Gabriel Finley and the Raven’s Riddle Read Free

Chicken fried rice!” he muttered.
    Ms. Cumacho, who had been pulling up the window blinds, turned back to the class. “Somes?” she said. “What did you eat?”
    The bully’s lips quivered. “Um, chicken fried rice.”
    â€œChicken fried rice. How unusual!”
    Ms. Cumacho wrote this on the blackboard. “Now,” she said, scanning the students before her. “Who else? Gabriel, how about you? What was your breakfast?”
    Gabriel paused, faced with a fresh problem. How would it sound if he also said
chicken fried rice
? Then he felt a surge of outrage that he even had to worry about his answer.
    â€œI had chicken fried rice, too.”
    Ms. Cumacho’s smile faded. “If you can’t take this discussion seriously, Gabriel, you can leave.”
    â€œI’m
being
serious,” he said. “That’s what I had. It’s Somes who—”
    Somes uttered a roar and punched Gabriel sharply in the arm. “He’s lying, Ms. Cumacho!”
    A large purple bruise appeared on Gabriel’s arm that afternoon. On the walk home from school, his friend Addison Sandoval gazed at it with admiration.
    â€œWow.” He whistled. “Looks painful.”
    â€œYou have no idea,” muttered Gabriel.
    â€œWell, look on the bright side. Ms. Cumacho saw Somes hit you. He’s got detention.”
    Gabriel didn’t get much satisfaction from this.
    â€œYou could have just said scrambled eggs or oatmeal or anything,” suggested Addison.
    â€œWhy should I lie about breakfast?” Gabriel replied.
    It was an uphill walk from school to their houses on Fifth Street. In the fall, acorns dropped from the tall oaks that lined the street, bouncing on car roofs and crunching under the boys’ feet. Gabriel noticed a large black bird watchingthem from a nest of twigs and leaves overhead. He pointed it out to Addison.
    â€œThat’s a raven,” said Addison. “You can tell by the beak and the iridescent feathers—they change colors as it turns, see? Ravens are the largest of the corvids, which are a bird family that include crows, ravens, and rooks.”
    â€œI didn’t know you knew so much about ravens,” said Gabriel.
    â€œI have to be an expert on these things,” Addison explained. He wanted to run a natural history museum when he grew up.
    â€œI’m an expert on riddles,” said Gabriel as he looked up at the raven.
    â€œWhat job requires a riddle expert?” said Addison. “It doesn’t seem very useful.”
    Gabriel remembered his father telling him that riddles were good for the brain. “Athletes have flexible bodies,” he’d said. “But great thinkers have flexible minds.”
    Meanwhile, the raven’s eyes rested curiously on Gabriel, as if waiting for a reply to Addison’s question. When Gabriel remained silent, the raven settled its gaze on an apple core on the sidewalk.
    Addison waved his hand at the bird. “Shoo, off you go!” he cried.
    â€œWait,” said Gabriel. “I think it wants that apple core for its chick.”
    The moment he said this, the raven flew down and seizedthe core with its curved black beak. It placed one claw forward toward Gabriel, dipping its head graciously, then flew back to its nest.
    Addison regarded his friend curiously. “How do you know that’s why the raven wants it?”
    Gabriel gave him a firm stare. “I just knew what it was thinking.”
    â€œImpossible,” said Addison. “Totally impossible!”
    â€œYou have to admit that it seemed to thank me.”
    Addison frowned and shook his head. “I doubt it,” he said. “Ravens are mimics, like parrots, but they don’t have much intelligence.”
    Gabriel stared up at the tree. He was sure the raven had bowed to him.

Paravolating
    T he raven carried her apple core up to the edge of a big nest of twigs and sticks. She was a