The bird box was a white-painted, weather-beaten little house set into a straggly rose bush that grew out of a square patch of earth beside Mel's bedroom window. The box was about ten feet above the ground.
Mel looked up at it.
"I'm sure I heard little birds peeping in it this morning!" Maria explained sentimentally.
"No bird in its senses would go into a thing like that," Mel assured her. "I don't hear anything. And besides—"
"Please, Mel! We don't want Cat to get them!"
Mel groaned, got a wobbly step-ladder out of the garage and climbed up. The gray cat walked over and sat down next to the ladder to watch him.
He poked at the box and listened. No sound.
"Can't you open the top and look in?" Maria inquired.
Holding the box in one hand, Mel tentatively inserted his thumbnail into a crack under its top and pushed. The weathered wood splintered away easily.
"Don't break it!" Maria cried.