The George Washington Bridge was far below me, and below that, the Hudson River. New Jersey was coming up next. Happy and giddy, I flapped my wings faster.  

Then my alarm started to chirp.

Rats!
The thing was, I thought with my eyes half-open, I hadn’t set my alarm, and the chirps seemed to be coming from the window. 

Blearily, I shuffled to the window. The only thing there was a pigeon. Gray and white feathers. A head the size of a gum ball. An everyday, ordinary pigeon. I yawned and decided to go back to bed.  But as soon as I lifted my hands to shut the window, the pigeon started to squawk.

 “Be quiet!” I hissed. “You’ll wake the whole house.” Immediately, the bird went silent. Had he understood me? I placed my hands on the ledge and leaned down to study him.  When the pigeon cocked his head and stared up at me, I inhaled.

His eyes. They were orange. As orange as pumpkins. And those claws. Knobby and sharp, and as brilliantly red as fire engines. Most spectacular were the feathers circling his neck. A rainbow of purples, blues, and greens that shimmered under the early morning sun like gemstones.

“Where did you come from?” I whispered.

“Hoo-hoo-hoo.”

“The park?” 

“Cooo-cooo.” 

Would he coo or hoo every time I asked a question? 

“How old are you?” I asked.

The bird began to blink. I counted them, the blinks, I mean. They stopped at eleven. I was eleven too. 

It wouldn't take a genius (although I was one - certifed and everything) to realize how dumb I sounded, asking a pigeon questions. But everyone else was sleeping. No one would ever know. 

Or maybe someone would. I stared down at my visitor. That was the question I needed to find out. 

“Um, my name is Violet," I said, aiming for casual yet friendly. "Pleased to meet you.”

He cocked his head. This time as if he were waiting. For what?

 “What’s your name?” He didn’t care to respond, it seemed. Maybe I was being too pushy.

But having a name was important. How can you talk to someone, I mean really talk, if they’re just a nameless face in the crowd?

“Herkimer.” I announced. Strange how easily the name slipped off my tongue. It was dignified and unusual, and that's how I saw the pigeon. "That's what I'll name you."

When Herkimer trilled out a long, grateful coo, something caught in my throat. The feeling of being nameless, I guess. As if you didn't matter, as if no one really saw you. I'd made Herkimer happy by giving him a name—although I couldn't swear to it. I was happy for him, and that was a fact.

In a heart beat he was up in the air. 

“Wait, Herkimer! Don’t go!” I waved at him wildly. "Please don't go!" 

But I had got it wrong. He was up in the sky, showing off - not flying away. Between hair-raising sky dives, triple-axel flips, crazy eights, free falls he kept glancing down at me, as if to see if I was impressed. I was. I really was. I couldn't stop gasping and holding my breath.

When he landed back on the window ledge, he bobbed his head. Was he taking a bow? I applauded 'til my palms were red. 

“Wait here!” I ran to the kitchen. I wanted to be a good hostess. But when I ran back with peanut butter and crackers, the window ledge was empty. 

I was sure he would be back—even without a scrap of hard data to prove it.

After Herkimer was gone I realized that during his visit, I'd forgotten about the mean kids and school. I forgot about pleasing my parents. I forgot about being lonely.  

A chance meeting at a window. That’s all it took. And now I had a friend.