The adventures of Cocoa

“Can I help you?” said a midnight black beak framed by a pair of dark eyes staring straight at her. The deliciously plump black bird tapping her foot angrily.

Floppy ears dropped as her wagging white tipped tail suddenly drooped between her legs. Cocoa's playful eyes turned somber as she answered the crow, “I saw you as I was walking down the road and you look like a smart bird.” A skewered mouse barbecuing less than a foot away. She quieted her stomach, wiping the drool from her chin.

“You followed me?” Said the crow.

Cocoa gulped. “Well, yes. For the purpose of...wanting to know if you could..teach me how to hunt.”

“If you were a little smaller,” using the tips of her wings as a visual measurement, “I would hunt YOU. You would be on the grill next to that rat.”

“Ahhhh. It's a rat. Not a mouse. Gotcha.” Cocoa laughed nervously, exposing her new baby teeth. “Well, it smells delicious…and disgusting.”

“...As rats do when they're being grilled. Why do you need me to teach you how to hunt? Aren't you a hunting dog?”

"I am a hound, that's true. It's just that eating out of trash cans is getting kind of old. You know how it is.” Cocoa laughed to her silent audience.

“I wouldn't know. I don't eat out of trashcans.” Said the crow, stoking the coals of her lunch. Cocoa looked at the rat suspiciously. “Now if you would be so kind as to undo that step you took into my home and be on your way, I don't want things to get ugly.”

“Oh I don't want things to get ugly either!" Imagining herself skewered on the grill near the rat. Fear gripped Cocoa's face. She looked longingly at the rat, almost drooling, then firmly looked at the crow. "I just want to know if you'll help me.”

“I already said no… You were in the Fieldman's trashcan, weren't you?” The crow covered her nose with her wing. “They only buy low grade, store brand tuna and it reeks on you!”

“Tuna isn't your thing huh? I can see by the...” She nodded to the rat like a final adieu. “Did you know there's a whole field of rats where I come from?”

“A field of rats?! Where?? I've never seen a field of rats!”

“Oh yeah. Where I come from, lots of rats! Big, fat, juicy ones! Ready to be skewered and... barbecued.”

“Where you come from? And where exactly is that?” The crow asked judgmentally. Cocoa thought of her brothers and sisters snuggled together asleep as she left her old cardboard box that same morning. Her chest felt warm thinking of her mom, her smelll, her touch. The cardboard box she was born in didn't mean her mom didn't love her. Mama made it into a home.

"Look," The crow interrupted her thoughts, "I'm not going to teach you how to hunt. I'm not even going to teach my own kids how to do that.” She cackled, pointing to her unhatched eggs. Barely visible in the nest she made out of old cardboard scraps and leaves were 4 small eggs laying together as if huddling for warmth. Cocoa smiled, seeing the cardboard scraps. “I will, however, give you some advice on how to get an owner. Having an owner means food. You knew that right?"

Cocoa nodded.

"But first: you smell disgusting. I'm already grossed out by you coming into my home uninvited."

Cocoa nosily looked around the makeshift home the bird had made in the side yard of an empty house on the street. More spacious than what a little crow would need. Organized junk lined one side of the bushes with a kitchen made of twigs and broken toys. Plastic water bottles tied together with string formed her bed. A real feather pillow rested at one end. The crow ruffled her feathers, her eyes narrowing as she continued her directions.

"So what you need to do is walk four houses down and jump into the pool of the Stroble's home and rinse yourself off. Do you know how to swim?”

Cocoa's tail dropped for a second before she held her chest high, nodding in full confidence.

The crow tapped her feathers together in front of her, thoughtfully. “Okay. I'm going to be frank with you. I can tell that you are only six months old. Give or take. You don't know how to swim. That means the hawks will notice you flailing around and will definitely eat you, and fast." She got a twinkle in her eye. "Here now, watch me.” She stretched her wings in front of her, grasping the air and shooing it downwards while taking giant, slow steps circling around in what would be her living room. “Pretend I'm shooing the water down in front of me. It's called a doggie paddle.”

“Ohhh! I thought you were shooing the smoke from the barbecue.” Cocoa said.

“MY RAT!!!” The crow skipped quickly over to the smoking grill, waving the charred rodent in the air, to and fro, angry she had spent so much time helping Cocoa.

“Okay so like this...?” Cocoa mimicked her air shooing movements around her house. The blackbird getting angrier with every stomp of Cocoa's oily tuna fish feet around her living room. She was fuming hotter than her burnt rat. “Sink or swim, I don't care!.. Goodbye dog!!!”

Blueish-black feathers sharply pointed toward the bush exit, complete with the angriest scowl a crow could make. The burnt air wafting through the leaves. Cocoa's paws hit the pavement, ready to find a new home. “Four houses down, sink or swim. Four houses down, sink or swim.” The phrase echoed in her mind. Before she knew it, she was down the street standing in front of a grand house that had two tall pillars holding up the large wrap around porch. A giant oak tree with bright green leaves sat in the middle of the yard. As Cocoa made her way up the driveway she could see a mat in front of the huge black door with the letter S on it. It was either for STROBLE or to remind her to “Sink or Swim.”

She scooched under the chain-link fence and up to the backyard pool. The water invitingly blue. Looking down, she saw brown ears and face with a white bridge of her nose. White “tuxedo” like color on her chest surrounded by splotches of brown, black, and white in random shapes and sizes mimicking the colors of chocolate, or "cocoa". She sat up on her hind legs excited to see her reflection sparkling back at her in wiggly waves. She had white paws with black spots on them going up her legs and a white-tipped tail that she wagged playfully as she danced around the pool watching her reflection follow her.

She walked forwards and pranced backwards, spinning and pivoting into happy kicks. She trotted back and forth towards the water and away again, silly with glee at seeing her reflection marching alongside her.

“Sink or swim.” Cocoa said aloud as she jumped into the water like an open parachute, her paws splashing against the water with loud slaps. She realized the water was not as happy as her reflection was…. and she immediately regretted her decision.