind.

“Once upon a time there was a boy.”

This part was about letting people know the story was starting and in a familiar way they could understand.

“The boy lived with his mother and his father in a house on a lake in the woods and the woods were full of crows.”

“Caw!” someone yelled from the back of the room. “Caw! Caw!”

It was Danny Keller, his best friend, standing on his chair and flapping pretend wings. Mrs. Proffet reminded Danny that this was practice for everyone. The part he was practicing was being a good and respectful listener. Danny cawed once more and sat down. Angela, sitting on the other side of him, growled and slapped her hands together. Mrs. Proffet told her it was okay; they would keep going.

“Go ahead, Aiden.”

“One day the boy was walking in the woods, and he found a tree that was also a house. Inside the treehouse lived a talking crow.”

And then he was off to the races. The talking crow, its friendship with the boy, how the crow hurt his leg and had to be helped by the boy, the big storm, and the thunder that crashed and banged down from the sky. And how the crow helped the boy not be scared.

His classmates were squirming in their seats and Danny resumed cawing, especially once Aiden talked about the different sounds crows made, but it was okay. He was focused on what he was saying and by the time he got to the end of his story, none of the rest of that mattered.

“And then the crow said to the boy thank you for saving me. And the boy said thank you for helping me too. We will be friends forever. The crow flew away into the woods and the boy had tea and scones. The end. Thank you and goodbye.”

Mrs. Proffet had told him it was not appropriate to say goodbye at the end of a presentation, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he needed to say something formal like that.

“Great job, Aiden!” Mrs. Proffet said, clapping. “This is when we clap, everyone.”

His friends clapped and Aiden bowed, though his teacher had said that wasn’t necessary either. He took his drawing down from the board behind him and went back to his desk.

Of the twelve students in the class, only Aiden, Angela, and Sarah were giving talks that day. The rest of the kids had different kinds of language. They weren’t talking outside yet, was how Aiden explained it to his parents.

Aiden sat next to Danny and watched Angela tack a series of maps to the board. He tried to pay attention as she began her talk on the deserts of the world. He thought about his own presentation and realized he’d liked telling his story to the class, though he couldn’t look at their faces because faces were too distracting. He liked it almost as much as he’d liked writing the story. He would tell Mama when they picked her up from the airport. Or maybe he would wait and tell her and Daddy when they were sitting down at the new table in the new house having dinner. Or perhaps he would tell Daddy when they went for a walk at the park after dinner that very night. They could go down to the pond and sit at the water’s edge, though that might scare the ducks and the geese away a little bit.

Aiden would lean against the tree trunk and explain how it felt to tell his story to the class. Then he would show his dad how if you looked carefully at the big willow leaning over the pond, you could see the robin’s nest there. You could watch the mama robin poke her head above the nest and fly a bit if the coast was clear. And if you sat very still, the ducks and the geese would not be scared any longer and they would come back over near where he and Daddy sat on the grass by the water. Maybe the ducks had a story to tell, or that pretty robin sitting on her nest, or the tree itself. Each one of them had a story, each creature, each life. The stories were everywhere just waiting to be heard, it seemed to Aiden.

Listen, Daddy, he’d say. All you have to do is listen.