The Birds OWEN SKYE could not sleep He lay in the dark in the middle of the big bed that he shared with his brothers Andy and Leonard It was early September the night before the first day of school but the wind that shivered the walls threatened to blow everything into winter Summer holidays were ending The fact of it had loomed over everything for the past several days and the boys had raced to all the great places to Dead Man’s Hill to the river the woods the haunted house and the railroad tracks in an effort to squeeze the last drops of adventure from the season Now summer was draining away Owen stared at the ceiling of the attic bedroom and racked his brain trying to think of something anything to delay the dreadful start of school What about the crystal radio he whispered Shhh Leonard said It’s time for sleep He was the youngest and so knew the least about the horrors of
education We haven’t tried the crystal radio in ages Owen insisted Last winter it seemed like years ago the boys had used the set to intercept messages from alien spacecraft The radios been put away Andy said in a tired voice Normally he would have been the one to suggest hauling it out in a situation like this but even he seemed resigned to the end of the season I know where it is Owen said It was in a shoe box in the corner of their closet Owen slept in the middle so to get out he had to crawl over Leonard and then creep to the closet in the darkness The wooden floor was cold on his toes and the closet door creaked badly when he opened it Dust from the shoe box made him sneeze twice You three go to sleep the boys father Horace shouted from downstairs and Owen held his breath On the next sneeze Owen plugged his nose and swallowed the explosion popping his ears painfully But there was no more comment from downstairs so he reached forward until his fingers felt the hard corners of the shoe box He took it and slowly carefully crawled around the bed to the window When he pulled off the lid out sprang a
tangled mess of antenna wire Owen pulled it clear in handfuls then lifted out the crystal radio set itself It was a thing of beauty It had a varnished wooden base with a large metal coil on the side and even more brass knobs than Owen knew what to do with Normally Andy operated it Owen wasn’t sure how to attach the antenna wire which was a fairly new addition He had seen Andy hook an end of wire around one of the brass knobs and then run the rest over the curtain rod and across to the light switch near the door But which knob should Owen attach it to And would he be able to untangle the wire enough to reach the switch Owen wanted to ask Andy for advice but the older boy was pretending to sleep now snoring and snorting even louder than usual So Owen chose one knob at random on the set attached an end of wire and pulled the rest of the tangle as far as he could over the curtain rod He climbed on a chair and looped part of it around the overhead light then ran the rest to the sailing ship lamp that was mounted on the wall a few feet above the boys bed It won’t work like that Andy muttered between fake snores How do you know Owen said
It just won’t Owen ignored him and returned to the radio set There was dead silence from the tiny speaker Outside the wind was racing thin gray clouds across the dark sky For a moment Owen thought he heard low rattles and indistinct stutters but it was Leonard tossing in bed and creaking the old frame Try adjusting the clip Andy whispered You can move it along the coil Owen peered at the complicated instrument until finally in the shadows he could just make out the clip that Andy had mentioned It was a wire from the speaker that was attached to one of the coils and Owen saw that it could be undipped and moved to a different coil As soon as Owen moved the clip it sounded like birds had flown into the room What’s that Leonard moaned I’m trying to get to sleep It’s birds Owen said Birds on the radio Many different birds it seemed Some of them warbled and others trilled There were high looping calls and soft burbly murmurs like stream water rushing over stones In a few seconds Andy was beside him ears trained on
