Aurelius and I Read Online Free Page A

I really don’t. I guess some people just don’t care about animals the way we do.”
    “You can fix it though, right?”
    “I’m afraid not, Heaven knows I’ve tried, but it’s just too badly broken.”
    “So shouldn’t we take him to the vet?” I almost yelled, angry with desperation.
    “I’m afraid they won’t be able to do anything either.”
    “So he’s just going to die?” I asked, stubbornly refusing to admit defeat and let the tears which had formed in my eyes roll down my cheeks.
    “Well, that’s up to you, Charlie.”
    “Me?” I repeated incredulously, the question catching me so by surprise that my upset was temporarily forgotten. “What can I do?”
    “I think you know what you can do, Charlie. I think you’ve done it before.”
    For a moment I simply stared at Aurelius blankly, genuinely unaware of what he was talking about, concern for the oddly-dressed stranger’s sanity once again entering my mind. And then, just as I was beginning to wonder if Baskerville and I shouldn’t make a run for it, it came to me...
    Two years before, just after my sixth birthday, my mother had taken me shopping to spend the last of my birthday money. It had been a very enjoyable afternoon for the both of us and I had managed to eek out my money so successfully that I was returning home with a model aeroplane, two jigsaw puzzles, and three colouring books, and had even had enough money left over to treat us both to an ice cream. We were almost home, and had been rushing to finish our cornets before our return so that my father would not complain at his missing out, when we had seen a cat carrying a small sparrow in its mouth. Dropping my ice cream instantly, I chased the cat into a narrow gap between some garages where, after much yelling, it dropped the bird. I picked up the tiny animal and took it to my mother. It had been quite badly injured, with blood covering its wing and chest, and although my mother agreed to drive me to the vet with it, she made it clear that the little bird was unlikely to survive its injuries and that I shouldn’t expect any miracles. She told me that it was unlikely that the vet would be able to do any more than put it out of its misery.
    I held the sparrow (who I had named Matilda, after a character in a book I had been reading) tightly in my hands the whole way to the vet’s, desperately hoping that it would live, while knowing it may well not. But then, on our arrival at the vetinary surgery, the strangest thing happened. I was walking across the car park, still holding Matilda, and willing her to be okay in my mind when I felt a sudden shock in my fingers. It is hard to describe how it felt. It was almost like the shock of static electricity, mixed with a pins-and-needles type feeling, mixed with an itch. It caused me to feel momentarily as if I were detached from my own fingers. The feeling was so unexpected that I let go of Matilda with the shock, instantly looking to the floor expecting to see her hit the ground and hurt herself further, but, to my surprise, she hadn’t fallen. Instead she had flown off across the car park and into a nearby tree where she proceeded to sing her little heart out.
    “It’s a miracle,” I said to my mother.
    “There’s no such thing as miracles, Charlie” she insisted. “She must not have been as badly hurt as we thought, that’s all.”
    “But, mum,” I protested. “You saw her, her wing was broken. How could...”
    “I don’t know, Charlie,” my mother interrupted crossly. “Now, let’s just be glad she’s okay and get ourselves home. This dinner won’t cook itself you know.”
    “But...”
    “I don’t want to speak about this again, Charlie,” she snapped, her eyes filled with a mixture of anger and fear. And we never did. In time I simply forgot all about it, the memory lying dormant somewhere at the back of my mind ready to be awoken by a strange man and an injured squirrel.
    But that couldn’t be what he was