A NEW FAMILY MEMBER

     A click was followed by a triumphant, ‘Beat you!’ from a beaming R.

‘So you did,’ I responded,  fastening my own seatbelt.  ‘So how was your party at school today?’

‘I got cake all over me,’ she announced with glee. 

‘Only a year more,’ I said casually, and you’ll be six and can have your own pet.  What would you like?  A lion, or a tiger?’

‘I would like a cockatiel,’ she said dreamily.

‘The trouble with those is that they don’t go, “Cheep-cheep”…’ I began.

‘… they go, “Expensive-expensive!” instead,’ R giggled.  She’s heard that one from me before.

I paused to negotiate a hump.  ‘Or a budgie?’ I suggested, even more casually.

‘Oh, yes, yes! I’d like a budgie; a budgie!’ she beamed at me.

‘But then, you’d have to share with your sister but make sure she didn’t harm it; and clean the cage; and make sure there was always seed and water.’

‘I can do that!’ she declared.  She noticed we were approaching a group of shops on our route home, and the train of thought made her ask, ‘Can we stop at the pet shop again for a while?’

We do this quite often just to see the pets.  Attractions include a whopping great python, a large tarantula, turtles, and a parrot doorman on an outside perch with a ‘Please give me an opportunity to bite you’ expression.

‘OK,’ I agreed, still trying hard to keep up the casual voice, and to hide my grin, and pulled in there.  Before we got out, I said, ‘Actually, there is a little budgie up there hoping to be R’s best friend, if you’re sure you could do all those things?’

She stared at me wide-eyed, and I gave a little nod. Her face lit up like a lighthouse. ‘I promise I’ll clean the cage and do the seed and water and …’ – slightly less enthusiasm – ‘… share.  I promise!’ 

We flew rather than walked up the stairs to the bird section, and to a back set of cages where a few dozen young budgies chirped and fussed and flapped and fluttered. ‘These are the ones you can choose from,’ I told her.

Radiant joy didn’t stop her from making a very carefully-considered choice. She narrowed prospects down systematically until finally pointing firmly, ‘I want this darling yellow one with the collar!’

‘Right,’ said I, ‘and now the cage?’

Here, my pre-planning went awry.  She took a fancy to a different cage to the one I had decided would be ideal (which was on a generous ‘Special’)’.  Although cheaper, hers was not nearly as good.

‘Don’t you like this one?’ I asked, indicating my preference.

‘No; red doesn’t go!’

‘Would you like that bigger type in a different colour?’ the assistant suggested, and took us to a storeroom where a pink version filled both of us with delight, and was very shortly occupied by a budgie.

Then came the irony of choosing a mirror – with a red rim!

After that was the naming.  My suggestion of ‘Snackie’ – to go with our cat ‘Mackie’ – was rejected outright. ‘Um … her name is Daisy.  Second name Twitterina,’ R decided almost immediately. ‘Daisy Twitterina (Smith-Jones)’ (here, adding on R’s hyphenated surname).  

Then she had second thoughts and dithered for a while before coming back firmly in favour of Daisy.  The ‘Twitterina’, though, seems since to have migrated to ‘Twitterella’. 

Shortly after our return home R proved that she was able to master the rather tricky seed and water trays, and to do everything needed for budgie-maintenance alone and unaided.

Although I would have preferred to have taken it at a gentler pace, by evening, egged on by her mother, R already had Daisy sitting on her shoulder and examining her hair for nesting possibilities.  Daisy also wants to egg R on?

 © Colonialist May 2013 (WordPress)