Flyaway (2 page)

CHAPTER 2

D
ad drives past the pylons and buildings of the steel works, past the entrance to the new power station. He turns left into the reserve car park, through puddles of muddy water. We're the only ones. It's too cold and early for even the hard-core birdwatchers. No one's even been round yet to unlock the portaloo. If Dad wasn't with me, it would be so creepy being here. I get out of the car and listen. There's not one single sound . . . not even the trundle of the steel works or the distant hum of the motorway. The sky is as heavy and grey as a blanket. It feels like snow's coming.

Dad fetches the binoculars from the boot and we get going. It doesn't take long to walk to the lakes. Down the small dirt lane beside the stream, up the short ramp where the wind hits you at full force and then between the reed beds. Dad walks fast, barely waiting for me to keep up. I'm
breathing hard, and the cold air makes my throat hurt. Dad stops to pick up a scrunched crisp packet at the side of the path, his breath hanging in the air as he bends. We listen. I can't hear the usual honks and hisses. It's silent, too silent for them. Perhaps they've decided to stay up north after all. Dad would be so disappointed. He glances up at the sky, checking. But nothing.

‘You sure it's today?'

Dad nods, absently. ‘Has to be.'

It's Dad who's always right about when they'll arrive now. Always. It's weird, but if there's one thing he's never wrong about, it's this. Sometimes I think it's the only thing he's actually inherited from Granddad . . . the only thing that makes me convinced they're related. We turn the last corner before the main lake, their favourite lake. Walk the final few metres. But there's no birds at all. Not even any mallards or coots. The lake is as still as stone, ripple-less. For that moment it feels like all the birds in the world have disappeared.

‘I don't get it,' Dad mumbles.

He shakes his head, frowns. He spins around to check the sky from all angles. I look up too.

‘Maybe we're too early?' I suggest.

Dad starts walking, away from the lake. I think about the wild whooper swans, how clever they are to cover the hundreds, maybe thousands, of miles between Iceland and here. Perhaps this year they're too tired to fly the final bit. Maybe they've given up on this wintering ground, just like they gave up on Granddad's lake. Perhaps we'll just have to watch the
mute swans instead. I almost laugh when I think of Dad being excited to watch mutes. We both know they have none of the noise and the mystery that the whoopers have. None of their magic.

Dad walks down the main path, towards the river. He's looking for a better view. He holds the binoculars to his eyes, scanning. Then his body goes still as he sees something. He takes the binoculars away, squints at the sky, then looks again.

‘What is it?' I ask.

‘Oh no.' He lets the binoculars drop and they bounce against his chest. He starts forward into a run. I'm so shocked by the expression on his face that I don't even move for a second or two, I just watch him run down the path away from me. It's not the direction where the swans normally arrive from. But he's seen something.

‘What?' I shout again.

He's already too far away to answer. I run after him. I'm glancing at the sky as I go, desperately trying to work out what Dad's seen. I don't have time to stop and use my own binoculars. He's running towards the far end of the reserve, near the corner where the new power station is. My eyes flick over it, the concrete building with its long waste chutes. The towering electricity pylons, only put up a few months ago. Suddenly I realise what Dad must have seen, what he might be imagining. My stomach clenches into a tight fist. And I pick up my pace and pelt after him.

I've nearly caught up with Dad when I see the swans. There are about twenty of them, fewer than usual, but they're
big and definitely whoopers. They are stretched across the sky, flying swiftly in that huge V shape, their wings beating in time. They must be aiming for the main lake, whooping and trumpeting as they fly. I stop and watch them. It's something I've seen so many times, but it still gets me. The dawn light on their feathers. The soft whir of wings. The way they are so huge and gangly and yet look so graceful . . . so impossibly elegant. In that moment I always understand why Dad likes them so much.

Then Dad starts waving and screaming at them and jolts me back to the freezing cold morning.

‘We have to stop them,' he yells.

I peel off my coat and fling it about above my head. I jump up and down. It's no good. They're only focused on getting to the lake. They don't notice us.

‘They're going to hit it,' Dad says.

And I feel sick then, really truly sick, because I know he's right. In the pale light, the swans can't see the wires linking the new pylons; can't see the electricity fizzing in front of them. There are no red marker balls on the wires like the council promised, nothing to show the birds what's there. I start screaming at them.

‘Go away! Get back!'

But they don't see us. Even if they did, we can't stop them.

‘Isla, don't,' Dad whispers. ‘Don't watch.'

But I have to. My mouth goes dry. I let my arms drop. The swan at the front looks so determined, its head bobbing in time with the beat of its wings. It looks confident about
where it's going, vaguely hopeful. The rest of the flock trust it. Dad makes a tight, strangled noise as the swans falter. They slow down, change direction a little, and I think for a second that they've seen the wires. I let out a kind of breathless laugh as their wings beat furiously to take them higher. Maybe they'll make it.

But it's too late.

I hear the sizzle of the front bird hitting the wire, even from here. It tumbles towards the ground, its head twisting in surprise. Its wings limp, feathers spinning down. I feel a pain inside me, an ache beneath my ribs. I gasp. And Dad puts his arm out and gathers me towards him. He's breathing fast, too. His whole body feels tense against me, shaking. I bury my head into his bonfire-smelling coat but still I hear the smack and sizzle as another bird hits. And then another. I hold my breath. The ache inside gets worse. Then there's screeching, loud and hoarse, as the birds warn each other away. There are other birds, joining in. A constant throb of panic and wings.

‘I should have realised this would happen,' Dad murmurs, his voice as shaky as I feel. ‘Those idiots building the pylons there, and no markers . . .'

