Firstborn - Couverture rigide

Firstborn

1

“COME SEE, MAX!” MY MOTHER cried. “Max, come see!”

My father landed on the rim of the nest and held something over me in his black beak. I’d just broken through my shell. There were several other grayish-green shells around me, all still intact. I craned my neck, grabbed the morsel out of my father’s beak, and gulped it down.

“Isn’t she the most adorable little magpie in the whole world?” my mother crooned. “Cute, cute, cute! What shall we call her?”

“Up to you, Mag,” said my father. “You did most of the work.”

“How about Maggie?”

“Perfect.”

I gawped at them in disbelief. Here I was, a minute-old magpie, with a mother named Mag and a father named Max, and they were calling me Maggie! My only consolation was that they weren’t much more imaginative with my five siblings. As my brothers and sisters hatched around me, they were dubbed Mark, Marge, Mandy, Mack, and Matt.

On a brighter note, I wasn’t just first out of the egg—I was also the first of the brood to make it to the edge of the nest.

“What’s this place called?” I asked, looking out.

“Home,” my mother said. “Isn’t it glorious, glorious, glorious?”

It was quite a view, though of course I had little to compare it to.

“What are those green things?” I said, peering straight down.

“Branches. We’re in a pine tree.”

She pointed out other pine trees, a farmhouse, a smaller structure called a henhouse, a bigger one called a barn, and two tall things with egg-shaped tops called silos. Between the silos was a glittering ribbon of blue. In the distance there were fenced-in fields, some trees with leaves instead of needles, and vast expanses of open range.

“What are the four-legged beasts?” I asked.

“Cattle.”

“Where’s their nest?”

“There,” she said, pointing her beak at the barn.

The small boxlike thing on top of the barn was called a cupola, and the thing on top of that was a weather vane. The weather vane had a bird perched on it.

“Is that a magpie?” I asked.

“That homely old thing? He’s a crow.”

Hopping onto the sunny side of the nest, my mother spread her wings and flicked her tail.

“You’re the most beautiful ma in the world,” cooed my brother Matt.

How many mothers did he know, I wondered—though, in fact, ours was pretty striking. Her black-and-white plumage had a hint of iridescent green, and her tail was long and graceful.

She and my father devoted the next few days to bringing us lovely insects and succulent bits of carrion. As our fluff turned to feathers, our parents warned us of creatures to avoid once we left the nest. “Keep a sharp eye out for eagles and foxes.” “Watch out for hawks and coyotes.” “Foxes and housecats.” “Coyotes and rattlesnakes and eagles.” “Did we mention foxes?”

As we grew, the nest got more and more cramped, and despite the looming perils, I yearned to be free of it. But the only way out of the nest was by air, and my first attempt at flying was a disaster. If not for a well-placed bough, I’d have broken my neck. I did better on my second try, however, and by the time I was a month old, I was giving my siblings flying lessons.

Life without wings must be a bitter thing. You’d miss out on not only the freedom, but the perspective. Flying lets you see from close up or far away. You can zoom up to things and, if you don’t like the look of them, zoom away. At first I steered well clear of cattle. They’re enormous, and smelly. But one day I saw my father alight on one. I fluttered down and landed gingerly beside him.

“They’re so dull, they don’t mind,” he said. “Dig in, Maggie.”

The beast was covered with ticks. It was a feast.

Horses and dogs pick up ticks as well, but horses are less docile than cattle, with dangerous tails, and dogs are absolute monsters, to be avoided at all cost. Though humans pick up fewer ticks, I developed a soft spot for them anyway. The silly creatures were always discarding tasty garbage.

By summer my whole clutch had left the nest for good. Sadly, the creek that wound between the silos dried up, so we had to drink from the cattle trough. Blech! And except for a few trees, the whole landscape turned dull brown, with dust devils swirling across it. Then came winter, and everything turned stark white. The days were short and cold, the nights long and even colder.

The cattle huddled in the barn. One day I noticed steam leaking out of the cupola. The homely old crow was still on the weather vane, and he was more than twice my size, but crows hadn’t been on my parents’ list of creatures to avoid, and I couldn’t see why he should hog all the heat. Besides, I’d become as handsome as my mother, and I figured he might be flattered by a visit from someone so much better-looking.

I flew over and landed on the cupola. The steam felt wonderful, even if it stank, but the crow glared down from the weather vane.

“Scram,” he said.

“Why?” I said. “There’s plenty of room.”

“I can’t abide magpies.”

“What’s wrong with magpies?”

“They’re empty-headed chatterboxes.”

“Who says?”

“Ask anybody.”

I flew off and found a starling perched on the ice-glazed swing set behind the farmhouse.

“What sort of reputation do magpies have?” I asked.

