illustrations by roxy vanslette

by jan devereux

POE THE CROW

jan devereux

POE THE CROW ~~

To Olivia, Cecily, and Graham, and maybe one day, their children.

Copyright © 2004 by Jan Devereux

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,

transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any

form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical,

including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior

written permission from the publisher.

ISBN 0-9749677-0-X

Thank you to Betsy Whitters and her fourth-grade class at

Shady Hill School in Cambridge, my first readers.

Author’s Note:

This is a work of fiction. If you should happen to find a wild

bird’s egg, it is very unlikely that you will succeed in hatching it. If

you find an orphaned baby bird, please consult the instructions on

the New EnglandWildlife Foundation’s web site, www.newildlife.com,

before trying to raise the bird yourself. It is illegal to keep a

wild bird, such as a crow, as a pet. Another good

source of information about crows is www.crows.net.

Printed in the United States of America

Lakeview Press

255 Lakeview Avenue

Cambridge, MA 02138

www.PoetheCrow.com

Chapter 1 A Crow Problem 1

Chapter 2 Lost & Found 9

Chapter 3 The Hatching 17

Chapter 4 Save the Music 26

Chapter 5 What's in a Name? 31

Chapter 6 Secret Homecoming 41

Chapter 7 Good or Bad Omen? 47

Chapter 8 The Crow & The Pitcher 55

Chapter 9 The Fledgling 60

Chapter 10 Show & Tell 69

Chapter 11 No More Secrets 74

Chapter 12 Peace Treaty 81

Chapter 13 Summer Changes 89

Chapter 14 Paradise Lost 101

Chapter 15 The Artist's Muse 109

Chapter 16 Dinner Guests 116

Chapter 17 The Auction 122

Chapter 18 Don't Forget to Call 132

~

~TABLE OF CONTENTS

Everyone agreed that it was a pity. The Wootens’ancient hemlock tree had to be cut down. Thetowering evergreen was diseased and couldn’t besaved. One of its main limbs was rotten and hungperilously low over the family’s garage roof.“That big branch will fall in the next storm, and

it’s only a matter of time before the rest of it rots,” thetree surgeon from Lakeview Landscaping predicted.Nine-year-old Ellie Wooten was puzzled. She

hadn’t even known there were doctors for trees, andit didn’t seem very doctorly to suggest killing anelderly patient. “Isn’t there anything you can do tosave it?” she pleaded. Gazing up at the doomed tree,Ellie noticed a pair of crows harassing a cardinal asthe smaller bird tried to approach the hemlock.“I’m afraid not, honey,” the tree expert said.

“This tree’s probably at least a century old—it’s lived

CHAPTER 1A crow Problem

1

overdue bills piling up on her desk. But Mr. Wootenalways found a sentimental reason why he couldn’tsell this one or that one, and in any case there weren’texactly buyers clamoring at his studio door.Mr. Wooten painted landscapes—pictures of

beaches, fields, forests, and mountains. Unlike somelandscape painters who traveled to far-flung locationsto find fresh subjects, Mr. Wooten preferred to depictwhat he called the “landscapes of his imagination.”Seeking inspiration inside himself instead of outdoors,the artist virtually never left his studio. The landscapeof his own back yard apparently bored him, and hehad never thought to paint the old hemlock tree.Now it was too late.Lately when Ellie came to call her father to the

dinner table, she was more apt to find him gazingabsently into space than painting.

“I’m waiting for inspiration,” he explained whenhis daughter asked him why the canvas on his easelremained empty.That was when he wasn’t ranting about the

crows. Last September a large population of crows hadchosen to roost in the pinewoods behind theWootens’ house. Identical and impossible to countprecisely, the crows numbered well over one hundred,and their piercing, strident calls could be heard fromdawn to dusk. Often, above the noise of the crows,

POE THE CROW A CROW PROBLEM

3

a good life. There’s really no choice.”“Well, if you say so,” Mrs. Wooten reluctantly

agreed. “Can you come back and do it tomorrow? Ifwe put it off any longer the tree could fall rightthrough the roof.” Silently she wondered whichwould cost more—cutting down such a large tree orfixing the roof if the tree fell. Insurance might coverthe cost of repairing the roof, but what if someonewas in the garage when the tree fell and was hurt?Too risky, she regretfully concluded.“I suppose you’re right,” Mr. Wooten said wistfully.

“But I hate to see her go—she’s like an old friend.And without that tree there’ll be no privacy in mystudio. Mrs. Smitty will be able to see right in.” Mrs.Smitty lived next door. She and Mr. Wooten did notget along.Alexander Wooten was a painter whose art studio

was in the family’s converted garage. The garagebuilding had been a carriage house in the days beforethere were automobiles. Horse-drawn buggies hadprobably passed by the hemlock when it was just asapling, it occurred to Mr. Wooten. The studio’s thickrafters that had once held harnesses now served tostore scores of rolled-up canvasses—old paintings theartist couldn’t bear to part with. His wife was forev-er pointing out that if they just sold a few of thoseearly works they could afford to pay some of the

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her husband didn’t create—and sell—some artworksoon. Even the cost of new brushes to replace theones he broke cost a small fortune. “Money doesn’tgrow on trees,” she was fond of saying, but she wishedit did. There was no shortage of trees behind theirhouse—the crows could attest to that.Ellie was worried, too. She was worried about

what would happen to the crows if her fatherfollowed through with his dire threats. Last fall Mr.Wooten had declared war on the crows. The battlelines had been drawn—one angry artist against anunsuspecting army of crows.“Do you know why a flock of crows is called a

‘murder’ of crows?” Mr. Wooten had once asked.“Because they deserve to be murdered!” he had said,answering his own rhetorical question.Ellie was appalled. Her normally gentle father

had been acting like a monster lately. Mrs. Wootenjust shook her head. She understood that the crowsweren’t the real problem; her husband was frustratedbecause he wasn’t painting well, or at all. She knewthat the problem was inside his head, not outside inthe trees. But where was the solution, she wondered?The one-sided warfare against the crows had

flared up last fall, and the artist had tried a variety ofweapons and tactics, all without success. Mr.Wooten’s attempts to shoot the crowswith his boyhood

A CROW PROBLEM

5

Ellie and her mother could hear Mr. Wooten in hisstudio yelling that the crows were driving him crazyand cursing that he couldn’t work with their incessantcawing. The artist was an early riser whose creativejuices flowed fastest at dawn. Unfortunately dawnwas the hour when the crows were apt to be theirmost vocal.It had been a year since the painter’s last gallery

show had opened, to poor reviews. Once the darlingof the art world, Mr. Wooten lately found himselfeclipsed by younger artists. “Wooten’s Water Series:AllWashed Up,” the fickle critic inArt Worldmagazinehad pronounced after his last show. The more thecritics carped (“Wooten’s Ocean: Another Low Tide”was the title of another unfavorable review), the edgierthe artist became, and the less he painted. Mr.Wooten’s agent had scheduled a solo showat aprestigiouscity gallery next fall, but so far the artist had producedno new work to exhibit. The agent’s calls werebecomingmore frequent and anxious, and the pressurehad paralyzed Mr. Wooten, creatively speaking.“He’s got painter’s block,” Mrs. Wooten sighed

when her husband had another one of his tantrumsand broke another brush in frustration. Mrs. Wootenwas a patient woman, but at this point her patiencewas running as low as the family’s savings account.She tried not to think about what would happen if

POE THE CROW

4

declared, “What if Mrs. Smitty’s cat ate the poisonby accident?”Mr. Wooten appeared unswayed, even pleased, by

this possibility, having no great affection for cats. Thecat at risk, Butterball, was an obese tabby that was afrequent and unwelcome visitor to the Wootens’yard, where he preyed on birds smaller than crows.With annoying regularity, Butterball slipped into Mr.Wooten’s studio and made himself at home curled ona stack of cartons holding extra paintbrushes andleaving behind long, orange cat hairs that made theartist sneeze. The artist was allergic to cats. Betweenthe crows and the cat, Mr. Wooten felt under siege. Hislife was hardly the tranquil one he had envisionedwhen the family hadmoved to the country from the city.

A CROW PROBLEM

7

BB gun had backfired, instead damaging Mrs.Smitty’s fence and wounding the painter’s pride. Thefence was repaired (another unnecessary expense,Mrs. Wooten had noted glumly), but Mr. Wooten’sboasts about winning the riflery award at CampRobin Hood were suddenly hard to swallow. TheHalloween scarecrow displayed long past autumn inthe Wootens’ front yard hadn’t seemed to frighten offany of the crows either. (The scarecrow’s continuedpresence through the winter had annoyed Mrs.Smitty, however, almost as much as the damage to herfence. She had said she would call the neighborhoodassociation if the scarecrow weren’t taken down byspring. Mr. Wooten had merely moved it out of sightbehind the garage where the crows continued to floutit.) The plastic owl decoy that Mr. Wooten hadmounted atop the cupola on the garage roof hadn’tfooled the crows either, even after he had begun playinga recording of real owls hooting. (That time, Mrs.Smitty had threatened to call the police if Mr. Wootendidn’t turn down the volume.) Actually the fake owlhad only aggravated the crow problem since, as Mr.Wooten had discovered to his dismay, crows gang upin large numbers to chase away predators like owls.As a last resort Mr. Wooten had mused aloud aboutthe efficacy of “chemical warfare.”“Out of the question!” Mrs. Wooten had

POE THE CROW

6

“But what about the birds who live in the tree?”Ellie asked, as her mother tucked her into bed thenight after the landscaper had delivered his deathsentence against the hemlock. Tomorrow the hemlocktree would be chopped down. “Where will all thebirds go?” she worried.“Don’t worry, honey. The birds will survive—

there are plenty of other trees,” her mother assuredher. Indeed therewas a 50-acre forest in the conservationland behind the garage—that was probably what hadattracted all the crows in the first place.But Ellie did worry. Unlike her father she loved

the morning chorus of birds—the bass cooing of themourning doves, the lilting soprano of the cardinals,the drumming of the woodpeckers, even the staccatocries of the crows. She liked lying in her bed listeningto the crows, wondering what all their urgent caw-

9

The Wootens lived in Lakeview, a town smallenough to have just one elementary school, one zipcode, and a single traffic light. The once-sleepy townhad recently awoken to the threat of commercialgrowth and development, and its citizens had justelected a young mayor whose top priorities weremaintaining open space, building bike lanes, andrewarding recycling. Still, Lakeview remained aquaint town with an old-fashioned general storewhere regular patrons had store charge accounts,although the Wootens had accumulated so manyunpaid bills that their charging privileges had beenrevoked. The Wootens had moved to Lakeview justbefore Ellie was born with the good intention ofraising their only child in a peaceful place where shewould be shielded from the violence of the big city.Little did they expect that one day their own backyardwould become a battlefield. The battle of Mr. Wootenversus the crows was now at a stalemate. The morethe crows cawed, the more the artist fumed—and theless he painted. Something had to give.

POE THE CROW

8

CHAPTER 2LOSt & FOUnd

angles from each side they were positioning the treeto fall squarely across the Wootens’ lawn, away fromthe studio, and away fromMrs. Smitty’s fence. At thefirst sound of saws Mrs. Smitty had charged acrossthe dewy lawn in her fuzzy slippers and bathrobe tomake sure of that, and to take Butterball inside.Assured of the safety of her fence and her cat she hadretreated behind her kitchen window, another opportunityto call the police lost, or just postponed.“Ready?” the head landscaper shouted. “Let her rip!”The assistant fired up his chainsaw and tilted the

blade toward the smaller of the two chinks in thetrunk. Weakened, the proud hemlock began to wob-ble and sway. No one yelled “Timber!” as the tree hit thegroundwith a tremendous thud and shuddered brieflybefore settling at last, its branches still rustling.Ellie and her father left the protection of the

porch to take a closer look. As Ellie approached oneof the tree’s upper limbs, her eye caught somethingdark amidst the green of the pine needles. Peeringthrough the branches she saw a good-sized bird’s nestneatly constructed of sticks, bark, moss, and leaves.Inside was a single speckled egg. The egg wasolive-green with brown and gray blotches. On closerexamination of the area Ellie noticed that three othereggs lay on the ground, each broken in the fall.“Daddy, come look! There’s a bird’s nest with an

LOST & FOUND

11

caw-cawing meant. Were they arguing or laughing?Scolding or singing? Threatening or teasing? As shedrifted off to sleep Ellie imagined what it would belike to be a crow, the most unpopular bird of all.Two landscapers arrived in a giant truck at seven-

thirty the next morning, as Ellie was getting dressedfor school. Sadly she looked out her bedroomwindow at the doomed tree. She said a silent good-byeand a little prayer for the birds. The first angry buzzof the chainsaws sounded as Ellie was pouring cerealinto her bowl. The whine of the saws was deafening,even inside the Wootens’ kitchen. Ellie had to mouth“celery” to her mother’s pantomimed question ofwhether she wanted celery or carrots in her lunchbox.(She didn’t really want either, but celery was easier totrade, especially if her mother spread peanut butter onit.) Ellie wolfed down her breakfast and rushed outside.Her father was watching the landscapers from theporch, sipping his coffee. The noisy sawing was anunassailable excuse for him not to paint this morning.“Stay right here, honey,” he said. “I don’t want

you in the yard when the tree falls.”Ellie held her hands over her ears to muffle the

painful drone of the saws. She hoped that the noisewas enough to warn away any birds left in the tree.By eight o’clock the landscapers had sawed nearly

through the hemlock’s thick trunk. By cutting at different

POE THE CROW

10

class at Lakeview Elementary School. Unlike Ellie,Ricky was what Miss Peterson politely referred to asa “handful” in her frequent conferences with Ricky’sparents. In the privacy of the teachers’ lounge MissPeterson was somewhat less polite. The veteranteachers smiled and told their younger colleague thatthere was a troublemaker in every class and thatRicky was a piece of cake compared to his brothers.

LOST & FOUND

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egg still in it,” Ellie cried.But Mr. Wooten couldn’t hear her, and besides he

wasn’t listening—his attention had turned to a pair ofcrows that were circling in the sky above where thehemlock had stood. The awful buzzing of the sawshad resumed, drowning out the two crows’ outragedcaws. The men were already busy sawing the thicktrunk into sections that would furnish firewood forthe Wootens all next winter, an economy that hadmollified Mrs. Wooten when she had learned the costof removing the tree. Ellie carefully picked up the eggand tucked it gently into her jacket pocket. Herfather’s back was turned as he looked toward thewoods where the pair of crows had retreated to jointhe rest of the flock.From the porch Mrs. Wooten called out, “Ellie,

time for school!” Holding up her daughter’sbackpack, she strode closer to hand it to her.“‘Bye Mom!” Ellie shouted over the din of the

saws. She walked gingerly down the driveway to thebus stop on the corner, trying not to jostle the fragilesecret in her pocket.On the school bus Ellie kept the egg safe and

warm in her pocket. The last thing she wanted was toexpose her newfound treasure to the prying eyes andrough fingers of her seatmate, Ricky Collins. LikeEllie, Ricky was a fourth-grader in Miss Peterson’s

POE THE CROW

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everyone knew he had a crush on Mimi.“Quit it!” Mimi shrieked, as Miss Peterson pried

the eraser from Ricky’s hand and glared at him. Mimisneezed and Ricky snickered. Miss Peterson remindedherself that all Ricky wanted was attention, and sheassigned him the job of passing out papers for theclass’s first activity, math.“Miss Peterson, look,” Ellie persisted. “I found a

bird’s egg. Can we put it in the incubator and hatchit? Please?” Ellie slowly opened her cupped handsto reveal the egg. Miss Peterson and the otherstudents crowded around Ellie to look.“Well, I don’t see why not. But don’t get your

hopes up. It’s very hard to hatch a wild bird’s egg,”Miss Peterson said. “Where did you find it?”Ellie recounted themorning’s sad tale of the hemlock

tree, while Miss Peterson took the olive-green eggand carefully laid it in the incubator next to thetwelve, white chicken eggs. Ellie’s egg was smallerthan the others.“Do you know what kind of egg it is?” the

teacher asked. Ellie shook her head. “Anyone elsewant to guess?” Miss Peterson asked.“A robin’s?” suggested one student.“A cardinal’s?” guessed another.“A woodpecker’s?” ventured a third.“A dinosaur’s!” joked Ricky. The girls groaned,

LOST & FOUND

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“Stop it!” Ellie said as Ricky twisted around inhis seat to grab a younger boy’s hat and elbowed her.Aside from not wanting anything to do with Ricky,Ellie was protecting the egg in her pocket. She slidaway from Ricky and leaned against the window,trying to cushion the egg during the bumpy bus ride.At the next stop Ellie’s best friend, Mimi Lowell,

boarded the bus and gestured to Ricky to move soshe could take her customary seat next to Ellie. Rickyshrugged and stood up, continuing to tease theyounger boy by dangling his hat just out of reach.Finally the bus pulled into the school’s parking lot,and Ellie piled out along with the other students. Sheput her backpack in her locker but kept her jacket on,despite the warm spring day, as she entered MissPeterson’s classroom.On the bus Ellie had formulated a plan. Her class

already had an incubator warming a dozen chickeneggs as part of the science curriculum. Ellie saw noreason why her egg couldn’t be hatched along withthe chicks.“Miss Peterson, look what I brought,” Ellie

announced proudly.Unfortunately Ricky Collins picked the same

moment to clap a chalky eraser right in front ofMimi’s face. Mimi was Ricky’s favorite target toannoy, which didn’t make any sense to Ellie since

POE THE CROW

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Over the next two weeks Miss Peterson’s classwatched the incubator and waited. Every day theclass checked the thermometer in the incubator tomake sure it remained at a constant temperature.Every day they took turns gently rotating the twelvechicken eggs and the single crow egg. Every day theywrote observations in their science journals. Andevery day Ricky Collins did something that made thegirls shriek, the boys laugh, and Miss Peterson loseher temper. Once he nearly knocked over the incuba-tor when he tripped on the power cord and fellagainst the table. Another time he alarmed the classby announcing that the temperature inside theincubator had dropped below freezing, then realizedhe was reading the degrees in Centigrade insteadof Fahrenheit.At the end of the second week, there was great

17

the boys whooped, and the teacher rolled her eyes.The classroom had an encyclopedia of birds, and

Miss Peterson suggested that Ellie andMimi consult itto see if there was a picture of an egg that resembledEllie’s. After several minutes of paging through thebook, the girls found a picture that seemed to match.“It’s a crow’s egg,” Mimi declared with authority.“My dad’s going to kill me,” Ellie thought.

