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constructed building and found his way to Doctor Charles Salisbury’s office. While the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign was well-known for its veterinary sciences, he’d been referred to Dr. Salisbury by his graduate advisor in Madison. Dr. Salisbury planned to build a new discipline through the Life Sciences program at Northwestern and wanted a recent doctoral recipient to help build it. While the job resembled something a grad student would do, Dr. Salisbury’s reputation in the field could be exactly the thing Sasha needed to make his own mark on veterinary science.
    That his mom wanted him to become a doctor, and not a vet, was only a small annoyance. It wasn’t like she could remember anything now, not in the state she was in.
    Funny, but that didn’t help make it better…
    “Doctor Soskoff?” A trim man in his mid forties stood before him, silver starting to wing from his temples into dark brown hair.
    “Doctor Salisbury. It’s good to finally meet you. Doctor Fowler spoke very highly of your time together at Stanford.”
    “You weren’t exaggerating about your recent…experiences.” He peered at Sasha. “How are you feeling?”
    “Just fine. It looks worse than it is.”
    “Which we both know is plenty serious,” the doctor lectured. “Come. My office is two doors down. Can I get you some coffee?”
    “That would be nice.” He followed the doctor into his sunny yellow office, overflowing with rhododendrons, pothos plants, spider plants and several species of fern. A huge fish tank took up one whole bookcase on the right, and a bird cage with an enormous Scarlet Macaw stood behind his desk with an open roost nearby.
    The parrot squawked loudly when they walked in and said, “Hello, Doctor. Hello, Doctor.”
    Sasha grinned. “Hello.”
    “Grape,” the bird responded.
    “Grape?”
    “Grape.”
    Dr. Salisbury handed him a sprig of fat green fruit. “He calls everybody Doctor. Feed him, or he’ll never leave you alone. His name’s Faust.”
    “Grape.”
    “All right, all right, you big baby,” Sasha soothed. He held a grape poised through the bars and Faust took it with a delicate movement. Sasha fed him the rest, one by one, lost in the experience. He loved birds, but no one he knew could afford such a magnificent specimen. “He’s a Macaw? Scarlet Macaw?” he asked over his shoulder.
    “Raised him from the shell myself,” Dr. Salisbury answered. “Devilish little blighter too. Crushed my best pocket watch, so mind your fingers.”
    “Scratch,” Faust demanded.
    “May I?” Sasha asked.
    Dr. Salisbury helped him open the cage after double-checking that the door to the hall was closed. Faust hopped onto Sasha’s proffered wrist and let him move him out of the cage, ducking his head to the side to keep him from bumping it on the edge of the metal. Sasha laughed at the sight. Faust’s upper beak looked like smooth ivory, while his lower one darkened to almost ebony. It reminded him of a piano.
    Faust cocked his head, eyeing him, and then hopped onto his shoulder. He stepped around and hunkered down with his head under Sasha’s ear, bunched up into a compact ball of feathers.
    Dr. Salisbury laughed. “I’m sorry. The old boy is rather fond of you, it appears. He never does that with strangers. Would you like to sit down?”
    The entire interview passed with Faust curled up on his shoulder, every once in a while pausing to comb his hair. Extraordinarily well-behaved, the bird didn’t nip at his fingers or ear once the entire time, and got a special treat from Dr. Salisbury at the end.
    “Good-bye,” Faust called as Sasha preceded the doctor into the hall.
    “I’ll have my assistant call you in a couple weeks, once the regents make up their minds,” the doctor promised. “Same number?”
    “Yes, please,” Sasha agreed. He offered his hand and the older vet took it.
    He skipped down the steps to the car. Marty waved and his whole face brightened as he read the