Andrea turned to him, startled. “Marco, is this true?”

  He looked at Gretty, then back at his mom. “No! I would never! I was just trying to scare her—she…”

  Gretty cut him off. “I saw you swing your leg! Angel had to jump out of the way!”

  His mother stepped in. “Look, I’m sure you saw something, but I know my son. He wouldn’t hurt your cat.”

  A blare of trumpets cut her off—Sammy Davis Jr. singing “Talk to the Animals.”

  She pleaded, “Oh… I’m sorry, I really need to take this.”

  Gretty wagged her finger at Marco one last time. “You stay away from my Angel!”

  Marco squinted hard at her, and in his mind, streams of stinging red blood shot from his eyes, striking Gretty squarely in her scowling face.

  Splat!

  He smiled, then quietly closed the door.

  The sound of trumpets continued blaring from Andrea’s phone.

  “Ugh! What now?” she muttered.

  He rubbed his fingers over his eye sockets and pinched the bridge of his nose.

  That’s not what happened. Crap!

  Marco’s voice cracked trying to insert the truth before the next big disaster. “Mom! She killed one of our baby Zenaida macroura.”

  Andrea’s eyes flicked up. Sharp, knowing.

  “Angel?”

  He nodded. “I didn’t kick her. I stomped on the steps to scare her off.”

  Andrea exhaled slowly, already calculating the fallout.

  “She didn’t see the fledgling dove,” he whispered. “Just Angel, and me.”

  Andrea shushed him, then answered the phone. “Hello? Hi Sheila!”

  “Yes, I’m looking forward to it. Is everyone still coming? …Great.”

  She paused to listen, phone in one hand, Marco’s dishes in the other as she walked them to the sink.

  Suddenly she cried out, “Oh no—not the vet again. That’s the third time this month!”

  After a quick chat, his mother hung up and calmly asked, “Was Rowf in another fight?”

  Marco flinched. “What? No! I told them what happened!”

  Andrea’s voice sharpened. “We can’t keep letting Sheila pay all our vet bills. It’s not right. Her Kitten Brigade is meeting here tonight, and I told her you’d help out.”

  “No, I won’t! That’s not fair,” Marco snapped. “You didn’t even ask me. You just decided.”

  “Oh yes, you will. And you’d better start telling the truth—because if you don’t, you’ll spend the rest of your summer wishing you had.”

  He spread his fingers wide and fanned the air in frustration.

  But I did say.

  Sulking, Marco pointed up to the very top of the cabinets.

  “There!”

  The highest shelf held the crown jewel of the family collection, a giant stuffed California Condor whose white and black wings stretched from end to end across the twelve-foot wall.

  Arms down again, he clenched his fists.

  Science was clear. It was science that was going to cure her, save her. She trusted it most. So now he would let it do the talking.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “You’re saying a dog was attacked by a Gymnogyps californianus?” His mother asked, skeptically.

  He pointed at the bird lurking beneath one of the condor’s outstretched wings, a stuffed raven. Tapping the glass in front of it with his finger, he said, with the authority of a college professor, “It was?Corvus corax.”

  Next to the condor, the big black raven seemed almost delicate.

  Marco studied its black, scaly feet and thought of the Krunker’s missing toes.

  I wonder what happened to it?

  Andrea unlocked the small metal bookcase next to the couch and found, among the old natural history books, a thin reproduction of Systema Naturae, published in 1758 by Carl Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy. It was written in Latin, but she knew every word by heart.

  She turned to page 105 and showed it to him.

  “Genus Corvus. Species corax,” she said. “Linnaeus used Latin and Greek—Corvus is Latin for raven, corax comes from the Greek korax, also raven, so it literally reads ‘raven raven.’”

  Marco missed his mother’s attention and deeply admired her knowledge.

  He missed the way she used to light up when he told her something smart.

  She loved facts, just like him—names of animals, weird science stuff, Latin words.

  He watched her frail hand resting on the book and wished they could still take adventurous hikes into the desert together, like they used to.

