[i]Muh-thuh-fuh-kuhz,[/i] re-pronounced in Trevor's head. He was not sure what that was supposed to mean, but the voice sounded angry. His mother [i]must[/i] have done something. Trevor picked up his crow and held it close to his chest. He remembered times when he was angry at his mother. He did not miss those times, but he did miss seeing her smiling face, especially that smiling face she would give his dad when he came back to the apartment after work. He squeezed the bird, and the stiff feathers still attached to the corpse. The feathers were stale with dried, darkened blood. 

He stopped squeezing the bird and held its face close to his face. He puckered out his lips as to imitate the beak, "Gym time," he explained at last, in a quiet early-elementary voice. Inside Trevor's head, the bird had responded with an exuberant amount of glee.