Time to Fly

by Laurie Halse Anderson

  I’m not sure what she wants it for, but I don’t ask questions. I just race inside and grab a clean towel off the pile on the dryer, then zoom back out to the deck.

  The parrot is still sitting on Mr. Cowan’s lawn. I hand Gran the towel.

  Gran strides across the yard, then eases through the side gate that leads into Mr. Cowan’s yard, draping the towel over her right hand as she steals up behind the sick bird. She reminds me of Socrates stalking prey. Swiftly and silently she kneels down and captures the parrot in the towel. When she stands up, the towel is wrapped around the parrot, and Gran’s fingers are around the bird’s neck, immobilizing its head—I guess so it won’t bite her. But the bird barely protests. Carefully supporting the lower half of the bird’s body with her other hand, Gran walks briskly back to the clinic.

  “Zoe, why don’t you come help me with this bird,” Gran calls over her shoulder. “The rest of you can go back to your chores.” She heads for the Herriot Room, calling for Dr. Gabe.

  I’m right behind her. “Doesn’t it hurt the bird’s neck to hold it like that?” My hand goes to my neck, and I swallow.

  “Not at all,” she assures me. “Birds have a very sturdy windpipe. But they don’t have a diaphragm, like we do. A bird has to move its chest in and out to breathe. So if you hold it too tightly around its chest, you can suffocate it.”

  In the exam room, Gran cradles the parrot against her chest. “We need to rehydrate this fellow before we can do anything else,” she says. “Sick birds are very vulnerable to dehydration. Let’s start with a quick shot of fluids.”

  I’ve done this before. I go to the cabinet and get a syringe of lactated Ringer’s solution. While Gran holds the parrot, Dr. Gabe slowly gives it an injection between the shoulders. I hate getting shots, but the bird doesn’t even seem to feel it.

  Watching the parrot up close, I notice that his head doesn’t really look blue under the fluorescent lights. In fact, it’s not blue at all, it’s green, like the rest of him. “Gran!” I exclaim. “This isn’t the parrot I saw before.”

  “What?” Gran looks puzzled. “Are you sure?”

  I nod my head. “Positive. The talking parrot was about the same size and color as this one, but his head was blue, not green. And he seemed so alert and healthy. I mean, he was fluttering around in the oak tree, squawking and talking to me. He couldn’t have gotten so sick this fast, could he?”

  “It’s not always easy to tell when a bird is sick,” Dr. Gabe says. “In the wild, birds often hide any illness to protect themselves, because a sick bird is easy prey for predators. Unfortunately, pet birds tend to follow that same behavior pattern. That’s why bird owners sometimes don’t even notice something’s wrong until their pet is really sick.”

  I shake my head. “But I’m sure this isn’t the same bird.”

  “Well, we’ll deal with that mystery later,” Gran says, peering at the parrot, “after I take care of this little fellow.”

  “I’ll get the oxygen cage,” Dr. Gabe says.

  “Is he that sick?” I ask.

  “It’s hard to know for sure, but he’s certainly not doing too well,” Gran replies. “Extra oxygen will help stabilize him and restore his breathing.”

  “Poor thing,” I croon, reaching out a finger to stroke his bright green head.

  Quickly Gran puts her hand on my arm. “It’s best not to touch him, Zoe—not until we know what’s wrong,” she warns. “He might be contagious.”

  I jerk back my hand. “Really? People can catch bird diseases?”

  “Yes, they can.”

  The bird has some junk around its eyes and beak. Ick—I don’t want to catch that.

  Dr. Gabe returns with a small plastic chamber. He sets it on the counter, plugs it in, then connects a thin tube to an oxygen tank. Gran tucks the parrot into the plastic chamber and closes the door.

  I peek through the window. The box is heated, and the bird looks warm and cozy, still nestled in the towel. “How long does he stay in there?” I ask.

  “A half hour should help him feel much better,” Gran says. “With some fluids in him and some oxygen, he’ll be stronger, and it’ll be easier for him to tolerate me handling him for the exam.”

  “Don’t worry,” I tell him through the window. “Gran’s the best. She’ll make you feel better soon.”