Unwittingly she had rescued one of the enemy. Nowwhat should she do?

POE THE CROW

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CHAPTER 3The Hatching

out were increasingly infrequent, given the Wootens’strained budget, but the Mexican cantina was thetown’s least expensive restaurant, and Ellie lovedtheir chicken enchiladas.) After she had found theegg, Ellie had looked in the Spanish dictionary andhad learned that the word for “crow” is cuervo.There was considerable excitement two days later

when Uno attacked Dos and had to be put in aseparate cardboard box. Sometimes Miss Petersonwished she had a cardboard box big enough tocontain Ricky, yet she marveled how quickly thechicks worked to establish their pecking order—justlike kids on the school’s playground, she mused.The incubator was now empty except for Ellie’s

egg. Ricky said it was probably rotten and held hisnose as if there were a bad smell in the room.“Rotten like you,” Ellie muttered under her

breath.Miss Peterson overhead and suppressed a smile.Sometimes Ellie felt sorry for Ricky but not at the

moment. He could be nice enough when he wasn’tshowing off and trying to get Mimi’s attention. Mimiwas Ellie’s best friend, and it was annoying thatRicky was always following them around and teasingthem. Ellie, Mimi, and Ricky had known each othertheir whole lives. Their mothers were friends and hadthrown the trio together to “play” as babies. Therewere embarrassing pictures in the Wootens’ photo

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excitement as, one by one, eleven chicks fought theirway out of their shells and emerged bedraggled fromtheir eggs. They were not yet the fluffy, yellow Easterchicks that the children had envisioned; their featherswere sticky, damp, and rumpled, and their over-largebeaks and eyes made them look more like insectsthan birds. After waiting so long for the eggs tohatch, the students were somewhat surprised to seethat the chicks didn’t look more fully developed. Inthe commotion around the incubator Ricky stepped onEllie’s toe. When her elbow found his ribs of courseMiss Peterson was looking and glared at them both.Two days later when one egg still hadn’t hatched,

Miss Peterson pronounced it a “dud.” She explainedthat sometimes not every egg is fertilized and that anunfertilized egg won’t hatch. Ellie worried that heregg might be another dud and kept her fingerscrossed that it would hatch eventually.The class voted, more or less democratically, to

name the eleven chicks after Spanish numbers in theorder of their hatching—Uno, Dos, Tres—right up toOnce. Spanish instruction started in fourth grade atLakeview, and by this time the class had learned tocount to twenty. They had also been taught theSpanish words for chicken (pollo) and egg (huevo),vocabulary Ellie knew already from eating with herparents at their favorite Mexican restaurant. (Meals

POE THE CROW

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but Ricky got in trouble for trying to feed the chickspopcorn at snack time. “I thought chickens likedcorn,” he protested innocently, as the other boyssnickered. The girls were less amused. Miss Petersonfelt a sore throat coming on and assigned the classextra silent reading.OnWednesday nothing happened in the incubator,

but Miss Peterson called in sick and the class had asubstitute teacher. The substitute didn’t knowSpanish and kept calling Dos “Deuce.” This time, thegirls and the boys snickered together.On Thursday something finally happened in the

incubator. Ricky was the first to notice since, asusual, he had found an excuse to be out of his seatand was sharpening his pencil for the third time thatday. As he passed by the incubator he interruptedMiss Peterson’s lesson on long division: “Holycrow!” he shouted. “It’s hatching!”

THE HATCHING

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album of them all as toddlers, naked and splashing ina plastic pool. The children’s friendship had lasted aslong as their mothers still had the power to pick theirplaymates, but now the girls and boys had dividedthemselves into warring camps at school. MissPeterson smiled to herself when she imagined how allthat would change in just a few short years. Rickywould probably end up escorting Mimi or Ellie to thesenior prom, she guessed.“I don’t know how much longer we can wait for

your egg to hatch, Ellie,” said Miss Peterson onMonday. “We have to return the incubator to thepoultry farm when spring vacation starts at the endof this week.” Like her students, Miss Peterson wascounting the days until spring break.Left unsaid was the dismal fact that the chicks

soon would be leaving for the poultry farm, too. Elliehad stubbornly refused to eat Sunday night’s dinnerof fried chicken—usually her favorite meal. Shesimply could not bear the fact that one day Unothrough Once might appear fried on her plate. Lastnight Ellie had declared herself a vegetarian and hadinformed her parents that she would no longer eateggs either. Her mother had rolled her eyes at thethought of cooking for a nine-year-old vegetarianwho had never particularly liked vegetables.On Tuesday nothing happened in the incubator,

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and that they demand hourly feeding for the firstmonth or so. Hourly feeding! She didn’t have muchtime to prepare the crow’s first meal.In the cafeteria she found just what she needed on

her own students’ lunch trays: a slice of turkey fromEllie’s sandwich (now that she was a vegetarian sheonly ate the bread) and the untouched yolk fromMimi’s hard-boiled egg (she only liked the whitepart). She took some tofu and brown rice from SierraSmith. (Poor Sierra, her parents were health-foodnuts, but what Sierra craved most was baloney sand-wiches and barbecued potato chips.) Ricky offered tocontribute a chocolate cookie “for dessert” but MissPeterson politely declined.By the time the students returned from recess,

their teacher had mashed up the lunch leftovers,adding a few drops of warmwater to make a thin paste.“We’ll try this out once it’s fully hatched,” she

explained. Although she tried not to show it, MissPeterson was a bit squeamish about having to thrustthe food into the tiny bird’s gaping beak. She wasthankful, at least, that she didn’t have on hand someof the other recommended foods—crushed insectsand chopped worms.For the rest of the afternoon the students were too

distracted to concentrate on their spelling lesson. Thebaby crow, unaware that it was preventing the children

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Twenty-two math books hit twenty-two desks asall twenty-two students rushed to crowd around theplastic dome of the incubator. Inside, the speckled eggwas rocking slightly, and a tiny hole had appeared atone end.Miss Peterson called for order. “Everyone calm

down,” she said, the barest hint of panic in her voice.Miss Peterson honestly hadn’t believed that the

egg would ever hatch, and she hadn’t thought to findout what a baby crow eats, or what she would dowith it if it did hatch. The poultry farm had sent asupply of pre-formulated food for the chicks and along list of instructions on how to care for them, butshe didn’t suppose that crows and chicks ate the samethings. All she needed now, just two days beforespring break, was the added responsibility of keepinga wild baby bird alive. (The death last fall of theclass’s guinea pig, Homer, had been traumaticenough; she wasn’t anxious to have another class petdie on her watch.) The teacher figured she had a coupleof hours before the baby crow would break free of itsshell and demand its first meal.Fortunately it was time for gym, then lunch and

recess. When the students left the classroom, MissPeterson headed straight to her computer. Logging onto the Internet and searching for “crows,” shelearned that baby crows require a high-protein diet

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house, Erin was well aware of Mr. Wooten’s hatred ofcrows and of his so-far unsuccessful crusade to scarethem away. When Ellie had confessed her fears abouttrying to hatch a crow egg, Erin was both sympatheticand pragmatic.“Don’t count your chickens—I mean crows—

before they hatch,” Erin had cautioned. “If the eggdoes hatch, then we’ll cross that bridge when wecome to it.”Now that the egg had hatched Ellie was in a real

bind. How was she going to tell her parents that thefamily’s newest addition was one of the enemy—a baby crow!

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from mastering the difference between “their,”“there,” and “they’re,” doggedly pecked through itsshell until it finally broke free. The class cheered, thedismissal bell rang, and Miss Peterson was left alonewith a baby bird thatmore closely resembled a prehistoriccreature than a crow. Hatched with its eyes closedand without feathers, the baby crow was mostlymouth and utterly helpless. Miss Peterson didn’tthink she had ever seen a homelier newborn.“Don’t worry,” the teacher called to Ellie, who

lingered as the other students hurried to catch theirbuses. “I’ll take care of him tonight. But you’d betterask your parents if it’ll be okay for you to bring himhome over vacation.”Miss Peterson had plans to spend spring break in

Jamaica with her boyfriend, and the baby crow wasdefinitely not invited.But Ellie did worry. She had never told her parents

about the egg she'd foundor about keeping it the incubator.She knew it would set her father off on another of histirades if she so much as breathed the word “crow.”The only adult friend of the Wootens who knew

about the crow egg was Erin O’Neil, Ellie’s pianoteacher and favorite “baby”-sitter. Erin also taughtmusic at Lakeview so she had heard Miss Petersontalking in the teachers’ lounge about trying to hatchEllie’s crow egg. As a regular visitor to the Wootens’

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“Anyway the crowmight not even survive tonightwith Miss Peterson,” Ellie thought glumly. As shecarried her plate to the kitchen sink, she paused to listento her parents’ conversation.“Any progress today, dear?” Mrs. Wooten asked

her husband in a chipper voice. She was practiced atsounding happier than she felt.“Sort of. I don’t know,” Mr. Wooten sighed. “I

started a new painting but then I quit. It looks toomuch like the ones I painted last year, and no oneliked them very much,” he said, balling up his napkinand pushing away his plate. Unlike his wife, the artistmade no effort to conceal his true feelings; he worehis moods on his paint-splattered sleeve.“My agent says I need to find a ‘new direction.’

What if we went away this summer—how about atrip outWest?Maybe a change of scene would help mecome up with something fresh. What do you think?Wouldn’t it be great to show Ellie the Grand Canyon?”“You know we haven’t got the money for a big

vacation this summer,” his wife stated flatly, neatlyfolding her napkin beside her plate. She glanced ather watch. “I have to leave in a few minutes. There’sa PTO meeting at seven. Your turn to do the dishes,”she said brightly as she rose from the table.Caroline Wooten was a tireless volunteer at her

daughter’s school. As one of the dwindling group of

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That night at dinner, Ellie pushed her foodaround on her plate. Her parents were eatinghamburgers, but now that Ellie was a vegetarian shewas faced with a tofu burger instead. Knowing thattofu was a high-protein meat substitute made frombean curd didn’t make it any more appetizing; it wasstill beige and jiggly like jello.“Try it with some ketchup,” her mother suggested

when Ellie wrinkled her nose after the first bite.“I don’t know how Sierra stands this stuff,”

thought Ellie. She ate the roll, all her French fries, andsome applesauce and asked to be excused. She haddecided to keep the news of the baby crow to herselfuntil tomorrow. By then it would be too late for herparents to say “no.” She’d simply bring it home, andthey wouldn’t have the heart to tell her she couldn’tkeep it.

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CHAPTER 4Save the Music

Lakeview Elementary’s music teacher, ErinO’Neil, was a special friend of the Wooten family andwas like a big sister to Ellie. While Erin was in highschool, she hadbecomeEllie’s baby-sitter. After graduatingfrom college last year she was thrilled to be hired asthemusic teacher at Lakeview. Popular with her students(“Miss O” taught them Beatles songs on theirrecorders), Erin came to the Wootens’ house everyMonday after school to give Ellie piano lessons. Sheremained Ellie’s favorite sitter, and Ellie wished herparents had the money to go out more often so Erincould come over. When Erin did come to help, sheand Ellie would play music and dance and makebrownies and paint their toenails together. It was justlike having a real big sister except that they didn’t

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stay-at-home moms, she felt obliged to help out withthe school’s many bake sales and library book drives,and any other fundraisers that the Lakeview PTOdreamed up. A successful advertising executive in thecity before Ellie was born, Mrs. Wooten was creativeand well organized, and her professional skills weremuch appreciated at the school. With just one child(well, two if you counted her husband; being marriedto an artist wasn’t easy, as her own mother hadwarned her), she had a good deal of time and energyto devote to the school. Staying busy helped keep hermind off the family’s mounting debt—and off the factthat if her husband’s painting career didn’t bounceback soon she’d have to find a job. She wasn’t exactlysure what kind of paying job she could find in a smalltown like Lakeview, but she was sure that their meagersavings account was shrinking every month.“Did you hear that Erin may lose her job?” Mrs.

Wooten asked her daughter, peering into her purse andbeginning her perpetual hunt for her car keys. “Shemay not be re-hired next fall because the school districtis cutting the budget for Lakeview’s music program.That’s what tonight’s meeting is about. I think it’shorrible—how can a school just eliminatemusic classes?”Without waiting to hear the answer to her ques-

tion, Mrs. Wooten hurried out the back door. She hadlocated her car keys beneath a stack of unopened bills.

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The next morning Ellie awoke earlier than usual.She lay in bed and listened to the household’s morningsounds. From the kitchen she heard the coffeemakerspitting and sighing. From the bathroom she heardher mother’s off-key warble over the hiss of the shower.From outside she heard the songbird orchestra tuningup, and loudest of all, the quarrelsome crows goingat it again. And from the studio she heard her fathercurse the crows as he slammed the windows shut.“There he goes again,” Ellie thought. Excited that

it was the last day of school before spring break, andanxious to find out if the baby crow had livedthrough the night, Ellie dressed quickly, hardly stoppingto brush her long hair. She found an empty shoeboxin her closet and made room for it in her backpack.“What happened at the PTO meeting last night?”

she asked her mother at breakfast. “Is Erin going to

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argue, as Mimi was quick to point out. (Mimi had acrabby older sister she would have traded any day fora nice one like Erin.)

It was Erin who had taught Ellie to identify andappreciate songbirds. Erin was fond of saying, “thebirds are nature’s symphony orchestra.” She had arecording of birdcalls that she played to teach Ellie todistinguish among the different songbirds. At homeErin’s family had a clock that chimed the hour inbirdcalls; Ellie laughed when Erin told her that theO’Neil’s beloved spaniel Teddy always howled atseven o’clock when the mourning dove sounded.That night Ellie had something besides the baby

crow to worry about. She loved Erin and her musicclass at school. If Erin lost her job at Lakeview shemight have to move far away to find another teachingjob, and then Ellie would hardly ever see her. Theprospect of losing touch with Erin was even harder toaccept than the fact that she wouldn’t see the GrandCanyon anytime soon, or that the baby crow mightnot survive its first night.

