Authors: Todd Strasser
Kevin backed away from the window and looked up and down the sidewalk. The street was dark and empty. Down at the corner some men carrying a loud radio shouted and laughed. Kevin shivered and felt a little scared. He kneeled down in front of the door and pushed open the mail slot.
"Hello? Uncle Rob? Anyone home?"
No one answered. It was hopeless. Kevin walked back down the front steps and started back down a street called Central Park West. He stayed on the west side of the street, where the buildings were, until he came to a corner and saw several men in tattered coats sifting through garbage bins for soda cans. Kevin glanced nervously across the street where a tall shadowy stone wall ran next to a dark sidewalk. On the other side of the wall was Central Park. It looked scary on that side of the street, but there might be fewer people. So when the light changed, he crossed.
Kevin walked quickly down the sidewalk next to the wall. The wind made the branches of the trees rattle and throw gnarled shadows over him. Suddenly he tripped over something and looked down to find a dirty-looking man huddled in some ragged blankets.
"Hey, watch it!" the man shouted angrily.
Kevin jumped away and quickened his pace. His heart was pounding and his mouth felt dry.
Kevin started to run. He didn't want to be in this cold shadowy place with all these scary people. Suddenly he saw a cab parked at the curb.
"Hey, taxi!" he shouted. A second later he yanked open the door and jumped in. The cab was dark inside and Kevin could see only the silhouette of the driver's head and shoulders. He slid into the backseat and tried to catch his breath.
"Boy," he gasped," it's scary out there."
The cab's interior light went on and the cab driver slowly turned around. He had a pock-marked, unshaven face, a bent nose, cracked and bloodied lips, and eyes that were dull and cloudy. When he saw Kevin, he grinned, revealing pitted, discolored teeth.
"Ain't much better in here, bud," he said.
"
AAAhhhhhhh!
" Kevin screamed and jumped out of the cab. Desperate to get away from all those horrible people, he ran into the park and followed a trail through the trees that led to a large mass of dark gray rock rising out of the ground. Kevin found a deep gap between two boulders and squeezed in between them. The walls of rock around him were cold and uninviting, but he'd finally found a quiet place where he could catch his breath and be alone.
As he gasped for breath, he felt his stomach start to churn and growl. He realized he hadn't had anything to eat since the pizza in the limousine that morning. Opening his backpack, he took out a bag of Doritos and quickly tore it open.
Boy, he thought as he pressed a handful of corn chips into his mouth, I don't ever want to take a vacation like this again.
A "cooing" sound startled him and he turned to find a pigeon standing on the rock behind him. Kevin smiled. Well, at least this was one creature that didn't mean him any harm. Glad to have some company, he broke off a piece of a Dorito and held it out to the bird, who eyed it for a moment and then plucked it out of his hand.
"I guess you missed dinner, too," Kevin said. "My mother told me never to touch birds. Especially city birds. But you don't look so bad. At least you're nicer than the people around here."
The pigeon finished the Dorito and Kevin decided to give it another piece. But when he looked up, instead of one pigeon, there were now ten looking down at him from the top of the rock.
"Where'd you guys come from?" Kevin asked, surprised. The pigeons answered by cooing and Kevin knew what they wanted. He reached into his backpack, but there was only one bag of Doritos left.
"I hope I have enough for everybody," he said as he crumbled up the last of the corn chips. "How hungry are you guys?"
But instead of taking the crumbled chips, the pigeons started to fly away.
"Hey! Come back!" Kevin cried. "Where're you guys going?"
All the pigeons left except one.
"Well, at least you have some manners," Kevin said. He held out the Dorito crumbs, but instead of eating, the pigeon started to rise from the rock. Kevin couldn't understand how this was happening, especially since the bird wasn't flapping its wings. Then something began to appear under the pigeon's feet . . . knotted, filthy gray hair, a forehead streaked with grime, bushy eyebrows, then eyes!
"
Ahhhhhhhhh!
" Kevin screamed and jumped back. It was her! That crazy disgusting pigeon lady! He turned and tried to run, but his foot got caught in a crack between the rocks. Meanwhile the pigeon lady was coming closer. Kevin had never seen anything so disgusting. He tugged and tugged at his foot. Now she was reaching toward him with filthy, gnarled fingers. Kevin covered his face with his arms. What was she going to do?
