Rowf was crouched in an overgrown patch of cool, green grass, his dark, round eyes fixated on a gurgling hole in the ground. Spotting his owner, he wagged his nubby tail and barked, “Rowf! Rowf,” the short, high?pitched bark that gave him his name.

  “Good boy, you found another one!” said Marco, voice cracking mid?sentence.

  He gave his dog a quick pat on the head and a loving scratch behind the ear.

  At thirteen, Marco discovered he was qualified to work only the crappiest of crappy summer jobs: inspecting lawn sprinklers at the old local golf course. The kids at school called it the most boring job in all of Palm Springs.

  But he didn’t mind. He liked it.

  Slowly scanning the overgrown weeds engulfing the broken sprinkler head, he let his young mind get lost in the details of what was before him.

  Three species of plants. One species of insect. The usual suspects.

  He jotted their names down into his pocket field journal.

  “Common. Introduced. Invasive... Boring.”

  Those were the words he used to describe them.

  Same as everywhere, it seems…

  What he wouldn’t give to find a rare species for once. Something different he could document or better yet, a new species no one had ever seen before.

  His sharp eyes caught the movement of a tiny spider tucked inside its little web. He nearly missed it, until the light caught just right, and the dewy silk shimmered like a sunlit diamond.

  The hungry little predator was feeding on a fungus gnat. Doing what spiders do best. Sucking the life out of it.

  “Elephant in front of the pyramid,” he blurted instinctively.

  It was one of his mother’s quirky mnemonics, random words strung together to help him remember the trickier scientific names of local flora and fauna.

  This one was for the common doily spider, Frontinella pyramitela.

  Marco never liked all the extra memorizing. But he said the phrases anyway, because it made his mother happy.

  He pulled a small blue plastic flag from his backpack and pressed it into the ground, marking the broken sprinkler for repair. Then he wiped the sweat off his forehead.

  “Well, that’s no good,” he muttered.

  When the gardeners came to dig it out, the tiny spider—and its entire little world—would be utterly obliterated.

  “All right, let’s go.”

  With the tip of a twig, he carefully lifted the bewildered arachnid, doily web and all, and walked it to the slim divide between the dry golf course rough and the lush green lawn. A safe zone, far away from destructive irrigation work or powerful lawn mowers.

  There, he gently released it.

  A loud buzzing sound echoed across the empty fairway.

  Curious, Marco raised his binoculars and zeroed in on hole twelve.

  Hitched to a rope, a fearless tree trimmer swung in wide arcs from palm treetop to palm treetop, slicing through old fronds and flower spikes with a chainsaw.

  Far below, gardeners in broad straw hats gathered the falling debris, stacking it into a tall pile beneath the trees.

  Mesmerized by the daring chainsaw acrobatics, Marco jumped nearly two feet when a raven behind him menacingly croaked.

  “RAAAHK!”

  “Damn, stupid bird!” he shouted. “I nearly crapped my pants!”

  Three jet-black ravens sat tucked among the dense, twisted branches of an old olive tree, watching him.

  “Whoa! Look at that,” Marco said, aghast.

  Its trunk and curled, gnarled roots mimicked the frightening shape of a monstrous bird talon gripping its prey. And all around it, small sun-bleached animal skulls littered the gritty sand in horrifying quantity, as if the ravens had been killing here for a long, long time.

  “KrAAAAAr… AaaaunK!” one raven croaked slowly.

  The largest bird flapped noisily along a thick branch, a small furry animal hanging limp from its beak.

  “Shit! It caught something!” Marco told his dog. “What is that? A squirrel?”

  The raven’s prey twisted and writhed.

  Marco clapped a hand over his mouth and gasped.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “Oh no… it’s still alive.”

  It was natural for a predator to kill its prey. Marco never enjoyed seeing it, but as the child of two famous wildlife biologists, it was a fact he eventually had to learn to accept.

  Yet no matter how hard he tried, he always felt pity for the innocent victim and rooted for their escape.

  Marco whispered, “Come on, little guy… fight.”

  The big raven easily outsized the struggling animal and simply snapped its own head back and forth until its body went limp again.

  The commotion didn’t go unnoticed by the other two birds in the tree. One let out a deep croak and casually hopped over for a closer look.

  “Freeloaders,” Marco explained to Rowf. “They’re after that big one’s food.”

  Without warning, the largest raven launched explosively from the old olive tree, barrel-rolling with a loud woosh-woosh-woosh right over his head.

  Caught off guard, the other two ravens stormed after it, maneuvering tightly together like a pair of fighter jets, wings just inches apart.

  Marco ducked, heart pounding.

  “Dang, Rowf, they almost hit me!” he gasped. “That first one’s huge!”

  They chased the larger bird over the golf course, disappearing into the grove of freshly pruned palm trees at hole twelve.

  Through his binoculars, Marco watched as the big raven overshot its landing high atop the tallest tree. Grabbing loosened cut palm frond stems instead of a solid trunk, it unexpectedly slipped off. Squawking and flailing midair like a cartoon character waving bye-bye before plunging into a ravine.

  In that fleeting moment, the small animal trapped in its beak broke free. Somersaulting a dizzying seventy feet down into the deep pile of cut palm fronds far below.

  “Finders, keepers!” Marco yelled, grinning.

  He and Rowf tore across the wide green lawn, racing to find the fallen critter before the awful raven could.