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CHAPTER 5What’s ina Name?

bookworm. Picking up a Fruit Loop from the busfloor she continued, “But I have to share a bed withDede in the hotel. That stinks.”Dede was Mimi’s thirteen-year-old sister—the

crabby one. On her last birthday Dede hadannounced that she no longer wished to be addressedby her childhood nickname and from then on wouldonly answer to “Deirdre.” Since then, the teenager haddone her best to recast her family in a less humiliatinglight, and failing that, to pretend she had never seenthem before. In public she insisted on calling Mimi byher full name, Miriam, though in private she stillfavored “Pond Scum.” Their father, Oliver WinthropLowell III, was “Terry” to his friends and “Owl” tohis wife. The former Dede cringed when her fathercalled her mother “Dodo” instead of her given name,Dorothy. The Lowells’ oldest child, Oliver WinthropLowell IV, was away at boarding school where hewent by “Cuatro” and wore the number four on hisice hockey jersey. When Ellie visited the Lowells shehad gotten used to answering to either “Lele” (Mrs.Lowell’s pet name for her) or “Eleanor” (her realname and the one now favored by Deirdre).Sometimes Lele/Eleanor/Ellie wished she wasn’t anonly child, but visiting the Lowells usually nippedthat fantasy in the bud.Thankfully Ricky ran out of Fruit Loops just as

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lose her job? I hope not!”“We voted to have a ‘Save the Music’ fundraising

drive to keep the music program going. In fact, Ivolunteered to chair the committee. It’s going to be alot of work—we need to raise $100,000 by August,but if we do, then Erin won’t lose her job,” Mrs.Wooten explained.One hundred thousand dollars sounded like an

impossibly large sum to Ellie, whose allowance wasonly three dollars a week, but she nodded in agreementwith her mother that saving the music (and Erin’sjob) was worth the effort. She grabbed her lunch boxand backpack and headed outside to wait for theschool bus. As she passed her father’s studio shetapped on the window and waved. Her father lookedup and waved back absent-mindedly. Ellie observedthat the canvas on his easel was still empty.The bus ride to school seemed longer and more

irritating than usual. Ellie and Mimi sat together andtalked about the trip Mimi’s family would take tovisit Washington, D.C., over spring break. RickyCollins sat a row behind and lobbed Fruit Loops intothe girls’ seat. At first the two girls pretended theydidn’t notice, but later they started tossing the piecesof cereal back over their shoulders.“I’m looking forward to visiting the Library of

Congress,” Mimi said. Mimi was something of a

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every hour or so for the next several weeks. He alsoneeds water,” she continued. She demonstrated using aneyedropper to squirt a couple of drops of water intothe bird’s open mouth. “If he had hatched in the wildhis parents would have taken turns feeding him. Butsince he’s an orphan we’ll have to do our best. Ellie,did you ask your parents about bringing him home?”“I brought a shoebox to carry him in” Ellie

replied, dodging the question.Miss Peterson had found out a lot about crows on

the Internet last night between late-night feedings.She had been surprised to learn that crows are amongthe most intelligent and sociable birds. Scientists

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the bus arrived at school. (The girls had chorused,“Dis-gust-ing!” when they discovered he was eatingthe cereal on the rebound.) Not stopping to put herlunch box in her locker, Ellie raced to the classroomto find out about the baby crow. Prepared for theworst, her heart was pounding. “Please, let him bealive,” she prayed.“Relax,” Miss Peterson said when she saw Ellie

rush in all out of breath, an anxious look on her face.“He made it through the night just fine. See? I madehim a nice, soft nest, and I kept it right beside my bed.I fed him several times last night, and he slept like ababy.” That was more than Miss Peterson could sayfor her own night’s sleep; she felt more than a tadcranky after having been awakened at four-thirty inthe morning by a hungry bird.Ellie and the rest of the class crowded around the

cardboard box containing the tiny bird asleep in a“nest” their teacher had made from pieces of tornfabric and shredded newspaper. The creature didn’tlook anything like a crow yet with its raw-lookingskin. Its pointed beak and scrawny legs and feet werepink—not black like the students had expected.“I did some research on crows last night on the

Internet,” Miss Peterson explained, as she dabbed abit of brown mush onto the end of a Q-tip and insertedit into the bird’s gaping beak. “He needs to be fed

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won’t learn to caw,” she hoped.“Has anyone heard of ‘imprinting’?” Miss

Peterson asked.“Is that like fingerprinting?” Ricky joked.“I have,” another student answered. “I read a

story about a duckling who thought its mother was adog because the dog was the first thing it saw whenit hatched. It followed the dog everywhere.”“Did it quack or bark?” Ricky asked. The

class laughed.“That’s right,” Miss Peterson said, ignoring

Ricky’s interruption. “Imprinting is when a baby birdforms an attachment to whomever—or whatever—takes care of it first. This baby is going to imprint onpeople, and since Ellie is going to be taking care ofhim he’ll think she’s his mother.”“How do you know it’s a boy crow?” Sierra

asked pointedly. Sierra was a feminist as well asa vegetarian.“I don’t,” the teacher admitted. “It’s almost

impossible to tell the difference with most baby birds.And when crows grow up both males and femaleshave black feathers, so even then it’s really hard toknow for sure.” Maybe I am being sexist, shethought to herself. Miss Peterson, like many people,had always thought of crows as loud and mischievous,a little like Ricky. But she reminded herself that not

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studying crows have determined that they are anythingbut “bird brains” and are, in fact, as smart as dogs.Crows are also talented vocal mimics and have arepertoire of more than twenty distinct calls. Theylive up to two decades and they mate for life, withboth parents helping to feed and raise their babies.Yet despite their unusual intelligence, crows are oftenmaligned by humans. As noisy scavengers, crowshave acquired the undeserved reputation as troublesomethieves in folklore and stories throughout the ages.Miss Peterson had never given much thought tocrows before, but now she had begun to wonder whysuch smart creatures seemed so universally disliked. Itdidn’t seem right to criticize crows for playing thethankless role that nature had cast them in.Scavengers of all kinds were an ecological necessity,after all.The teacher shared some of her new knowledge

with the class. “He’s called a ‘nestling’ now. He’ll gethis feathers in about five weeks, and then he’ll beknown as a ‘fledgling.’ Hewon’t be able to leave the nestor learn to fly until then,” Miss Peterson informedthe class while writing the new two words on theboard at the bottom of this week’s vocabulary list.“I wonder when he’ll start cawing?” Ellie worried

to herself. The tiny bird couldn’t even squeak.“Maybe if he doesn’t grow up with other crows he

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She thought it was unlikely since there were dozens ofcrows in their yard, not just one. But it was hard notto be superstitious when it seemed as if all the family’stroubles had started when the crows came to roost.“If he’s evil, let’s call him ‘Lord Voldemart,’”

Ricky wisecracked. “Only then we’d never be able tosay his name out loud,” he joked. Like most of MissPeterson’s students, Ricky was an avid reader of theHarry Potter books.“He’s not evil! That’s so unfair—he’s just a

baby!” Ellie already felt protective of her new charge.“I have a good idea for a name!” Mimi said

excitedly. “On Halloween my father read me a reallyspooky poem about a crow that kept saying‘Nevermore.’ The author’s name was Edward AllanPoe,” she explained. “I think we should call him‘Poe,’” she declared. Mimi’s father was an Englishprofessor at the local college and, as a result, Mimiwas extremely well-read for her age. Miss Petersonhad a hard time finding books in LakeviewElementary’s small library that were challengingenough for Mimi.“That was Edgar Allan Poe, but you’re absolutely

right, Mimi. Poe did write a well-known poem calledThe Raven—that’s a type of crow. The ravenappeared mysteriously late one stormy night in thepoet’s room. He kept asking the raven questions

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all boys misbehaved. It had been a long school year,and she was ready for a vacation.“Can we name him—or her?” a student asked.“Good idea. Let’s think of some names,” said

Miss Peterson. She went to the blackboard andpicked up a piece of chalk.“How about Midnight?” a boy suggested.“Or Inky?” a girl offered.“What about Baldy since he doesn’t have any

feathers!” Ricky interjected.“Charcoal?” one student said.“Pepper?” said another.“Or Cocoa,” someone said.“What about Shadow?” someone else suggested.Miss Peterson wrote all these names on

the blackboard.“It’s the thirteenth egg; let’s name him Trece,”

said one student recalling the Spanishword for thirteen.“That’s an interesting coincidence,” the teacher

noted. “Did you know that in many cultures peoplebelieve that crows are a sign of bad luck, like thenumber thirteen? In Scotland people used to thinkthat if they saw a single crow circling a house it meantthat someone who lived there would die soon.”“That’s creepy,” a girl said.Ellie wondered if the crows actually could be the

cause of her father’s bad luck in painting, after all.

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On the bus ride home from school, Ellie sat aloneholding the shoebox in her lap with Poe nestled safelyinside. She wanted to make sure no one bothered heror touched the tiny bird during the bumpy ride home,so she had taken the seat directly behind the driver.Normally she would have sat farther back, noisilycelebrating the start of vacation with her friends, butnot today—she was taking her responsibility as Poe’snew mother very seriously. Miss Peterson had givenher detailed instructions on how to take care of thebird, and Ellie had practiced feeding himwith the Q-tipand eyedropper before school ended. Now she justhad to break the news to her parents, and sherehearsed the scene in her mind as the bus turnedonto her street.She imagined coming home with the box hidden

under her jacket and going straight to her room

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about his dead girlfriend Lenore but the bird wouldonly answer ‘Nevermore’—it eventually drove thepoet crazy,” Miss Peterson explained. “‘Quothe theRaven, Nevermore,’” she recited, looking dreamilyinto space. It was at times like these that MissPeterson wished she were teaching high schoolEnglish instead of fourth grade. But when she imaginedwhat the high school version of Ricky Collins mightlook like—pierced, tattooed, and dressed head-to-toein leather—she shuddered.“‘Poe the Crow,’” Ellie repeated. “I like that

name. It rhymes.” The rest of the class agreed to letEllie have the final say since she had found the egg.“‘Poe the Crow’ it is, then,” the teacher agreed.

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CHAPTER 6Secret Homecoming

“Hi Mom,” Ellie said breezily, entering throughthe kitchen door. “I have something to show you.You’ve got to promise not to get mad.” She placedthe shoebox on the table and lifted off the top. Hermother jumped back, startled.“What on earth is that?” Mrs. Wooten asked in

surprise. She had thought the box probably containedone of Ellie’s many messy art projects-in-progress.The last thing she had expected to see was a baldbaby bird cradled in a newspaper and fabric nest.“We hatched him at school,” Ellie said matter-of-

factly. Then she told her mother the story of how shehad found the bird’s nest the day their tree waschopped down and how she had taken the egg toschool to hatch. She assured her mother that sheknew how to take care of him and promised shewould do all the work. “Can I keep him? Please?”she pleaded.“Well of course, honey. He’d die otherwise,” Mrs.

Wooten answered. She had a soft spot for animals.Growing up she had had two dogs, six cats and asuccession of hamsters, guinea pigs, and gerbils. Shemissed having pets now, but her husband complainedof allergies. The family did keep an aquarium stockedwith tropical fish, but Mrs. Wooten always felt thatfish weren’t real pets because she couldn’t pat them.She wouldn’t be able to pat this new pet either—at

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where she would hide Poe under her bed. But sheknew she would never be able to keep such a bigsecret from her mother, a woman who sometimesseemed to have eyes in the back of her head. Hermother was sure to find Poe the next time she wenton one of her frequent “We’ve got to clean up yourroom!” campaigns. Besides, Ellie recognized that shewould need her mother’s help caring for Poe.Reluctantly Ellie decided that she would have to behonest and hope for the best.

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husband, but she didn’t want to upset him right noweither. He had always been moody and whether hewas up or down depended on how he felt about hispainting. Just this morning, at breakfast, he was thehappiest he had been in months.“I found it!” he had announced triumphantly

upon entering the kitchen.“What, did you lose your pipe again?” Mrs.

Wooten had inquired. Mr. Wooten liked to chew ona pipe while he painted, that is when he wasn’t tearingthe house apart looking for one of the many pipeshe’d misplaced over the years. The artist had quitsmoking several years ago, but he still liked the familiarfeel of a pipe in his mouth, especially when he wastrying to work.“No! I mean I’ve found the ‘new direction’ for my

painting,” he had said, refilling his coffee mug andhurrying back to the studio. Mrs. Wooten had knownbetter than to get her hopes up; by lunch time herhusband was down in the dumps again. “The criticsare right. I am a has-been,” he had concluded glumly.His flood of inspiration seemed to have dried up already.“You are not,” Mrs. Wooten had insisted.

“You’re someone who has been successful andwill beagain—I’m sure of it. You just need to stop worryingabout what the critics say and paint from yourheart.” She had always been a good cheerleader, but

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least not yet. The baby bird’s featherless skin lookedraw and its tiny bones were fragile.“Do you know what kind of bird it is?” she asked

her daughter.Ellie drew a breath and hemmed. “Um—we think

it’s—a crow,” she finally ventured. “We named him‘Poe’ after the famous writer,” she added, hoping thatthe literary connection would enhance his pedigree.Mrs. Wooten loved books and whenever she andMimi’s father, Professor Lowell, got together theirconversation always turned to literature. Ellie oftenfelt that her mother wished her own daughter werean avid reader like Mimi, instead of just an averagefourth-grader who preferred Nancy Drew mysteriesto Jane Austen novels.“Well, I like the name, but I know someone in this

house who’s not going to be pleased to meet Poe,”said Mrs. Wooten shaking her head.“I know. Dad’s going to flip out, isn’t he?” Ellie

asked.“Not if he doesn’t find out. I’ll tell you what: let’s

keep Poe in your room for now, and we’ll wait for theright moment to introduce them,” Mrs. Wootensuggested. To herself she wondered how long theywould be able to keep this tiny creature alive. Theymight not have a secret to keep for long anyway.Mrs. Wooten didn’t like keeping secrets from her

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In other years, the week of spring break hadalways passed too quickly for Ellie. Just as she hadsettled into the relaxing routine of staying in her pajamasuntil late morning, painting beside her father in hisstudio, helping her mother start seedlings for thefamily’s vegetable garden, and having sleepovers withher friend Mimi, the idyllic week would suddenlyend, and school would resume. This year was different.The week seemed to crawl by.Perhaps it was because Ellie, like other newmothers,

was sleep-deprived and tied down by her baby’salmost constant need to eat. Every morning beforedawn Poe awoke “with the birds” to demand his firstmeal of the day. Ellie kept his special food in acontainer on her bedside table and his shoebox neston the floor next to her bed, so she could lean overand feed him without even getting out of bed. She still

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her husband had been off his game for so long that,by this stage, her encouragement sounded hollow.It didn’t help that the artist’s agent, Mr. Rimbaud,

phoned several times a day to inquire how the newwork was progressing and to give suggestions thatMr. Wooten invariably rejected. Mr. Wooten recentlyhad unplugged the phone in the studio, and Mrs.Wooten had begun screening incoming calls beforeanswering. Even so, their voice mail was full ofincreasingly frantic calls from the agent remindingMr. Wooten of how many weeks remained before theopening of his next show at the gallery. So far theartist had completed only one new painting, and heneeded to paint at least tenmore by the end of summer.Later in the day Mrs. Wooten wondered what her

husband’s mood would be at dinner. As she started toprepare two pork chops, one tofu burger, and somehigh-protein mush for Poe, she wondered how muchlonger it would take her husband to climb out of hisslump. As Ellie watched her mother cook, she won-dered how much longer she would be able to holdout as a vegetarian—and how long they would beable to hide a baby crow from her father.

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CHAPTER 7Good or Bad Omen?

“No, they’re rats with wings! And at least ratsaren’t so noisy,” her father had replied crossly.Pointing to a newspaper article he had recently read,clipped, and pinned to his easel, he had quoted: “InTokyo, Japan, the crow population has tripled in thelast 15 years, and as many as 21,000 of the wingedpests now plague the city with frequent peckingattacks. Experts believe that the birds have migratedfrom the jungles of Southeast Asia in search ofgarbage in the sprawling metropolitan area. The gov-ernment announced a crackdown to eliminate thebirds from the city.”Ellie’s mother wasn’t her usual cheery self this

vacation either. She was busy organizing the “Savethe Music” auction and spent most of the day on thecomputer or the phone, leaving little time for projectswith Ellie. Each spring, Ellie and her mother alwaysplanted seeds in small containers, but this year theywere both distracted. While they planted, Mrs.Wooten talked on the phone and Ellie worried aboutwhether Poe was getting enough to eat. They plantedlettuce, tomatoes, squash, corn, carrots, and for thefirst time this year, eggplant: “It’s a great meatsubstitute for vegetarians,” her mother pointed out.Ellie who had never tasted eggplant, had her doubts.

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stayed in her pajamas late into the morning, but thiswas because she remained in bed later too: feedingPoe and dozing off, feeding Poe and dozing off. Shestayed in her bedroom most of the day because shedidn’t want to leave Poe alone too long. Once shetook Poe with her to the living room to watch TVand had to quickly hide the shoebox under a pillowwhen her father wandered in hunting for his pipe.Ellie’s visits to her father’s studio were briefer than

usual; his mood continued gloomy, and she didn’t feelright asking to paint beside him if he wasn’t paintinghimself. Despite the lovely spring weather the artistkept all the windows in the studio firmly shut, but hestill complained that the sound of the crows was drivinghim crazy. He had begun wearing earplugs orheadphones while he tried to paint, but that meanthe couldn’t hear Ellie either when she tried to cheerhim up. She used to love being with her father in thestudio, but now she felt almost as unwelcome as thecrows outside. Plus, now that she had grownattached to Poe she could no longer agree when herfather blamed the crows for all his problems. Elliewanted to spring to the crows’ defense but insteadshe bit her tongue. There was no point in trying tochange her father’s mind. She had tried once before.“Daddy, why do you hate crows so much?

They’re just birds,” she had asked timidly.

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One for sorrow,Two for mirth,Three for a wedding,Four for a birth,Five for rich,Six for poor,Seven for a witch—I’ll tell you no more.

