The Dinosaur Feather

of turtles and crocodiles. A bird skeleton was streamlined, its bones were hollow and filled with air and provided the bird with superior movements, its plumage was perfect and its egg-laying process was second to none. People never thought about that when sparrows pecked their lawns or pigeons soiled the bonnets of their cars. This appealed to Clive. It was as if he alone had spotted the ruby in the dust.
    Clive’s father didn’t care for birds.
    ‘It’s actually shocking how little you know about the local wolves, given that your father is a world famous expert,’ he remarked one day. He had tested Clive on the subject of mammalian teeth over dinner and Clive hadn’t been very successful. He could remember molars and pre-molars. ‘And eye-teeth,’ he had added. Clive’s father gave him a long, hard stare.
    ‘Eye-teeth are pre-molars, you moron,’ he said after a lengthy pause, whereupon he got up and went to his study. Clive had been on the verge of telling him something about bills. The structure of the bill was unique, evolved and adapted to such an extent that Clive could barely believe it. Long, thin bills, short, stubby, curled bills. Herbivore, omnivore or carnivore, there was a bill for every imaginable purpose. Clive’s heart was set on birds and he didn’t mind that they weren’t mammals.
    Clive was offered a place to study Biology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver when he was twenty and knew all there was to know about birds. He ran to the post box the day the letter arrived, and tore open the envelope. When he learned that he had been successful – somethinghe had been expecting – he looked back at his childhood home. Somewhere inside it, his father was clinging desperately to his books. Clive never wanted to end up like him. There was more to life than academia. The sun warmed Clive’s forehead and he closed his eyes. As a child, he had worshipped and feared his father – he still did, as a matter of fact. However, as Clive’s knowledge of natural science had expanded, it had become impossible to believe
everything
his father told him. Besides, natural science was changing with new methods, modern behavioural research and a world of technology which Clive believed to be the future, but which David Freeman had very little time for. In recent years their discussions had become so heated that Clive’s mother would sometimes take her plate to the kitchen to eat in peace.
    In a few weeks he would put his childhood behind him. Perhaps this would improve their relationship? Perhaps David would visit him in Vancouver, proud that his son was following in his footsteps?
    That evening, he told his parents about the offer and informed them he would be leaving home soon.
    ‘The gait of birds is clumsy and ridiculous,’ David Freeman observed, and carried on eating.
    Clive’s mother said: ‘Stop it, both of you.’
    Clive visualised himself leaving the table, casting a patronising glance at his father’s bald patch, and taking his plate to the kitchen before going to his room to read. But instead he turned to his father and remarked calmly that even if one accepted that birds didn’t walk with much elegance, it followed it was even more impressive that many of them still used their feet for walking, given their highly evolved abilityto fly. After all, wolves could
only
walk. They didn’t master an alternative form of movement.
    David said he couldn’t hear what Clive had said. Clive repeated his words, louder than strictly necessary.
    David responded by firing off Latin terms for bones, but he muddled up the wolf’s leg, whose construction he regarded as superior to that of a bird’s in every respect. Clive’s mother passed the potatoes and poured water into glasses. She shot Clive a quick, pleading look.
    Suddenly Clive pricked up his ears.
    What was it David had just said?
    ‘What did you just say?’
    Clive’s mother sat absolutely still and David’s face froze halfway through his argument, his hand suspended in midair, his mouth half-open. They both knew it. In his outburst, David had referred to a small bone, which in more primitive mammals was located between the talus bone and the tibia, though any fool knew that the bone in question had been reduced through evolution. David Freeman had made a mistake, Clive had heard it and David knew that he had.
    Nothing happened for several seconds. The air stood still and Clive’s heart raced. Then David pushed back his