A countryside mystery for young readers

By Gareth M. Parkes

Benji had never seen a sky like this before.

He was walking the chalk ridge above Princes Risborough — a long, open escarpment where the land dropped away in a great green wave below him and the air smelled of wild thyme and cold stone — when he looked up and understood that he was not alone up here.

They were dancing. That was the only word for it.

Six, seven, eight great birds wheeling on invisible currents of warm air, their wings spread wide and perfectly still, their russet-red tails twisting and tilting like living rudders. They were larger than anything Benji had seen in flight — not the hurried flap of a woodpigeon, not the straight arrow of a heron — but something utterly unhurried, as if flying was simply the natural state of things and the effort was in coming down.

Benji sat on the short chalk grass and watched them. His red collar caught the morning light.

After a while, a figure appeared on the path behind him — an elderly man with weathered features and binoculars around his neck, moving with the easy deliberateness of someone who had walked these hills his whole life.

He stopped when he saw Benji, and looked up at what Benji was looking at.

"First time?" the man said.

"Yes," said Benji.

"They never get old," the man said, with the certainty of someone who had checked. He lowered himself onto the grass nearby and raised the binoculars. "Thomas," he added.

"Benji Booboos," said Benji.

Thomas lowered the binoculars and looked at him properly. "You've got the eyes of a watcher. Most dogs just bark and chase. But you're — looking."

"There's so much to see," Benji said, which seemed sufficient explanation.

Thomas nodded as if it was exactly the right answer, and raised the binoculars again. "Do you know what you're looking at?"

"Red Kites," Benji said.

"And do you know they nearly weren't here at all?" Thomas paused. "By the time I was a boy, there wasn't a single one left in England. Persecuted out of existence over two hundred years — poisoned, trapped, shot, their eggs stolen. Every last one gone from the English sky." His voice was flat and old when he said it — the kind of flat that comes from having said a difficult thing enough times that it no longer surprises you, but still matters. "A handful of pairs clung on in the most remote valleys of mid Wales. That was all that was left of them."