The Night of the Storm Birds
The wind had been building all afternoon, rattling the loose sheet of iron on the shed roof. By dusk, Mia could hear the sea from her bedroom, which only happened before the worst storms.
Her grandmother came in carrying a torch and a folded blanket.
"Get your boots," she said. "The shearwaters will be coming down tonight."
Mia had heard about this but had never seen it. Every spring, thousands of shearwaters returned to the island to nest. On stormy nights the young birds became confused by the lights of the town and landed on roads and footpaths, where they could not take off again.
Outside, the rain came sideways. Mia found the first bird near the bakery, a dark shape flapping against the kerb. She knelt down, folded its wings gently against its body the way her grandmother had shown her, and carried it to the grass above the beach.
By midnight they had carried nineteen birds to safety. Mia's arms ached and her boots were full of water, and she had never felt prouder.