The Bird in the Bag

Tess had been standing in the cold for forty minutes when the bird called from Joel’s backpack.

Neither of them knew that yet.

“There,” she whispered.

Joel raised his binoculars towards the reeds.

The call came again: three clear notes, followed by a sound like a rusty hinge.

Tess checked the recording on her phone, keeping the volume low. It matched.

For six Saturdays, she and Joel had occupied opposite ends of the hide. They shared sightings reluctantly, as though each bird were a promotion only one of them could receive.

Now he moved aside to give her the better window.

She noticed that before she noticed anything else.

“Low down,” he said.

They searched the reeds. A duck crossed the open water, looking deeply uninterested in their discovery.

The call stopped.

Joel crouched to retrieve his thermos. It started again.

Much louder.

He froze with one hand inside the bag.

Tess lowered her binoculars.

“Please tell me you haven’t.”

“I haven’t what?”

“Brought a speaker.”

He pulled out his phone. A green button filled the screen.

MUM.

Below it was the name of his custom ringtone.

Neither spoke until the call ended.

Then Tess sat down so abruptly that the bench shook.

Joel began explaining. He had downloaded the sound to learn it. He had meant to change the ringtone. His mother usually texted.

Tess was laughing too hard to help him.

“You told me it was low down.”

“It was.”

“In the reeds.”

“I made an assumption.”

His mother called again.

“Answer it,” Tess said. “We’ve worked hard for this sighting.”

Joel answered and immediately regretted putting the phone on speaker.

“Have you asked the woman out yet?”

Tess stopped laughing.

Joel looked at the reeds as if something there might employ him.

“Mum.”

“You said she comes every Saturday.”

“Mum.”

“Well, you can’t keep buying those awful cereal bars and hoping she’ll forget breakfast.”

Tess looked at the unopened packet beside his thermos.

When the call finally ended, the hide was very quiet.

“There’s a café by the car park,” she said.

“I know.”

“I don’t usually go there. I bring breakfast.”

“Yes.”

“But today I seem to have forgotten.”

He put the cereal bars away.

At the café, Tess wrote the morning’s sightings in her notebook: two ducks, one heron, one man making an assumption.

Joel read it upside down.

“Was I wrong?”

She pushed the menu towards him.

“Order first.”