Whose is it?

A bird and a boy make friends.

WHOSE IS IT?

The bird was where it shouldn’t have been - in a municipal car park. It was quite tiny. Its legs were thin and straight, its tail was straight and upright, and its beak was long and thin. The little bird was very confident, as was shown by the way it walked among the parked cars. The general public paid no attention to the miniscule creature in their midst, they were too busy parking their vehicles or putting away their shopping. The midday sun was hot and heavy, but the bird wasn’t bothered by the heat, to the humans it was more like a punishment than a pleasure. Everyone had long desired the arrival of summer, but when it came they wanted the temperature to be the one they wanted, not the one nature imposed upon them.

Noah, a boy of eleven years old, saw the bird and thought to himself, ‘This isn’t the place for you.’ He was with his parents doing the weekly shopping. The job over, his parents were putting away their purchases into the boot. Noah went to the boot and took out a small box that held some new trainers which he quickly removed. Noah was very careful in his approach to the bird and gently grabbed it and put it inside the box. If the bird was frightened it didn’t show it.

“What have you put inside that box?” Lena, his mother, asked him as his father, Erle, started up the car.

“A small bird,” Noah answered. He was afraid that his mother would object, as she was always saying she didn’t approve of caged birds. Noah’s grandmother had had many caged birds and she still had a couple. His mother said it gave her the creeps, as in her opinion birds should be free to fly. After all, that’s what they had been created for.

Erle said nothing, he was beyond approving or disapproving of what either his wife or son did. In the end, they were still mother and son in spite of their differences. Noah’s mother and father were in the kitchen filling up the spaces in the fridge and the food cupboards. Noah went upstairs to his bedroom with the box holding the bird.

As soon as he was in his room, he sat on his bed and opened the box. The tiny bird had dirtied the box, but was not too afraid to walk out onto Noah’s bed. The boy was delighted, and rang up his grandmother, “Hello, Grandma. Guess what. I’ve got a bird. Have you got any empty cages?”

“Hello, Noah. How did you manage to persuade your mother to get you a bird?” his grandmother asked.

“I found it at the municipal car park, and it’s here on my bed with me. Well, have you got an empty cage or not?”

“Of course I have, Darling. I’ll be round straight away with one. Is the bird very big?”

“No, it isn’t big. It’s rather small, but I like it and the bird likes me, or at least I think so,” Noah said, at the same time keeping his eyes fixed on the bird’s activities.

Dora, Noah’s grandmother, arrived in her little run-around in less than half an hour. She marched into the kitchen, where Lena and Erle were now having a quiet cup of tea before preparing lunch. They weren’t surprised by Dora’s unexpected visit, they had taken it as a foregone conclusion that Noah would need a cage, and who better to go to than his grandmother.

“Noah rang me asking for a cage. I’ve also got some bird food for the little fellow. Where’s Noah?”

“He’s upstairs in his room with the bird,” Erle said graciously to his mother-in-law.

Dora heavy-footed her way up the stairs and knocked on Noah’s bedroom door."Noah, it’s me, Grandma. Can I come in, please? I've brought you a cage."

Noah opened the door and let his grandmother in. “This is my bird. What do you think of him?”

Dora handed the cage to Noah, who put it on a table near the window, to let the bird see the world outside.

“What are you going to call him?” Dora asked Noah.

The grandmother and grandson watched the bird hop its way round Noah’s bedroom. The bird behaved the same as it had done in the car park - totally at ease.

“I’m going to call him Hoppy, as he is always hopping from one place to another. Do you like the name?” Noah asked his grandmother.

“I think it’s fine. Do you know what kind of bird it is?” Dora asked.

“No, I don’t. Do you?”

“I don’t know either, but I have a strong suspicion it’s not a usual cage-bird. It’s your bird, and that’s all that matters for the moment,” Dora said, not wanting Noah to worry about what kind of bird it was or where it had come from.

From the day Hoppy entered Noah’s life, things began to change for the little boy. Noah had always been good at drawing, but with Hoppy as a willing model, albeit in ignorance, Noah’s latent talent sprouted forth. When homework was done, he got out a sketchbook and drew Hoppy in all sorts of attitudes. It didn’t matter what the bird was doing, Noah did a drawing of him in every movement. The first pictures were done in pencil, and then Noah’s parents bought him a set of watercolours to capture the bird’s rather nice colouring. Hoppy had a grey-blue body and dark-blue wings, his head was pale grey, his beak, his legs and tail were almost black. Hoppy made a chirping sound, he didn’t sing as such, but chirruped his way through the day.

Lena spoke to him when he was in his cage, and the little bird recognized her. How, she couldn’t understand, but he knew the people of the house. While Noah was at school, Lena and Erle never opened the cage, out of respect for their son. If anything should happen to Noah’s feathered friend, he would never have forgiven them.

Noah’s grandmother and parents were inordinately proud of Noah’s artistic achievements and went about singing his praises. Dora had a friend with a shop that sold all kinds of books, pictures, and clothes with images of animals on them. The friend offered to put up Noah’s pictures of Hoppy for sale, to see how they would do. Fortunately for Noah, he had made copies of his pictures so that they would be easier to sell. Dora was rather a chatterbox and nattered on about how Noah had found Hoppy in the municipal car park. Noah would not have been happy with his grandmother if he had known.