  When they arrived, the perturbed bird was perched atop the fresh heap of palm tree parts, diabolically searching for its escaped prey. Hot and flustered, it skidded clumsily with each awkward hop.

  “Wow, you are one ugly Corvid,” Marco commented.

  Scanning the top of the pile, he didn’t see anything, so he flipped over a large fan palm frond to check underneath.

  The territorial raven saw this and angrily flapped toward him, croaking, “Krunk! Krunk! Krunk!”

  Marco shouted back, “Get away!”

  It felt surprisingly good to yell.

  “KRUUUUNK!” the raven screamed back, rustling its feathers and viciously thrusting its open beak.

  Up close, the bird was huge. It had strong black talons, a hooked black beak, and a wild glint in its dark amber eyes.

  “Ew! Gross,” the observant teen muttered, staring at its feet.

  Two front claws were missing off one foot. Its worn, scaly stubs looked like dried-up sidewalk worms.

  Standing his ground, Marco locked eyes with the maniacal bird. No matter what, this horrible raven would never get that little animal back.

  Then the other two ravens landed on the pile, making it three against one.

  The first big raven reasserted itself with bold arrogance.

  “KRUNK!”

  Now all three birds were working together, picking at the fronds and obsessively probing the mound for their escaped prey.

  “Rowf! Rowf! Wruuuhh!”

  Rowf whined, snorting excitedly as he shoved his flat nose into the side of the pile.

  While flipping palm fronds and fending off the birds, Marco heard Rowf's loud whining and glanced down.

  “Wait… what? No way!” he exclaimed, eyes widening in shock.

  Leaning in closer, the tough boy was genuinely startled—if not a little awed.

  Buried deep in the palm fronds, a tiny brown puppy with long, pointy ears lay badly cut and bleeding.

  Helpless and shaking, it looked up at him and panicked.

  The vicious Krunker let out an almost human “AACK!”

  Marco had found its breakfast.

  All three ravens turned in eerie sync, closing in like sharks drawn to blood.

  One of the puppy’s legs hung limp, likely broken. Bloody scratches and marks covered its tiny body, and its desperate whimpering broke Marco’s heart.

  He quickly reached in to save it from the terrible ravens, but the little pup was a fighter, yelping and snapping at his hand the moment he touched it.

  “Ow! Shit!” Marco yelled, yanking his hand back.

  Shaking with fear, it backed itself up against a large palm leaf, snarling as fiercely as a little injured puppy possibly could.

  Marco staggered back, stomach twisting.

  The ravens… The palm-frond pile… This wasn’t a game anymore.

  They had them surrounded. Two in front. One behind.

  Marco snapped. The scream tore out of him before he could stop it.

  “NOoooo!”

  He lunged for the nearest weapon, a long, stiff palm flower?spike, and swung it like a sword. Smacking one raven so hard it tumbled off the pile

  “Rowf! Rowf! Rowf!” yipped Rowf, growling from underfoot.

  The ravens shrieked back, furious, “KrucK! Krack! KrunK!”

  “Wuff!” a sharp, desperate bark from deep in the pile.

  The wounded puppy had joined the chaos.

  Woosh. Woosh. Woosh!

  An angry raven dive-bombed.

  Marco swung hard and missed.

  The blow snapped his flower-spike sword in two, leaving it dangling uselessly in his hands.

  Desperate, he yanked off his Lucky work shirt, his favorite, and threw it over the fragile pup like a makeshift shield. The warm bundle squirmed in his arms, wriggling and whining. It cried and fought, but its tiny teeth met only fabric.

  The ravens scattered into the surrounding palm trees, flapping and squawking like sore losers. Their shrieking rants echoed across the empty golf course.

  “It’s okay,” Marco whispered to the whimpering puppy, holding it close.

  “It’s okay,” he repeated, quieter now. This time to himself.

  Marco knew only one person in town who could help.

  He pulled out his phone, found the name Sheila, and hit call.

  Still shaken, he tried to process it. Had he really smacked a raven in the head with a flower spike?

  Two of the vicious birds followed him to the curb. They perched on a tall driveway gate across the street. Sharp eyes locked on the bundle in his arms. The big birds croaked and flared their wings, poised to strike.

  Rowf growled back, then plopped down on Marco’s feet.

  Cradling the tiny puppy to his chest, Marco whispered, “Don’t worry. I’ve got you.”

  A few minutes later, a shiny blue Cadillac pulled up fast, tires squealing as it hit the curb, bouncing the whole car.

  It belonged to his mother’s very generous friend, Sheila Martyn. “Sheila Martini,” if you know her from her lounge shows at the Purple Room.

  Before the Cadillac even settled to a stop, the old singer flung open the door and leapt out, clutching a deep wicker basket with a long blue satin bow.

  “Show me,” she said, her voice gentle.

  Marco let Sheila peek at the poor, wounded puppy wrapped in his shirt. She smiled brightly at first, but it quickly faded into a concerned frown.

  He took one last long look. The puppy was panting fast but didn’t struggle.

  Then gently placed the swaddled pup inside the basket.

  The puppy yelped and whimpered.

  Sheila grimaced.

  “I’ll meet you at Dr. Scuffles’,” he said quickly.

  She gave him a small nod, took the basket with both hands, and stepped carefully back into her car.

  A gray-haired woman sat behind the wheel smiling at him. He didn’t know her but smiled back anyway as he closed the heavy car door and waved goodbye.

  The old woman gunned it, surprising him. Tires screeching as she sped away.