“Thieving hoarders,” the starling said.

This wasn’t very flattering, but at least it didn’t confirm the crow. I flew over to a thrush poking around by the garbage cans behind the house and asked her the same question.

“Empty-headed chatterboxes,” she said.

I gulped.

A buzzard on a telephone pole gave me the same answer. I returned to my favorite ponderosa pine to nurse my bruised ego. At sunset I tucked my head under my wing as usual, but I couldn’t sleep. Thinking back, I realized my parents and siblings did chatter a lot. I remembered my mother calling home “glorious, glorious, glorious.” Now that I’d experienced a sweltering, dull-brown summer and a snowy, sub-zero winter, I had to question that. But even if some magpies didn’t think before they spoke, did that mean I was like that?

In the morning I flew to the cupola, determined to prove the crow wrong, but he wasn’t on the weather vane. While I was basking in the smelly warmth, I spotted him down below, walking out from between two bulging roots of an old cottonwood tree. I figured he must have a food cache there. Out on the sunstruck snow he opened his impressive wings and pushed off.

The lower part of the weather vane was four arrows pointing in different directions. The top part was shaped like a horse. The horse moved in the wind and squeaked when the crow landed on it.

“Scat,” the crow said.

I ignored him. He ruffed up his feathers, doubling his size. I crouched, ready to take off. Down below, a door banged. A human came out of the farmhouse, followed by a dog. They got into one of their vehicles. It rumbled to life, spewing a bluish cloud into the clear air, and rolled away, the tires kicking up the dry snow just as they kicked up the dust in the summer. At the end of a long straightaway the vehicle passed through a gate and turned left.

By the time the vehicle was out of sight, the crow had deflated to his normal size. I stayed put for about an hour, till I was nice and toasty, before flying away.

When I returned to the cupola the next morning, the crow was gone again. Like the day before, he soon emerged from his food cache under the cottonwood and flapped up to the weather vane. He gave me a sour look but didn’t ruff up his feathers. I warmed myself for an hour or so, keeping my beak resolutely shut.

This went on for a week. I never said a word on the cupola—till one day a sharp cracking sound startled me into blurting out, “What was that?”

“A rifle,” the crow said.

Not wanting to sound empty-headed, I didn’t ask what this was. Before long a human wearing a cap with earflaps came hustling around the side of the barn. Earflaps lifted a long, glinting thing to his shoulder, and another crack rang out.

“Missed again,” the crow said, chuckling.

A flash of red crossed one of the snowy fields.

“There was a fox in the henhouse,” the crow said.

So that was a fox, I thought, remembering my parents’ warnings.

The next morning I had to wait out a blizzard, and by the time I arrived at the cupola, the crow was on his weather vane. He didn’t look particularly annoyed, so I asked him his name.

“Jackson,” he grunted. “You?”

“Maggie.”

“Maggie the magpie?”

“I know,” I said with a sigh.

The next day was too windy to do anything but huddle on the lee side of my ponderosa pine. But the wind died down overnight, and the following day I rejoined the crow atop the barn.

“Quite a blow,” he commented.

Though the temperature was well below zero, I sensed him thawing toward me. “How long have you lived at home, Jackson?” I asked.

“At home?”

“Here. This place.”

“You mean the Triple Bar T?”

“The Triple Bar T?”

“You never checked the gate?”

I did now, flying straight out the long driveway. Over the gate was a sign emblazoned with: = T.

The next day I asked him what the weather vane was for, and he used it to teach me north from south and east from west. To the south there were large bumps on the horizon. These were called the Beartooth Mountains. Beyond them was a place called Wyoming. I asked if Wyoming was as big as the Triple Bar T.

“Bigger,” Jackson said. “The Triple Bar T’s just a ranch. Wyoming’s a state. We’re in the state of Montana.”

“Is Montana bigger than Wyoming?”

“Yes.”

“What’s that way?” I asked, pointing my beak to the west.

“Idaho.”

“Is Montana bigger?”

“Yes.”

“And that way?” I said, pointing north.

“Canada.”

“Montana’s bigger?”

“No. But Canada’s not a state, it’s a country.”

The discomfiting truth was sinking in: I was empty-headed.

The cupola became my school. I learned a lot about geography—and other things too. One day, for example, I asked Jackson why cattle were so dull, and he explained that they have no souls.

“How come?”

“Only winged creatures have souls.”

This made perfect sense. “What about chickens?” I said. “They have wings, but they can barely fly.”

“A question I grappled with, myself,” he said, giving me an almost appreciative look. “After conversing with a few, I concluded they don’t.”

“How do you know so much, Jackson?”

“I don’t. At least compared to my friend.”

