"What is she doing?" asked the white one.
"I don't know," answered the green one. "Looks like she's just lying there."
The girl lay on her back crosswise across her rectangular nest, head propped on the pile of fluffing that was her idea of 'making the bed,' as she called it--shoving everything out of the way so she could do something more interesting with the surface. Like staring at one of those piles of leafy things, or scratching away at one with a stick that left black marks where it passed.
"Maybe she's asleep," said the white one.
"No, her head is moving. Seeds, look at all that fur."
"My feet got stuck in it when I landed on her by accident."
The girl looked up at them, shaking her head impatiently. "Just get back in the cage," she pleaded through clenched teeth. "Please. Pretty please? Look, I even tied the door open with a twist-tie so you can go in any time you want." She gestured at their home. "I could just grab you, but you're supposed to be learning."
"Did you understand any of that?" asked the green one.
"Not a single cheep."
He sighed. "Humans--I just don't get them."
The girl whistled three notes: low, high, and middle. She did that occasionally. They had no idea why.
"That's supposed to be the friendly signal," the girl said. "It means I won't hurt you."
They looked at each other.
"You're discussing me, aren't you?" the girl accused. "I knew it! It's a conspiracy!"
The white one shifted from foot to foot and fluffed her feathers in contentment.
The girl put a finger to her palm and began wiggling it around. "Note to self:" she muttered. "The training of the parakeets is not going well."
She looked up at them, her predator's eyes shining behind those two round hole things. "This is all Ashley's fault. If she had handled you when you were babies, you'd be tame. But noooo... And then they go and move back to California, and here we are."
The girl stood up and slowly stretched a pink finger toward where they perched on top of the big square thing that looked like a hole, but wasn't. "C'mon, you know you like me, at least Frantic Fred does, c'mon, I'm just gonna put you back in your cage, you like it there, you're always trying to get back, although you're too stupid to get in there by yourself..."
The green one hesitantly stepped onto her finger. The girl crooned softly.
"There you go, it's okay, c'mon, now Nervous Nellie..."
The white one didn't wait for the pink finger to touch her. She took off. The green one followed her.
They fluttered around the room for a bit, then settled down on the top of their home.
The girl flopped back down across her nest, hit her head on the wooden thing across the bottom of the hole that wasn't a hole, yelped, and sat up. "Ouch! Stupid windowsill." She glared at them. "That's the right direction, at least. Come on now, the door, it's real close."
"Do you have any idea what she's cheeping about?" the white one asked.
"Not any more than before. Do you?"
"No."
They looked longingly through the thin hard things to their home. There was the seed, the water, the smooth branches they stood on, the little shiny thing they knocked off the wall every time the girl put it back, muttering about how she didn't know why they hated the mirror so much. If only they could get back...
"I don't get it," the green one said. "Sometimes I fly at home, and there's the hole, and I hop right in. And other times, like now, I can't find it at all."
The white one made a sympathetic noise.
"It's down there!" the girl cried, gesticulating wildly. "Keep flying around, maybe you'll find it!"
They ignored her. As long as she stayed over there and didn't come any nearer, her presence in the room meant nothing.
The girl grabbed her fluff-sack and stuffed it behind her head as she fell back on the nest. She looked sideways at the piles of leafy things she kept where the fluff-sack had been. "I'm bored, but I don't feel like reading. I wish I had a good story idea--a short story idea."
She rolled over and reached under the nest to retrieve a few of those flat white leafs she sometimes made black marks on and sometimes stared at. The girl began tearing off a strip, which she then wadded into a tight ball.
"Fly around," she directed them.
It took them a moment to realize that the ball was coming their way. The white one took off first, and the green followed. They circled the room and landed back where they started.
The girl sighed as she tore another strip and folded it into a many-layered triangle. "This is a waste of paper," she said as she lobbed it at them. Again they circled the room once and finished where they began.
"I can't believe my mind is so blank for ideas. With seven younger brothers and sisters, how could I run out?"
Another little white bomb. This time the white one couldn't figure out how to get back. She perched on top of the swinging thing fastened to the big hole in the wall. The green one decided to stop on the round curvy thing that went around the top of the stacked nest.
The girl threw another ball, the last of that leaf, and picked up another one.
"I don't like this," the white said. "What are those things?"
"They're probably harmless." Another ball went up in the air. The green one took off. "But I wouldn't take it for granted."
The green one fluttered through the air, confused. He abruptly realized that he had landed on the girl's nose. It was warm.
The girl lay very still, but her mouth kept twitching. The skin around her eyes was wrinkling.
The littlest human wandered into the room, then, pushing open the swinging thing and almost dislodging the white one. "Nose, nose," she said distinctly, laughing.
The girl under the green one's feet began laughing. "Yes, nose!"
He got away from there as fast as he could.
The girl sat up and scooped the littlest human up in her arms as three other noisy humans fell into the room, waving long, thick branches at each other.
"I got you!" one boy cried to another.
"No, I got you! You're dead, Andrew, you're supposed to die now!"
"Nuh-uh!"
"Aagh!" the third human screamed as the first one's branch jabbed her.
"Hey, who let the birds out?"
The girl laughed. "Put away those broomsticks and close the door! You'll let them into the rest of the house."
The boy with light-colored fur closed the swinging thing and the girl stood up. She posted a noisy human at all the places white and green liked to land and threw one last leaf ball. To avoid all the waving hands, they landed back on top of their home.
Phoomph! It was dark. The girl had thrown one of the huge fluffs from her nest over them. Something big and warm came groping under it to grab them from where they were trapped against the thin hard things. Suddenly they were home, and light returned as the girl whipped off the fluff.
"Gotcha," the boy with dark-colored fur said with satisfaction.
"Now get out of here," the girl said to the other four humans. "I have a story to write."
She slid the thin hard things over the hole in their home. "There, all safe now," she told them, her voice warm. "Thanks."
They watched as she lay stomach-down on her nest and began making black marks on her flat leafy things.
"Did you get any of that?" asked the green one.
"Seeds, not one bit," the white one answered.
The End
Coments: This is a very stupid story. But it's also short. I guess you can't have everything. No names have been changed, and yes, this is pretty much how it happened, with the addition of some dialogue. It's not really fiction.
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