“That’s cool. But what does ‘mirth’ mean?”Ellie asked.“Mirth means happiness, or joy. My grandmother

told me that people used to think they could predictthe future by counting crows—that’s what the rhymeis about. She also had an expression: ‘It’s the raven’sknowledge’ for when someone seemed to havean uncanny ability to see into the future,”Erin explained.“Then I guess we need a second crow—or maybe

four more—if this family’s ever going to be happy orrich!” Ellie calculated, thinking of her father’s moodsand the family’s financial worries.“That’s right,” Erin laughed. “And what do you

think your little friend Poe would say about whetheror not I’ll still have a teaching job at Lakeview nextyear?” Erin asked more seriously.“I know my mom has been working really hard

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With Mimi away in Washington for the week,Ellie was lonely. The week’s highpoint was Fridaynight when Erin came to baby-sit because Sierra’sparents had invited Mr. and Mrs. Wooten to a dinnerparty. It was Ellie’s first chance to show off her newpet to anyone besides her mother. After her parentsleft, Ellie brought Erin to her bedroom and revealedthe tiny bird in his shoebox nest. Erin was immediatelysmitten with Poe and very impressed with Ellie’smaternal dedication.“You’re doing a great job—it’s a lot of work

being a mom, isn’t it?” The oldest in a close-knit fam-ily of six children, Erin knew about such things.“Did you know that in Ireland crows are

considered fortune-telling omens?” Erin asked. Sheknew all kinds of interesting trivia. That was one ofthe things Ellie liked best about her. “I remember acounting rhyme about crows that my Irishgrandmother taught me,” Erin said and recited:

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“And you do?” Mr. Wooten remarked, raising hiseyebrows. Hemade himself a thick roast beef sandwichand cut a still-warm brownie from the pan.As Ellie headed to her room to get ready for

bed and give Poe his final feeding for the night, sheheard the adults discussing the “Save the Music”fundraising campaign.“I really appreciate all the time and effort you’re

devoting to the auction, Mrs. Wooten,” Erin saidsincerely. “I don’t know what I’ll do if I can’t comeback to the school next year. Teaching there has beenperfect because I can live with my parents and savemoney for graduate school. If I have to find a job inthe city I’ll barely be able to afford an apartment ona teacher’s salary. And I hate the thought of being sofar away from my family and friends.”“Thanks,” Mrs. Wooten replied. “I just don’t see

how the school committee could be so shortsighted. Imean, isn’t learning music just as important asfootball? The budget for the high school’s footballteam is twice what the music program costs, butthey’re not talking about firing the football coach!”She shook her head.“I suppose art will be the next thing they cut,”

Mr. Wooten remarked glumly.Alone in her room Ellie gently stroked Poe. His

first dark, downy feathers were beginning to grow in,

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to raise the money. I hope you’ll be able to stay,” Elliesaid earnestly.“Me too,” Erin said. “Let’s give Poe a snack and

then let’s go make some brownies.”Later, as Erin and Ellie were cleaning up the kitchen,

Mr. and Mrs. Wooten came home from the dinnerparty. Mr. Wooten headed straight for the refrigeratorand opened it, surveying the array of choices.“Your father didn’t care for what Sierra’s dad

served for dinner tonight—bell peppers stuffed withtofu, rice, and beans,” Mrs. Wooten explained.“They’re strict vegetarians just like you, Ellie,” shesaid, a hint of irony in her voice.“Don’t rub it in,” Ellie thought. Her mother had

mercifully stopped serving her tofu burgers, but Elliewas getting tired of eating pasta every night. She usedto love macaroni-and-cheese but not anymore.Mr. Wooten opened a plastic container and

sniffed. “What’s this brown stuff?” he asked, dippinghis finger in to take a taste.“Don’t eat that!” Ellie shrieked, snatching it from

him just in time. He had discovered some of Poe’sfood—moistened puppy chow mixed with egg yolkand dead flies purchased from a pet store. “It’s mynew vegetarian sandwich spread. You wouldn’t likeit,” Ellie explained to cover up. Mrs. Wooten andErin stifled giggles.

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The Monday following spring vacation Ellie wassurprised to feel relieved to return to school. After aweek in close confines with a busy mother, a moodyfather and a demanding baby bird, Ellie felt she hadearned a break from her vacation. Her motherhad agreed, as cheerfully as could be expected, totake over the care and feeding of Poe while Ellie wasat school.“I suppose I can put his box on the bookshelf in

my study,” Mrs. Wooten said. “That way I can keepan eye on him while I’m working on the fundraiser.”Luckily Mr. Wooten normally avoided his wife’s

study. Wary of technology, the artist maintained that“computers have no soul.” His stubborn resistance tolearning to use a computer gave him a convenientexcuse to let his wife handle the family’s precariousfinances and correspondence with bill collectors.

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and his eyes had finally opened. The young girl andthe baby crow had bonded deeply in the week theyhad spent together. “Maybe I’m crazy,” Ellie thought,“but I think Poe is some kind of an omen.” She justhoped his presence spelled good things, both for herfamily and for Erin.

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CHAPTER 8The Crow & The Pitcher

were now open and that he was starting to growfeathers, or “fledge.” She promised she would bringhim back to school for show and tell when he was alittle bigger and stronger.“How was your family’s trip to Washington?”

Ellie asked Mimi.“Okay, I guess,” Mimi said. “My parents got a

new camera, and they took about a million picturesof us. Mom made us pose in front of the cherryblossoms and in the White House rose garden. Dadmade us sit in the lunar capsule at the Space Museumand on the Lincoln statue’s lap. And, naturally, Dedehad to brush her hair and take out her retainer beforeevery single shot,” said Mimi in an exasperated tone.“She doesn’t want any unflattering old photosaround when she grows up to be a movie star.”At school Miss Peterson was tanned and unusually

relaxed. Her boyfriend had proposed and now shewas wearing a shiny new diamond ring on the thirdfinger of her left hand. Not even Ricky Collins couldget under her skin today. She smiled to think that bythe start of the next school year, she would be Mrs.Peterson-Jones—and Ricky would be a fifth-grader.With the egg-hatching project complete, sheannounced that the class would be starting a newscience unit on liquids, solids and gases. “No, Ricky.Not that kind of gas!” she said, giggling.

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Poe wasn’t concerned about the soullessness oftechnology—he only cared about his next meal—andhe slept soundly in the study despite the constantringing of the phone. Between calls from Mr.Wooten’s agent and calls about the auction, thephone almost never stopped ringing. Every day Mrs.Wooten worked from the moment Ellie left for schooluntil the moment she returned home, calling localbusinesses and writing letters to solicit donations anditems to be auctioned. “It’s for a good cause,” shewould say, launching into her standard sales pitch.“If we don’t save the music our children and societywill suffer irredeemable harm.... I know I can counton you to give generously.”In the Wooten family it was already well known

that Mrs. Wooten could be very persuasive; now therest of the town was succumbing to her charm andpersistence. Mr. Wooten had a favorite expression todescribe his wife’s powers of persuasion—“she couldtalk the chicken off the bone!” Ellie had never likedthat expression, and she liked it even less now thatshe was a vegetarian and a bird-lover. Thanks primari-ly to Mrs. Wooten’s hard work, the PTO committeehad already raised $5,000, but they were still$95,000 short of their goal.On the bus to school, Ellie’s friends peppered her

with questions about Poe. She told them that his eyes

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certainly growing desperate—maybe that meant hewould have a creative breakthrough soon. If not, shewondered, would her own crow Poe grow up smartenough to help figure out a solution?

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“In honor of our absent classmate Poe,” shebegan, “I’d like to begin this morning’s science lessonby reading a short story.”She opened a book of Aesop’s fables and read

aloud one called, The Crow and the Pitcher. Thefable told of a thirsty crow that found water in apitcher but couldn’t reach far enough down into thepitcher with its beak to drink. Desperate with thirst,the crow devised a clever solution. It dropped pebblesinto the pitcher, gradually raising the water level upto the brim where it could take a drink. “And themoral of the story is: Necessity is the mother ofinvention,” Miss Peterson concluded. “Or, in plainEnglish: we’re most creative when we’re desperate.”“Why didn’t the crow just knock the pitcher

over?” Ricky asked half-seriously.Miss Peterson just smiled at his comment and

continued her lesson on the displacement of water,handing out plastic bottles and a supply of smallstones for the students to experiment with. Rickyspilled his bottle of water on the way back fromfilling it at the sink and soaked Mimi’s sneakers inthe process. She had to go barefoot while her shoesand socks dried on the sunny windowsill.Ellie only half-listened to her teacher. She was

thinking about the fable’s moral and its possibleapplication to her own family. Her father was

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increasingly sharp beak. Already he had pecked largeholes in a succession of shoeboxes.So Poe moved into a birdcage that Mrs. Wooten

carried to her study when Ellie went to school. Shespent the day working on Lakeview’s fundraiser,while Poe perched in his cage next to the phone andfax machine. Frustrated with how hard she hadalready worked to reach just a quarter of the school’sgoal, Mrs. Wooten looked at Poe and thought,“nevermore.” The $25,000 she had helped to raiseso far was a lot of money, but she knew it wouldn’tbe enough to save the music. She only had a coupleof months to raise the remainder, and she was feelingdiscouraged about her prospects.Now that he was older, Poe was becoming less

needy and more entertaining. One day when Ellie andMimi came home together after school, they let Poeout of his cage in Ellie’s room. Using an elaboratedollhouse that had belonged to Mrs. Wooten whenshe was young, the girls made Poe a house. First theyremoved all the dolls and the miniature furniture andfolded up a soft baby’s blanket for him to rest on.Next the girls positioned the dollhouse in a corner ofthe room, placing it on top of a towel to protect thecarpet. Finally they built a barrier around it withstacks of books and blocks, so that Poe could movearound freely but could not escape the enclosed area.

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For Ellie, spring and the remaining few weeks ofschool seemed to pass as quickly as Poe grew. ByMother’s Day Poe was five weeks old and almostentirely covered with dark feathers. He had outgrownhis shoebox nest and needed more room to movearound and a place to perch. In the family’s clutteredattic Mrs. Wooten found an old birdcage that shedusted off and brought to Ellie’s room.“Poe’s a wild bird—I hate the idea of keeping him

in a cage,” Ellie complained to her mother.“Wild or not, he’ll have to spend time in a cage,

at least while you’re at school. I have work to do, andI can’t chase him around all day,” Mrs. Wootenreplied. “Besides he’ll make a terrible mess in yourroom if you don’t keep him in a cage.” In addition tothe bird poop Poe dropped indiscriminately, therewas the newer problem of his pecking things with his

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CHAPTER9The Fledgling

was particularly partial to the roasted peanuts thatEllie shelled for him. Inquiring at the local pet store,Ellie and her mother had learned that crows, likemost humans, are omnivorous, meaning they eateverything. Resourceful scavengers, crows are afamiliar sight at garbage dumps, where the menu ofdiscarded food is richest. Unlike Ellie, Poe was not apicky eater and was definitely not a vegetarian. Thewoman at the pet store suggested they give Poevitamin drops to make sure he got the propernourishment. Ellie took vitamins now, too, becauseMrs. Wooten was worried that her daughter’svegetarian diet was inadequate.“Now that you’re a vegetarian you don’t eat

enough to keep a bird alive,” Mrs. Wooten frequentlyexclaimed. “Look how much better Poe eats thanyou do!” she often chided. Of course, Mrs. Wootendidn’t admit to knowing that Ellie secretly snackedon extra slices of the bologna, turkey, and ham thatshe fed Poe.

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“It’s sort of like a baby’s playpen,” Ellie noted.“Look, he’s exploring his new house,” Mimi

observed.Indeed, Poe was enjoying himself immensely,

hopping up and down the dollhouse stairway andpassing back and forth through its doorways. Heused his pointed black beak to peck at the tiny ruffledcurtains in the dollhouse windows and at the miniaturechandelier in its dining room. Then he went into thedolls’ bathroom, where the girls had made him abirdbath by filling the dolls’ bathtub with water.When Ellie’s mother knocked and asked if the

girls wanted a snack, they said they would like tohave a tea party with Poe in his new house. Mrs.Wooten was momentarily dismayed to see that herbeloved dollhouse had been converted to a birdhouse,but she had to admit that Poe looked cute as he studiedhimself in the miniature mirror over the dolls’ fireplacemantel. She returned with some milk and cookies tofind the girls serving Poe “tea” out of a small chinacup from Ellie’s tea set. Ellie offered him a raisin fromone of the cookies. He snatched it eagerly, thenpecked at the side of Mimi’s milk glass as if requestingmilk to wash down the treat.Now that Ellie no longer had to hand-feed Poe, he

ate a wide variety of things, including chopped fruit,vegetables, seeds, and bits of fish, egg, and meat. He

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By Memorial Day Poe was eight weeks old andfully fledged. Although not as large as an adult crow,he was about three times as big as when he hatched.He was beginning to test his new flight feathers, andEllie watched anxiously as he learned to fly betweenthe first and second floors of the dollhouse. He mademany crash landings on the soft carpet before he gotthe hang of flying short distances. Once he gainedmore confidence in his ability, he liked to flutter up tothe dollhouse roof and perch atop the chimney. Fromthere he could fly up to Ellie’s bed and then over toher bureau.As he grew bigger and stronger Poe became more

active and curious about his surroundings. The bird’snewly acquired mobility and size presented a new setof problems. For one thing, Mr. Wooten still didn’tknow that he was sharing his home with a crow. Elliemade sure always to shut her bedroom door tightlyto keep Poe in—and her father out. She posted a sternsign on the door that warned: “KEEP OUT! PRI-VATE. GIRLS ONLY.” Mr. Wooten, who had reluc-tantly accepted reading Ellie her bedtime story andkissing her good night in the living room, was hurt tobe banned from his daughter’s room. Mrs. Wootenassured him it was “just a phase” most girls Ellie’sage go through. The secret of Poe was getting harderto keep, but the Wooten women had decided to wait

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Now that he could fly, Poe could easily escape hismakeshift playpen, though he still liked to perch onthe dollhouse chimney. Released from his cage, hewould fly to the bookshelf and peck at the spines ofthe books. Or, he would land on top of Ellie’s bureauand peck at her trinkets and jewelry. Once he put hishead through one of her silver bracelets and wore itlike a collar until he managed to shake it off. He oftenlingered in front of the mirror, preening his feathersand admiring his own reflection. When Ellie wasdoing homework at her desk, Poe would fly over andperch on her shoulder, or sit on top of her computerand preen her hair as she studied. Poe was playfuland quick, and often it was hard for Ellie to get himback into his cage when she needed to leave herroom. Luring him in with a bit of food usuallyworked, but sometimes he turned it into a game oftag and refused to come down from the top of thebookshelf. To outsmart him Ellie would have to pretendshe had changed her mind about catching him, andturn around and walk away. Poe, hating to beignored, would fly down and land on her shoulder.In the early morning and again at dusk, Poe’s

favorite perch was on the windowsill, where he gazedout and cocked his head, as if listening to the chorusof wild birds. Watching Poe listen attentively andpeck at the window screen, Ellie wondered if he

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a little longer to break the news to the Wooten man;his painter’s block persisted, and the calls from hisagent had became even more frantic. If the crowsroosting outside continued to distract the artist asmuch as he still insisted they did, what would hethink of the crow roosting inside?Fortunately Poe hadn’t yet learned to caw, but

Ellie and her mother knew it was only a matter oftime. At present his vocal range was limited to youthfulsquawks which Ellie tried to conceal by playing loudmusic in her room. Mrs. Wooten again assured herhusband that it was “perfectly normal” for a girlEllie’s age to want to have the radio on day and night.One Monday when Erin came for Ellie’s weekly

piano lesson, Ellie brought Poe with her to the grandpiano in the living room. Mr. Wooten was in the citythat day meeting with his agent, so the coast wasclear and Poe could have the run of the house. At firstPoe sat quietly on Ellie’s shoulder while she practicedher scales. Then his curiosity got the better of him,and he flew over to the top of the piano, which waspropped open, exposing the mechanism inside. Thecrow seemed fascinated by the movement of thehammers and the musical tones they produced,and he hopped in to take a closer look. Erin quicklyextracted him before he could hurt himself orthe instrument.

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June arrived hot and muggy. It was the last week ofclasses at Lakeview Elementary, and the school buildingwas not air-conditioned. Everyone, students and teachersalike, was ready for summer vacation to start. MissPeterson, who had already finished teaching the year’srequired lessons, had agreed readily when Ellie hadasked if she could bring Poe to school on Monday forshow-and-tell. The fourth-graders didn’t officially doshow-and-tell anymore, but the teacher had made anexception for Poe. The whole class, Miss Petersonincluded, was curious to see how much he had grown.Bringing Poe to school required telling another

white lie toMr.Wooten. Ellie couldn’t carry a birdcageon the school bus, so her mother offered to drive herand Poe to school. She told her husband that the“Save the Music” committee had a meeting at schoolearly that morning.

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understood the wild crows’ cawing and missed hisreal family. In her heart she knew she would have toset Poe free one day. But she was glad the young crowwasn’t quite ready, because she wasn’t quite readyyet either.

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CHAPTER 10Show & Tell

“It was written in crow so I couldn’t translatewhat he wrote,” she said smiling.“I bet he’d like to eat themouse,”RickyCollins joked.“Crows don’t eat mice, not live ones anyway,”

Ellie pointed out.“Yeah, but they sure love road-kill!” Ricky

teased. “Yum, yum!”The rest of the class reacted in disgust,

“Ewww! Gross!”Ricky’s teasing about Poe wounded Ellie. Like

any mother, her immediate response was to rise to thedefense of her offspring. But she knew Ricky wasright; wild crows did eat dead animals. She herselfhad often seen crows picking at the remains ofsquirrels run over by cars on the road near her house.Still, she found it impossible to accept that Poe, herown sweet baby, would ever develop a taste forroad-kill. Ellie was relieved when her mother offeredto take Poe home after the show-and-tell session. Shedidn’t want Ricky making any more snide commentsabout her pet.As Mrs. Wooten parked the family’s nine-year-old

minivan in the driveway she noticed Mrs. Smittymotioning at her from her porch next door. “I’d bettergo see what she wants this time,” she sighed, and leftPoe in the back of the van while she walked to herneighbor’s house.