I was surprised to hear he had one. Most crows are sociable and hang out in gangs, but Jackson seemed very solitary. I’d heard other crows cawing to him, but he never answered.

“Who’s your friend?” I said.

“Miranda,” he said.

Miranda! If only my parents had had a little imagination, I could have had a beautiful name like that. “She’s a crow?” I said.

“A parrot.”

“What’s a parrot?”

“A tropical bird—stunningly beautiful. Humans keep them in cages. But hers was by the window, and in the summertime, when the window was open, we talked up a storm. I picked up a lot, especially about humans. She even taught me their language.”

This was astounding. Their language was very tricky. “She’s not in a cage anymore?”

“She’s free now.”

“But you still see her?”

“We talk every day.”

Though I couldn’t help being jealous of the parrot’s name and abilities, I hoped to meet her, but I sensed Jackson might be stingy with her company. I decided to keep my eye out for places he went other than the weather vane and the food cache. If Miranda was a tropical bird, she might well live in the barn, out of the cold. But in the winter the barn was shut up tight.

Eventually the snow began to melt. One day the doors to the hayloft swung open. But when I flew in, all I saw were a couple of bats, a gang of swallows, and hundreds of smelly steers.

The cattle soon came out to graze in the fields. Chicks started bumbling around on the coop’s chicken-wired porch. Humans started doing all sorts of noisy things around the place. They shouted at one another a lot, and thanks to Jackson’s coaching, I began to decipher some of their words. As spring progressed, they set up a big scale to weigh livestock for the market. They shouted out the weights, and little by little I deciphered the differences. By summer I was a whiz at numbers.

Even noisier than their shouting was their target practice. Earflaps set up a target and showed a smaller human in a red cap how to fire the rifle at it. The silhouette on the target was a lot bigger than a fox, more like a large dog.

“I thought humans were fond of those fiends,” I said.

“I believe it’s a wolf,” Jackson said. “Miranda told me they’re worried about them.”

“What’s a wolf?”

“They’re like dogs, only wilder and more ferocious. They kill cattle and sheep. The ranchers hate them.”

“Do they kill birds?”

“If they could catch us, they probably would.”

“Do they live around here?” I asked uneasily.

“The ranchers wiped them out a long time ago.”

“Then why are they worried?”

“Because of Yellowstone,” Jackson said.

Yellowstone, I learned next, was a national park just south of the Beartooth Mountains, mostly in Wyoming. Certain humans wanted to reintroduce wolves there—to restore the “balance of nature,” whatever that meant. The ranchers were dead set against it, but according to Miranda, the wolf lovers had prevailed, and now the ranchers were afraid the reintroduced wolves might venture out of the park and attack their livestock.

But I had more pressing concerns than creatures I’d never laid eyes on. Of my brood, four of us had made it through our first winter. A hawk had picked off Mack last summer, and not long afterward Mark had ended up flattened against the radiator of one of the humans’ vehicles. But now, as the leaves unfurled on the cottonwood tree, Matt and Mandy each paired off, and the two new couples started building nests of their own. Though I liked to think of myself as different from my siblings, I’d always been first at everything and disliked suddenly slipping behind. A handsome young magpie named Dan kept pestering me, saying how pretty my tail feathers were. I gave in.

The nest Dan built in my favorite ponderosa pine had a waterproof hood of interwoven twigs. It put my parents’ nest to shame. But he no sooner finished it than he started filling it with useless odds and ends collected from around the ranch: wadded-up gum wrappers, screws, washers, pennies, bottle caps. When I asked what the trash was for, he said, “It’s pretty!” This totally undermined his compliments on my tail feathers. I got the queasy feeling that he fit the “thieving hoarder” profile. Every time I chucked something out, he retrieved it, so when the eggs came there was barely room for them.

Dan refused to do any egg sitting. I was stuck in the nest night and day with all his bric-a-brac. He did bring me food, but my ordeal went on for weeks. With the melting snow the lovely ribbon of blue reappeared, but I couldn’t even go down for a drink. Interesting bird species whizzed by, but I couldn’t find out if they were flying up from the south or down from Canada. Meanwhile I had to watch my single sister, Marge, doing loop-di-loops between the silos. Worst of all, I didn’t get t...

"Do you ever have those vivid dreams that you wake up from with a start? That’s what this book reminds me of. Tor Seidler has created a brutal but beautiful anthropomorphic world that practically comes to life like those dreams. I loved this book." (Cynthia Kadohata, author of THE THING ABOUT LUCK and KIRA-KIRA, winner of the NBA and Newbery Award)

“A pack of articulate wolves resettles in the grandeur of Yellowstone where multiculturalism involves interaction with coyotes. They are enabled by a magpie named Maggie. I believed every word of this magical book.” (Richard Peck, author of A YEAR DOWN YONDER, winner of the Newbery Award.)

