As she passed Thomas Dewey’s shop, Emeline noticed Michael Sheehy sprawled on the sidewalk beneath the large wooden monocle, a bottle of whiskey under his arm and two long black shiny feathers in his hair.

“Hello,” said Michael. “I’m fired.”

“Well, you deserved it,” said Emeline.

“You deserve a kick in the pants.”

“You’re drunk.”

“Yes.”

“What are you doing here?”

He pointed at the sign. “I want to get my eye fixed.”

Emeline blushed. She thought of the high school girls imitating him, rolling their eyes and groping one another in the bathroom.

“It’s not that bad.”

“Yes it is,” said Michael, “and you don’t have to live with it, so don’t tell me what to do.”

“I’m not telling you anything!”

“I’m sorry. Forgive me.” Michael Sheehy began to cry. He reached up and took hold of her skirt.

Emeline stood perfectly still and tried to control her emotions. The cloth pulled against her hip. Michael lifted the edge and wiped his face. A breeze touched her legs. If her father were here, he would disapprove. She was sure of it.

Inside the optometry shop, Thomas Dewey was giving Mrs. Perkin a sampling of his calls. He had never had an audience before. He puckered his lips and did his best imitation of Deerslayer’s whip-poor-will song. Then he tried Chingachgook’s secret signal for his lover, Wah-ta-Wah—the chatter of a North American squirrel. Mrs. Perkin listened politely as she kept watch out the window. She peered through the glass, and this is what she saw: the girl who pulled the taffy in her husband’s shop, the cashier with the lazy eye who rang it up, and stepping out of the bushes, Romeo.

He looked as though he’d been in a fight. His feathers were ruffled, his comb was torn, and one of his wings was dragging behind him. He stepped carefully, gingerly, circling around Emeline and the man crying at her feet.

He hasn’t had any breakfast, Mrs. Perkin thought. He must be cold and hungry. She watched Romeo’s wing brushing the ground and thought back to Gallus gallus, trying to determine which bones had been broken. She thought of the metacarpals, the long, thin, delicate fingers, and wondered if she could ever make them straight again.

Romeo leapt into the air and landed on Emeline’s shoulder. She tried to shoo him off, but Romeo knew from his fighting days how to hold on. He dug one claw into her collarbone, the other into the side of her neck, and began viciously attacking her taffy.

Emeline screamed.

Michael Sheehy let go of her skirt and got up from the sidewalk. He had always been afraid of birds. He held his whiskey bottle with both hands and tentatively used it to poke the rooster on Emeline’s shoulder.