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“How’s it going with the fundraising?” Mr.Wooten inquired at breakfast. He had been up and atwork in his studio before dawn, but had returned nowfor a second cup of coffee, banging the screen dooron his way in and cursing about the crows, as usual.“Pretty well, I guess, but we’ve still got a long

way to go,” Mrs. Wooten said. “We’ve raised$40,000, but with school ending, I’m afraid it’s goingto be harder to find people to help out with the auctionand raffle we’re planning in August.”“Mimi and I can sell raffle tickets door-to-door,”

Ellie offered.“That would be great, honey. Thanks,” her mother

said. “Oh, look at the time! We’d better get Poe—Imean, get go-ing to school,” she said, thinking fast.Fortunately Mr. Wooten didn’t seem to notice his

wife’s slip and headed back out to his studio. Ellieexchanged relieved glances with her mother and wentto her room to get Poe and his cage.In Miss Peterson’s class Poe and Ellie were the cen-

ter of attention at morning meeting. Ellie felt a surgeof maternal pride as she described to her classmateshow quickly he had learned to fly and related some ofthe funny things he did. The class laughed especiallyhard when she told of how, one time, Poe had peckedher computer’s keyboard and had typed a sentence onthe screen before she had noticed.

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Just as Mrs. Wooten rounded the fence out of sight,Mr. Wooten looked out of his studio window andnoticed that the family’s van was back home. Decidingthat he could stand a short break, he got into the vehicleand drove to the art supply store where he purchasedsome new pigments and some more brushes. (His wifelately complained that he ran through an alarming numberof supplies for an artist who produced so little finishedwork.) On the way to and from the store he played the“oldies” station on the radio loud and sang along evenlouder, something that he only dared to do when he wasalone in the car.WhenMr.Wooten returned home half an hour later,

his wife was still trapped in Mrs. Smitty’s house. Mrs.Smitty’s ability to talkwithout drawing a breathwas leg-endary around the neighborhood and, more than once,Mrs. Wooten had found herself held a conversationalprisoner next door. As the artist walked behind the vancarrying an armful of art supplies, a glint ofmetal caughthis eye. He stopped to peer through the rear window andsaw something surprising. Shifting the bags onto his hip,he opened the hatchback door. Faced with the sight ofPoe perched casually in his cage, Mr. Wooten screamedin alarm, dropped the bags, and raced into the house,locking the door behind him. Certain that he had justseen a live crow in a birdcage in his own car, he took itas an omen—that he had gone stark, raving mad!

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and I left his cage in the car when I went to talkto Mrs. Smitty—”

Mr. Wooten interrupted his wife. He was furious.“You got Ellie a pet crow?” he asked in disbelief. “Ican’t believe it—my own family has been consortingwith the enemy!” The artist felt betrayed, rightfully.“It’s not what you think, dear,” Mrs. Wooten

insisted. “It’s a long story. Please, just listen beforeyou court-martial us for treason.”Taking a deep breath, she told the whole story of

how Ellie had found Poe’s egg when the tree was cutdown and hatched it at school; of how she and Elliehad hand-raised the helpless bird; and of how they’dfelt they had to keep it a secret—all because Mr.Wooten was on record as being “Public EnemyNumber One” of the crows.“I’m sorry, dear. We didn’t want to lie to you, but

it just never seemed to be the right moment to tellyou,” she apologized at the end of her confession.Mr. Wooten was stunned. On the one hand he

was relieved to know that he was not going insane.On the other hand he was surprised, and sorry, thatit had been so easy to pull the wool over his eyes.“I guess I have been pretty self-absorbed lately,”

the artist admitted. “Ever since the crows came toroost, my painting has been going so badly. I supposeit was just easier to blame the crows than myself. But

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WhenMrs. Wooten finally escaped her neighbor’sconversational clutches, she entered the kitchen onlyto find her husband distraught and pacing the floor.“Honey, you’re not going to believe what I found

in the car,” he began. “I think this crow problem hasfinally gotten out of hand. Believe it or not there’s acrow in our car—in a birdcage! I swear, I saw it withmy own eyes—unless I’m going crazy, that is. I’ve justcalled the game warden to come take it away,” hesaid anxiously.“Oh no, dear!” Mrs. Wooten gasped. “That’s just

Poe,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant.“Poe? Like Edgar Allan Poe? What’s he got to do

with this?” Now Mr. Wooten was truly baffled. Hethought he must have lost his mind.“No, no—I mean Poe is Ellie’s—our—pet crow.

We brought him to school today for show-and-tell,

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CHAPTER 11No More Secrets

Just then, a van with the official state seal paint-ed on its sides pulled into the Wootens’ driveway. Awoman dressed in a khaki uniform and ranger hatstepped out and introduced herself.“Hello, I’m Officer Bertelli, the game warden.

You called about a problem with a crow?” Then,noticing Poe in his cage, she said, “Oh, I see you’vemanaged to capture it. I can take it off your hands—”“No!” the Wootens said in unison.“I’m afraid there’s been a terriblemisunderstanding,”

continued Mrs. Wooten. “This is Poe, our pet crow.My husband didn’t know about him when he calledyou.” And then, for the second time in less than anhour, Mrs. Wooten told the story of Poe’s beinghatched at school and hand-raised by Ellie in secret.WhenMrs.Wooten had finished explaining, Officer

Bertelli said, “Your daughter deserves a lot of credit.Successfully raising awild bird in captivity is quite a feat.

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I feel terrible that you and Ellie were afraid to tell me.Now I feel like a lousy husband and father, as well asa lousy painter,” he concluded glumly.“No, dear. You’re not a lousy anything,” Mrs.

Wooten assured her husband, hugging him. “You’rejust a bit temperamental, but we’re used to yourmoods by now.”“That’s exactly the point,” Mr. Wooten replied.

“You and Ellie shouldn’t have to tiptoe around oneggshells—pardon the expression—because of mymoods. From now on it’s going to be different, you’llsee,” he promised, returning his wife’s hug.“Well in that case, would you like to be officially

introduced to Poe?” she asked playfully. “I’ll bet he’stired of being left alone in the car.”But Poe was not alone. As the Wootens

approached the car they saw Butterball crouchedbeside Poe’s cage, ready to pounce. The cat’s tail wastwitching, and his mouth was fairly watering. Poeappeared unperturbed. This was his first encounterwith a cat, or any other predator for that matter.“Scat! Shoo! Get out of here!” both Wootens

shouted, waving their arms. Butterball lumberedaway, thwarted but unrepentant.

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“In most cases another crow family will readilytake in an orphaned juvenile like Poe,” the gamewarden continued. “Young crows stay close to theirparents for a couple of years, learning the skills theyneed to survive. Poe is like a teenager—almost grownup but still needing some adult supervision,” OfficerBertelli explained.The Wootens discussed Poe’s future with Officer

Bertelli a while longer and then thanked her for herbeing so informative and understanding.As the game warden got into her van, Mrs. Smitty

appeared in her yard, calling, “Butterball! Herekitty-kitty!” She did a double take when she saw thegame warden’s van pulling out of the driveway. In theheat of one of their prior arguments, Mr. Wooten hadthreatened to call the game warden about Butterball’slate-night caterwauling. Now, seeing the gamewarden’s vehicle, Mrs. Smitty jumped to theconclusion that her neighbor had followed throughwith his threat. She started to scream before Mrs.Wooten interrupted.“Don’t worry, we just saw Butterball heading

over that way,” Mrs. Wooten said pleasantly, pointingtoward the woods. “And, by the way, I want to thankyou again for your generous contribution to theschool’s ‘Save the Music’ campaign.”Mrs. Smitty breathed a sigh of relief and retreated

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But I am obligated to inform you that it is against thelaw to keep a crow, or any wild bird, in captivity.”“It is?” the Wootens said, again in unison.“We had no idea we were breaking the law,

Officer,” Mrs. Wooten apologized. “My daughterand I were just trying to do the right thing—Poewould have died if Ellie hadn’t found his egg andtaken care of him after he hatched.”“Relax, I’m not going to arrest you or put your

daughter in jail,” Officer Bertelli said, smiling. “But Istrongly recommend that you release Poe later thissummer when he’s fully grown, so he can lead anormal life. Crows are very social birds. He wouldn’tbe happy living in a cage for the rest of his life.”“You’re probably right, but Poe and Ellie are so

attached to each other. She’ll be very upset if she hasto let him go. And what about Poe—will he knowhow to find food and defend himself on his own?”Mrs. Wooten asked anxiously. She, too, had grownfond of Poe.“Crows are unusually adaptive and highly intelli-

gent birds. A healthy bird like yours will do just finein the wild. I’ve noticed that there’s already a largecrow population in this neighborhood,” OfficerBertelli remarked.“There wouldn’t be if I’d had my say,” Mr.

Wooten muttered.

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When Ellie came home from school that day, hermother waswaiting in the kitchen, a plate of fresh-bakedbrownies set out for a special snack. Her father wassitting at the kitchen table, too, a rare sight in themiddle of the afternoon. As Ellie entered, her parentsexchanged a tense glance but didn’t speak.“Okay, what’s up?” Ellie asked guardedly. This

was too weird, both of her parents, together, waitingfor her to come home. “Did someone die? Are yougetting a divorce? Do we have to move?” she asked,running down the list of catastrophes that could possiblymake her parents look so serious.“No, honey, it’s none of those things,” Mr.

Wooten said.“We have some good news—and some bad news,

dear,” Mrs. Wooten chimed in.“Okay, spill,” Ellie said and took a brownie.

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to her porch, continuing to call for her cat. Mr.Wooten raised his eyebrows in a question. Mrs.Smitty was not normally known for her generosity.At Halloween she doled out only one small piece ofcandy per child.“You’ll never believe who just gave $500 to our

fund,” his wife said, holding up the check Mrs.Smitty had written earlier. “It appears thatMrs. Smitty’s mother and grandmother were bothmusic teachers. She made a donation in their memory.”Mr. Wooten shook his head and picked up Poe’s

cage to carry it inside. On the way into the house hemumbled something about people doing surprisingthings, though it wasn’t clear whether he was referringto Mrs. Smitty or himself. He still had reservationsabout harboring one of the enemy in his own home,but there was a saying, “All is fair in love and war,”and he supposed it might apply in this situation. Inany case, he knew that he loved his wife and daughtermore than he hated crows.He recalled another saying: “If you can’t beat ‘em,

join ‘em.” Maybe it was time to surrender, after all.

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CHAPTER 12Peace Treaty

out of the ordinary had happened. Ellie opened thecage door, and he hopped onto her extended finger.She stroked his glossy black feathers and said, “Whydoes my father have to hate crows so much? Youcan’t help being born a crow. Poor baby, he doesn’teven know you, and he already hates you. It’s sounfair!” Poe, unaware of the central role he wasplaying in the family’s drama, looked unfazed andcocked his head inquisitively.

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“Well, the good news is that your father knowsabout Poe, so we don’t have to keep him a secretanymore,” Mrs. Wooten said cheerfully. She wastrying to put a positive spin on this unexpected turnof events.“If that’s the good news,” Ellie said guardedly,

“then I’m not sure I want to hear the bad news.”“The bad news is that the game warden says it

would be better for Poe if we set him free. It’s notnatural—and it turns out it’s illegal—to keep a wildbird as a pet. It would be for his own good,” Mr.Wooten said gently.“You called the game warden? Dad, how could

you?” Ellie asked angrily.“But I didn’t know Poe was your pet—” Mr.

Wooten said, trying to justify his mistake.Ellie was too furious to listen to reason. “Where’s

Poe? Did the game warden take him away?” sheasked, looking frantically from one parent to theother. She was on the verge of tears.“It’s okay, honey, calm down. Poe hasn’t gone

anywhere. He’s safe and sound in your room,” Mrs.Wooten said, trying to smooth things over.Leaving her brownie unfinished on the table, Ellie

stormed out of the kitchen and ran to her room to seePoe and find out what he thought about all this.Poe was perched in his cage looking as if nothing

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like to have his wings or tail feathers ruffled,” Ellieexplained. Mr. Wooten followed his daughter’s exampleand stroked Poe’s back.“His feathers feel like silk,” the artist observed.

“He’s pretty friendly, isn’t he?” he said when Poeturned and nudged his hand with his beak.Ellie was still confused and upset. Her father’s

apology seemed sincere. Was it possible that he andPoe really could become friends? Sometimes peopledid surprising things, she thought. Like today, RickyCollins had actually been nice to her during gym. Theclass was playing softball—Ellie’s least favorite sport—and instead of pitching fast balls at her the way heusually did, Ricky had intentionally slowed up hispitch enough so that Ellie could get a hit. An out-fielder’s error had meant that Ellie had scored herfirst-ever home run. But her father’s peacemakingovertures did nothing to lessen the sadness she feltwhen she thought of having to say good-bye to Poe.When Erin arrived later that same afternoon for

Ellie’s piano lesson, Mrs. Wooten told her that Elliewas still upset about what had happened earlier. “Iknow just how she feels,” Erin said sympathetically.“Let me talk to her.”Erin went to Ellie’s room, and instead of practic-

ing piano they spent the time talking and playingwith Poe. Erin told Ellie about how, when she was

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Ellie heard a tentative knock on her bedroomdoor and looked angry as her father entered sheepishly.“Honey, will you let me explain? Please?” Mr.

Wooten asked contritely. Ellie looked away andcontinued to stroke Poe. “I’m sorry I called the gamewarden. Poe caught me by surprise and I over-reacted.”Ellie shrugged away her father’s apology. It was

too late. “I don’t care if it is illegal to keep him. I can’tset Poe free. He still needs me,” she said, starting to cry.“Of course he does, honey” Mr. Wooten said

kindly. “You don’t have to let him go right now. Thegame warden recommended that you wait a fewweeks until he’s a little bigger. She said that the othercrows would adopt him and teach him everything heneeds to know to survive in the wild.”“Really?” Ellie said, looking up and wiping a tear

with her sleeve.“And besides, that’ll give me some time to get to

know him. I’ve heard a lot of good things about Poefrom your mother,” said Mr. Wooten. He sat downnext to Ellie and put his arm around her shoulder.“Will you introduce me?” he asked. He extended hisindex finger and Poe hopped on, as if shaking handsupon making a new acquaintance.Ellie showed her father how to stroke Poe along

the center of his broad back, in one direction fromthe top of his head to the base of his tail. “He doesn’t

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Ellie finished writing and drew a blank line below forher father’s signature. They put a gold star sicker inone corner to make it look official.Later Erin went with Ellie to the artist’s studio

and witnessed as Ellie read the peace treaty aloud toher father. Mr. Wooten chose one of his smallerbrushes and dipped it in red paint.“I think you have a future as a diplomat,” he

chuckled as he signed the treaty with a flourish.“Peace,” he said, holding up two fingers in a “V.”

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younger, she had found a baby squirrel and had keptit as a pet for several months before her parents hadmade her set it free. Afterwards the squirrel(“Simon”) had remained unusually tame and wouldcome back to her family’s doorstep to eat the acornsshe left there for him.Erin also recalled one of her all-time favorite

books, Born Free. “It’s a true story about raising alion cub in Africa,” Erin said. “They made it intoa movie. We should rent it the next time I baby-sit.It’s pretty sad, though—Elsa gets killed by hunters,”she said before thinking that maybe she shouldn’thave mentioned this unpleasant detail. Seeing Ellie’sstricken look, Erin added, “But don’t worry—thisisn’t Africa. I’m sure Poe will be safe. Hunters aren’tinterested in crows.”“What about my dad? Remember when he tried

to shoot the crows in our yard?” Ellie pointed out.Erin had an idea. She knew all about Mr.

Wooten’s war with the crows and thought it was hightime to end it, once and for all. “Let’s make him signa peace treaty,” she suggested. “I’ll help youwrite it up.”Ellie got a piece of paper and wrote while Erin

dictated: “I, Mr. Wooten, do solemnly declare that Iwill no longer take hostile action against any crows.I hereby promise that I will surrender all my weaponsand live in peace with all crows, including Poe, forever.”

