“Here. Come look over here. Stand on that bucket.”

It was a large shed that clearly didn’t see a lot of use. There were tools and boxes stored in it, enormous rusty spades and sacks that had turned discolored at the bottom. The rafters holding the roof up were blistered and old, and there was a sizeable hole there, a chunk of sky staring through. Michael climbed up onto the overturned steel bucket and looked at the corner just below the hole. There was a bird’s nest, complete with three little chicks. Belatedly, Michael realized he had been hearing their peeping cries since they had entered the shed.

“Now look down there.” The man pointed. On the floor, in the dust and some curls of sawdust, was the body of a plump female blackbird. Its neck was at a strange angle and its eye, like a tiny bubble of ink, stared up at nothing.

“A cat must have got at it,” said the man. Michael knew instinctively that this was a lie. He had never seen a cat here, not in the fields or anywhere near the house, or even in the woods, and besides, he felt certain that the dog wouldn’t have tolerated it. As if it had been summoned, the dog trotted over to them and stuck its nose into the body of the bird, panting loudly in the small space. “These chicks will die in a day or so. What will you do about it?”

“Me?”

“They’re yours now. Here.” The man reached up and scooped the chicks into his big, shovel hands, and then pressed them on Michael. Shocked and somewhat repulsed, Michael gathered them into his jumper. Their outraged peeping grew louder, and they struggled weakly in his arms, oversized heads weaving back and forth.

“I don’t know what to bloody do with them.”

“Do whatever you like,” said the man. Michael looked at him. “That’s the point. Touch them, feel that they are living things, then do what you like.”

The man and the dog left him, and unsure what else to do, Michael took the chicks to the woods. As he walked, he contemplated a few different outcomes, the sorts of ideas that occur to children of that age—perhaps he would find a blackbird family in the woods willing to take on a few extra babies, or he could dig up worms, and feed the chicks himself, by hand. Eventually they would be his own pets, and they would come when he called them. The idea pleased him.

Eventually he came to one of his favorite spots: a grassy bank next to a small, muddy stream. The tree cover broke a little here, allowing for a small sunny patch, turning the stumpy grass a brilliant, almost supernatural green, while the space beneath the bank provided a hidden spot of cool thick mud and the occasional toad. Michael put his chicks down on the grass and watched them as they wriggled about. The peeping had mostly stopped, as if they sensed that they were no longer in the safety of their home—as if they knew that there were predators around.