Free First Flight by Connor Wright Page A

have no idea what I’m going to do with myself.”
    “Your mother said you should clean your room.” Chris shrugged and picked up his bowl, drinking the milk.
    “Yeah, I guess I could do that,” he said, frowning at the idea. “Whoopee.”
     
     
    “S O , WE have the afternoon to ourselves,” Jesse said, then finished off his fries. “You wanna do anything in particular?”
    “I don’t know,” Chris said, licking salt from his fingers, “do you?”
    “Uh, no, not really.” Jesse shook his head, but the image of Chris’s tongue stayed with him. “Oh, I know, we could go to the zoo.” They hadn’t been there yet. The aquarium, yes, but not the zoo. And what better way to make sure he behaved himself than being surrounded by packs of small children and humorless parents?
    “What is the zoo?” Chris tried to remember if they’d ever talked about it before and couldn’t, so he ate the last of his burger instead.
    “It’s a place where you can see all kinds of different animals, like elephants and flamingos and snakes and stuff. It’s pretty cool.”
    Chris nodded and rounded up the trash nearest him. “All right, let’s go to the zoo.”
     
     
    “ T HERE ’ RE more birds this way,” Jesse said, checking his map against the signs posted at the intersection of pathways. “Uh, looks like…. Oh.” He blinked up at the sign. Raptors, Carrion Birds, Tropical Aviary .
    “Looks like what? A sign?” Chris waited politely, until a familiar sound brought his head up. “Oh. That was—excuse me,” he said, and walked off.
    “Chris!” Jesse hurried after him, catching up just as he arrived at a large enclosure holding two huge black birds. “Hey, what’s—”
    “Why are they locked up?” Chris’s face was strange and his knuckles white as he gripped the fence, leaning over as far as he could. “All the other animals have not been locked up, why are they?”
    “I don’t know,” Jesse said, “uh, maybe to keep them from flying away? Or to keep them safe?”
    “But that’s wrong, that’s wrong , they need to fly, to, to….” Chris made a plaintive sound, a creaking little cry.
    The ravens hopped closer to the bars of their cage, tilting their heads this way and that as they looked at him. The one nearest Chris made a liquid pinging and he closed his eyes.
    “Chris?”
    Chris cried again, and the second raven made an inquisitive noise in return. A third sound escaped him, this one slightly different, and the first raven spread its wings. The right wing was whole, but only a third of the left remained. The bird settled its wings and pinged again.
    “Oh,” Chris said. “Oh, that’s….” The second one stretched, too, but its wingspan was only half of what it should have been. He screwed up his face and made a sad imitation of the first one’s ping, then tried for something that came out as quork .
    Jesse stared as the first raven laughed . The second one folded its wings and very clearly gave a wolf-whistle, and Chris just said quork again. His boyfriend talked to ravens. It was bizarre, yet sort of charming. He waited for a lull in the conversation, then quietly asked, “Everything okay, now?”
    “Yes,” Chris said, nodding at him. “They’re safe and eat good food every day.”
    “Good,” Jesse said. He pointed at the informational plaque to their right. “The sign over there says they were found out in the woods, hurt, and that they were brought here. If they could have let them go, they would have. The zoo gets a lot of its animals that way.”
    “Oh,” Chris said, but he didn’t bother to look. He tried to make a pinging sound, but as before it just sort of sounded strangled. The second raven clucked at him, and the first trilled. “They only know that I am a man.”
    “I’m sorry,” Jesse said, looking around. They were alone, so he slipped his arm around Chris.
    “I am not surprised.” Chris sighed and leaned into the embrace, letting go of the fence.