“Me?” He sounded surprised, like he’d heard his number called at a raffle.

“This is your responsibility!” These were her own mother’s words coming out of her mouth, in the same frothing tone.

“Um. What?” He gulped.

“This is your responsibility!”

Uh-oh. This was not good. He recognized the signs. People were staring. It was only a matter of minutes now, seconds maybe. He could feel it, a clenching in the gut, a wincing. Here comes number seventy-three.

Five minutes earlier, the young Zuero had stood motionless, his shaggy head tilted in deep thought, both hands crossed over the butt of a push-broom handle. He was on a pebbled walkway that coursed through the bird pavilion. Lulled into a trance by the interlacing patterns of some palm fronds waving in a waft of air, there was no telling what passersby guessed he was thinking. He might have been thinking of the Triumphant Entry, or the Girls of Hawaiian Tropic. Whatever it was, the sound that broke the spell wasn't the din of predatory bird cries or the ill-mannered whines of a spoiled toddler. It was the unmistakable sound of a powerful stream of giant avian feces painting a white line down the pavement.

It sounded like a ridiculous Nickelodeon invention rapid-firing a dozen Super-Sloppy fistfuls of soggy oatmeal in under a second. By the time he turned around to face it . . . .