Old Friends in New York City
Lew and Francois are surrounded...
The story of a lost pigeon named Lew in New York City continues!
Here’s a link to the previous part in Lew’s story:
And here’s a link to where it all started:
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“Alright, everyone zip it,” said Mac, the head pigeon.
The other pigeons immediately stopped talking, as did Francois and I.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” said Mac. “We’re going to take Andy here to the vet to get his wing fixed. We’ll have to get Howell to communicate with his human. The two of you are going to have to pay for it. Plus extra.”
“I don’t have anything to give you,” said Francois.
“Come on now,” said Mac. “The whole city knows about your little mall heist plan.”
“It’s still just a plan,” said Francois.
“I guess you’d better speed your preparations along then,” said Mac. “If you don’t have something for me in a week, you and your friend are getting kicked out of this city for good.”
“But, Mac,” said Francois.
Mac was already about to take off.
“Make it happen,” he said. “There’s no room for disappointment.”
Mac flew off into the air. The other pigeons set off too, except for the injured bird and a couple of others who were looking after him.
Glaring at Francois with pure vengeance in his eyes, the pigeon with the broken wing was walked away by two others.
There was one last pigeon still hanging around. It took me a second to recognise her. She was the pigeon who had told me how to get into the city when I first arrived. Except she didn’t seem to be hanging around for me.
She walked over to Francois who had just gotten back to his feet and was now dusting himself off.
“Are you alright, Francois?” she asked.
“Some leader you have…” he said.
“It sounds to me like you broke Andy’s wing,” she said.
“Only because he was chasing after us,” said Francis.
She turned to me.
“A new apprentice, I see,” she said, still addressing Francois.
“That’s Lew,” said Francois. “He’s helping me with the mall heist. Lew, meet Joan.”
“You helped me when I first arrived here,” I told her.
“Yeah, I remember you,” she said.
“Not so helpful now, is she,” said Francois.
“Oh, give it a rest,” said Joan.
They talked like old friends.
“Let’s look at the mall,” she said. “I want to see your plan.”
Francois huffed. “Come on then.”
We all took off and left the park. We headed across the city to the mall and landed in our usual spot across the street from the mall entrance.
The mall was still extremely quiet — the rotating door completely unmoving.
“Don’t tell me your plan is the main door?” said Joan, her face scrunched up as if she had just had a bite of revolting food.
“There’s only so many ways to get into a place like this,” said Francis.
“That spinning door will chew you up and spit you out like a human with a piece of chewing gum,” said Joan.
“I’ve been training, ok?” said Francois. “Everyday I’ve been training.”
“There has to be another way in,” said Joan. “Have you checked the roof?”
“Of course, I’ve checked the roof,” said Francois. “I’ve checked everything.”
“Let’s check again,” said Joan. “Maybe some fresh eyes will help.”
Francois had a frustrated expression on his face.
“Alright, check the roof,” he said. “Search all you want. Knock yourself out.”
We flew up to the roof of the mall. There were a bunch of big silver boxes that lots of roofs in the city seem to have. There was also a big metal door into a little room. It must have been how the humans got up there. I had asked Francois the first time we came up on the roof if the door was opened often. I had wondered if we could just slip inside like with the rotating door plan. Alas, he said the humans almost never went up there. Plus, humans open and close those types of doors so quickly that it would be almost impossible.
Francois stood by and did nothing as Joan looked around. It was pretty apparent that he was convinced that she wasn’t going to find anything.
I went with Joan as she looked over the area. She went to the big metal door and hopped up on the handle. She jumped up in the air and tried to see if the handle budged at all as she landed. It barely jiggled.
She looked around a bit more, but there wasn’t really anything else left to try.
On the verge of giving up, I went over for a closer look at one of the big metal boxes on the roof. The front of it was a metal square with horizontal slats. I looked at the little circles of metal that stuck out from each corner of the square. Eureka!
“Ruby!” I said.
Francois and Joan both turned and looked at me.
“Last night when I went to the club behind the billboard,” I said. “I talked to Ruby and she took me to a place full of injured birds. There was a metal square thing just like this.”
I nodded to the metal square with the horizontal slats.
“These round things in the corners, these little bits of metal, Ruby’s able to twist them out and get inside,” I said.
“But what’s inside?” asked Joan.
“At the other place, it was like a tunnel that went all through the building,” I said.
Francois was finally interested. He paced over.
“How did she do it?” Francois asked.
“She got her claw in there and twisted the metal bit,” I said.
Francois went up to one of the low round metal pieces and tried to twist it with his claw. He tried, but it just wouldn’t budge.
“Let me try,” said Joan.
Francois stepped aside and Joan gave it a go too. Neither of them could move it.
“I guess we should go and have a chat with Ruby then,” said Francois.
Thanks for reading!
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