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The last day of school was bittersweet for Ellie.She was glad that summer vacation was beginningand that she and Mimi had been assigned to the sameclass again in fifth grade. Ricky Collins would be intheir class too, but during the past week or so Elliehad begun to feel differently about him. Yesterdayduring Ellie’s oral presentation on the AncientGreeks, Ricky had listened attentively and had actuallycomplimented her clay model of the Parthenon. MissPeterson had seen a change in Ricky, too, and hadpraised his “growing maturity and cooperation” inhis final report card.But Ellie also felt sad because of the likelihood

that Erin would not be returning in the fall to teachmusic at Lakeview. Earlier she had seen some of theother teachers hugging Erin in the hall and wishingher luck. The giant wooden musical note that the

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By dinner time Ellie felt better. Erin had convincedher that if she really loved Poe—and Ellie did—thenshe would do what was best for him, even if it hurther. “That’s what being a good parent is all about,”Erin had said.After dinner Ellie removed the “KEEP OUT” sign

from her bedroom door and invited her father in toplay with Poe. Ellie let Poe out of his cage and showedher father some of the bird’s best tricks. Poe’s favoritegame was “which hand.” Ellie hid a peanut in one ofher hands, and Poe picked which hand by peckingsoftly on her closed fist. He never missed. Ellie alsoshowed her father how Poe could play fetch (shetossed an eraser across the room and Poe brought itback), and how he could “play dead” by hangingupside down from her wrist. By the end of the eveningMr. Wooten was utterly charmed, and Poe was eatingout of the hand of his former enemy, literally.As Ellie lay in her bed that night, she thought about

Poe’s future. She wished she could stop time and putoff forever the moment that Poe would have to leave.The weeks since his hatching had passed so quickly,she thought, and now Poe was almost all grown up. Inher heart she knew that she couldn’t stop time, anymore than she could hurry it to bring her tenth birthdayin July. When her father came to tuck her into bed andsay good night, she hugged him extra hard.

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CHAPTER 13Summer Changes

As Poe grew in size (he now measured nearly fif-teen inches from the tip of his beak to the end of histail and weighed almost one pound), he was becomingmore of what Miss Peterson would call a “handful.”Poe had outgrown his original birdcage, and Mr.Wooten had constructed a larger one made of chickenwire nailed to a wood frame. The new cageoverwhelmed Ellie’s small room, so Poe had takenup residence in the Wootens’ seldom-used formaldining room, next to the aquarium. Poe’s physicalgrowth was accompanied by a greater need forsupervision when he was not in his cage. Although heremained affectionate and playful, his play sometimesturned innocently destructive. For instance, he wasno longer allowed to perch on the piano after hewas found pecking on the keyboard and left beakmarks on some of the black keys.He was also fascinated by the tropical fish in the

aquarium and pecked relentlessly at the glass,alarming the fish and necessitating that the tank bemoved to the living room. Then, too, there was hispenchant for swinging on the crystal chandelier andpecking at the cut glass, producing a terrible racket.Finally, and most inconveniently, there was Poe’sunpleasant habit of leaving what Mrs. Wooteneuphemistically termed his “calling card” anywherehe pleased; Poe taught the Wootens that it is impossi-

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“Save the Music” committee had displayed in frontof the school was painted red mid-way up, indicatingthat $50,000—half of the total goal—had been raisedso far. AlthoughMrs.Wooten maintained an optimisticoutlook (“Always look at the glass as half-full, nothalf-empty,” she was fond of saying, much to Ellie’sannoyance), her daughter was a born worrier and apessimist at heart. Ellie worried equally about whatshe could control (her grades, her clothes) and aboutwhat she could not (her freckles, the weather on herupcoming outdoor birthday party). And lately shehad begun to worry about something she had oncebeen able to control but could no longer—Poe.

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The most troublesome development was that Poefinally discovered his voice. Up until now the youngcrow had produced an array of sounds—low, throatysquawks, croaks and rattles—but his first real cawtook everyone by surprise. The family was eatingdinner informally in the kitchen, having left Poe to dinein more elegant surroundings in the now-curtainlessbay window of the dining room. His alarmed cawsbrought all three Wootens running. The cause ofPoe’s distress was the sight of Butterball crouchedmenacingly on other side of the window. When Ellierapped sharply on the glass, the cat slunk away, takinghis sweet time about it, as cats will. Poe’s alarmedcaws continued until the feline predator was completelyout of sight.Having discovered his caw, and its powerful effect

on the members of his adoptive family, Poe began tocaw any time he wanted attention, which was mostof the time. He cawed when it was time for his morningfeeding (Ellie surrendered any hope of sleeping laterduring vacation), he cawed when his water dish ranlow, and he cawed when he wanted to play.Cawing was not the only new trick in Poe’s vocal

repertoire. More surprisingly, he learned to mimic thesound of a telephone ringing. The first time ithappened Mr. Wooten was alone in the house. Heheard the phone ring and went to the nearest extension

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ble to housebreak a crow. Poe’s poop was easyenough to wipe off the dining table, and the swirlingpattern of the oriental rug “disguised all sins” (anoth-er of Mrs. Wooten’s euphemisms). Cleaning the chan-delier was possible with a lot of patience and papertowels, but Mrs. Wooten declared the soiled curtainsa lost cause.“Oh well, I’ve been wanting to redecorate any-

way—that fabric was a mistake in the first place,”said Mrs. Wooten, looking on the bright side, asusual. But until her husband’s painting career tookoff again she would have to settle for sending thecurtains to the dry cleaner. Even that would be tooexpensive, she suspected, so she simply took thecurtains down and stored them in the attic.

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to answer it. There was no one on the line. Mr.Wooten scratched his head, relieved to have missedanother probable call from his agent. The ringingcontinued, though. Puzzled, he traced the sound tothe dining room, where he found Poe “ringing” inperfect cadence. Having spent so much of hisimpressionable youth in Mrs. Wooten’s study, Poemust have made the association between the sound ofthe phone ringing and a person’s response, and thebrainy bird had rightly concluded that ringing was aneffective way to attract attention. Once Poe learnedthis trick the Wootens were constantly confused—and amused—whenever the phone rang.It was becoming all too clear, even to Ellie, that

Poe’s days as a family pet were numbered. Now thathe was nearly full-grown, the crow needed morespace and attention than the Wootens could provide.As Poe’s antics became more bothersome, Elliereluctantly concluded that he might be better off livingoutside with other crows. She decided that she wouldset him free on the Fourth of July, Independence Dayand the day after her own birthday. By then the crowwould be twelve weeks old and, Ellie hoped, ready tobegin a new life in the wild. Meanwhile Ellie plannedto spend as much time with Poe as possible.

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conversation starter: “A good saleswoman always findsa way to get her foot in the door,” Mrs. Wooten hadcoached the girls. With Poe’s help, the girls sold $100worth of raffle tickets to add to the fund. Mrs. Smittybought two tickets—one for herself and one forButterball. The grand prize would be a trip to Bermuda,donated by Miss Peterson’s fiancé, a travel agent.Uninterested in travel, Mrs. Smitty instead hoped shewould win the gift certificate to the local pet shop.When they couldn’t bear the sweltering heat any

longer, Ellie and Mimi rode their bikes to Lakeview’stown pond. Poe could not go swimming, but hecooled off another way; Ellie put his cage withinrange of the revolving lawn sprinkler, and Poeenjoyed a simulated rain shower. Ellie had a theory,as yet unproven, that it would be beneficial for Poeto spend time outside (albeit in the safety of his cage) toprepare him for his future life in the wild. Evenings,the family cooked outside on the grill (chicken for theelderWootens and grilled eggplant for Ellie—smotheredin steak sauce it was palatable enough). While thefamily ate, Poe watched from his cage next to thepicnic table on the lawn.“I wonder if Poe’s crow parents can see him and

if they recognize him. Maybe they’re talking to himright now,” Ellie said, hearing some cawing from thetrees above. Mr. and Mrs. Wooten didn’t argue their

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The first two weeks of summer vacation passedquickly. Ellie helped her mother plant the vegetableseedlings outside in the family’s garden. They made ascarecrow (or “scare-Poe,” as Mrs. Wooten dubbedit) using some of Ellie’s outgrown clothes and shoes.The scarecrow didn’t deter the crows, but the nettingthat Mrs. Wooten put up to keep out the rabbits did.During the summer’s first heat wave, Ellie and

Mimi set up a lemonade stand on the sidewalk infront of theWootens’ house. They brought Poe outsideand placed his cage under a nearby shade tree, so thatthe passers-by could admire him, and hopefully lingerlong enough to pay a quarter for a cup of lemonade.As she fielded people’s questions about her unusualpet, Ellie felt like a proud mother showing off herbaby in its carriage. The girls caught a glimpse ofMrs. Smitty peering through the ruffled curtains onher front windows, and they were initially dismayedwhen she came out to chat. But all her talking madeher thirsty, and she bought three cups of lemonade.At the end of the afternoon the girls donated the entireproceeds ($12.75) to the “Save the Music” fund.The two friends also sold raffle tickets door-to-door in

the neighborhood. They put Poe (temporarily housed inhis old birdcage) in the back of a wagon that theywheeled along after them. As Mrs. Wooten had pre-dicted, bringing Poe along proved to be an excellent

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All Ellie’s worries about the weather on her birthdayvanished when she awoke to a glorious summer day,her first as a ten-year-old. After a violent storm thenight before, the heat wave had finally broken, leavinga cool breeze in its place. Good weather was importantbecause Ellie’s party would feature an outdoor treasurehunt. Mr. and Mrs. Wooten had stayed up late thenight before working on the clues that would lead,hopefully not too easily, to the small “treasures”(beaded jewelry, hair clips, candy, nail polish etc.)hidden in the yard. “This one shouldn’t stump youlong,” read the clue for a treasure placed near thestump of the hemlock where Ellie had found Poe’segg. For a treasure hidden in the family’s mailbox theclue said: “Special delivery.”In the end, the party was a huge success. In addition

to Mimi, Ellie invited six other friends from school,and Erin came to “DJ” a dance contest after thetreasure hunt. Poe was an honorary guest, and Elliebrought his cage outside during the treasure hunt,“so he can watch,” she said. The girls found all thetreasures quickly (“I guess fifth-graders are smarterthan we realize,” Mrs. Wooten concluded), and theyworked up an appetite for pizza and cake dancing toErin’s selection of songs. (Sierra ate three slices ofpepperoni pizza, and shrugged guiltily when Mrs.Wooten asked if she was still a vegetarian.) Poe was

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daughter’s earnest logic and indulged her by lugging theheavy cage in and out of the house, so that Poe couldacclimate himself to the great outdoors. The familyhad to keep a close eye on the cage, however, in theevent that Butterball decided to pay another visit.The only thing that was not idyllic about the start

of summer was the fact that Mr. Wooten still hadmade no progress toward his goal of finding “a newdirection” for his work. Now instead of cursing thecrows, the frustrated artist blamed the “ungodlyheat” for his inability to paint. He kept several fansrunning at top speed in his studio, to no avail (exceptto inflate the electric bill, his wife pointed out). Theprospect of having nothing to exhibit in the fallgallery show would have made him sweat even if thestudio were air-conditioned.He was pinning his creative hopes on having the

week after Ellie’s birthday entirely to himself. Ellieand Mrs. Wooten had been invited to spend thatweek with the Lowells at their beach house. In leavingher husband behind to work in peace, Mrs. Wootensaid she was looking forward to “plopping down onthe porch with a good book.” Ellie looked forward toswimming in the ocean and sailing on the Lowells’boat.Mr. andMrs.Wooten also thought itwould be goodfor their daughter to have a change of scene immediatelyfollowing the difficult task of releasing Poe.

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Ellie was subdued the next morning. Mrs.Wooten tried to keep up a cheery front by talkingabout the coming week they would spend together atthe beach with the Lowells.“If we get an early start we can get there by lunch

time, unless the traffic’s bad. It looks like a greatbeach day!” Mrs. Wooten said brightly. Their packedsuitcases stood ready by the back door, and Mrs.Wooten was bustling around collecting odds andends they would need for the trip: sunscreen, hats,beach towels, bug spray, books, and a camera.Ellie shrugged. “At least the good weather means

Poe won’t have to spend his first day outside in therain,” she thought. Ellie was in no hurry to hit theroad, since leaving meant saying a final farewell toPoe. She ate her breakfast very slowly, as though itwere her own last meal.

CHAPTER 14Paradise Lost

the center of attention without even trying, especiallyafter Ellie told her friends that this party was also hisgoing-away party. As the guests left they all said“good-bye” to the crow and wished him luck.That night Ellie lay in bed reading the new

bird-watching book that Erin had given her as apresent. Being ten years old (a double-digit number atlast!) made her feel very grown up. She thought shemight even be grown up enough to face tomorrow’sdifficult task. She hadn’t outgrown her worryinghowever. She worried about tomorrow’s weather—she hated to think of it raining on Poe’s first day offreedom. She worried that he might not know whereto find food, that the other crows might shun him, orworse, that they might attack him as an interloper.She also worried that Butterball might try to eat him.She even worried that the sound of tomorrow’s JulyFourth fireworks might frighten him. Most of all, sheworried that Poe might forget her and how much sheloved him.

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a small tree he rested briefly then took off again,circled once and finally disappeared into the woods.Ellie felt both filled with emotion and empty. She wasproud, and relieved, that Poe flew so confidently, asif he had a familiar destination in mind. But herstomach felt hollow, as if she had been kicked. Shefelt hot tears well up in her eyes and blinked themback. Ellie waited a few minutes to see if Poe wouldreappear, but when he didn’t she turned and trudgedsolemnly back toward the house.Watching this scene from the back porch, Mr. and

Mrs. Wooten admired Ellie for facing this heart-breaking task so bravely. Mrs. Wooten, feeling alump in her own throat, remarked honestly, “I’ll missPoe, but I won’t miss the mess he made.”Mr. Wooten gazed into the distance and said,

“She’s growing up fast, isn’t she?”

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At eight-thirty, when the suitcases, beach umbrella,and lounge chairs were loaded into family’s van andEllie’s bike was secured to the bike rack, Mrs.Wooten was ready to go. The time had come to setPoe free. Ellie had already procrastinated by insistingon feeding him a second breakfast to tide him over incase he couldn’t find food right away. Her motherwas impatient to leave, and Ellie knew that there wasno point in delaying the inevitable. Mr. Wootencarried Poe’s cage to the back porch, and kneelingbeside it, Ellie opened the cage door.She stroked his glossy black feathers and said a

last good-bye. “I’ll miss you. Be careful out there,”she told Poe tenderly. If the crow sensed that this wasa momentous occasion he didn’t show it; he cockedhis head and gripped tightly to her arm. Ellie’s eyeswere wet and there was lump in her throat as shecarried Poe to the back yard toward the pinewoodswhere the wild crows roosted. “Okay, buddy, take iteasy,” she said as she raised her arm high and gaveit a little shake, her signal for Poe to take off.Poe hesitated for a moment, as if questioning the

permission Ellie had given him, or perhaps unwillingto appear in a hurry to depart. Then he lifted hisbroad wings, gave a few powerful strokes and flewaway toward the trees. Ellie watched as he soared,admiring how easily he flew. Landing near the top of

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Ellie was having so much fun that she onlythought of Poe from time to time. Once when she andMimi were netting minnows on the beach, a pair ofcrows landed next to a crab shell that a seagull hadlet drop. As the gull shrieked in protest, the crowssavored their crabmeat bounty, and Ellie was remindedof Poe, and of what Ricky had said about crows eatinganything, even road-kill. She wondered if Poe wouldfind his way to the seashore some day and whether hewould develop a taste for seafood, even lobster. Elliethought again of Poe one evening when ProfessorLowell offered the adults a round of Old Crow, hisfavorite brand of whiskey. Mrs. Lowell giggled, “My‘Owl’ can’t live without his Old Crow.”One morning Ellie awoke to the sound of several

crows honking like bicycle horns in the tree outsideher open window, and in her half-sleep she thought itwas Poe demanding his morning meal. Most mornings,it was the dull roar of the waves and the shrill cries ofthe gulls that registered first; by bedtime she was soworn out from the day’s activities that she could haveslept soundly with a dozen of crows cawing directlyinto her ear.On the fourth day of the visit, Mr. Wooten

phoned early in the morning with some urgentnews. “Put Ellie on the line,” he demanded, hisvoice agitated.

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Mrs. Wooten had been right, as usual. The trip tovisit the Lowells’ beach house was just the right tonic tolift Ellie’s spirits and to take her mind off missing Poe.To everyone’s great satisfaction, the glorious summerweather continued, and it was hard to feel blue amidstall the summer activity. Ellie and Mimi spent nearly alltheir time on the beach, dashing in and out of the oceanto cool off, while the adults watched from the shade ofthe deep porch overlooking the water. Professor Lowelland Mrs. Wooten dove into their summer reading, allthe while bemoaning the fact that “kids these dayswatch too much TV.” The Lowells didn’t have a TV attheir beach house, but everyone was too busy to mind.Mrs. Lowell and Deirdre played tennis, and Cuatroheld court as a lifeguard at the club pool surrounded bya bevy of girls his age. Although forewarned by Ellie,poor Mrs. Wooten had slipped and called Deirdre“Dede” and had gotten an icy stare in return. Mrs.Wooten didn’t make that mistake again. When theshore breeze came up in the afternoon, ProfessorLowell would rig his sailboat, “The Gentleman’s Sea,”and take everyone out for a trip around the harbor. Fordinner they cooked fresh fish on the grill, and one nightthere was lobster. Ellie renewed her vegetarian vowsafter witnessing Professor Lowell drop the lobsters aliveand kicking into a huge cauldron of boiling water. “It’sbar-bar-ic!” she protested.

