The summer between my sixth and seventh grade at Baldwyn (Mississippi) High School was as boring as it could be. It was awful not being a little girl anymore and yet not quite being a young lady yet either. I hated that summer! My grandmother insisted that I act like a young lady but I still wanted to be a tomboy and play outside with my little brother and his friends in the neighborhood and get dirty and sweaty and stinky. My grandmother “Den” wanted me to wear shoes (with socks even) when I thought going barefoot was still the only way to travel in the summer.
Growing up was going to be harder than I thought and it looked like I had no choice but to go ahead and comply. Despite wanting to remain a kid, my body began betraying me and I started shooting straight up. My arms and legs took on the persona of a pine tree and propelled me further into adulthood. I still thought it best to hide my long skinny legs in a pair of faded blue jeans but Den, had other ideas. (Personally I didn’t see how on earth I was gonna climb trees or coax doodlebugs from their holes in the ground in a dress, but I guess I’d learn. Den was holding her ground.) Mama finally stepped in, thank goodness, and ‘pedal pushers’ became the norm in my closet that summer. Of course Sundays still offered Den the opportunity to get me into a dress, but I was very reluctant. I think that whole summer I was mad about one thing or the other. Mama tried explaining the dreaded chore of growing up to me but instead decided maybe I just needed a pet to take my mind off of growing up that long hot summer.
Since we didn’t have a car, Mama got Uncle Basil (her brother) to drive us down to Saltillo on Old Hwy 45 S. where a lady raised parakeets. We picked one out and brought him home. Something else to feed and water! Wasn’t a little brother enough for a young girl to endure? I quickly added that parakeet to my list of things to hate for that summer!
‘Budgie’ took up with Mama right off however and she even taught the little fine feathered terror to sit on her shoulder and eat from her hand at the breakfast table. So? Evidently she’d picked the smartest bird in the entire cage. That bird hated me and the feeling was mutual. Budgie immediately became Mama’s pet, instead of mine. He pecked my hand each time I tried to put food or water in his cage so I quit trying. How this tiny bird knew the difference in the hand of a girl who didn’t like him and the hand of a woman, who adored him, beat the life out of me... After about a month of him sitting on her shoulder and eating from Mama’s hand at the breakfast table, I’d had it. Early one morning, after Mama left for work, while I was still trying to sleep, Budgie woke me up squawking and fluttering his wings. I decided I’d do this obnoxious bird a real big favor and let him fly around the house freely for a spell. I ran into the kitchen, opened his cage door and went back to bed. Budgie made a few dive bomber tactics at my covers then quickly disappeared and I went back to sleep. When I awoke a couple of hours later, the house was quiet. Too quiet! I threw the covers back and ran to Budgie’s cage. He wasn’t there.
“Budgie?” I called out. There was dead silence. “Oh Budgie boy?” I called out again. I panicked. Mama’s precious bird must have flown the coop. I wondered how her precious, little fine feathered baby had opened that big ol’ cage door all by himself. He was even smarter than we thought. (Of course I knew I was in trouble; I’d let him out.) I started my search and discovered the very thing a guilty little girl hopes she’ll never find; Budgie lying in wait behind the sugar canister in a very weird position. His left leg was grotesquely stuck in a mouse trap that had been sprung. I went to pick him up and the ungrateful little thing pecked me and flapped his wings ‘til there were yellow feathers drifting all over Mama’s kitchen. Holy cow was I ever in trouble now!!! It was very evident that Budgie had a broken leg. Pictures of Mama taking out her little pistol and shooting her pet bird began flooding through my mind. After all, that’s what they do to a horse with a broken leg in the movies don’t they? I sat on the front porch and held Budgie in my lap for the next hour or so until Mama came home for lunch. I had never prayed harder in my life for a tiny creature to go on to be with the Lord than I did that morning for Budgie. I sure hated to hear the sound of Mama’s gun going off again. I’d heard it only once before when she shot a snake and I didn’t want to hear that sound again…ever!
11:00 rolled around and Mama walked up to the doorsteps and kissed me on the top of my bowed head. She raised my chin and asked why I was sitting there all alone looking so forlorn. I moved my hands and there lay Budgie, still stuck in the mousetrap, lying quietly on a towel. She tenderly scooped him up, towel and all, and went inside and laid him on the table, opened the mousetrap and eased him out. Budgie never flinched. She pulled down a box of matches from the top of the cabinet and reached for a knife.
“Mama, wait…..please don’t kill him.” I screamed as she quickly looked at me and raised her infamous left eyebrow, but I should’ve known Mama better than that.
She cut off the head of the match and split it lengthways then crossways measuring it against Budgie’s leg. She reached back into the drawer and grabbed some adhesive tape and split that as well. Before I knew it Budgie was back in his cage hopping around with a splint on his broken leg and in a few weeks was sitting on Mama’s shoulder again eating toast from her hand. Mama never once asked me how Budgie got out of his cage… she seemed to just somehow know.
Ya’ think it could have been my instant ‘change of heart’ regarding Budgie? Bless his feathered little heart. The rest of the summer just flew by after that and I finally decided that…
growing up wasn’t going to be so bad after all.
As the frost lies softly on the forest floor
