An inhuman screaming teased at Steven's ears. At first, he brushed it off. But as the screeching grew louder, Steven realized the noise was real. At around the same time, Connie heard the noise herself.

She placed her sandwich down on a paper plate, and stood up. "Do you hear that?" She gazed over the beach, then back down the hill at the Beach House. A pink fleck strolled up the grass, towards them.

"That's Lion!" said Steven, pointing.

"I didn't know Lion could scream like that." Said Connie. "Do you think he's in trouble?"

"Uhh…probably not. He seems pretty relaxed."

Connie readjusted her sun hat, and sat back down on the checkered cloth. Grabbing her sandwich, she bit a bite, and watched as Lion came closer. The screaming grew louder.

As Lion approached, the source of the screaming became clear. Lion had snagged a baby crow in his jaws. The baby bird shrieked and scolded and cried and flapped about in Lion's jaws frantically. Despite the fuss in his mouth, Lion remained as sedate as a stone lion guarding a library.

Steven sprang up. "Lion!" He scolded. "What did I tell you about kidnapping little animals smaller than you?" Lion stopped a few paces from the picnic as Steven stomped over. Steven seized Lion's jaws and did his best to tug them open, worming his fingers into the crack. "Come on! Let the birdy go! Let! It! G-!"

Lion cracked his jaws open a tad, and the baby crow shot out. Like a black lintball, it whisked across the grass. Connie caught it in a soft cloth bag as it passed by her, with her stellar reflexes. Connie closed the bag shut, and held it in the air as the crow within calmed down slowly. In the background, she could hear Steven scolding Lion.

The incident effectively ended the picnic. Connie looked over the rest of the food-a slice of chocolate pie, a thermos quarter full of lemonade, some sandwich crusts, bits and pieces of lettuce and onion, and a lot of potato salad, garnished with sweet red onions. Vidalia had given them a massive container of the stuff, partially because she had made too much and partially as a gift.

After a week of eating the salad, a gallon of the stuff still remained. Drastic action would have to be taken to reduce the potato salad's numbers.

"I guess we'll have to pack all this stuff up," said Connie, waving her hands over the food, but the salad especially.

Lion sniffed at the food, and helped himself to the small things, like the crusts. Connie placed a hand on his snout, just as Lion's eyes wandered over to the chocolate pie. "Chocolate isn't good for lions. Right, Steven?"

Steven stopped tidying up. "Umm. I'm actually not sure. I saw him eating a Lion Licker once."

"I always suspected Lions engaged in cannibalism." Connie smacked her palm with her fist. Lion took that opportunity to snap up the last pie piece without anyone noticing.

Steven stacked the dirty containers like Russian nesting dolls. He placed a small plastic one in a slightly larger glass one, and put those inside a larger plastic container. Soon, all the plastic containers had been packed up very neatly.

As the trio set out down the hill overlooking the many-armed statue, Connie held up the bag, with the cheeping crow inside. "I don't think the crow's too hurt. We can just set it free!"

"Now?" asked Steven.

"Yeah!" said Connie. She stopped to kneel in the grass. Undoing the drawstring of the black bag, she exposed the baby crow to the wide world. "Fly! Be freeeee…"

The crow stayed put in the folds of the bag, tilting its head all over. Connie cleared her throat. "Very funny. Come on, time for you to go home," said Connie, nudging the bird a little on its rump. The bird jumped away from Connie's finger, but otherwise made no move to leave.

"Maybe it's hurt," mused Steven, dropping his pack and crouching down to the bird's level. The bird stared at Steven as he brought his face closer to the bird's. "Are you hurt? Aww. I'll help you…" Steven gently reached out for the bird, wrapping his fingers around the crow's wings. The crow let out a series of ear splitting shrieks. Steven yelled, and almost dropped the shrieking crow.

The trio ran as quickly as they could, down the hill, to the Beach House. Connie assembled a temporary crow house, a cloth-lined box with a wooden dowel stabbed through it. Steven hovered the crow's feet over the dowel. The crow seized the dowel tightly. "Now…let it go!" said Connie. On her cue, Steven let the crow go.

