SHE GOT him between classes, yanked his knapsack down from behind, pulled his shoulders back. He stopped then, and looked at her, and she didn’t speak, but tugged at his sleeve, led him beneath the doorway to a classroom the school used to store desks. They stood shoulder to shoulder, watched kids pass in front of them, moving through the hall before fourth period bell. When they thinned, she leaned out and looked both ways.

Come on, she said.

She looked again, and then she stepped from beneath the arch, held his fingers with hers, led him onto a quiet walk to the hall exit leading behind the school.

They kept their heads down, over to the teachers’ lot, pulled hood ornaments from hold slots on three of them, left them cocked, dislodged, drooped one side or the other, and then they crossed the practice field, got close to the trees on the east side. She pointed.

What I wanted you to see, she said.

He looked; an owl, bigger than any he’d seen, even in pictures, knee high if standing it looked to him, laid to its back, eyes long and dark, like a person’s, one wing splayed a little, the other tucked behind, wide, fat feet, like a labrador. One foot clutched a headless crow, like a banded newspaper wrapped in plastic, thrown to door stoop. He looked some more, couldn’t figure how it was dead, no wounds, no bullet holes or tire marks on the great owl, just dropped there, left to rot beneath long pine. He wanted to touch it, but would not. He figured lightning, but the feathers were untouched. He looked at Alice, scrunched his face a question. She shrugged.

I don’t know, she said. Just fell I guess.

Just fell? he said. Don’t make sense.

She shrugged again.

Maybe it was just old, she said. Maybe it was just tired.