Birdy

smell.
    Every day that week, when I come home from school, after I’ve done chores, I go upstairs to my room and watch Birdie. First, I change the feed and water; then, if she tries to take a bath in the new water, and she usually does, I give her some water in a saucer. After that, after I’ve watched her bathe and talked to her, I give hersome treat food on the end of the perch. She isn’t afraid of me at all now. That is, not for a bird.
    The only thing a bird has going for it is that it can fly away. If Birdie knows that living in a cage makes her so vulnerable, it must be terrible. Still, she always keeps herself ready to escape even though there’s no place to go. I try to think what it would be like to have some gigantic bird come and stick his claws into the window of my room with some potato chips or a hoagie. What would I do? Would I go over and get some, even if I had enough regular food in a dish somewhere else?
    After the first few days, when I come into the room, Birdie is down on the floor of the cage, running back and forth, looking out over the barrier that holds in the gravel. I think she’s glad to see me, not just because I give her treat food, but because she’s lonely. I’m her one friend now, the only living being she gets to see.
    By the end of the week, I rubber-band the treat food dish onto the end of an extra perch and put it into the cage through the door. I lock the door open with a paper clip. At first, Birdie’s shy, but then she jumps onto the perch I’m holding and side-hops over to the treat dish. It’s terrific to see her without the bars between us. She sits eating the treat food at the opening to the door and looking at me. How does she know to look into my eyes and not at the huge finger next to her?
    After she’s finished eating, she retreats to the middle of the perch. I lift it gently to give her a ride and a feeling the perch is part of me and not the cage. She shifts her body and flips her wings to keep balance, then looks at me and makes a new sound, like peeEP; very sharp. She jumps off the perch to the bottom of the cage. I take out the perch and try to talk to her but she ignores me. She drinks some water. She doesn’t look at me again till she’s wiped off her beak and stretched both wings, one at a time. She uses her feet to help stretch the wings. Then, she gives a small queeEEP?
    Generally, Birdie looks at me more with her right eye than her left. It doesn’t matter which side of the cage I stand. She turns so she can see me with her right eye. Also, when she reaches with her foot to hold the treat dish, or even her regular food dish, she doesit with her right foot. She’d be right-handed if she had hands; she’s right-footed or right-sided. She approaches and does most things from the right side. Even when she’s stretching her wings, she always stretches her right wing first. The only exception is she sleeps on her left foot. I think when a bird sleeps you get a good idea of what birds think of the ground. A bird will usually search out the highest place it can find to sleep and then separate itself as best it can from the ground by standing on one foot; in Birdie’s case, her lesser foot. A bird, balled up in puffed-out feathers, standing on one foot, looks nothing like flying. A lizard looks more capable of flying than a sleeping bird.
    Because of the way Birdie sleeps, I want to build my bed up against the ceiling of my room. My mother gets all hot and bothered, but my father says it’ll be all right if I pay for the wood myself and don’t knock holes in the walls or floor. We only rent the house.
    I pinch wood from the lumberyard at night. I do it the same way Al and I got the wood for the pigeon coop. I sneak in at night and push it out under the fence in back, then go around and get it. I buy bolts and use my father’s tools. Because I can’t attach to walls or ceiling, it has to be self-supporting. The job takes me two weeks. When it’s finished, I fit the mattress and springs into the frame up high. I put the old bedstead out in the garage. I check my pigeon suit and look around for the baseballs.
    I build a ladder up to the bed by drilling holes and pegging in steps. It’s like a ship’s ladder when I finish. I even run electricity up there and hang curtain rods from the ceiling. I snitch some material from Sears and make curtains. It’s a great little nest, even better than the loft in the tree. I can crawl up there, pull the