Kevin felt the pigeon lady's hand go around his ankle and push down gently until his foot was freed. Terrified, he took his hands away from his eyes to see what she was going to do next. But all she did was back away. Suddenly Kevin realized she hadn't meant him any harm. She'd only tried to help.
Curiosity replaced his fright. Kevin took a step toward her, but the pigeon lady looked nervous and backed away some more. Amazing, Kevin thought. She must be the only person in New York who's scared of me.
"I'm sorry I screamed in your face," he said. "You were just trying to help me, right?"
The pigeon lady nodded and took another step back. Kevin could see she was really nervous.
"I'm Kevin McCallister," he said. "Your birds are real nice."
The pigeon lady stopped backing away and stared curiously at him.
"I've seen you before," Kevin said. "You had pigeons all over you. At first it looked kind of scary, but if you think about it, it's not so bad. They must be all over you because they like you.
The pigeon lady blinked. Kevin wondered what she was thinking. Maybe she didn't like people talking to her. "Hey, if I'm bothering you, just tell me and I'll leave."
She started to open her mouth. Kevin thought she was going to say something, but at first no words came out. Then she said "no" in a voice so small Kevin could hardly hear it.
"You sure I'm not a pain?" Kevin asked. The pigeon lady shook her head.
"Good." Kevin felt relieved. Then he became aware of other sounds around them, like a whole chorus of cooing birds. He looked up at the trees and saw the dark outlines of hundreds of pigeons on the bare branches.
"Will those pigeons come back on their own or do you have to call them?" he asked.
The pigeon lady looked up at the birds and then reached into her pocket. She took out a handful of seeds and put them in Kevin's hand, motioning him to throw them.
"They hear it," she whispered.
Kevin threw the seed and it scattered over the rocks. Immediately, the pigeons swarmed down and started pecking.
"Hey, that's great!" Kevin said.
A crooked little smile appeared on the pigeon lady's face as they watched the birds feed. Then a chilly gust of wind blew past carrying old brown leaves and scraps of newspaper. Kevin shivered and wished he could get something warm to drink, but he didn't want to leave the only friend he had in New York City.
"It's pretty cold out," he said. "I could sure go for a hot cup of chocolate. How about you?"
The pigeon lady gave him a puzzled, uncertain look.
"Maybe you prefer coffee," Kevin said. "Either way it's my treat."
In a million years Kevin couldn't have imagined the place where the pigeon lady wanted to drink her coffee. After picking up cardboard take-out cups at a coffee shop, she led him up a fire escape alongside Radio City Music Hall. They climbed through a window near the roof and sat on a metal grating. As Kevin sipped his hot chocolate, he stared down through the grating at the stage below where a dozen ballerinas in fluffy white tutus twirled to music played by the orchestra.
"I've heard that music before, but I can't remember where," Kevin said, cradling the hot container in his hands.
"It's the
Nutcracker
," the pigeon lady said. "They do it every year around this time."
In their tutus, the ballerinas looked like swirling, spinning white flowers.
"It's nice," Kevin said.
"And warm," the pigeon lady added, cupping her coffee between her fingers.
Kevin looked back at the window they'd climbed in through. The panes were frosted with ice, and cold air was seeping in. "Is this where you live?" he asked.
"No," said the pigeon lady. "I have an apartment.''
"Do you have any kids?"
The pigeon lady shook her head and looked down at her coffee. "I wanted them, but the man I loved fell out of love with me. It broke my heart. Every time a chance to be loved came by after that, I ran from it. You might say I stopped trusting people."
"No offense," Kevin said. "But that seems like a dumb thing to do."
"I was afraid of getting my heart broken again," the pigeon lady explained. "Sometimes you trust a person, and when things are down, they forget about you."
"Maybe they're just too busy," Kevin said. "Maybe they don't forget you, they just forget to remember you. I don't think people mean to forget."
The pigeon lady shrugged. "Maybe. But I'm just afraid if I trust anyone, I'll get hurt again."
"I can sort of understand that," Kevin said. "I used to have this really nice pair of roller skates and I was afraid that if I wore them, I'd wreck them. So I kept them in the box. And you know what happened?"
