Ever stared at the response. A brown pigeon with cream spots fluttered onto the bench next to him, looking for missed wafer crumbs. It flapped and settled a foot away as Ever shifted his weight on his backside.

  What was that little face at the end of the message? Why was it sticking out its tongue? What sort of response could he even give to this? He held the phone loosely in his hands, his thumbs wandering in circles across the screen.

  Wait a second. What does this smiley face icon do? Ever tapped it, bringing up a grid of yellow emojis of varying expressions. So that’s how she did it; that answered the first question. Next was what did the sticking out tongue emoji mean? He located it in the grid and selected it. Hesitantly, he opened his mouth, put his tongue out and closed one eye.

  There was a flurry of flapping. A speckled bird alighted on Ever’s shoulder.

  ^Hello, what are you doing?^ It cooed.

  “What does it mean when people make this face?” He turned his head at Clementine’s guardian pigeon and copied the emoji.

  ^Hoo, hoo, hoo!^ The pigeon laughed. ^You look silly.^

  Ever pursed his lips, looking back at the text message. On one hand, it was good that he had time to think about a response. On the other, without all of the visual cues he’d become used to since arriving on Earth, it was hard to know what Zoe was saying.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  The blue bubble returned, three circles bouncing within it. “Anyway, what’s up?”

  This was easier to reply to. Ever tapped out his response: “I’ve got a dog that was injured last week. Could I bring her in to get her checked?”

  The blue bubble came back within seconds. “What sort of injury?”

  “She was kicked in the nose and mouth.”

  “What?! ??”

  That emoji looked angry. Could people actually get that red when they were angry? He started typing out a response, starting with what happened when he was lining up for a hot dog. He made a few typos, deleted back to it, rewrote it, wanted to change a word… eventually he held backspace and deleted the whole thing.

  “It’s a long story, can I call you?”

  This time, he waited more than a minute. “Not atm, in the middle of something.”

  Ever looked around. He’d been sitting here so long that the pigeons had disappeared. Even Clementine’s pigeon was gone. One of the last trams for the day heading to the university dinged past. I should start heading back to the treehouse… or should I check on Mimi? He stood up, just about to put the phone in his pocket, when it buzzed again.

  “Is the dog able to eat?”

  “Yes.”

  “If it having trouble breathing?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Ever started heading back towards the road, focused on the phone.

  “I can fit you in at the start of next week. Can you bring your dog in then?”