Phyllis, a lady who worked in the local zoo, was in the shop one day, as it was one of those sites that she tended to visit in order to seek out new animal books. She was gazing round the shop when her eyes alighted on Hoppy’s pictures. Immediately she went up to the shop assistant and asked, “Can you tell me the name of the person who did these pictures of the bird?” She thought to herself that it looked like the one that had escaped when in her care, because it was such a rare bird it had to be the one she was after getting back.

The shop assistant said, “I know the artist’s grandmother, but I don’t know him. Is there anything wrong?”

“No, I just wondered, that’s all. The next time the grandmother comes in would you give her my name and address. I’d like to speak to her.”

“I’ll give her your name and phone number, and then it’s up to her whether or not she wishes to get in touch with you.”

Phyllis left the shop and went back to work feeling elated, just as if she had won a big prize. If the bird was the one she thought it was, then she would get her photo in the papers and appear on television for having found it.

A few weeks later, Dora returned to the shop and the assistant told her about Phyllis’s visit. Dora’s antenna went into action, and smelt a rat - as she later put it to her daughter, Lena.

“What can we do if she finds out that the bird is the one she’s been looking for all this time? Noah will be heartbroken, and I’m not standing for that,” Lena said determinedly.

That night Lena broached the subject with Noah, “Your grandmother has discovered that a woman called Phyllis, who works in the zoo, thinks that Hoppy is a bird that escaped from there some time ago. She saw your pictures of him in the shop, and is firmly convinced that he is the one. Your grandmother and I think that she’s dangerous for you and Hoppy, as she might come and take him away by force and return him to the zoo. Well, what do you think?”

Noah was a good boy, and said to his mother, “Hoppy belongs with other birds like him, not here closed up in my bedroom. If he has to go and live in the zoo, then he must.” The child turned round and went back to his bedroom, where his friend stood waiting for him.

“Hello, Hoppy, it seems like the parting of the ways has come for us. I hope that lady from the zoo is wrong. I don’t want to see you go out of my life now that we are friends.”

Hoppy went to Noah and rubbed his head against Noah’s hand in a gesture that he understood everything the boy had said.

Noah continued drawing pictures of Hoppy and sold them in the shop.

Phyllis was frustrated because nobody got in touch with her.

One Saturday Noah and his father went to the zoo to see the other birds that Hoppy was said to be a member of the same species. Noah sketched some of them in their spacious cage, and then took them home, where he turned them into watercolours. He noticed that the birds that resembled Hoppy could fly, but Hoppy had never even tried.

The bird was taken to the vet, who said that Hoppy’s wings had probably been clipped before he was sold to the zoo, and that was why he had been walking around the car park where he had been found. Poor Hoppy had been unable to fly out of the car park to a tree where he would have found shelter. Noah had saved the bird’s life.

Phyllis had the shock of her life when she saw the watercolours of the bird house, and got in touch with Noah through Dora. Phyllis was absolutely convinced that Hoppy should be in the zoo, but had no way of proving it. How was she to know how the bird had got out of the bird house, if it had really done so? Phyllis decided to lay off getting hold of the bird, and a good thing too.

Phyllis was looking for a male, but she was totally shattered when Noah rang her up asked her to go to his house. Hoppy was in his cage and Phyllis was shown into his bedroom. Noah came forward and said, “What do you think all these are?” In Noah’s hand was a small box which he opened and inside, wrapped in cotton wool, were objects that looked like sugared-almonds.

“They’re eggs. Who laid them?” Phyllis asked.

“Hoppy did. She is not a he, and the vet came round to see her, and said the eggs are sterile as she is so young. The missing bird from the zoo is not Hoppy, as you said you were looking for a male and this is definitely not.”

Phyllis stared at Hoppy and Noah and the eggs, and said, “Well, that’s that, I suppose. Thanks for letting me know, and I appreciate the pictures. Will you be doing some more to sell in the zoo shop?”

Noah was feeling magnanimous, and said, “Of course I’ll be doing more drawings, and not only of birds but other animals too, if you like.”

“I should like that very much. Thanks very much.”

Lena and Erle were sitting in the kitchen when Phyllis went down the stairs to the front door. The only thing they said was, “Good evening, Phyllis. Thank you for popping round.”

Noah became known as the bird boy illustrator, and was interviewed on the local radio and television stations. Phyllis contented herself with the knowledge that Hoppy was a girl. She never bothered to listen to or see Noah in the media again. Her main aim now was another: she was after a Kimodo dragon she had seen in another zoo.

The bird house was a must for anyone who visited the zoo, and buying Noah’s pictures was another, and the other birds like Hoppy were very popular.

The male bird was never found!

There was a celebration going on in Noah’s bedroom. Present were his mother and father, his grandmother, and Hoppy - of course.

“Grandma, I’ll be for ever grateful to you for lending me your budgie’s eggs. I don’t know what we’d have done without them,” Noah said clinking glasses with Dora.

“I can’t say she’s much of a bird woman when she doesn’t recognise budgie eggs from other birds’ eggs,” Erle muttered, swallowing back his champagne, “She doesn’t know how to tell the difference between male and female birds either.”

“Where did you get the idea from, Grandma?”

“I was once sold a so-called male, and then a few days later when it laid eggs, I realized I had been sold a female. All I did was retell the story the other way round.”

They all sat and laughed, and even Hoppy seemed to understand. So they poured another glass of champagne to drink a toast to him, and Noah put a drop on a saucer for Hoppy.

© 2014 Georgina V Solly

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lakki

When I first started reading the story I thought it is going to be narrated by the bird itself, I would not lie; I was much disappointed when I realized the contrary. But overall it was an enjoyable story, so thank you for that! :)