After a bit of flapping to stabilize itself, the crow stayed still on its dowel. "Ok!" said Connie. "That's Step One! Now let's stop that screaming."

Connie rustled around for a bit, and took out another black sack. Folding it over itself once, Connie laid the sack over the crow's body. The crow stopped screaming, and quietly spoke to itself.

"There. The darkness will calm the crow down," said Connie, digging her phone out from her pocket..

"Whoa…" Steven looked at the crow's outline. "You're sure it won't suffocate?"

Connie looked up from her phone. "Um, I don't think so." Connie glanced at the crow, and replied more confidence. "Nope! If the crow was suffocating, it would try to fly away. But now it's completely calm. So it's fine."

"Okay," said Steven. "So what should we do now?" He hugged his legs up to his chest, and rocked back and forth a little.

Connie scrolled down her phone with a thumb. "Let's look at the crow, first, for injuries. Then we should try to feed it-but not water it!" She thrust a pointer finger at Steven, adding emphasis.

Steven rocked onto his back, splaying his legs and arms everywhere. "Why not? What if the birdy gets thirsty?"

"According to this website on rehabilitating baby crows…they get a lot of water from their food. I think that if the crow tries to drink water, they could breathe it up instead!"

"I didn't know you breathe in water," said Steven, squirming on the carpet.

"It makes sense though," said Connie, rubbing her chin. "That's how people drown! They can't hold their breath anymore, then breathe in a big gulp of water and die!"

"Like how we got trapped at the bottom of the sea?"

That line of discussion was abandoned really quickly. Connie carefully lifted the cloth halfway, to inspect the crow's body. Steven took ahold of the cloth, and as Connie folded her fingers around the crow, lifted it off. The crow began to squawk.

Connie inspected his wings, eyes, nose, feet, anything she could think of. Eventually, she determined the bird was fine. Lion probably just kidnapped the bird from his nest without hurting him.

The two moved onto feeding the crow. Based on Connie's research, they decided to feed the little bird mashed fruits and peanut butter.

Connie fetched a case of blueberries, and smashed them in a bowl. Taking a dollop of mashed blueberry, Steven hovered the food above the crow's head. The crow made no move to acknowledge Steven.

Connie crouched near, and gently persuaded the crow to open its beak. Steven pushed the pea-sized lump of mashed blueberry down the bird's throat. He ate the blueberry, then began screeching for more.

Connie and Steven spent the next couple of days caring for the bird continually. When Connie was busy, Steven would keep the bird near him, feeding him, tidying after him, providing him with a large space to live in (no cages for Steven's baby!) and letting him soak up much-needed sun.

Some time later, in the dead of the night, Lion peered through the window of the Beach House at the sleeping baby crow. The little black crow had already become lodged deep in Steven's heart, like a thin metal splinter in a finger. Steven would not let Lion in the house when the dumb bird was inside, to keep Jet safe. Lion had only brought the bird to Steven for him to heal him (how could Lion know the bird was just screaming pointlessly?) not to get attached.

More than a little upset, Lion loped away, to the Barn. The crows that liked to line around the Barn and wait for Lapis to feed them had left, because they thought the area was no longer safe. Lion had borne witness to a bunch of bratty young kids sneaking up on one of the crows' nests, further in the forest. The kids had dislodged the nest from the tree; the baby bird fell out. The parents attacked the brats, trying to drive them away.

Lion watched as a bystander. Eventually, the kids ran away, laughing. Lion waited until everyone was gone, then pursued and snapped up the baby crow.

The crow had been shrieking and flapping its wings wildly. At the moment, Lion thought the brats had hurt the baby crow, so he brought it to Steven for healing. Apparently, he had been duped by the clever crow.

At the Barn, Lion sniffed out Lapis, seeker of that same baby crow Lion had took. Once she found it, she could assure her flock that it was safe again. All this time the baby crow was absent, the crow flock kept a distance. Lapis could approach, but the crows would not approach the Barn, preferring the dense trees.

Lion managed to get Lapis to follow him to the Beach House, and pointed out the baby crow.