Lily to the Rescue Read online

  “Lily? Can you say Lily, Casey?” Maggie Rose held out a peanut, the dog tags on her wrist glinting. Casey pecked at the flashing metal and took the peanut.

  “Lily?” Maggie Rose repeated.

  I was Lily, and I was right there waiting for my treat. Finally, my girl gave me one. It tasted like dried fish. I wagged, because when Maggie Rose handed me a treat, it meant she loved me. I was her dog, and she was my girl, and Casey was our crow.

  As I was eating my treat, Casey flew away to peck at the ground. He came back to our blanket with something in his beak. It was a small glittery object a lot like what was hanging from Maggie Rose’s wrist.

  “Oh my gosh!” Maggie Rose exclaimed. “You found a charm, Casey! Thank you so much!” Maggie Rose took whatever it was from Casey’s beak.

  It did not look much like food to me, and so I sat patiently waiting for the topic of treats to come up. My girl fussed with this new shiny thing and then held out her arm—the object Casey had found was now dangling from the loop of flashy wire on her wrist. “Look!” she said.

  I wagged, not understanding but happy, anyway.

  Maggie Rose reached into the small basket next to her legs and pulled out a peanut. “Here, Casey,” she said. “You deserve a reward for bringing me a charm.”

  Casey took the peanut with his beak and then flew up into the trees to eat it. He dropped the shells, which I found interesting.

  The few times I had tried to eat peanuts, I crunched them up, shells and all. Then little bits of what tasted like wood sat on my tongue until I went to the water bowl, sniffed to make sure Boggs hadn’t been sitting in it, and then lapped up as much as I could drink. But Casey knew how to open the shells.

  A few days later, we did picnic again. This time, I noticed there were several crows in the trees.

  None of them came down to see us except Casey, of course. And Casey had something in his mouth. Maggie Rose laughed as she accepted it from him. “Why, Casey, this is so nice of you. It isn’t really a charm. It’s a dime. But you deserve a reward just the same.”

  Maggie Rose gave Casey another peanut, and he flew up into the trees. Some of the crows made noises at him. Crows cannot bark. They can only make a loud call that probably is their way of saying they wish they could be dogs.

  A little while later, Casey returned with yet another glittery object. Maggie Rose laughed and clapped her hands.

  “Casey,” she said, “this is wonderful! Let’s see what you’ve got here. Oh! You brought me a tiny bell from a cat collar. This would make a very noisy charm, so I won’t wear it, but it’s beautiful just the same. Here, Casey.” Maggie Rose handed over another peanut from the basket.

  Casey looked at me, perhaps to see if I wanted it. But I was waiting for a piece of cheese and had no interest in crow treats.

  After cheese, I played Chase-the-Brown-Dog with a dog named Pete, and then several dogs played Chase-Lily-She-Has-the-Ball with me. I drank more water and then plopped down next to my girl, who was eating an apple and holding an object called a book.

  A book is a dry thing that my girl often stared at as if it were about to come alive and run around. I chewed up a few of them when I was a puppy and found that they tasted even worse than peanut shells.

  So now I flopped on my back, my legs in the air, thinking that doing a half Roll Over would earn me another piece of cheese, but Maggie Rose didn’t even notice. She never looked up from her book until Casey flew down with something in his mouth, another small, glittery object.

  “A bottle cap!” Maggie Rose exclaimed. She gave Casey a peanut. I found the whole process boring, but I stayed on the blanket because I smelled a wonderful slice of meat in a sandwich in the basket.

  Then something very alarming happened. When Casey flew up into the tree to drop his peanut shells, another crow landed on our blanket.

  Maggie Rose and I held very, very still.

  11

  I didn’t dare move. I knew that crows who are not Casey are often scared by dogs, and I didn’t want to scare this new crow away before I had a chance to make friends with it.

  Indeed, this new crow was very nervous. Its legs were bent, and it seemed ready to take flight at the slightest movement.

  “Hello there, Mr. Crow,” Maggie Rose greeted it very softly.