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rain. So I left him in the studio for the night. I figured,what harm could he do? I left the window open incase he changed his mind.”“Poe slept in your studio?” asked Ellie in disbelief.“Well I don’t know how much he slept because

when I came back this morning, there was a BIGdifference,” Mr. Wooten reported.“A big difference?” echoed Ellie. “Dad, what are

you talking about?”“A big difference in the painting I was working

on. It was different—and better—than when I left,”the artist insisted.“Different, how?” said Ellie skeptically. She wished

that her mother had been listening to this conversa-tion—maybe she’d understand what he meant.“He—Poe—stuck bits of trash onto my painting.

The paint was still wet, and the trash stuck right ontothe canvas. A polluted landscape—it’s the perfectpolitical statement! I’m going to call my new seriesParadise Lost. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done!” Mr.Wooten was shouting with excitement.“Mo-omm!” Now Ellie was shouting too.

Covering the receiver, she said, “I think Dad hasfinally lost it.” She held out the phone to Mrs.Wooten and explained, “He says Poe put trash on hispainting, and he’s happy about it. Here, you’d bettertalk to him.”

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“It’s too early for ‘please’ I guess,” Deirdresniffed, passing the phone to Ellie. The teenager wasgrumpy at having to get up early for a tennis lesson.

“It’s the only time the pro has available all day,dear, and you need to work on your backhand beforethe club championships,” Mrs. Lowell reminded herolder daughter, as they left for the tennis club.“You’ll never believe what happened last night,

honey,” Mr. Wooten started once Ellie was on theline. “I was up way past midnight painting. It wasraining here, and the wind was howling. Suddenly, Iheard this rapping sound, like someone knocking—but no one was at the door. I thought I must be hearingthings, but then the rapping started again. I couldn’tfigure it out until I looked at the window—and therewas Poe, sitting right on the windowsill, pecking atthe glass.”“Are you sure it was Poe?” Ellie asked dubiously.“I’m positive, because when I opened the window

he flew right in. He landed on top of my easel. Hewas soaking wet and he let me dry him off with atowel. I found some peanuts, and we played fetch and‘which hand?’ He even did his ringing phone trick ifI ignored him and tried to paint some more. When Iwas ready to pack it in for the night, I showed himthe open window. The problem was, he refused toleave. I guess he didn’t want to go back out in the

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Ellie and her mother enjoyed another ten dayswith the Lowells at their beach house. During thattime Mr. Wooten phoned regularly to report on hisprogress and on Poe’s continued presence—andinspiration—in the studio. Each day Poe returnedand hung around watching the artist paint. Mr.Wooten left the studio window open so that thecrow could come and go as he pleased, day ornight. And, just as he had that first wild night, Poedelivered little bits of litter—shiny gum foils, colorfulcandy wrappers, crumpled store receipts, cigarettebutts, bottle caps, plastic straws, and an assortmentof coins and buttons. Everything that Poe collectedand deposited on the studio windowsill, Mr.Wooten incorporated into his new paintings. Thestudio walls were filled with new landscapes—paintings of mountains and valleys, rivers and

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CHAPTER 15The ArtiSt'S MuSe

Mrs. Wooten took the phone into another roomfor privacy, and when she eventually re-emerged shelooked perplexed.“I don’t have the slightest idea what he’s talking

about, but I’ve never seen him so excited about hiswork. Who knows? This could be that ‘new direc-tion’ he’s been talking about. Maybe we should stayhere a little while longer and let him concentrate onhis painting.”“Do you think he’ll be okay?” Ellie asked,

referring to Poe.“Yes, I think he’ll be just fine,” replied Mrs.

Wooten. “After all, he has Poe keeping an eye on him,and I’ve heard that crows are very intelligent birds.”Ellie couldn’t argue with that, and the Lowells

said they would be delighted to have Ellie and hermother stay as long as they liked.

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preparations for the “Save the Music” auction.After savoring their last day on the beach, theygathered their belongings, said their thank-yous,exchanged hugs all around, and then headed home,with their deep suntans and the sand in the minivanas souvenirs.Arriving home after dark (the traffic was terrible),

Ellie and her mother were not surprised to see the lightstill shining in Mr. Wooten’s studio. Ellie, who racedstraight to the studio from the van, wriggled free ofher father’s hug to ask excitedly, “Where is he?”As if on cue, Poe swooped in through the open

window and, seeing Ellie, landed on the girl’s shoulder.She reached around to stroke his strong back andfully-grown tail feathers.“How are you, boy? I think you’ve grown,” she

said softly.In the crow’s beak was a rubber band. Ellie took

it and handed it to her father. “I think this is foryou, Dad.”The artist stuck it into the thick wet paint of his

current work-in-progress, a view of a lake overflowingwith bottle caps and plastic straws. “I’m calling this oneDon’t Drink the Water,” he said with a satisfied smile.Ellie nodded and looked around the studio. The

new paintings displayed floor-to-ceiling on thestudio’s walls were definitely different. “My father

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lakes, hills and fields—all littered with the bits oftrash that Poe supplied.Mr. Wooten was tremendously excited about his

new paintings and invited his agent, Mr. Rimbaud, toLakeview to see for himself what the artist called his“new direction.” Mr. Wooten was careful not tomention anything about the help he had had fromPoe, however. Equal parts elated and relieved, theagent rushed back to the city to inform his coterie ofcollectors and, of course, the critics about the artist’srenewed creativity. He felt sure that the addition ofwhat he called “urban flotsam and jetsam” (or moreplainly, trash) would put Mr. Wooten’s paintingsback on the cutting edge of the art world, andhopefully gain the artist lots of publicity.“I love it! Wooten you’re going be ‘The Next Big

Thing,’” the agent gushed. “I’ll get you on the coverof Art World magazine. I can see the headline now:‘Trashy Chic: Wooten Cleans Up.’ You’re going to behot—I feel it!” With such lavish encouragement theartist was more productive than ever and finished adozen new paintings while his wife and daughterwere away at the beach.After two weeks as guests of the Lowell family,

Ellie andMrs. Wooten were looking forward to beinghome again. Ellie was eager to see Poe, and Mrs.Wooten was anxious about making the final

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bed, and Poe disappeared on another of histrash-picking errands for the artist.

That night Ellie had a series of odd dreams. Thestrangest featured her father dressed in a tuxedo fish-ing from the stern of the Lowells’ boat and catchingnothing but empty bottles of Old Crow whiskey,while Erin and Poe swam alongside the craft, unableto climb aboard. Ellie tried in vain to throw them alife preserver but kept losing hold of the rope.“Where did that come from?” she wondered whenshe awoke. She dozed until half-past nine, trying topush her worries aside by thinking of all the fun sheand Mimi had had at the beach.

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has that right,” she thought to herself. She was no artcritic, but she had listened to enough of her parents’dinner-table conversations to know that, in the coldcalculus of the art world, “change equals good” andthat the right kind of change sells paintings. “A greatartist must constantly reinvent himself, like Picasso,”her father had remarked more than once. She hopedthat the “new direction” in which her father hadembarked was the right one. But at the moment Poe’sdirection was Ellie’s foremost concern.“Where’s he going?” she asked in dismay, as the

crow flew out the window.“On a treasure hunt for me,” replied the

no-longer-frustrated artist, as if it were the mostnatural thing in the world that he and a crow werenow creative collaborators.After she helped her mother unload the luggage,

Ellie returned to the studio in her pajamas to saygood night to her father and to Poe. In the brief timeit had taken Ellie to change clothes and brush herteeth, Poe already had presented the artist with severalmore bits of material, including a plastic lid from acarryout coffee cup, a hardened wad of bubble gum,and a popsicle stick. Mr. Wooten was busy findingjust the right spot to attach each item to the painting.As Poe perched on her father’s easel, Ellie fed him ahandful of peanuts. She went inside shortly to go to

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She wasn’t old enough to have heard of artists andtheir muses, but she instinctively recognized thecontribution Poe had made to Mr. Wooten’s creativecomeback. “Dad said he was looking for inspiration,”she recalled. “I’ll bet he never thought he’d find it ina crow!”As she thought about it more deeply, however, she

realized that her father really didn’t need Poe’s helpany longer—anyone could pick up trash, after all.Now that the artist had shaken his painter’s blockand had regained his confidence, he was in control ofhis own destiny. Poe had merely helped the painterredirect his creative energy. Now it was the family’sturn to help Poe take charge of his own destiny byloving him enough to let him go for a second time,and for good.

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As she was brushing her hair Ellie heard a tappingon the window, and there was Poe, head cockedand eyes bright. She opened the window and lethim in whispering, “Shhh! You’re not supposed tobe in the house.”They played a few of their old games together,

and then she heard her mother calling, “Ellie, are youup yet? Do you want some breakfast?” She let Poeout the window and went to the kitchen.“I think Poe misses us,” Ellie announced to her

mother. “He’s lonely—can’t we let him move backin?” she pleaded. “Now that he and Dad are friendsit would be different,” she reasoned.“I don’t think that would be the right thing for

Poe, or us,” said Mrs. Wooten kindly. “This morningI phoned Officer Bertelli, that nice game warden,and asked her what she thought of Poe’s visits. Shesaid that it’s perfectly normal for him to stay closethrough the summer, but that by autumn he’ll comeback less and less often. She said that right now he’stesting his independence, but that soon he’ll be readyto leave us behind. She suggested that we resist thetemptation to feed him, however, or else he won’tlearn to find food for himself.”Ellie understood this logic, but she thought it was

supremely ironic that once her father met a crow thatactually helped his work the family couldn’t keep it.

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found one. The stakes were high, and even Mrs.Wooten’s earthquake-proof optimism was beginningto show fault lines.“I’m worried,” Mrs. Wooten admitted, talking to

another PTO member on the phone. “We only have50 couples coming to the auction dinner. That meanswe’ll have to raise $800 from every family present.Even if people are able to contribute that kind ofmoney, I don’t know if the items we plan to auctionwill bring the bidding up that high.”The PTO’s auction committee had worked very

hard to persuade local businesses and individuals todonate various items that the dinner guests would bidon. Some of the most valuable items were: a digitalcamera; a dinner for two at the town’s best restaurant;a week at the Lowells’ beach house; a new pair of skisand boots; and two round-trip plane tickets to Paris.There were also some items whose value was harderto predict, including a small bench hand-painted bythe kindergarten class at Lakeview, an antique cuckooclock unearthed in someone’s cellar, and an entireweekend of baby-sitting by Erin. Ellie hoped herparents could afford to be the highest bidder on thelast item. The auction dinner was also when thewinners of the raffle would be announced.The topic of the auction arose one evening when

the Wootens had invited the artist’s agent, Mr.

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With just a week left before the “Save the Music”auction, Mrs. Wooten was in full-swing organizingthe last minute details of the important fundraisingevent. To date, the PTO committee had raised$60,000—a great deal of money to be sure, but still$40,000 short of their goal. Most of the amountraised so far had come from large corporations basedin the city. A grant received from a local artsfoundation and a sizable contribution from ananonymous benefactor had substantially increasedthe total. But, by and large, the Lakeview communitywas not wealthy, and many families already hadcontributed as much as they could comfortablyafford. If the auction did not make up the difference,the school’s music program could not continue, andErin would lose her job. Erin had spent the past weekin the city looking for other jobs, but so far she hadn’t

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Over coffee the agent made a surprising proposal:“What if we donate one of your new paintings toyour school’s auction?” he suggested.“Oh goodness, I don’t think any of the parents in our

school are serious art collectors,” Mrs. Wooten said.“No, of course not,” Mr. Rimbaud sniffed. “My

dear, you miss my point entirely. I will get the wordaround to the top collectors in the city, and we’llinvite them all—and the press—to your school’s littleauction. The collectors will each want to be the firstto own one of the new series and they’ll bid up theprice. And if they do drive up the price, then we cancharge more for the paintings in the fall gallery show.Of course, I couldn’t possibly forego my commission,but even after my fee your painting should net aprincely sum for your little cause,” the agent noted,keeping his eye fixed firmly on his own bottom line.The Wootens agreed wholeheartedly to the

agent’s proposal, and Mr. Rimbaud rose to take hisleave. Just then, there was a loud tapping at thewindow.They all turned to see Poe looking in. On an impulseMr. Wooten opened the window and let the crow in.Poe landed gracefully on the chandelier and cawed ahearty greeting.“Rimbaud, I’d like to introduce you to my

assistant, Poe the Crow,” the artist said with mockseriousness.

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Rimbaud, to eat dinner with them. The agent wishedto discuss Mr. Wooten’s upcoming gallery show andthe publicity campaign he had in mind to re-launchthe artist’s stalled career. Even though she had alwaysinsisted that Mr. Rimbaud was an “unbearablesnob,” Mrs. Wooten had conceded that it would bediplomatic to invite him to dinner. She had spent thebetter part of the afternoon fretting over what toserve a man accustomed to being wined and dined inthe city’s finest restaurants. She couldn’t decidebetween veal cutlets or lamb chops.“Why does he have to eat baby animals?”

Ellie had protested.Lamb was chosen over Ellie’s objections, since

tonight she would be eating pasta in the kitchen,while the adults sat down to talk business in thedining room. Earlier Ellie had helped her motherclean any remaining traces of Poe off the chandelierand the chair cushions.During the main course, the agent informed the

Wootens that he planned to ask upwards of $10,000per painting for the works in the artist’s new series.Stunned at this unexpectedly high valuation, the artistand his wife simultaneously choked on their lambchops. After they swallowed hard and recovered theircomposure, they grew giddy with excitement aboutthe imminent improvement in their financial situation.

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Mr. and Mrs. Wooten couldn’t wait to tell Ellieabout Poe’s latest nocturnal visit and about Mr.Rimbaud’s exciting idea—and hasty departure. Elliewas already in bed, reading a book. She grinnedbroadly as she listened to the part about how thecrow had snatched food right off the agent’s plate.“I thought we weren’t supposed to feed Poe

anymore,” she teased.Her father laughed and joked, “Then I guess you

and Poe both have a bone to pick withMr. Rimbaud!”Mrs. Wooten smiled. “Well, at least Poe has a better

sense of humor than that patronizing Mr. Rimbaud!”she noted.Later that night, flushed with the anticipation of

a positive cash flow, Mr. and Mrs. Wooten began toplan the trip the family would take next summer tosee the Grand Canyon.

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The smooth-talking agent was flustered at thesight of a large, jet-black bird swinging on thechandelier. At first he looked alarmed, then he frozein fear as Poe swooped down and began to pick at theuneaten meat still clinging to the chop on his plate.“I gather crows aren’t a regular sight at

restaurants in the city,” Mrs. Wooten deadpanned,playing along with the game.For once the agent was speechless, and his face

turned ashen. When Poe flew out the window carryinga bit of meat in his beak, the panicked agent backedhastily out of the room, muttering something about“crazy artists and cheap wine not mixing well.” TheWootens laughed and watched from the window asthe agent ran toward his car. They agreed that Poehad both brains and an uncanny sense of timing.

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Miss Peterson and of course, Erin, had volunteeredto serve the meals.As promised, Mr. Rimbaud had invited the city’s

five foremost art collectors to attend the fundraiser. Afew days ago Mrs. Wooten had inquired as towhether they would be dining along with the otherguests, and whether they would like to reserve theirown table. The agent had replied disdainfully, “Dearme, no! They’ve come for the art, not the rubberchicken.” The agent himself had declined, saying thathe “regrettably had a prior engagement.”Mr. Rimbaud had arranged for a fleet of limousines

to deliver the collectors to the school in time for theauction. For maximum dramatic effect, Mr. Wooten’spainting was to be the final item auctioned. Thepainting now stood draped with a velvet cloth on aneasel beside the podium.

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The day of the auction Mrs. Wooten was a bundleof nervous energy. In the morning she and the otherPTO volunteers set up big round tables and foldingchairs in the school’s cafeteria and covered themwith crisp white tablecloths. Ellie and Erin helpedput up the theme decorations: black and whiteballoons with musical notes printed on them, smallcandles in the shape of drums, and kazoos danglingfrom crepe paper streamers. The centerpiece of eachtable was a French horn overflowing like a cornucopiawith fresh fruit. The chicken dinner (“Sorry, Ellie,chicken is what everyone serves at charity events,”Mrs. Wooten said) would be provided at cost by thecatering company managed by Ricky Collins’ parents.Sierra’s mother, who had volunteered to sell raffletickets at the door, brought her own vegetariandinner. Several of the younger teachers, including

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and then began a short opening speech.“I cannot emphasize enough the value of teaching

our children to appreciate and to play music. Studieshave shown that participation in music classesenhances brain development and helps kids stay inschool and out of trouble,” he stated. He thenthanked the PTO and the community for working sohard and contributing so generously to the “Save theMusic” fund.Next, Principal Murray drew the winning raffle

tickets out of an enormous black cauldron (last used—and then filled with yellow yarn to look likespaghetti—for the first grade’s performance of a playbased on Strega Nona). The grand prize, a trip toBermuda, went to none other than the Wootens'meddlesome neighbor, Mrs. Smitty, to whom Elliehad sold the winning ticket. The Lowells won one ofthe lesser prizes, a free dog grooming at the Hair ofthe Dog pet salon; their poodle, Gigi (“Georgina” toDeirdre) could use that after a summer at the beach.Miss Peterson was pleased with her prize, a manicureand facial at the local health spa. “I’ll make anappointment before my wedding day next week,” shedeclared in thanks.Upon conclusion of the raffle drawing, Mr.