He pulls me further towards him, so close that I think for a second I hear his heart. I concentrate everything I have on listening for it. Anything to drown out the sound of the birds all around.
Thud-thud
. Dad's own wingbeat. A gust of wind whips across my ears and under my collar, pushing my hair across my face. Dad picks up my coat from the path where
I've flung it and wraps it around my shoulders.

‘Put it on,' he says. ‘It's cold.'

I look up and see that his eyes are wet.

‘Has it finished?'

He nods. I pull back to look up. There are no birds there now, only a few feathers clinging to the wires.

‘Did they . . . how many got hit?'

Dad's holding out the coat, trying to get me to put my arms through it. ‘The birds at the back had enough time to fly over, it's not so bad.'

I turn to look behind me. ‘Are they on the main lake?'

Dad shakes his head, glances at the sky. ‘Still up there. Doubt they'll winter here now.'

I shield my eyes. Far above, the black specks of swans are flying fast towards the city, following the river. Dad's watching a single swan flying much closer to us, circling slowly around the reserve. It's a youngster, greyish and small . . . maybe a female. She's all by herself. Left behind. I can tell by the way she keeps coming closer to the ground and then circling up again that she's confused, unsure if she should land. For one crazy minute I wish that I could be up there with her, helping her fly . . . showing her where to go. Does she even realise that her flock is getting further away with each circle she makes? Again there's that ache behind my ribs. I don't want to stop looking at her. It feels like if I do, she'll fall.

Dad starts walking towards the small lake in front of us. He's heading for the reeds below the wires, the place where the swans fell. I run forwards to grab his arm.

‘We have to see, Isla,' he says firmly. ‘We might be able to save them.'

I keep hold of him, even though he tries to shake me off to get to them. My eyes shift to the flattened reeds where the birds lie. I don't want to see the swans like this, broken and deformed. I want to remember them before they hit the wires flying straight and perfectly, with the light glinting off their feathers. But I also know Dad's right. We have to save what we can.

As Dad drags me closer, I see that there are three of them.

‘Only three,' I say quietly. ‘It could have been worse.'

Their white, limp bodies are floating, caught in the reeds between the path and deep water, their feathers becoming waterlogged.

Dad takes off his binoculars and gives them to me. He wades in.

‘But it's freezing . . .' I start to say, before Dad's sharp glance stops my words.

He breathes in quickly as the water reaches his knees. There are patches of ice floating on the surface. I hear the squelch of his boots in the mud. He reaches the first swan, drags it towards him and turns it over.

‘Dead,' he says.

I watch his jaw clench. Dad hates dead things. He likes things that jump with life and energy, things like him. He wades further in to the next bird and I move towards the bank.

‘Let me help.'

‘No. It's really cold.'

The first swan Dad touched drifts towards me. I bend down, reach out and grab its wing. I tow it to me. There is a deep, red gash running across the bottom of the bird's neck, wire-sized. The feathers are singed black around it and smell strangely like burnt plastic. I touch my fingers to the bird's chest. It's still warm, but there's no heartbeat. I turn away from the bird's still, glazed eyes.

Dad is feeling the next swan. ‘Dead,' he mutters again.

He watches my face, checking to see if I'm upset, before moving onto the last bird. This one's smaller than the rest and its feathers are greyish-brown. A young one, on its first migration probably. Perhaps it's the brother of the other young one we saw flying around the reserve. It's not fair that it's travelled so far only to crash like this at the end. Dad has to wade in almost to his hips to reach it. The wind gets stronger then, making the reeds hiss and the breath catch in my throat.

‘Come out of there, Dad,' I say, pulling my hair back from where it's whipping over my eyes. ‘It's freezing. You'll die or something.'

But already he's moving back towards me, dragging the swan through the water. ‘Here, help me,' he says.

He sticks his arms under the water's surface and lifts the bird. He steps towards the bank and I reach out. Limp, wet wings brush against me. A small hiss comes from the bird's throat. I try not to look at the burnt gash on this bird's shoulder as I shift my hands to get a better grip.

‘It's alive, Isla,' Dad whispers. ‘This one's alive.'

CHAPTER 3

D
ad carries the swan back through the reserve. I have to run to keep up. One of the swan's wings drapes over Dad's arm. It's crooked, probably broken.

‘It'll die if we leave it here,' he says.

The swan opens its beak as if it's going to peck Dad's arm, but it's too weak even for that. It's as though it's given up already.

‘Where are you taking it?' I ask.

‘A vet somewhere . . . what's open on a Sunday?'

‘We should take it to Granddad's,' I say.

Dad stops to look at me. ‘I don't think that's such a good idea.'

‘Why not? He's on this side of town, and his vet's stuff is still in the cottage.'

Dad's cheeks are flushed now from carrying the bird. He
shifts it slightly in his arms as he thinks. ‘He won't treat a swan.'

‘He fixed up his neighbour's dog last year when it got run over. He can still fix things.'

‘He won't want to fix this.'

We reach the car. I stick my arms under the swan and help carry it so Dad can get the keys from his pocket. I can feel the dampness of the feathers even through my clothes. It's hard to hold the bird still, but it's more awkward than heavy. My face is so close. I see its eyes try to focus first on me, then on Dad. Its beak is open with its pinky-black tongue lolling to the side. I want to drip water in its mouth.

‘It's not going to last, Dad,' I say again. ‘Granddad's is the closest place.'

Dad nods reluctantly as he opens the boot. ‘Granddad won't like it.'

He goes silent, like he always does when someone wants to talk about Granddad. He puts the seats down in the back so the bird will fit. Then he takes the swan from me and together we lay it in the boot. Sweat beads form on Dad's forehead, which is odd because the bird isn't that heavy. And Dad's strong, maybe the strongest person I know.