  The crow had something in its mouth. It perched on the edge of the blanket, giving Maggie Rose one of those twisting-head looks that it must have learned from Casey.

  “Did you bring that for me?” my girl asked. Maggie Rose very carefully and slowly reached into her basket and brought out one of Casey’s peanuts. “That’s a metal washer. My dad has some in the garage. I’m sure he’d like another one. Would you like a reward for bringing it to me?” The crow dropped the metal thing from its mouth and bounced forward a few hops and very cautiously removed the peanut from Maggie Rose’s fingers.

  I followed the crow’s flight as it rose up into the trees and realized that all of its crow friends were up there watching this whole thing.

  “It’s a murder of crows, Lily,” Maggie Rose breathed. “And look how many of them are carrying something in their beaks!”

  I wagged because she had said my name and because of the smells that came out of that basket when she lifted the lid.

  It wasn’t long before two more crows had landed on the blanket, each with small, glinting objects in their beaks. Maggie Rose started giggling. “This is so much fun!” she exclaimed.

  I was pretty discouraged that picnic had stopped being about pieces of sandwich for a good dog and was now all about the strange crows who kept flying down to land on our blanket, drop metal objects, grab peanuts from Maggie Rose’s fingers, and fly away. This was not how picnic was supposed to be played!

  It was, I decided, Casey’s fault. None of this would have happened if he hadn’t given Maggie Rose a small piece of metal. I never made him try to play one of my games, yet here I was stuck in an endless game of Crows Landing and No Sandwich for Lily.

  Soon (much too soon because I had not yet been given a treat), Maggie Rose stood up and folded up the blanket we had been sitting on. “Let’s go tell Mom about this!” Maggie Rose said.

  Dismally, I followed her out the double gates, sniffing sadly at the basket that was swinging at the end of her arm. My girl had put all the trinkets in that basket. She could have pulled something for a good dog out of the basket. But today was all about crows, apparently.

  “Look, Mom,” Maggie Rose said once we arrived at Work. “I told you about how Casey was bringing me charms and coins and other little pieces of metal and I was giving him peanuts. Now all the crows are doing it!”

  Mom shook her head, using her finger to sort through the worthless trinkets the crows had given Maggie Rose in their effort to ruin the game of picnic.

  “Crows are amazingly smart animals,” Mom said. “But, Maggie Rose, we can’t let them depend on people for their food. We need to untrain this behavior in the crows.”

  “What do you mean, Mom?”

  “Well, like a lot of intelligent animals, crows will do whatever they can not to have to work too hard.”

  “Like Bryan?” Maggie Rose asked.

  Mom laughed. “Maybe. So if you’re in the park handing out peanuts, the crows may start thinking that instead of going off to forage for other food, they should just hang out and wait for you to come back. And then what happens when you can’t get to the park every day? The crows are thinking, ‘Maggie Rose will come back! We don’t dare leave the park and miss out on all the free peanuts!’ So instead of flying off to find food, they stay there, waiting for you to feed them, getting hungrier and hungrier. At some point, the crows might get so hungry they become sick.”

  I could see that my girl had lost all of the happiness she had gained at the dog park. I nudged her hand. I knew she’d feel happier if she just remembered to give me a treat.

  “I’m sorry, Mom.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, sweetheart. I don’t think thi
s has gone on long enough to do any real harm.”

  The basket was still up there on the table. I wondered if what they were talking about was the best way to give me what was left of Maggie Rose’s sandwich.

  “What do I do now?” Maggie Rose asked.

  “You should take all of these little gifts back to the park and set them on a blanket with you so they can see them. And then don’t accept any more trinkets. Even if they drop them right in front of you, don’t reward them anymore.”

  “Not even from Casey?”

  “Not even Casey. The other crows will see you feeding him, and they can be pretty stubborn; they’ll keep bringing you items until they get another peanut from you. As far as they’re concerned, you’re feeding all crows, not just your friend Casey.”

  “Come on, Lily,” Maggie Rose said.

  We went back to the dog park with the basket and the blanket! It appeared we were going to try picnic again. This time, I sure hoped that Maggie Rose got it right.

