Page 45 of The Weekend Crashers
Piper is distracted by something on the ground, a faint flicker of movement that catches her eye. She walks slowly in that direction then bends down to look more closely. There, nestled in a shallow bunch of leaves, is a baby sparrow.
“You okay over there?” Cole calls out.
A few hatchlings had been brought into the shelter during the time she worked there, and she’d learned the first thing to do was check and see if the nest is nearby. If so, it was best to place the baby back where its mother would return. It was only a myth that an adult bird would sense the baby had been handled by humans and rejected.
“I found a baby bird.”
He hurries over and peers at the baby. It’s very still and one leg seems to jut out unnaturally.
“Is it injured?”
“I’m not sure,” Piper says. She wishes she knew enough to make some sort of determination about its condition.
Her love of animals had been intense and deeply ingrained since the time she was a small child. One of the few issues she and her mother clashed over was having a pet. Maggie never wanted the responsibility, even though Piper insisted she’d help. At six or seven years old, she didn’t understand that she couldn’t walk the dog or run to the store to pick up cat food. The compromise was that Maggie sent her to a place called the Art Farm every summer, a day camp on East 93rd Street that had a little indoor zoo. By the time she was a teenager, old enough to take care of a pet on her own, she was so busy with school and jobs and friends she no longer pushed for it. Thoughts of veterinary school were replaced by accessible ambitions. That’s when she started working at the Union Square Animal Shelter.
“Can you help me look for its nest?” she says.
They check the nearby tree branches, but don’t find anything. Cole pulls out a pair of binoculars.
“Impressively well-equipped,” she says.
“Well, what would a bushcrafter be without binoculars?”
“I can’t imagine,” she says dryly. “Your grandfather would be impressed.”
He spots something and points: The nest is very high up and out of reach. So that’s not an option.
“Is there a veterinary office or shelter nearby?”
“There’s a wildlife rehabilitation place in Chalfont,” he said. “Go get your car. I’ll wait here with the bird.”
“I can’t drive,” she says.
“What do you mean, you can’t drive?” he says.
“I’m from New York City.”
“And what—you thought you’d never step foot outside of it? So much for your survival skills,” he says.
She can’t argue with him on that. He offers to go get his truck, but she refuses to wait behind. “I’ll never find you.” She dumps out her tote filled with twigs, bends down and lines the bottom with dried leaves, and slips the bird inside, making sure to hold it loosely and open so it can get air.
“I have some banana boxes in the back of my truck,” he says.
Perfect.
It’s a ten-minute drive to the Bucks Animal Rescue and Rehabilitation, or BARR. Cole spent a lot of his childhood summers at their camp, and she tells him about her summers at the Art Farm. “You’ll like this place,” he tells her.
Cole pulls the car up a long driveway that leads to a farmhouse-style building. A gravel parking lot winds around to an expanse of horse stables and a field populated by wild turkeys. He walks around to the passenger door to help her get out of the car with the bird box, then leads her up wood-plank stairs to a wraparound terrace. Inside the building, they’re met by a middle-aged woman at a small table holding a small laptop and a few clipboards of paper. Shelves and bulletin boards display informational flyers and cute photos of rescued animals.
“Hey, stranger,” the woman says, standing to give him a hug. “I thought I recognized your truck coming up the drive.”
Cole introduces Piper to the woman, Denise, and she hands over the bird box. Cole fills out paperwork on a clipboard, while Denise pulls on a latex glove and sets the box on the table. She cautiously opens the lid and gently retrieves the bird.
“Oh, aren’t you a cutie?” she said, giving it a quick once-over.
Piper’s heart feels full. There’s something so moving about holding a tiny, fragile thing like that. She wishes she could stay and help.
“Can you... Is there a way to let us know what happens to her?” Piper said.
