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‘10p entry,’ barks the gull from behind the ticket window.  

Mortimer feels about his breast pockets. His head bobs nervously. The gull stares down at him, one wing leant over the counter. The cigarette clamped between its nicotine-stained beak burns like a fuse, counting down the bird’s dwindling patience. 

‘10p. Each.’

He knows what the gull is thinking. No freeloading pigeon like himself would have that much coin. And, on any other day, they would have been right. However, after working double shifts at the Granary and earning himself a good bit of scratch, Mortimer, for once, had arrived with gilded pockets. He cocks one eye over his wing to his patiently waiting date; to her brown-mottled feathers peeking over her summer dress; to her coyly angled straw hat, slightly frayed from a light pecking – to his dear Penelope.

With renewed composure, he fans the 20p across the counter. ‘Two tickets. For the Hen and I.’

The gull takes a moment to confirm, then sweeps the coins into the till. ‘Welcome to the Flying Finch Troupe. We take no responsibility for clipped wings, broken beaks, etcetera, etcetera.’ The gull hands Mortimer two tickets, `the Peacock burlesque starts in an hour.’

Mortimer balks, puffing out his neck feathers in chivalric protest. ‘I shan’t think the lady wants to see that.‘

‘Wha’ever,’ croaks the gull as it squeezes the dying cherry from its cigarette, flips the butt into its gullet, and shakes it down its throat. ‘Next!’

Ruffled, Mortimer takes fair Penelope by wingtip into the fairgrounds. The boardwalk before them opens up into a tangled nest of kiosks. Painted signs promise death-defying stunt flyers and miracle tonics created by society’s greatest birdbrains. White streaked walkways weave from attraction to attraction, bustling with a menagerie of birdfolk. A smell of straw lingers densely in the air. It’s a filthy wonderland. 

And, with Penelope gently bok-bokking by his side, it’s everything Mortimer had hoped.  

Nearby, a distracted starling is idly holding her hot chips when a plump, pint-sized human swoops in. She shrieks as the cunning vermin sprints away, clutching its prize with wiggly, sausage-like appendages. Mortimer follows its path to a trash can, where the rest of its herd emerges to wrestle for a share of the spoils, tearing the chip apart and letting the crumbs fall unseemly into their chest hair.

Mortimer shudders. But it draws his eye to a particular food vendor. One that gives him a daring notion.

‘M’lady.’ Mortimer doffs his bowler hat to Penelope, ‘Perhaps a snack is in order?’

Penelope nods, making her fleshy, pink wattle jiggle in a way that sets Mortimer’s heart aflutter.

‘Stay right here, I will not tarry.’

Mortimer strides over to the Couple’s Corn stall where they sell corn for two, cooked on a single cob such that young lovebirds may peck up from either end until – well, a proper pigeon doesn’t speculate on what might happen when beaks meet in the middle. 

A teenage bluejay takes his order and his last two pennies, and while the kernels crisp over the coals, Mortimer watches Penelope roost on a suspended perch bench. Her dainty claws are painted sky blue, the perfect colour pairing to his ash-grey down.

‘Here you are, sir.’

The bluejay hands Mortimer his couple’s corn with a wink. Before returning to his Penelope with corn in wing, he preens his chest feathers into a voluminous primp.

But when he turns, a spectre strikes him aghast. There, in his leather jacket, comb gelled back and clucking all cocksure alongside his paramore is that damned rooster Donovan, from Grain Sales. Mortimer hop steps back in haste, whereupon Donovan turns a beady, black eye.  

‘You’re kidding? Morty? Ol’ Pick/Pecker Mortimer. What a hoot!’ Donovan scratches at the dirt dismissively, ‘C’mon Penelope, why don’t you let a real bird show you a good time?’

Rising to the challenge, Mortimer glares up at the Rooster, ‘I think the season for spring chickens has passed you by, Donovan.’

Cooing smugly to himself, Mortimer awaits Donovan’s undoubtedly gormless reply. Instead, Donovan pecks him. Mortimer recoils, wounded, though not physically. The sheer audacity of a public attack astounds him. He drops the couple’s corn at his feet. 

‘Oh a tussle is it?’ Mortimer bows his head low to the ground and spreads his tail feathers, his bowler hat tumbling to the ground as he extends to his full wingspan.

Donovan meets his gesture, spreading himself in a grand display, feathers charged with adrenal electricity, right down to the quill. 

The pair circle each other, attacking with chirped c’mon-thens and that’s-what-I-thoughts. A crowd gathers and a half dozen humans dart toward the abandoned corn, stuffing their cheeks with kernels. Penelope is unmoved.

Just when the masculine tension feels taut enough to snap, a shadow blankets them both. Instinctively, they deflate, shrinking in size beneath the awesome projected shape. Behind them, the eagle has landed. Chet, from Granary Legal, spreads his majestic, predator wingspan to full width as he yawns, cricks his neck, and drops a wing over Penelope’s back. 

‘Penny, baby, what are you doing with these two losers?’ He says, with a cultivated rasp. ‘What’s say we fly this coop?’

Mortimer wants to object, but something deep within his nature tells him it’s not a good idea. Rather, it is Penelope who speaks, starting in her perfect warble, ‘Actually, I think I’d prefer to-BRRK’

Penelope’s eyes bulge as Chet hoists her up with his mighty talons, shooting over the horizon like an arrow and leaving only a few mottled-brown feathers to flit softly to the ground. 

The crowd disperses, and soon after Mortimer bends down to dust off his hat. The blood rushing through his head subsides and he hears the wind again, hears the humans yodelling from the treetops.

‘No hard feelings, Donny?’

‘No hard feelings, Morty.’

They share a moment, then Mortimer asks a final question.

‘…fancy a gander at the Peacock burlesque?’

Donovon’s slicked back comb springs up, stiff and upright.