The Nestling
an excerpt

Sherlock ran ahead, bounding over the open field.

“Great.” The low mutter came from the boy he’d just dashed away from. “Now he’ll get muddy, and I’ll spend the afternoon bathing him.” Freckles danced in the late morning sunlight as he lifted his head, his light sandy hair reflecting sunlight off of the hints of blond and red, already bleached, even this early in the season, by the Texas sun. His shout rang out across the field in his mid tenor, a voice just past changing, to where the dog had stopped. “Sherlock! Come back here!”

The dog looked up at the sound of his name, his ears flopping. “Woof!” he barked once in acknowledgement, then turned back to snuffling at the ground, his interest caught by something there, some pile of debris.

“Hey, relax, Tommy” said one of his three companions lightly, swinging a long stick and cutting a weed at the base. The stick was stained green at the end, evidence that he’d done this a few times already. “Maybe it’ll rain again and you can just leave him outside for a while.” He laughed, obviously amused at his own comment. Nobody else did though, and two of the boys – Tommy and a third – grimaced.

The third boy spoke up now as well. “Ugh. No way, Eddie. Then he’ll have to dry him off. And there’s nothing worse than the smell of wet dog.” He paused. “Besides, after two days of rain, and the storm last night, I bet we don’t get any for a while. His mop of unruly red hair tossed back, his green eyes flickering to the cloudless sky a moment before turning to Eddie equally briefly, then moved away, not meeting Eddie’s suddenly challenging look.

“Yeah, Sean, right.” Eddie rolled his own, dark brown eyes in a clearly self- superior fashion. “Like you know… you don’t have a dog. Or a pet at all. Hey, look over there!” Eddie turned to his left, his attention diverted by a small movement in that direction. He walked a few feet and stepped around a low scrub bush. The other boys followed quickly, stepping behind him just as he prodded with the stick at a small bunch of twigs on the ground. “A bird. I wonder where it came from.” He swatted the rest of the debris away, and poked at the tiny creature exposed the rest of the way.

Tommy snatched the stick out of Eddie’s hands. “Hey, don’t do that!” He threw the stick away like a boomerang, sending it spinning off across the field. It came to a rest with a soft thunk and a rustle through the grass, high after the spring rains, and green with the water from the recent storms. It landed a short distance from Sherlock, and he turned his head a bit in notice, then turned back to whatever it was occupying his attention when there was no continued movement. “You want to kill it?” He knelt down quickly, pulling his shirt off over his head. Laying the shirt down on the ground, he lifted the bird gently onto it. Startled by the movement, the bird peeped quietly, almost piteously.