  12

  We sat on the blanket, and Maggie Rose spread out all the items that the crows had brought. I do not know why the crows picked up things like that in the first place. They are not even good to eat.

  Immediately, Casey and some of his crow friends landed on the blanket, each with a glittery thing in its beak. I yawned, already bored with the game. I wandered a few steps away and started sniffing at the ground in case anybody had peed there.

  I could hear Maggie Rose speaking from behind me. “I’m sorry, birds,” she said. “I can’t reward you anymore. You can’t start to think of me as a way to get food.”

  The crows hopped around, the trinkets in their beaks. They also looked carefully at all of the glittery items that Maggie Rose had spread out on the blanket, turning their heads one way and another, probably thinking we would all be better off if Maggie Rose would just reach into her basket and give me a piece of her sandwich.

  Since there was no sandwich, I picked up a bit of stick and shook it hard. I’m very good at shaking things.

  “Do you understand?” Maggie Rose asked. “I brought these back to show I don’t want them and won’t give you any more peanuts. I’m sorry, but that’s what Mom said to do. Please don’t be angry. Please just fly away. Then I’ll know you understand. Fly away, crows. Please?”

  The crows flapped and hopped and made their dry, croaking noises. I shook the stick even harder, and to my surprise, it flew out of my mouth, heading straight for our blanket.

  The stick landed right in the middle of the crows’ trinkets. Maggie Rose jumped in surprise, and I raced for the blanket. This was so exciting! It was as if I’d thrown a stick for myself to catch. I bet I was the very first dog who ever managed to do anything like that.

  The crows were startled when I leaped onto the blanket and snatched the stick up in my teeth. They flapped up into the air and scattered into the sky. Casey went with them.

  I noticed that when the crows landed on the tree branches, they dropped the trinkets from their mouth. The little shiny things fluttered to the ground like peanut shells. The birds all stared down at us with obvious disapproval.

  I flopped onto my belly and began to chew my stick into bits.

  “Oh, Lily, good,” Maggie Rose said softly. “You got them to leave! I think they understand now. They won’t be back for more peanuts. Good, Lily. Good dog!”

  I was so happy that I was a good dog. I was so happy to feel Maggie Rose’s hand on my fur as she stroked my back.

  In a minute, I felt something else on my back as well. Casey had landed there. The crows in the trees stared down at us. Probably they had never seen a crow with his own dog before and were wondering how to get one for themselves.

  After a while, one by one, the crows flapped away. It was just Casey who was left on the blanket with Maggie Rose and me.

  Casey hopped off my back and drew close to Maggie Rose. My girl picked something up off the blanket and held it out to him. “Here, Casey,” Maggie Rose said. “I can’t give you any more peanuts, but I can give you a charm in case you ever decide to make your own bracelet!”

  Casey looked at the thing in Maggie Rose’s pinched fingers. Finally, he reached out and snatched it from her hand and flew into the trees.

  “Well, Lily,” Maggie Rose said to me, “I think they got the message. But it makes me sad. They were just trying to bring me charms, and they probably feel like I didn’t like any of their gifts. But I did.” She sighed.

  “Working in animal rescue is hard, Lily. It seems like it would always be fun, but sometimes you have to clean out the cat cages, and sometimes you have to do something you don’t want to do like let an animal go or give a puppy you love to a new family.”

  Maggie Rose seemed a little sad, so I stopped chewing my stick and nudged her with my nose to let her know that the best way to be happy was to give a dog a bite of some of the sandwich in her basket. I started wagging furiously when she reached inside the basket and pulled out a small bag, which she opened, letting the marvelous smell of her sandwich into the air.

  “Not you, though, Lily. I won’t ever have to say good-bye to you.”

  Just then, Casey fluttered back down and landed on the blanket. I would have to call this bad timing, because Maggie Rose let the hand with the sandwich drop back into the basket. No!

  Casey no longer carried the gift that Maggie Rose had given him in his beak. But he had something, and he hopped over to her and offered it.