  His mother listened quietly as he told her about the fight with the ravens. How loud it had been, how scared he’d felt. And the hurt puppy curled beneath the palm fronds, fighting for its life. He told her about Sheila and Marbles at the pet hospital, and how heartbreaking it all was.

  But when he told her about the angry ravens pooping all over Sheila’s car, she looked surprised and even laughed a little.

  Her laugh was soft and contagious. Marco hadn’t heard it in weeks, and seeing her smile felt like sunlight.

  Since the cancer, it was something she hardly did anymore.

  He acted out how a raven pooped on his head. Flapping his arms, making squawking noises, pretending to gag while flinging it into the grass. It was silly and gross, and they both cracked up.

  It was fun until his mom’s face went pale.

  Andrea stood up, walked briskly to the bathroom, and shut the door. Marco heard the sink run, then the sound of her throwing up.

  A few minutes later, she emerged slowly and went to the kitchen for a glass of water.

  “Marco,” she said softly, “I’m going to lie down for a while.”

  Marco retreated to his own room and shut the door quietly.

  Rowf was already curled on the bed, waiting. He lay beside him and opened his laptop.

  Scrolling through old pictures—his dad at the beach, his mom laughing with a smoothie mustache, Rowf as a puppy chewing a sock.

  I want things like they were before. I hate cancer.

  One home movie stood out: Going Away. He clicked Play.

  “Adiantum Andrea,” said Nick. He held Andrea in his arms and kissed her. “The fairest maidenhair fern ever described.”

  Andrea laughed. “Yes! But with my luck, it’d be more like Fuligo Andrea.”

  Nick grinned. “The most beautiful slime mold in the known world.”

  “But it wouldn’t be that bad,” she said. “You know I love slime mold!”

  “Shhh! Quiet, everyone. Quiet! Nick, say something about your trip!”

  Nick, standing in the kitchen with Andrea, looked into the camera and said, “Tomorrow I leave for an amazing adventure. For the first time in my life, I might actually discover and name a new species. As biologists, we know these rare pockets of life exist—and one by one, they’ve been found. Maybe this summer will be my turn. Maybe I’ll make a few discoveries and share them with the world.”

  He clicked the video off.

  Marco missed his dad terribly. He was only supposed to be gone for a few months, but it had turned into nearly two years.

  Quietly, he clicked open another file, one he kept secret from his mom.

  The screen showed a close-up of his bedroom door.

  Behind it, his parents were arguing.

  “Stay here, Nick!” his mother begged.

  “I can’t! I have to go back!” his father insisted. “I won’t let you die from this.”

  “But it’s impossible,” she sobbed. “They don’t exist!”

  “Dammit! I have to try! That mushroom colony is out there—it has to be!” Nick shouted. “The sample of Boletus enchanto we found in the museum archive was real. The lab results don’t lie. It can cure you!”

  “But it’s been over a year!” she pleaded one last time.

  He said softly, “I love you so damn much. But I’m not going to stop until we find it, until we have a cure. Just hold on a little longer. I promise. I love you.”

  Marco wiped his tears, wishing he could do more. He hoped with all his heart that his father would find those mythical giant mushrooms, bring back the cure, and come home safe. So his mother would get better and they could all be a family again.

  He stood up from the bed and peeked into a cardboard box on his dresser.

  Still sniffing, he wiped his nose and whispered, “How ya doing, Honcho?”

  Stroking the little brown bat with his finger, he said warmly, “You sure look a lot better than when Grimy Limey hit you with her broom last week. It won’t be long ’til you’re flying again.”

  Honcho squeaked.

  Marco fed him a mealworm, then climbed back onto the bed and slid open the glass window above his pillows.

  A wave of dry heat poured into the room, displacing the cold, stale machine-cooled air.

  Mounted on the outside wall just left of the window ledge was a tall, flat wooden bat house. Its slanted hinged top and narrow open bottom were just wide enough for bats to slip through. Quite a few had already taken up residence, and Marco hoped Honcho would join them soon.

  He was inspecting it when a lone hummingbird zoomed past and disappeared around the building.

  That’s odd, there aren’t any good flowers over there.

  Something large shifted nearby, catching his eye and startling him.

  He gulped.

  Crap!