Murray announced that, all totaled, sales of the $5raffle tickets had netted almost $3,000. The guests

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Even though Mrs. Wooten had checked andre-checked all the final details, she still wanted toarrive an hour before the guests were due, justto make sure that everything went without a hitch.As she gave a final glance around the festively decoratedcafeteria, Mrs. Wooten was satisfied with what shesaw; the Lakeview community had really pulledtogether to get this important event off the ground.She prayed that it would be a success.During dinner the Wootens were seated next to

the Lowells, who had returned from their beachhouse especially for the big event. Children were notofficially invited, but as chairwoman, Mrs. Wootenhad made an exception for her own daughter so longas Ellie made herself useful. Ricky Collins also waspresent to help his parents with the catering. Ellie andRicky stayed in the kitchen and assisted by puttingrolls into baskets, garnishing each plate of chickenwith a sprig of parsley, and filling coffee creamers andsugar bowls. Ricky was on his best behavior andcaused only a minor disturbance when he accidentallydropped a heavy bag of ice on his own foot. Once themeal had been served, Ellie found an empty chair inthe back of the room. She didn’t want to miss theexcitement of the auction.Lakeview’s principal, Mr. Murray, acting as master

of ceremonies and auctioneer, tested the microphone

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gallantly offered the suggested minimum bid. “It willbe a fun way to teach telling time,” she explained toher dinner companions, and indeed, the teacherwould hang the clock in her classroom to the hourlydelight of her young students.The next several items readily brought slightly

higher amounts: $100 for brunch for four at anearby country inn; $125 for a fishing rod and tacklebox; $150 for a case of wine; and $325 for lawnservices by Lakeview Landscaping.The auction was a third of the way through and

less than $1,000 had been raised. Mrs. Wootenlooked anxiously around the room and saw onlyfamiliar faces—no one resembling a big city art collectorhad arrived yet. The bidding continued at a fast clip,with Principal Murray in fine voice as he warmed upto his role as auctioneer. The digital camera, the skisand boots, and a series of yoga lessons each broughtaround $500. A pair of rugged mountain bikesfetched $850 from the gym teacher.Watching from the rear of the room, Ellie held her

breath as the bidding began for the weekend of baby-sitting donated by Erin. The Wootens were first offthe mark with a bid of $200. The parents of tripletsin the kindergarten class raised the bidding to $225.Ellie looked at Erin across the room and saw hershudder at that prospect. The bidding seesawed back

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applauded enthusiastically, but Mrs. Wooten bit herlip, hoping that her husband’s painting would fetchas much as the agent had said it would. The auctioneditems would have to bring in at least $37,000.As if reading his wife’s mind, the artist leaned

over and whispered into her ear, “What if Rimbaudwas wrong, and no one bids on my painting? Maybethose collectors aren’t even coming,” he fretted, scanningthe faces in the room.“Don’t worry, dear,” Mrs. Wooten replied, patting

her husband’s hand, but her eye was fixed anxiouslyon the main entrance, as if willing the door to open.As the teacher-waiters cleared the dessert plates

and served coffee, the auction finally got underwaywith bidding on, fittingly enough, a child-sized drumset donated by the local music store. Mrs. Collins wasthe high bidder at $75; she planned to give it toRicky’s equally boisterous little brother, Bobby, a second-grader everyone called “Bam-Bam.”The room fell silent, however, when Principal

Murray held up the antique cuckoo clock, an item soodd-looking (and dusty) that it must have beenburied in someone’s cellar for quite some time.“Do I hear $25?” he asked in his best auctioneer

voice. “I’m told it keeps perfect time,” he said, tryingto drum up interest.No one spoke up until the kindergarten teacher

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and bright sport shirts worn by most of the guests,the collectors wore the official urban uniform ofblack. The three men were almost indistinguishablein their black designer-jeans and black knit turtlenecks.Mrs. Wooten winced to think of their discomfortwhen they discovered that the cafeteria was notair-conditioned. The two women, both bottle-blond,wore nearly identical short black dresses and blackhigh-heeled sandals. Eyeing them from a distance,Ellie couldn’t help thinking that they resembled nothingso much as a flock of crows. She recalled the crowcounting rhyme that Erin had taught her and hopedthat “five for rich” would hold true in this instance.With a dramatic flourish, Principal Murray

unveiled Mr. Wooten’s painting. Disposable World,drew audible gasps from the collectors assembled atthe side of the room. The large-scale painting was amap of the planet Earth with the continents shapedfrom bits of trash stuck to the canvas. NorthAmerica, formed entirely of chewed bubble gum, wasbright pink. South America was a tangle of green rub-ber bands. Europe was the muted brown and whiteof cigarette butts, while Africa shone with the silverof foil gum wrappers. Asia was made of multi-col-ored bottle tops, and Australia was fashioned out ofpopsicle sticks and drinking straws. Antarctica wasshaped from little wooden ice cream spoons.

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and forth until finally the Wootens triumphed with abid of $400. Ellie let out her breath and whooped,and Erin waved and gave her the thumbs-up sign.The next item on the slate was a week at the

Lowell family’s beach house. Mrs. Lowell wasdismayed when Mr. Collins opened the bidding.“The Collins boys will wreck the place in matter ofminutes,” she whispered to Mrs. Wooten. To theLowells’ great relief, the school nurse and her husband,whose three children were all grown up, ultimatelytopped all other parties with a bid of $1,250. Nextthere was spirited bidding between two individualsfor the tickets to Paris, and in the end, the trip wentfor $1,800, the highest amount so far.By this time, the auction was nearly over. The

total stood at almost $10,000, but still there was nosign of the promised collectors. With just one itemleft to auction before her husband’s painting, Mrs.Wooten left her seat to step outside for a breath offresh air. She was pacing near the main entrancewhen she spotted five black limousines pulling intothe school’s parking lot. She raced back to her seat intime to hear Principal Murray bring the gavel downon the $800 sale of a set of golf clubs.The entrance of five, unfamiliar latecomers

caused quite a stir among the tight-knit Lakeviewcrowd. In sharp contrast to the printed sundresses

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“$36,000!”“$38,000!”“$40,000!” The bidding rally stopped suddenly,

as if one of the players had netted the ball.“Do I hear $41,000?” Principal Murray asked

timidly. The tense silence continued for an agonizingmoment as everyone stared at the group of collectors.Finally the auctioneer rapped his gavel on the

podium and declared, “Sold! For $40,000 to the—tothe man in black!” he stammered, trying to identifythe mystery bidder.The crowd broke into sustained applause as the

victorious man in black came forward to shake handswith the principal and the artist. Mrs. Wootenhugged her husband, and across the room Erinhugged Ellie. The breathtaking amount of the winningbid saved both Lakeview’s music program and Mr.Wooten’s career in one fell swoop.“I don’t know how I can ever thank you enough,”

Erin said a few moments later as she and the Wootenfamily posed together in front of Disposable World.A photographer from the local newspaper snappedpictures for a front-page story in the next day’s edition,while a reporter interviewed the elated artist and hisproud wife and daughter.“I couldn’t have done it without Poe’s help,” the

artist said truthfully and squeezed Ellie’s hand.

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Principal Murray, whose collecting expertise waslimited to baseball cards, thought an opening bid of$500 might be appropriate. But before the auctioneercould even suggest an amount, one of the collectorsshouted out an opening bid of $5,000. The audiencedrew its collective breath sharply. A second collectordoubled that amount with a bid of $10,000. Quicklyanother jumped in at $12,000. Principal Murray didhis best to keep order, but the collectors interruptedhim as they scrambled to outbid each other, while theLakeview parents watched in awe.“$13,000!” shouted one.“$14,000!” countered another.“$15,000!” signaled a third.“Do I hear $16,000?” a stunned Principal

Murray asked when the bidding paused long enoughfor him to get a word in.“$20,000!” One of the collectors had boldly

taken the bidding to a new level in the hopes oftrumping the competition.“$25,000!” shouted another collector whose ego

did not take kindly to being trumped.The bidding now bounced back and forth like a

ping-pong ball between these two collectors:“$30,000!”“$32,000!”“$34,000!”

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pickup truck. In the truck’s flatbed was a thank-yougift for the Wooten family—a small apple tree toplant in the yard. Erin was wearing overalls and carryinga shovel.“I don’t know how to thank you enough for all

you’ve done for me and the school. I thought youmight like a new tree near the spot where the oldhemlock used to be,” she explained to the Wootens.“Apple trees have beautiful blossoms, and the birdslike to eat the fruit that falls on the ground. Poe likesapples, doesn’t he?” she asked. Ellie nodded andwatched as Erin set about digging a deep hole.Mr.Wooten, too, received his share of congratulatory

calls. The first was from his agent, who phoned toannounce that he would visit later in the day to discussthe prices he intended to set for the rest of the paintings.Bolstered by the front-page coverage that the auctionreceived in the morning newspaper, he plannedto bring along a team from Art World magazine tointerview and photograph the artist in his studio.When the agent mentioned that he intended to raisethe price on all of Mr. Wooten’s new paintings to$40,000 each, the artist almost dropped the phonein shock.Since the phone line was busy all day, many

neighbors dropped by to congratulate the Wootenspersonally. When Mrs. Wooten caught sight of the

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The headline in the next morning’s LakeviewHerald read: “Wooten Donates Work and Saves theMusic: Bidding Sets New Price Record.” TheWootens’ telephone hardly stopped ringing the dayafter the auction. Mrs. Wooten received countlesscalls from other parents at Lakeview Elementarycommending her for the stupendous results of thefundraising effort. There had been many doubters allalong, and those who had not always shared Mrs.Wooten’s unshakable optimism were among the firstto telephone their congratulations.“I knewwe could do it!” declared one of the former

naysayers, now anxious to take share in the credit.Mrs. Wooten, ever gracious, thanked each caller

warmly, “I couldn’t have done it without your help,”she replied to all regardless of their contribution.At midday Erin arrived driving her father’s

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portrait from a photo? I have a whole album full ofphotos of my handsome baby,” she cooed, scratchingthe cat behind his ears.“I can ask my dad—” Ellie offered dubiously.“Ask me what?” Mr. Wooten said, overhearing

them as he entered the room.“I wanted to ask you and your lovely wife if you

would like to take the trip I won to Bermuda—Butterball and I don’t like to travel,” Mrs. Smittyexplained. “In return, I wonder if you would be willingto paint Butterball’s portrait,” she bargained.Mr. Wooten was taken aback at her proposition.

“Well, goodness, I’m a landscape painter, not aportraitist. I don’t think I could do justice to adistinguished subject like Butterball. But I would behappy to take the tickets to Bermuda off your hands,if you’re absolutely sure you can’t use them. My wifeand I haven’t taken a vacation alone together in years—it would be like a second honeymoon.”“And Erin could baby-sit for me!” Ellie

enthusiastically agreed.Later in the day Mr. Rimbaud arrived with the

reporter and photographer from Art World in tow.Mr. Wooten invited them all into his studio where heposed for photos in front of his easel.The reporter was curious to know what had

inspired the artist’s new Paradise Lost series. “Were

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long-winded Mrs. Smitty poised to ring the doorbell,she pushed Ellie toward the door and said, “Tell herI’m in the shower,” and then dashed out of sight.Ellie opened the door, and Mrs. Smitty barged in

holding Butterball. “I can’t believe it!” she declared.“All this time I’ve been living next door to aworld-famous artist and I had no idea,” she gushed,trying to make amends. “Where’s your father? I wantto commission him to do a portrait of my baby,” shesaid, thrusting Butterball forward.“I don’t think he paints cat portraits, Mrs.

Smitty,” Ellie said politely. “He’s allergic.” Mrs.Smitty looked crestfallen. To cheer her up Ellierecalled that her neighbor had won a prize in lastnight’s raffle. “Remember those raffle tickets I soldyou, Mrs. Smitty? Well, you won the grand prize—atrip to Bermuda!”“Oh dear me, I couldn’t possibly go to Bermuda.

That’s an island—I’m afraid to fly. And besides, whatwould I do with my Butterball? He couldn’t standbeing left in the kennel with all those horriblebarking dogs,” said Mrs. Smitty, shuddering at thevery thought.“That’s too bad,” Ellie said.“Why don’t you tell your parents to take the

prize?” Mrs. Smitty asked. “And maybe, inexchange, your father could paint Butterball’s

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“You forgot something,” Mr. Wooten calledafter Mr. Rimbaud as he heard the agent’s sports carroar away.

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you making a statement about pollution andAmerica’s ‘throwaway culture’? I noticed there’s beena good deal of development in Lakeview recently—Isuppose there must be environmental problems evenway out here in the country,” said the reporter,looking for an angle.“No, I really didn’t have any political message in

mind when I started painting,” the artist answeredtruthfully. “It was all Poe’s idea.”“Poe?” echoed the confounded reporter. “Wasn’t

it Milton who wrote Paradise Lost?” naminganother famous poet.As if he had been waiting backstage for his

cue, Poe flew in and landed on the photographer’scamera stand.Mr. Rimbaud, startled at the sudden appearance

of the crow, shrieked, “Watch out!” to the others.But Poe wasn’t interested in the journalists from

Art World. The crow aimed directly for Mr.Rimbaud, and flying low and fast, plucked the toupeeright off the top of his head, exposing his shiny baldscalp. Poe kept on flying and disappeared out thewindow with the toupee dangling from his beak.“Just featheringhis nest, I expect,” the artist remarked.The agent, hands raised to conceal his exposed

scalp, ran out the door with the photographer andreporter trailing behind.

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Out of habit he still checked his windowsill foranother of Poe’s deliveries but found nothing. Notthat he lacked for trash or inspiration—his wife hadbegun to save him odds and ends she found when sheemptied the garbage, and he was painting better thanever all by himself.From time to time, Ellie heard a noise outside her

bedroom window and looked out expecting to seePoe’s silhouette, but it was only the sound of a branchbrushing the side of the house in the wind. As she layin bed and listened to the birds singing in themorning, she tried without success to distinguishPoe’s voice among the caws of the other crows.As the weeks passed, the family’s only proof of

Poe’s continued presence was the “ringing” theyregularly heard outside. More than once, Ellie hadheard Poe’s ringing and had seen Mrs. Smitty dashback inside her house to answer the phone, only tore-emerge a moment later, shaking her head inconfusion. The mailman, too, had often been noticedrubbing his ears as the mysterious ringing soundfollowed him on his route. It always made theWootens smile to think that Poe still retained thisparticular memory of his short stay with theirfamily. He had not forgotten them after all, and theywould never forget him. They just hoped that hewouldn’t forget to call now and then.

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Later Mrs. Wooten sent Ellie outside to pick somevegetables from the garden. It was early evening andthe trees in the pinewoods behind the house cast longshadows over the lawn. There was a cool breeze, andEllie could hear crickets chirping. Summer was wind-ing down. The days were getting shorter, and beforelong, school would start again.As Ellie approached the vegetable garden, she

thought about what Officer Bertelli had said. Poe’stimely visit today to her father’s studio may havebeen one of his last. The tomatoes and eggplant wereripe, and she picked a few of each. Eggplantparmigiana had become one of her favorite meatlessmeals. As she was deciding what else to pick, sheheard a rustle behind her and turned to look. She sawa large crow sitting on the scarecrow’s shoulder. Thebird cawed once and cocked his head. Ellie extendedher hand, beckoning.“Poe?” she said hopefully. The crow remained on

the scarecrow’s shoulder and pecked idly at its strawhat. In the twilight Ellie couldn’t be sure it was Poe.She took a step closer, and the bird flew away intothe woods.Poe didn’t visit Mr. Wooten’s studio again after

that day. The artist continued to leave his windowopen until the cold weather came, but when hispaints and fingers started to freeze he shut it tight.

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the end ~

~

About the Authors:

Jan Devereux is a graduate of Princeton University, where she

majored in English. She now works as a real estate agent. She lives

in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband and three children

and the family’s pets (a dog, a cat, a lovebird and a chinchilla).

Roxy Vanslette grew up in northern Vermont and majored in Art

Education at the University of Vermont. Roxy also lives in

Cambridge and has a boxer dog named Emma.

Can you keeP a Secret?Fourth-grader Ellie Wooten has a big secret to keep when she finds abird’s egg and it hatches into a baby crow. The problem is, her artist-father hates crows more than anything else. He’d be furious if heknew about his daughter’s new pet! But luckily, Poe the Crow is nobirdbrain. The clever and lovable bird comes upwith a brilliant solutionto all the family’s problems that makes evenMr. Wooten“eat crow.”

Copyright 2004 by Lakeview PressCover Illustration Copyright 2004 Roxy VansletteCover & Book Layout design by Sarah Beth Wiley

www.PoetheCrow.com

“A funny and captivating story.My class absolutely loved it!”Betsy Whitters, Fourth-Grade Teacher

“Awon

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family r

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thetra

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of Owl in the Family.”

Bridget

Bennet

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Easter

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. Book

Review

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