Pigeons

Pigeons are a familiar presence at Steering School, where their nighttime cooing troubles top-floor sleepers and resists ordinary efforts to keep them from the buildings. They become more than campus background when Hathaway’s resentment inspires an imagined hunt with a lacrosse stick, a scheme that Garp attempts to carry out. One pigeon is briefly caught and released, but its continued presence in the gutter helps precipitate Garp’s rooftop peril and, during the rescue, is mistaken for the falling child. The birds’ role moves from nuisance to plot catalyst and finally to an instrument of comic misrecognition.

Campus Presence and Hathaway’s Complaint

Pigeons seem to rule the campus, especially around the fourth and topmost floor of the infirmary. Maintenance workers have covered many eaves and perches with chicken wire, but the birds continue to roost in rain gutters, find niches beneath roofs, and perch on old ivy. There is no effective way to keep them off the buildings. Their cooing and fussing disturb Hathaway’s sleep, making them a recurring problem of the school’s architecture and nighttime routine.

Hathaway, an injured athlete confined by two casts, tells Garp that he would get the pigeons if he had even one good leg. His frustration becomes a story of practical ingenuity: he explains that pigeons do not like to fly at night, and imagines climbing onto the roof in dry weather to trap them in the gutter. The proposal grows from his knowledge of their habits, which he learned in Biology II, and from his familiarity with the roofline that troubles the school’s top-floor residents.

The Lacrosse-Stick Plan

The idea takes shape through Hathaway’s lacrosse equipment. He twirls his stick, rolls the ball between his legs, and gently lowers the stick’s net over Garp’s head to demonstrate how he would catch the birds one by one. The demonstration is playful, but it gives Garp a concrete method to imitate. Hathaway’s joke becomes an unintended invitation: Garp brings the equipment to the roof and uses the stick to reach the rain gutter.

When Hathaway later hears pigeons, he realizes Garp is not playing lacrosse. Remembering his own complaint and the trapping plan, he understands that the child may be on the roof. He looks out into the dark, dry night and repeatedly presses the buzzer to summon help. His concern turns the birds’ familiar sound into a warning, while the lacrosse ball left with him confirms that Garp has taken the stick instead.

Garp on the Roof

Garp has climbed the ivy to reach the roof. As he leans over the gutter with the lacrosse stick, one pigeon is caught in the net and then freed when the stick swings outward. The bird does not fly away; it remains in the gutter, making its small sounds. Garp, meanwhile, has broken through the corroded trough and is wedged there, one leg through the gutter up to his hip and the other stretched along the roof’s edge.

Afraid that calling out might bring down the fragile roof, Garp stays quiet. From a small rusted hole he watches the boys searching below, while the pigeon he tried to catch remains close by. Jenny reaches him from the fire escape, holds his leg, and recognizes that he could not have reached the gutter from the escape itself; he must have climbed the ivy. The bird’s presence marks the distance between the simple game Hathaway described and the danger Garp has entered.

The Rescue and the Pigeon’s Reversal

Dean Bodger’s spotlight suddenly illuminates Garp’s dangling sneaker and agitates the pigeons in the gutter. Below, Bodger directs the boys to place mattresses under the fire escape, preparing for the possibility that the child will fall. As the gutter gives way, Jenny is knocked down onto the landing with Garp and the broken section of trough. The captured pigeon is launched into flight by the collapse.

In the beam of the spotlight, the bird’s movement is confused with the falling child. Bodger, who believes accidents can often be prevented through vigilance and preparation, runs and dives to catch what he thinks is Garp. Instead, the pigeon strikes his chest; he falls onto his back with the bird in his arms. Only when the light is directed onto him does he realize what he has caught, and he throws the dead pigeon away. The actual child and Jenny are safe on the landing, while the rescue effort’s dramatic focus has been redirected by the bird.

Narrative Function

The pigeons’ importance lies in the chain of consequences attached to a commonplace nuisance. Their noise gives Hathaway the occasion to describe a plan; the plan supplies Garp with a means to get onto the roof; the birds’ behavior helps alert Hathaway that something is wrong; and one pigeon’s sudden flight produces the rescue’s central misunderstanding. The episode repeatedly shifts between what the characters expect and what occurs: a game becomes a peril, the sought-after bird refuses to leave the gutter, and Bodger’s prepared-for emergency ends with him catching a pigeon rather than a child.

The birds also make the school’s built environment active in the episode. Gutters, eaves, ivy, roof, and fire escape shape both the pigeons’ habits and Garp’s danger. The pigeon is first an object of Hathaway’s irritation and Garp’s attempted capture, then a small but decisive presence in a rescue that tests the adults’ perception. Its movement does not lessen the seriousness of Garp’s predicament; instead, the mistaken sight of the bird sharpens the scene’s blend of danger and comic reversal.