  But I can’t help wondering about the other parrot with the pretty blue head, the one that talked to me. Can there really be two parrots flying loose around our neighborhood?

  After half an hour, Dr. Gabe eases the parrot out of the oxygen cage. The bird looks a little more alert, but he still doesn’t struggle much. Dr. Gabe holds the bird in a towel, the same way Gran did earlier.

  He and Gran both have on surgical masks. Gran tells me to put one on, too, “just in case.” A face mask makes me feel very official—but also a little anxious. If this bird has something serious, he might not make it.

  “OK, Pickles,” Gran says, nicknaming her small green patient. “Let’s see what’s bothering you.”

  I love watching Gran at work. She’s focused but affectionate with her patients, calm and quick and gentle at the same time. Her hands move effortlessly, like a magician performing a trick that’s been rehearsed a thousand times. And her face never gives away her thoughts. She keeps her feelings inside, so she won’t frighten the animals—or their owners.

  As Dr. Gabe holds Pickles in the towel, Gran begins by checking the bird’s basic vital signs. She listens to his heart with a stethoscope and peers in his eyes with an ophthalmoscope. She parts the feathers on each side of his head to check his ears. (Yes, birds do have ears!) With the lightest touch she feels his neck, chest, and belly. Very gently she extends each wing and leg, one at a time.

  Pickles looks frightened, but he doesn’t struggle.

  “Can you tell what’s wrong?” I ask impatiently.

  “Well, there’s nothing obvious, like a broken bone,” Gran replies. “But the nasal discharge and listless behavior tell us this bird is clearly not well. It could be a number of things. We’ll just have to rule them out one by one. Can you grab me some cotton balls and alcohol, Zoe?”

  While I get the supplies from the counter, Gran goes to a cabinet and comes back with a syringe. She wipes the bird’s chest area with alcohol, then gives him an injection in the breast muscle.

  “What’s that?” I ask her.

  “It’s a broad-spectrum antibiotic,” she says. “I want to get something into his system right away. Then, when we know what’s wrong with him, we may switch to a more disease-specific medication.” Gran looks up at Dr. Gabe. “What do you think, doc? Is our patient strong enough to give a blood sample?”

  “I think he can handle it,” Dr. Gabe replies. “The oxygen seems to have perked him up.”

  Carefully but firmly, Dr. Gabe tilts back Pickles’s head. Through the small feathers I can barely see the pale skin of the neck that covers the bird’s jugular vein.

  “Alcohol,” Gran says, and I hand her a soaked cotton ball. After cleansing the area, she slowly slips another needle into the vein and draws a thread of blood up into the syringe. Again, Pickles doesn’t react to the needle at all.

  “Sterile cotton swab, please,” she orders.

  I open a fresh one, and she uses it to take a quick stool sample from the bird’s hind end.

  “That’s it,” Gran says. “You’re all done, Pickles.”

  Pickles blinks at us. He looks woozy, the way I felt when I had the flu last January.

  “Shall I prepare one of the small cages?” I ask.

  “Yes,” says Gran. “And I think we’d better quarantine him, just to be on the safe side.”

  “He has to stay all by himself?” I ask. “You think it’s something that serious?”

  “Well, we won’t know till we get the tests back,” Gran says. “But we don’t know how long Pickles has been loose in the wild. He could have contracted psittacosis.”

  “Sit-a-what?”


  She spells it for me. “It’s a life-threatening disease. It’s so contagious that most countries have strict import laws requiring exotic birds to be quarantined for more than a month when they first enter the country, to make sure they don’t have it. It’s often called parrot fever, but parrots can pass the disease on to other bird species, such as pigeons and poultry. They can even pass it on to humans.”

  Yikes. “You mean—Pickles could give it to us?”

  Gran nods. “It’s possible, although most healthy people can fight it off even if they’re exposed. Still, we should be careful. Scrub up thoroughly before you leave, Zoe.”

  I fetch a small wire cage, line it with newspaper, and clip a water dispenser and a little feed bowl onto one side. Then I go to the sink and scrub my hands and arms all the way up to my elbows with lots of soap and hot water while Dr. Gabe puts the parrot into the cage, covers the cage with a towel, and carries it to the quarantine room.

