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I had no time to cater to the whims of an unfamiliar cat, so I mumbled my apologies and resumed searching for my car.

“Wait!” Poppy yelled at the top of her lungs. “Don’t leave yet!”

Her pleas weren’t enough to stop me a second time, though.

She growled and threw a hissy fit, but I still didn’t stop. “I’m not done with you. You better come back!”

I finally reached my car and slammed the door behind me. Just as I was frantically jamming my key in the ignition, something big thumped into the windshield right in front of me.

Ergh. That cat had better—

But, no, it wasn’t Poppy. Instead I was met with a wiggling white blob.

A bird.

Oh, no.

The orange Persian jumped onto the hood of my old sedan with a thud and stalked toward her disoriented prey.

Panicked, I did the first thing I could think of. I hit the horn on my car, which sent the feline running for cover.

The bird—who turned out to be a seagull—righted himself and then tapped on my windshield with his beak. “Might I have a quick word?”

Even though I still didn’t have time for any distractions, I rolled my window down and allowed him to join me in the car. Maybe I could drive him somewhere safer, somewhere far away from the overly worked-up feline.

“You are a tough one to track down,” the bird said once he’d settled himself on my passenger seat. “I’ve been all over the region chasing after you today.”

“Chasing after me? Why?”

“I’ve always kept tabs on you. Ever since the beginning.”

I felt a headache coming on.“The beginning of what?”

“Of you being able to understand us. We watch humans like you in case we ever need to call on a favor.”

My mind swirled with this new information. Yes, a bird needed a favor from me, but more importantly, there were others like me. I’d always hoped, but I’d never known for sure.

“Can you take me to meet the others?” I asked, my voice shaking. I didn’t have time for this, but then again, how could I possibly turn him away after the info he’d just shared?

The gull cocked his head to the side.“That depends.”

“Depends? On what?”

“If you help us, we’ll help you.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Are you really going to force me to go straight to the nuclear option?”

I nodded, afraid to speak.

The bird shook his head and wings, giving himself a ragged appearance.“Look. If you don’t play nice, we don’t play nice. Let’s just say we have an army of woodpeckers ready to peck your house into the ground. You got me?”

“So either I help you, or you destroy my home?” I squeaked. A part of me wished I had left him to Poppy outside, but only a very small part.

“Hey, now you’ve got it.” He spread one wing to the side and took a bow.

“I’m kind of busy. I mean, I’m supposed to go on a road trip tomorrow. I’ll be gone all week.”

“Then un-busy yourself,” the seagull suggested rather unhelpfully and turned his back to me. Twisting his neck in a nearly ninety-degree arc, he eyed me head-on, his little eyes boring into me. “Unless, I guess, you don’t want to meet your long-lost grandmother.”

Chapter Three

I stared at my pushy seagull visitor, unwilling to blink my eyes for fear he might disappear.“Did you say…? M-M-My long-lost grandmother?”

The bird nodded, a smug expression on his beak.“We seagulls always have our eyes on the ground. In fact, I knew who you were even before you became my assignment.”

“But how?”

He shook a wing at me.“Now, now. That would be giving you the payment without first completing the job. So what do you say? Will you agree to help us?”

“Yes,” I answered without hesitation. Ever since Pringle had unburied Nan’s secret letter, revealing the fact that my real grandfather had orchestrated my mother’s kidnapping, I’d been dying to meet the family I hadn’t known existed. My grandfather, William McAllister, had already died by the time we discovered his existence, but Mom and I had been able to connect with a number of other relatives who still lived down in Larkhaven, Georgia.

No one knew where my biological grandmother had ended up, though. No one except this seagull, apparently

“Good,” he said before settling himself on the dashboard. “Since you haven’t got wings, we’ll drive.”

I turned the key in the ignition.“Where are we going?”

“To the flock, of course. Head south by southwest.”

I’d never quite mastered navigating by cardinal directions, so I simply drove straight. When I started up the car, the bird clumsily fell back onto the seat, where he occasionally hopped up to get a view through the windshield and criticize my driving.

“Not that way. South by southwest!” the seagull shouted.

I turned to the left, which seemed to satisfy him.

“What’s your name?” I asked after we’d been driving for a while.

“Me? I’m Bravo. Second in command for Flock 82.” Wow, this was all so official. I had no idea birds were so well organized or that they organized themselves in a vaguely militaristic way.

“If you’re second in command, why were you assigned stalker duty? That doesn’t seem like a job for a high-ranking bird.”