"Tor Seidler's Firstborn let's you live the way you always wanted to live: as a wolf in a wolf pack. Of course there's lots of danger, excitement, beauty but there are also things we know from human families, like love and loyalty, bravery and honor. You won't ever want to leave Blue Boy's wolf pack in the heart of the Rockies." (Chris Raschka, two-time Caldecott Medalist for HELLO, GOODBYE WINDOW and A BALL FOR DAISY)

A magpie who befriends a wolf tells their story.Maggie the magpie, hatched in a pine tree on a ranch in Montana, is unimpressed with her parents' lack of imagination in naming her Maggie and discontented overall with magpie life. After the death of her mentor, Jackson the crow, and a near-brush with a fox who, at the last moment, is scarfed up by a wolf, Maggie flies away from the ranch. She encounters the large wolf who saved her and discovers his name is Blue Boy and that he is making his way back to Canada after being forcibly relocated to Yellowstone National Park. The two form a mutually useful relationship—Maggie locates game from her airy vantage point, and Blue Boy hunts it down—and Maggie sees no reason why she "shouldn't accompany this amazing meal ticket on his journey." As months slide into years, Maggie's relationship with Blue Boy grows beyond food. She shares his joys and struggles as he is wounded by ranchers, finds a mate and a pack, settles back in Yellowstone, and sires and raises pups. Seidler's tale, narrated by the precocious Maggie and filled with her droll observations, brims with rivalries and treachery as well as selfless acts and unrequited love. A rich tale of the wild that quickens the pulse and fills the heart. (Kirkus Reviews December 15, 2014)

"A rich tale of the wild that quickens the pulse and fills the heart." (Kirkus Reviews)

Maggie the Magpie has a great deal to learn about the world. During her first few weeks of life, Maggie experiences prejudice and stereotypes as she meets other varieties of birds and mammals. But in the midst of finding her way, she also meets a Crow named Jackson. Although less than tolerant in the beginning, Jackson warms up to Maggie’s presence and begins to teach her the ways of humans, other animals, and most importantly, how to stay alive. When Jackson is shot by a human, Maggie feels she has lost her best friend and mentor. In the next few weeks she happens upon a solitary alpha male wolf named Blue Boy. Blue Boy has also lost his own family and is trying to find his way. This unlikely pair set out together looking for solid ground and they find it in small pack, of which Blue Boy becomes a member and eventually leads. The wolf settles down and starts a new family of his own while still maintaining a relationship with the lonely magpie. Blue Boys firstborn pup, Lamar, challenges social expectations by not being the alpha male that his father wants him to be. Lamar is torn between what his pack expects of him and where his heart wants to lead him. Will their relationship become so strained that it will be destroyed forever? Seidler has done superb research on animal behavior, which is clearly evident throughout the entirety of the novel. A great addition to any upper elementary or middle school collection, this is ideal for opening conversation with young students regarding racial prejudice and societal stereotypes. (School Library Journal January 2015)

Told in the voice of Maggie, a flippant-yet-wise magpie, the story takes off when she discovers parenting her own flock is not for her. Instead, she is attracted to the freedom of Blue Boy, the alpha male of a small pack of wolves living near Yellowstone. The novel chronicles the pack’s adventures: bringing down buffalo, raising a litter, avoiding capture (or killing) by humans. The anthropomorphized characters are fully developed, with part of the story centered around Lamar, Blue Boy’s firstborn, who is not an alphain-training, but instead prefers cavorting among flowers and pursuing a female coyote. Themes such as survival of the fittest, protection of the environment, and appreciation of those who are different abound. Seidler, writing in a style reminiscent of that of Jean Craighead George yet uniquely his own, paints word pictures of the majestic scenery. (A map helps the reader trace the travels of Blue Boy and others in the pack.) The title is slightly misleading, making the book seem more narrow than it is; there is much to appreciate here. (Booklist February 15, 2015)

This book is a fast-paced adventure story set in majestic Yellowstone Park. Alpha wolf Blue Boy is captured in Canada and relocated to the park. He loses his mate and pups, eventually joins a small pack, and is befriended by Maggie, a magpie, the book’s narrator. Blue Boy is overjoyed when Lamar, his first born, arrives. As the pack struggles to survive, Lamar grows into a wolf who marches to the beat of a different drummer and is not cut out to be a leader. Lamar strikes out on his own, but later returns to challenge Raze when he attempts to take the alpha male position. The story, told in first person, brings the animal characters to life with personalities and human characteristics. The setting’s descriptions are vivid and realistic. This is a wonderful adventure story with imagery and personification woven into a tale of survival. (School Library Connection September 2015)