  Suddenly the back door to the clinic flies open, and Maggie rushes into the exam room. “You guys—there’s a ton of…You won’t believe—!” She pauses and gasps for air. “Come on—you’ve got to see this!”

  Chapter Three

  We rush into the backyard. My mouth falls open as I gaze up into the oak tree. “Amazing!” I breathe.

  Brightly colored parrots perch in the branches like ornaments on a Christmas tree. There must be dozens of them, in different sizes and different colors. Some perch where we can see them, as if showing off how beautiful they are. Others hide, their green feathers blending in behind the new spring leaves.

  And the racket! I cover my ears. I bet people can hear this screeching and shrieking all over the neighborhood. Sneakers runs around yapping at the tree, as if he wants the parrots to come down and play.

  “Brenna!” I gasp. “Do you have your camera?”

  Brenna loves photography, and she’s taken some awesome pictures of animals. Working at Dr. Mac’s Place, she gets lots of opportunities for great animal shots, so she usually brings her camera with her.

  “It’s in my backpack!” She darts back inside to get it.

  David has been trying to count the birds. “There’s got to be at least fifty of them!” he exclaims.

  “Gran,” I ask, “where on earth did they come from?”

  “I’m as bowled over as you are!” she says, running a hand through her short white hair. “Pet birds escape sometimes, but this is like a whole zoo got loose!”

  I squint, looking for the friendly parrot with the blue head, the one who talked to me. “E.T.…” I call softly. “There—that’s him!” I point to a flash of blue and green that soars up out of the tree. “No, wait. His wings were different. They didn’t look that long, and he flew in a more fluttery way.”

  “Maybe his wings were clipped,” Gran says absently, studying the flock.

  “People clip a bird’s wings?” I ask, horrified.

  “Just the long wing feathers,” Gran explains. “It doesn’t hurt the bird any more than a haircut hurts you. In fact, birds can often still fly even with clipped wings, especially if the feathers have started growing back. That’s one way a pet bird can escape. Its owner takes it outside, thinking the clipped wings will keep the bird from flying, but the bird flies up into a tree and the owner can’t catch it.”

  Brenna returns with her camera and starts snapping away. I’m glad we’ll have pictures, because without them, none of the kids at school would believe this.

  “What are we going to do, Gran?” Maggie asks.

  “We could open our own zoo,” David jokes. “One of those aviation—aviator—what do you call them?”

  “Aviaries,” Gran says. She sighs and shakes her head in wonder. It’s not often that she’s stumped. “I’m going to make some calls,” she says, turning to go inside.

  I grab her sleeve. “But what if these parrots have the same sickness as Pickles? Shouldn’t we try to catch them?”

  Gran shakes her head. “You know how difficult it is just to catch a nervous pet bird that’s flying around a closed exam room. To catch a flock of birds flying around wild would be next to impossible. Besides, they look healthy enough—at least, none of them appear to be as sick as Pickles. However, parrots do not just migrate to Pennsylvania. I’m going to make some inquiries to try and determine where these birds came from. Then we can decide what, if anything, to do about them. Meanwhile, you all”—Gran pauses to study the five of us—“need to finish your chores.”

  Everybody groans. I was hoping our exotic feathered visitors had made Gran forget something as dull and ordinary as chores. But she heads inside, and the others start to follow. Sunita grabs Socrates, and Maggie shoos the two dogs into the house.

  I stare up into the tree. How are we supposed to think about scrubbing and cleaning with a miracle in our yard?

  “Zo-eee,” Maggie nags. “That means you, too.”

  “I’m cleaning the deck chairs,” I remind her as I grab a brush and quickly start scrubbing a chair.

  Maggie snorts and goes back inside to her closet cleaning.

  At least I have a decent excuse to stay in the backyard. I want a little more time with these amazing birds.

  Now that their audience has gone, the parrots become a little bolder and begin making forays into Mr. Cowan’s yard. They look out of place perching at the bird feeders—almost comical in their clownlike colors, towering over the songbirds. The parrots flit back and forth from the oak tree to the feeders, squawking and fussing.

