Free Home Alone 2 by Todd Strasser

Kevin felt relieved. Then he became aware of other sounds around them, like a whole chorus of cooing birds. He looked up at the trees and saw the dark outlines of hundreds of pigeons on the bare branches.
    "Will those pigeons come back on their own or do you have to call them?" he asked.
    The pigeon lady looked up at the birds and then reached into her pocket. She took out a handful of seeds and put them in Kevin's hand, motioning him to throw them.
    "They hear it," she whispered.
    Kevin threw the seed and it scattered over the rocks. Immediately, the pigeons swarmed down and started pecking.
    "Hey, that's great!" Kevin said.
    A crooked little smile appeared on the pigeon lady's face as they watched the birds feed. Then a chilly gust of wind blew past carrying old brown leaves and scraps of newspaper. Kevin shivered and wished he could get something warm to drink, but he didn't want to leave the only friend he had in New York City.
    "It's pretty cold out," he said. "I could sure go for a hot cup of chocolate. How about you?"
    The pigeon lady gave him a puzzled, uncertain look.
    "Maybe you prefer coffee," Kevin said. "Either way it's my treat."
    In a million years Kevin couldn't have imagined the place where the pigeon lady wanted to drink her coffee. After picking up cardboard take-out cups at a coffee shop, she led him up a fire escape alongside Radio City Music Hall. They climbed through a window near the roof and sat on a metal grating. As Kevin sipped his hot chocolate, he stared down through the grating at the stage below where a dozen ballerinas in fluffy white tutus twirled to music played by the orchestra.
    "I've heard that music before, but I can't remember where," Kevin said, cradling the hot container in his hands.
    "It's the Nutcracker ," the pigeon lady said. "They do it every year around this time."
    In their tutus, the ballerinas looked like swirling, spinning white flowers.
    "It's nice," Kevin said.
    "And warm," the pigeon lady added, cupping her coffee between her fingers.
    Kevin looked back at the window they'd climbed in through. The panes were frosted with ice, and cold air was seeping in. "Is this where you live?" he asked.
    "No," said the pigeon lady. "I have an apartment.''
    "Do you have any kids?"
    The pigeon lady shook her head and looked down at her coffee. "I wanted them, but the man I loved fell out of love with me. It broke my heart. Every time a chance to be loved came by after that, I ran from it. You might say I stopped trusting people."
    "No offense," Kevin said. "But that seems like a dumb thing to do."
    "I was afraid of getting my heart broken again," the pigeon lady explained. "Sometimes you trust a person, and when things are down, they forget about you."
    "Maybe they're just too busy," Kevin said. "Maybe they don't forget you, they just forget to remember you. I don't think people mean to forget."
    The pigeon lady shrugged. "Maybe. But I'm just afraid if I trust anyone, I'll get hurt again."
    "I can sort of understand that," Kevin said. "I used to have this really nice pair of roller skates and I was afraid that if I wore them, I'd wreck them. So I kept them in the box. And you know what happened?"
    The pigeon lady shook her head.
    "I outgrew them. I never got to use them outside. Just a couple of times in my room."
    "A person's feelings are a little different than skates," the pigeon lady said.
    "But it's kind of the same thing," Kevin said. "If you aren't gonna use your heart . . . if you just keep it to yourself maybe it'll be like my roller skates. By the time you do decide to use it, it may not be any good. So why not take a chance?"
    The pigeon lady nodded. "There's some truth to that."
    "I think so," said Kevin. "Your heart may still be broken, but it's not gone. If it was gone, you wouldn't be this nice."
    The pigeon lady glanced back at the icy window and sighed. "It's been so long . . . I mean, it's been a couple of years since I even talked to someone.
    "That's okay," Kevin