we stood on gave us a clear view of the whole colony.
“Take a look,” Dr. Kapoor invited. Or rather, instructed. I stepped up to the binoculars. I could make out the nests tucked among the rocks. They were shallow bowls of twigs and grass. In pairs or singly, adult birds fussed and bobbled around chicks that ranged from grumpy-looking but cute balls of down to scraggly, skin-and-peach-fuzz creatures that looked like aliens.
“And we’re just counting the chicks?” I asked.
“No, I am counting the chicks,” Dr. Kapoor said. “You are standing right there and not interrupting.” She pointed toward an empty patch of grass near Abby. I shuffled over obediently.
Kenny pulled a binder and a laminated map of the nest sites, each numbered, out of his bag and sat cross-legged on the ground. He flipped the binder to a printed chart with empty cells and waited expectantly as Dr. Kapoor scanned the landscape before settling on a target.
“Nest nineteen,” she said. “One live chick. One egg, unhatched. Nest twenty . . . the second chick didn’t make it through the night; it’s not moving. One chick still living. Nest twenty-one . . .”
It went on like that for a while, with long pauses as Dr. Kapoor adjusted the binoculars and checked with Kenny that he was caught up. I shifted from foot to foot to keep my circulation going. Liam had put in earbuds and found a rock to sit on. Abby paced a short distance away, her camera out and clicking away as she took landscape shots.
Hardcastle had the headphones on, pointing at something on the laptop screen and talking to Lily. I tried not to watch him too carefully, too obviously, but I couldn’t help it—looking at him made my skin crawl, but looking away made me feel like I was turning my back on something dangerous. When he took off the headphones and looked up at me, I jerked, certain that my suspicion was written on my face.
“Why don’t you three go explore the rest of the island?” Hardcastle asked.
Dr. Kapoor’s head whipped up. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said.
“Why not?” he asked. “Sophia should know the lay of the land, at least, and Liam’s gotten the tour already, so he can show the ladies around.”
Liam popped out one earbud, looking hopeful. Abby kept her back to the adults, studiously examining her camera, but she looked as hungry as I felt to see this place.
Dr. Kapoor considered. Then she relented. “Keep your radio on you,” she told Liam.
“Got it.” Liam straightened up, stretching. The movement emphasized his long frame. My own build could generously be described as skeletal, but the rain shell I’d donned over my usual uniform of a T-shirt and jeans made me look shapeless.
We left the others and tracked over the back side of a hill. It was good to move after standing still for so long, and it must have shown.
“I thought she’d leave you stood there all day,” Liam said. “You know, if you’re lucky, maybe she’ll let you look at a bird for more than two seconds by the end of the summer. But you have to establish that trust first. Prove yourself.”
I snorted. “I guess I was expecting things to be a bit more hands-on.”
“In a week or two they’ll do the banding on the chicks. That’s a lot more interesting, Kenny says. But most of the action happens back at the LARC itself. Kenny’s doing something with DNA, and Lily and Hardcastle are doing this whole study on the bird calls—apparently they’re unusually varied, or something? I was sort of tuning her and Kenny out at that point, I’ll be honest. They get a bit overexcited. Tend to ramble. Then again, I seem to be rambling, myself. So stones, glass houses, et cetera.” He slanted his smile at me.
“So can you show us around town?” Abby asked. She’d stopped to take a picture of Bitter Rock, beyond the channel of gray water and the black fangs of the isthmus, and she hustled to catch up.
“You mean Landontown?” Liam said with a frown. “There’s not much there.”
“But it is why I came,” she reminded him.
“I suppose it’s either that or an exciting tour of the island’s best rocks,” Liam said with a shrug. “This way, then. So you know about the Cole Landon debacle?” He was asking me.
I feigned ignorance, shaking my head. “Isn’t that the guy who founded the LARC?”