  I look for the little blue-headed bird that talked to me, but I don’t see him anywhere. I call out “Phone home!” a few times, but there’s no reply.

  I try to focus on my chair-cleaning task, but it’s no use. My head is filled with questions about parrots. Quietly, I slide open the deck door and tiptoe inside, hoping nobody sees me. Fortunately, everyone seems to be busy in the clinic, cleaning. I sneak silently into the dining room, which has a floor-to-ceiling wall of books, and open volume P of Gran’s trusty Encyclopedia Britannica. It’s not a recent edition, but it includes a long article about parrots, enough to give me the basics.

  The article says that parrots and their relatives live in many parts of the tropics. They eat mostly plants and fruit. They’ve been kept as pets for hundreds of years and are very intelligent, more so than most birds. In addition to their squawks, parrots use lots of body language to communicate.

  I smile. That means that when the talking parrot bobbed his head at me, he was talking to me—in parrot language. I think he wants us to be friends!

  I turn to the illustrated page showing all the different types of parrots. I’ve just identified the talking parrot as a blue-crowned conure when the phone rings.

  Instead of answering it, I put the encyclopedia back and dart back out to the deck before I’m caught slacking off from my chore. A moment later, Maggie’s head pops out of the clinic’s back door. “Zoe—it’s your mom!”

  My heart skips a beat. Mom started calling more often after Christmas, but then her calls tapered off. So busy, her quick scribbled postcards would always say. They always seem to include words like almost, next audition, soon…

  I grab the phone. “Mom, hi! Listen, you won’t believe what’s going on.” I start to tell her about the parrots, but she interrupts.

  “Zoe, honey, are you sitting down?”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “Sit down!” she orders, sounding as if she’s bursting with news.

  “What, Mom? What?”

  “Zoe—you can come home!”

  Now I sit down. Actually, I stumble into a kitchen chair. “Home? We’re going back to New York?”

  At the sink, Maggie stares at me. She waves her arms at me and mouths, What? What?!

  “I have a job!” Mom squeals into the phone. I hold the receiver out and rub my ear.

  “Wow! I heard that!” Maggie says. She comes over and sticks her head next to the receiver, trying to listen in. I wave her away.

  “I’
m going prime time!” Mom announces proudly.

  When I don’t say anything, she adds, “I got the part!”

  “What part?”

  Mom laughs. “Honey, the part I…Zoe, I’m sure I wrote you about it. Didn’t I? It’s the lead female role on a new series they’re shooting for next fall. I’ll be playing a surgeon!”

  Maybe she did mention this part. But I’ve been hearing this for a year—there have been so many auditions and promises—and everything always seems to fall through. So I’ve learned not to get my hopes up.

  “When’s the callback?” I ask.

  “Sweetheart, it’s a done deal. I’ve already got a contract!”

  She sounds so thrilled, I start to get excited, too. My mother on prime-time TV!

  “But—what about movies?” I sputter.

  Mom laughs. “One thing at a time, sweetie. Just you wait, I’m on my way now. This is the big time, what I’ve been working for all these years.”

  “Oh, Mom, really?” I say, almost afraid to believe it. “There’s no catch? You’re not leaving something out?”

  Something jingles across the phone lines.

  I hazard a guess: “Uh, pocket change? You’re working as a mime on the streets of L.A.?”

  Mom laughs. “Oh, Zoe, don’t be silly. It’s keys!”

  “Keys?”

  “As in house keys. The keys to the house I just bought!”

  “You bought a house?” I should be ecstatic. I should be screaming and jumping up and down. This is what I’ve been dreaming about for almost a year. Me and Mom—together. But instead I feel like I just got the wind knocked out of me.

  When she left me at Gran’s last summer, I felt like an unwanted kitten abandoned on a doorstep. And ever since, my heart’s been on a roller-coaster ride. Every time Mom builds me up with her promises, things always seem to come crashing down. And now, just when I’ve finally started to feel at home here, out of the blue she tells me she’s bought us a house.