Nutty Warning

The last thing on earth I wanted to do was talk to Nuthatch--alone or otherwise. His beady little eyes bore down on me as I met him at the top of the stairs. I couldn’t guess what it was he wanted to tell me, but he seemed desperate, so I said, “Okay…” and followed him outside.

He really did mean alone, too. I can’t remember ever having seen him move quite as quickly as he was at the moment, walking away from the house toward the forest. I was able to keep up with him, but it was more of a struggle than I’d like to admit. Since when am I not as fast as a middle-aged balding dude with thick glasses?

Once he felt we were far enough away from the house to qualify as “alone,” he stopped abruptly and spun around to face me, making me pull up short to keep from running into him. I gave him a look, but he ignored me. &l