The pigeon lady shook her head.
"I outgrew them. I never got to use them outside. Just a couple of times in my room."
"A person's feelings are a little different than skates," the pigeon lady said.
"But it's kind of the same thing," Kevin said. "If you aren't gonna use your heart . . . if you just keep it to yourself maybe it'll be like my roller skates. By the time you do decide to use it, it may not be any good. So why not take a chance?"
The pigeon lady nodded. "There's some truth to that."
"I think so," said Kevin. "Your heart may still be broken, but it's not gone. If it was gone, you wouldn't be this nice."
The pigeon lady glanced back at the icy window and sighed. "It's been so long . . . I mean, it's been a couple of years since I even talked to someone.
"That's okay," Kevin said. "You're really good at it. You're not boring, you don't mumble or spit when you talk. You should do it more often. I think you'd just have to wear an outfit that didn't smell like pigeons."
The pigeon lady looked down at her dirty clothes as if seeing them for the first time. "I guess I was working pretty hard at keeping people away."
"I know what you mean," Kevin said. "I always think I'll have a lot of fun if I'm alone. But when there's no one around, it isn't fun at all. I don't care how much some people bug me, I'd rather be with somebody than by myself."
"So why are you alone on Christmas Eve?" the pigeon lady asked. "Did you get into trouble?"
Kevin nodded sheepishly.
"You did something wrong?"
"A lot of things," Kevin admitted
The pigeon lady studied him for a moment. "Did you know that a good deed erases a bad deed?"
"It's probably too late for that," Kevin said with a shrug. "I doubt I'd have time to do enough good deeds to erase all the bad things I did."
"You'll be fine," the pigeon lady said with a smile. "It's Christmas Eve. Good deeds count extra tonight."
Kevin's eyebrows rose. "They do?"
The pigeon lady nodded. "Why don't you think of the most important thing you can do for others right now and go do it."
Kevin wondered what that would be. It didn't seem like there was anything he could do here in New York, but maybe if he tried he could come up with something. He got up.
"I better go see what I can do," he said. "But listen, if I don't see you again, I hope everything comes out all right. And say good-bye to your birds for me, okay?"
"I will," the pigeon lady said.
"And if you need somebody to trust, it can be me," Kevin added. "I promise I won't forget to remember you."
"Don't make any promises you can't keep." The pigeon lady shook her finger at him. But then she winked.
"Merry Christmas." Kevin waved and started to climb out the window to the fire escape.
Back down on the dark sidewalk, Kevin tried to think of what he could do to help others. He saw an empty soda can lying on the curb and put it in a trash can, but that didn't seem like much of a good deed. He'd probably have to clean the whole city to erase all the bad stuff he'd done.
As he walked along, a big bright plastic Christmas star on the top of a nearby roof caught his eye. Curious, Kevin walked toward it until he found himself staring at a large brick building. A sign above the entrance said
NEW YORK CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL.
Kevin stared up at the windows decorated with blinking Christmas lights. In one window a boy wearing a robe and pajamas rubbed a clear circle in the fogged pane and gazed outside. Kevin felt a pang in his heart. It was sad to think of kids his own age cooped up in a hospital on Christmas Eve, too sick to be home with their families. Of all the good deeds he could do, Kevin wished he could do something for the kids in that hospital.
Wait a minute . . . !
The bad guys were planning to rob Duncan's Toy Chest. Hadn't that gray-haired man said all the money in the store that night was going to this hospital? Kevin's eyes widened. The bad guys were going to steal the hospital's money!
Kevin clenched his fists in anger. It was bad to mess with sick kids, but to do it on Christmas was inexcusable! Now he knew what his good deed had to be. He had to stop those guys from robbing the toy store.
A little while later Kevin was walking back up Central Park West. He knew he didn't stand a chance battling the bad guys in the street. But in a house . . .
that
was a different story.
By the time he got to Uncle Rob's house Kevin had started to formulate a plan. It would be called
Operation Ho! Ho! Ho!
and to make it work, he'd need the workmen's tools, glue, cans of paint and paint thinner, kerosene, bricks, rope . . . and Monster Sap Bath Bubbles.