Ginger did not like the crow. At least, not at first.

He had been following her all morning. When Ginger walked to the end of the yard, the crow flew to the fence. When she went toward the garden, he landed on the shed. And when she sat beneath the tree with a piece of bread and a jar of lemonade, he settled on a branch directly above her.

Ginger looked up. The crow looked down. He was large and black, with feathers so shiny that they flashed blue in the sunlight. “Are you following me?”

Caw!

“I thought so.”

Ginger took a bite of bread. The crow hopped to a lower branch. “That's mine.” The crow tilted his head. Ginger took another bite, and the crow hopped lower still. “You have the whole world to find something to eat. You're not getting my lunch.”

The crow stared at the bread. Ginger turned away.

A moment later, she heard wings. Something brushed the top of her head. “Hey!”

The crow landed several feet away, and there, dangling from his beak, was the blue ribbon Ginger had been wearing in her hair.

“My ribbon!”

The crow flew to the fence. Ginger jumped up and followed him. “Give that back!” He hopped along the fence rail. Ginger followed. He hopped again. So did Ginger. Then he flew to the roof of the shed.

Ginger put her hands on her hips. “That isn't funny.”

The crow seemed to disagree. He dropped the ribbon, and Ginger hurried toward it. But before she reached the shed, the crow swooped down, grabbed the ribbon again, and flew away.

“You are a thief!”

Ginger chased him across the yard. The crow flew toward the old trees beyond the fence, and Ginger squeezed through the gate and followed. Every time she thought she had lost him, she heard a loud Caw! and there he was, waiting. He flew from tree to tree, never going very far ahead.

Finally, he landed on a low branch near an old cottonwood. Ginger stopped beneath him. “Now what?”

The crow looked toward the ground, then back at Ginger, then toward the ground again. Ginger followed his gaze.

Something glittered beneath the tree.

She crouched and found her ribbon, but it wasn't alone. Beside it lay a little collection of treasures, a silver bottle cap, a piece of blue glass worn smooth around the edges, a button, a bit of string, a small metal washer, and something Ginger recognized immediately.

“My marble!”

She picked up the green glass marble she had lost several days before and looked at the crow. “You took this too?”

The crow ruffled his feathers.

Ginger examined his collection. Some of it was shiny, some colorful, and some completely ordinary. Apparently, the crow had his own ideas about what counted as treasure.

“You're a collector.”

The crow hopped down to a lower branch. Ginger picked up her ribbon and then reached for the marble.

CAW!

Ginger stopped. “Oh, that belongs to you now?”

The crow stared at her. Ginger stared back. “I don't think so.”

She slipped the marble into her pocket. The crow fluttered his wings indignantly, and Ginger laughed.

Then she noticed something else beneath the tree.

A tiny nest had fallen from one of the branches and lay on its side among the leaves. Ginger's smile disappeared. She looked up into the tree. The crow had become quiet.

Ginger moved closer. The nest was empty, but nearby she heard a faint sound.

Peep.

Ginger froze.

There it was again.

Peep.

She carefully moved aside some leaves. A tiny bird sat beneath them. It wasn't a crow. It was a little brown bird, hardly more than a bundle of feathers, blinking up at her.

Ginger looked at the crow. “Is this what you wanted me to find?”

The crow said nothing.

Perhaps it was. Perhaps it wasn't.

Ginger knew better than to assume that every baby bird on the ground needed rescuing. Some young birds left their nests before they could fly very well, and their parents continued caring for them nearby. So she didn't pick it up.

Instead, Ginger backed away and sat beneath another tree to wait. The crow waited too.

For several minutes, nothing happened. Then a small brown bird flew into the tree. Another followed. One of them landed on the ground near the little bird.

Peep! Peep!

“There you are,” Ginger whispered.

The parents knew exactly where their baby was.

Ginger smiled. The crow flew down and landed several feet from her. For the first time all morning, he seemed content simply to sit there.

Ginger studied him. “I may have been wrong about you.”

The crow tilted his head.

“You're still a thief.”

Caw.

“And you still stole my ribbon.”

The crow took two little hops toward her. Ginger reached into her pocket and found a small brass button she had picked up weeks ago because she thought it was pretty. She placed it on the ground.

The crow stared at the button, then at Ginger.

“For your collection.”

He hopped closer, picked up the button, flew to the old cottonwood, and dropped it among his treasures.

Ginger smiled. “A trade.”

She tied the blue ribbon back into her hair and headed home.

The crow followed.

Of course he did.

For the next several days, Ginger saw him everywhere, on the fence, on the shed, and in the trees. Sometimes he simply watched her. Sometimes he called when she walked outside. And every now and then, something strange appeared near the place where Ginger liked to sit: a smooth pebble, a tiny piece of colored glass, and once, a bright red bead.

Ginger never knew whether the crow left them for her or simply dropped them there. She liked to believe they were gifts.

So Ginger began leaving little things for him too. Nothing valuable. A button. A bottle cap. Once, a small silver bell that no longer rang.

And slowly, something changed.

Ginger stopped thinking of him as the crow who stole her ribbon. She began thinking of him as the crow who noticed things. He noticed things people walked past, things people dropped, things people had forgotten, even a little bird hidden beneath a pile of leaves.

Ginger understood that.

She noticed things too.

One afternoon, Ginger sat beneath the tree while the crow watched from the fence. “You know,” she said, “we might be a little alike.”

The crow tilted his head.

Ginger smiled. “Except I don't steal ribbons.”

The crow spread his wings.

Caw!

And flew away.

Ginger laughed.

She had a feeling he didn't believe her.