Alice's Farm by Maryrose Wood

Author:Maryrose Wood
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

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It was a dewy-eyed morning in the farmhouse, but the cottontails’ eventual triumph over John Glenn’s tracker during the preceding night had been no miracle. On the contrary: It had taken guts, preparation, and strong teeth. After Foxy and her humans had gone back to their farm-burrow, Doggo attempted a calm introduction between the tender rabbits and the great winged predator. The eagle cooed like a fledgling dove, but it didn’t matter. Alice and Thistle couldn’t help but be terrified.

They worked on this by sitting quietly near him for a while, until the pure survival reflex subsided and he didn’t seem quite so strange and deadly. When the last drops of fear had melted, the rabbits carefully climbed atop the eagle’s back and nibbled at the straps. He praised their lightness and gentleness the whole time, and soon the annoying gadget slipped right off.

John Glenn spread his wings in unencumbered bliss. “Let freedom ring!” he said. “Rabbits, you are sharp-toothed indeed, and brave of heart. How can I repay you?”

“You’ve already promised not to eat us. That’s a pretty good trade,” Thistle said gaily. Not many cottontails have climbed the back of a fox and the back of an eagle in one lifetime, but Thistle had. The straps had tasted awful (he’d never been near a synthetic polymer before, otherwise known as nylon), but on balance, he felt himself to be a lucky bunny indeed.

“Still, I would like to help in some way. And I will never eat you,” John Glenn said earnestly. “Not unless you ask me to.”

Both rabbits’ tails had a good shimmy over that one.

Once her fear was gone, Alice liked John Glenn right away. She was impressed by his qualities: his size, his plumage, his noble temperament, and the fierce grandeur of his profile. He wanted to help them, and help was something they desperately needed. She wasn’t going to let him go without asking for something. But what should it be?

“There is an item we need for the garden,” she said, after a moment. “It’s called a scarecrow. Our friend Lester told us about them. They can be in the shape of a human, or an owl, or any other creature that will frighten away the crows.”

“I have seen these scarecrows,” John Glenn said. “Many farms have them.”

“Well, we need one, too. The crows have been coming around lately, watching us. I expect they’ll be a problem once the peppers and tomatoes are fruiting.”

The crows had been gathering for a week already. First they came singly, then in twos and threes. Most birds could be trusted to stick to an agreement, but crows weren’t like other birds. They were brilliantly clever, with long memories and complicated brains. They were fiercely loyal, but only to each other. The rest of the earth’s creatures were the Others, the Not-Crows, the Lesser Birds, the Lowly Wingless—the crows had many names for those to whom they felt superior, but they all meant the same thing.

Crows were scavengers who ate anything they could find or steal, from insects to human garbage.

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