  Maggie Rose laughed happily. “Oh, look, Lily! I gave Casey the charm, and he is rewarding me!”

  It was a peanut.

  I sighed in disgust.

  Maggie Rose took the bag out of the basket, broke off a little piece of sandwich, and gave it to me. At last! Casey watched her feed me.

  “Can you say Lily, Casey? Lily?”

  “Ree-ree,” Casey croaked. “Ree-ree.”

  Maggie Rose gasped. “You did it! You said Lily, Casey!”

  There was so much joy in her voice that I wagged as hard as I could. We were finally Doing Picnic the right way.

  MORE ABOUT CROWS

  American crows (like Casey) are known as corvids. Other corvids include ravens, magpies, and rooks.

  Corvids are among the most intelligent birds. Some have been seen using tools. They might poke sticks into trees to search for food or put nuts on roads for cars to crack.

  Crows and other corvids can be trained to say words, just as Maggie Rose trains Casey to say, Lily.

  A female crow lays four or five eggs at a time in a nest that is between one and two feet across.

  Crows sometimes bring objects to people, just as Casey and the other crows bring gifts to Maggie Rose. A girl in Seattle began feeding neighborhood crows peanuts and pet food in her backyard, and the crows brought objects back to her—a button, a paper clip, bits of broken glass.

  Crows seem to recognize and remember people they don’t trust. Some researchers wore masks when they trapped crows to study them. After the crows were released, they made a scolding call to alert other crows to danger if they spotted anyone wearing those masks.

  Crows will eat almost anything from seeds, nuts, and fruit to eggs and small animals. They will even grab chicks from other birds’ nests to eat.

  In the winter, crows sometimes gather together in groups called roosts. The largest roosts can have up to two million crows!

  Crows sometimes crush the ants and rub them into their feathers. Chemicals in the ants’ bodies may keep other insects or parasites away from the crows. It’s a bit like spraying themselves with insect repellent.

  If a crow dies, other crows may surround it in what is called a crow funeral, just as Craig tells Maggie Rose. They seem to be trying to figure out how the crow died.

  READ ON FOR A SNEAK PEEK AT LILY TO THE RESCUE: TWO LITTLE PIGGIES, COMING SOON FROM STARSCAPE

  “Where are the pigs, Mom? Are we going to a farm?” Craig asked.

  Mom shook her head. “No,” she replied. “It’s the
strangest thing. I just got the call. It may even be a hoax. They said that there are two baby pigs running around inside a truck stop off the highway. It doesn’t seem very likely, but that’s what they said.”

  “What’s a hoax?” Maggie Rose asked.

  “It’s kind of a joke that involves someone telling a lie,” Mom replied.

  “Well, then,” Maggie Rose said, “I hope it’s not a hoax because I’d love to see some little piglets. Can I name them, Mom?”

  “We’ll see,” Mom answered.

  “If they’re boy pigs, then Craig and I should name them,” Bryan declared.

  “We’ll see,” Mom repeated. I wagged because I smelled wonderful things outside the car, things like dogs and trees and horses and other animals. Wherever we were going was probably going to be a lot of fun!

  We drove long enough for me to become drowsy in the backseat and fall asleep with my head on Bryan’s shoulder. When he said, “Lily, quit breathing on me,” I woke up a little and licked his ear. Everyone laughed but Bryan, so I did it again.

  Bryan had eaten a peanut butter sandwich earlier and I could taste it on his ear, which I thought was simply amazing. Why don’t all people put peanut butter in their ears? It seemed a very smart thing to do.

  I licked Bryan’s ear again, and he pushed my face away.

  Finally we arrived at a hot place where the ground was covered with hard cement and the grass and trees were in the distance. Nearby, cars and trucks large and small roared up and down a very busy road.

  “Okay everyone,” Mom said. “Stay close to me. I don’t know what we’re dealing with here.”

  We walked up to some glass doors and when they slid open a gust of cold air brought me delicious food scents: melted cheese, broiling hot dogs, sweet sticky drinks in cans and cups.

  There was something else as well: two animals I had never smelled before. There were animals inside this place!