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Freddie comes inside, completely out of breath, holding their cat Faust. (Florence insisted on the name. Apparently it was funny because of some old play where the devil follows some dude home as a dog. She tried to call it Mephistopheles first but the little guy had a hard time with that many syllables.) He had been out in the yard with him, letting him run around, lay in the grass, whatever. He was a stray that just showed up one day, he likes to go outside and that's the safest way to do it.
Florence is reading the newspaper when she sees Freddie come in, holding their very pissed off cat. She can't help but laugh as Freddie puts Faust down and it sprints right back to the back door, wanting back outside. "Something exciting out there?" She asks, amused.
"Ten crows that don't seem to realize that they're facing a killing machine." He sighs. "I mean it, these things do not want to leave. Faust jumps at them and they just move, they don't fly away."
"Did he get any of them?" Florence gets up and starts to rummage through a drawer.
"No. I grabbed him before he did."
"Okay, good." She pulls out a note she had folded up. "Walter wanted me to watch out for them. He'd probably notice if one was gone."
Freddie looks over her shoulder. "What?" He skims the note. They're instructions. "What's he doing with some flock of crows?"
"A murder."
"Right, yeah. Doesn't matter. Still weird." He squints to read it. "How come I've never seen them?"
"I see them all the time. Maybe they just don't like you." She teases. "Okay, apparently they like dry cat food. And nuts."
"We're feeding the things?"
"Yep." She puts it down and goes to the kitchen. Faust rubs up against her legs and cries at her to try and convince her to let him outside. She ignores it. She grabs some cat food, nuts, and a bowl to mix them together in.
She looks out the window and sees the birds hopping around. They're staring at the back door, jumping up and down the steps, a couple are sitting nice and still. She smiles. They've all got their own personalities, and she can see that from the way they're moving right now alone. Walter can tell them all apart. She suspects he's named them, but refuses to admit it no matter how many times she asks. She can't consistently tell them apart, but she can tell they're all different in some way or another. They're kind of cute. She wouldn't care about them if Walter didn't care so much. It rubs off on her.
She picks up the bowl. "Okay. Let's go. Pick Faust up while I have the door open, okay? My hands are full."
"Got it." Freddie picks up the mid-tantrum cat. He waits for Florence to go outside, then puts Faust down and follows her out, careful to keep the cat inside.
Florence sits on the stairs and tosses out a bit of the mixture at them. The crows jump on it happily, eating it all, but clearly expecting more. Which makes sense, because she has more. She tosses out some more.
"Man. These guys are kinda cute." Freddie crouches down.
Florence passes Freddie a handful. "Here. Give them some." She walks out into the yard and kneels down onto the ground. They come a couple feet away from her. She's seen them eat right out of Walter's hand before, they like him, and they like her too but not quite as much. She tosses the rest out to them.
Freddie tries to mimic her. They steer clear of him. They've seen him before, but never in this kind of context. They don't know him. He tries not to be offended when they won't come near. Eventually he gives up trying to convince them to come.closer and throws the food in his hand. They look at it kind of skeptically, but eventually dig in.
Florence looks back at Freddie and sees him smiling. "You like them, don't you?"
"What?" He realizes he's smiling. "I mean, I guess. They're cute."
They hear a little clink and look over to the bowl. The bird that made the noise is gone by the time they look, but it's left something. Florence picks up a little metal object out of the bowl. It's an earring. It's metal, someone probably lost it and the crow thought it was shiny enough to be a nice offering. "Oh!" She shows it to Freddie. "This is cute. If I knew where it came from I would wear this." She wears mismatched earrings sometimes. It's almost as if it's a personalized gift, which it obviously isn't, but she's pleased by the coincidence.
Freddie shrugs. "Wash it. It'll be fine." He takes a closer look. "Is this what they do?"
Florence nods. "Apparently. I've seen Walter come in with all kinds of stuff. Anything shiny. Pretty rocks. Bones, sometimes."
Freddie's a bit relieved to hear that, having found a box of tiny animal bones under the bed a while back. He hadn’t wanted to mention it, but thought it was super weird. This is probably the most regular explanation for it. "Pretty cool." He looks up over the grass. "I think they left a couple other things."
The two go and look in the grass. Two more things, a white rock with a band of red around it, and a dime.
"Here we go. This is a lot." Florence smiles. "We got lucky and saw them on a good day, I think." She only watches sometimes, but she only remembers Walter ever getting one or two things at once. Half the time, nothing at all.
"I get why he does this." Freddie is fixated on the rock. It's pretty cool. They have a good taste in rocks. He's going to keep this, he thinks.
Florence rolls the earring around in her fingers. It'll need thorough cleaning before she's willing to put it anywhere near her ears, but that's okay. "Me too. This is… really cool, actually." She watches, but she never joins in. Being gifted something by a bird directly flatters her a little.
They watch as the birds fly away. They'll be back tomorrow.