Attitude

On the eve of Midsummer’s Day, Fredric looked around the crowded High Street for anything green. He saw various bits of green clothing that people were wearing, a shiny dark green handbag, an emerald-striped shopping carrier, but no trace of the feathered fluff ball.

“You don’t make it easy,” he muttered, standing still outside W.H. Smith’s bookshop. Surely, it was only five minutes since their arrival. Then he remembered missing the first train and glanced at his watch. “I’m late!” he told nobody in particular. “Again.” A woman walking along the pavement glanced at him. He smiled at her, but wasn’t sure that helped as she averted her gaze and hastened onward.

This wasn’t the time for a game of Hide and Seek, but he didn’t have a choice. Unable to listen properly among the hustle and bustle, he pushed through the glass-fronted door. Busy in here, too, but he carried on to the children’s section which was empty. Picking up the latest Harry Potter, he pretended to be reading the blurb on the back cover. 

Fredric tuned in to the rhythm of the blood coursing through his veins then focused entirely on his ears, listening for the faintest echo in synch with his own heartbeat.

There. He returned the book to the shelf, though he would have liked to buy it. Leaving the bookshop, he smiled as he joined the throng of what J.K. Rowling would have called muggles. If they only knew.

Turning right, he concentrated to keep hold of the auditory thread as he walked around some people clustered in front of one of the market stalls and headed left to cross at the traffic light. 

At the end of the opposite pavement, he scrutinized a market stall overflowing with pet supplies, but the items were only for cats and dogs. He managed to get across the side of the roundabout, irritated to have to pause on the pedestrian island as the cars just kept whizzing past.

Woolworths, but no time to pop in for a bag of Pick and Mix now. Lloyds Bank, charity shop, chemist, big card shop on the corner. He surveyed the display windows. Glitter and bright colours, some soft toy dinosaurs, but no, the echo was not coming from there.

Another charity, fruit and veg, books and wool shop, Yorkshire Building Society. He saw the sign a bit farther ahead, a square of yellow hanging over the door: Pet shop. “Bird brain,” he said as he increased his pace.

A bell above the door jangled as he entered. He could hear birds: canaries singing and loads of budgies chattering.

A woman came down some steps at the back of the shop. “How can I help?” she asked.

He wanted to tell her to just let him go about his business, but she wouldn’t understand. “Do you have any budgies?” he asked as if he hadn’t heard all the clamour they made.

“Go on up,” she said. “Give me a shout if you need me.”

Fredric schooled himself to keep his temper as he climbed the stairs. On the next floor, he saw some canaries in a broad cage, a few colourful finches in a smaller one, and then about half a dozen budgies of various colours in a taller cage. One green budgie was clinging to the outside of the bars.

Staring at the culprit, he swallowed down his rising anger. Exploding never helped, plus an argument would take up precious time. He stepped toward the cage and offered his finger as a perch for the irritating parakeet.

The green budgie clambered onto his finger and said, “That’s much more comfortable.”

“Don’t mention it,” he replied with a sigh.

“I like the blue one,” the budgie said, still staring into the big cage.

“We can’t have any pets. We travel a lot, remember?”

“But I like the blue one,” the budgie insisted.

“We have been through this before,” Fredric said. “I will get you a few titbits, but I am not going to get you a budgie or a cage to keep it in.” Caging this little escape artist was tempting, but he resisted even mentioning the idea.

“You’re no fun,” the budgie accused, turning to look at him for the first time. Seeing the fierce intelligence in that gaze still took him slightly aback. Why couldn’t it have been a raven?

He lifted the budgie to his shoulder where it hopped on to his polo shirt. “Okay,” the budgie said, “I want all the treats for budgies plus a mirror with a bell.”

“What do you need that for?” he asked, heading for the stairs.

“Then I can look into the mirror, nod my head, ring the bell and say ‘Pretty bird-bird-bird’.”

He shook his head at the budgie’s imitation of an ordinary budgerigar. “All right.” Better than purchasing a blue budgie. He went downstairs with the parakeet riding on his shoulder.

Fredric selected a round red-bordered mirror with a bell from the display.

“Yellow,” the budgie instructed, starting to nibble the collar of his polo shirt. “Much more cheerful.”

He swapped the item and chose a cluster of millet spray, a few treats made from seed stuck together, a cuttlebone and a mineral block, thinking that a raven could forage for itself. He brought everything to the counter where the woman was weighing kibble. Or a cat would be even better.

She took no notice of the green budgie on his shoulder. Most people didn’t, though cats sometimes did. 

As the items were entered into the till, the budgie said, “This shop is the real deal.”

He asked her for a bag of the each of the varieties of budgie seed.

“No budgie this time?” the woman asked.

Fredric shook his head. “They’re more likely to talk if they’re alone, aren’t they?”

“Better for them to have a companion of their own kind,” she replied, “but yes.”

He felt guilty, but couldn’t really explain his situation. “Thanks,” he said. “I’ll think about it.”

The green budgie latched on to his earlobe and said, “You do that. I’ll remind you.”

Fredric paid and thanked the woman before exiting the shop with the green budgie still perched on his shoulder.

“We’re late,” he complained. “At least tell me next time.”

“Tell you what?” asked the budgie.

“Tell me before you wander off.”

“Oh,” said the annoying creature, “well, I don’t know in advance that I am going to wander off. I just do.”

Fredric looked both ways before running across the street to the bus station. Luckily, he already knew which bus they needed to take to reach their destination.

Almost everyone had a cat for a familiar or something cool. 

Why under sun, moon, and stars had he ended up with a green feathered fluff ball with attitude?