Animal Activities #72
A child liked watching birds near the window. The window was big and showed the whole garden. The garden was full of grass and flowers. An old broken wooden fence divided it into several parts. One part had a big tree with thick leaves covering the yard with its shadow. The second was the old shed full of vines.
Birds liked nesting on the fence, cleaning themselves and singing from there. Anything new appearing nearby made them fly into the safety zone of the big tree. A child wished to live that way someday, freely and easily. Instead of watching the house from the window, to fly to that big tree and look at everything from above. But it was impossible to get into the garden, so that was the place where most of the time went by. It was the child's favorite spot since the mother's bed lay exactly under the window. After watching birds for many hours, the kid could climb onto the bed and fall asleep there at once.
The mother was not the child's real parent. The child was adopted from a woman who found that baby lying somewhere on the streets, so it was impossible to remember anything about the childhood before that. That woman had loved her child ever since and named her Pipa, which in Portuguese means apple.
She was three at that time and felt like growing up already despite mother disagreeing. Still, a child could go anywhere in the house. When she left to work, the house turned into a place to hide and play games. It was a very big house looking almost like a fairy tale castle surrounded by all sorts of plants with green, yellow and blue flowers since they were mother's favorites. The games were fun, but nothing could replace the joy of coming back together with her.
Sometimes, she left for work early in the morning. Other times, even in the middle of the night. Before going, she would feel sorry about leaving the child, kiss his forehead, apologize for taking the night shift again and walk towards her car. The child would stay awake until dawn, longing to see her face again.
At some point, the child fell asleep. The most terrifying noise in the house was the sound of keys at the front door. As soon as the kid heard it, it meant that she returned home and would surely come to the child, pick him up and give a kiss. One day she forgot about it.
Coming home, the child woke up at once and rushed to meet her in the hallway. Passing by without stopping, she headed to the living room where the child saw her crying while sitting on the floor. Not knowing how to help, the child tried to comfort her but got only a smile and a greeting saying how much she missed him.
Despite the house beauty, keeping it in order took too much effort. The toilet was stinky and dirty, but the child never saw mother using it, so it felt like it was his or her responsibility. Sometimes the food was forgotten, leaving only hunger and dirty dishes behind. Trying to find something to eat, the child would end up eating leftovers that tasted bad and could even be poisonous.
That day, waking up in the bed, the child failed to find mother sleeping beside him. The floor in the hallway was wet, the bathroom was empty. Water was dripping from the shower making a puddle there. Those sounds always terrified him, so the empty bathroom looked better.
Going downstairs in the living room did not bring any good result. There was a bird flying around the furniture, looking here and there. Seeing the child close, it flew into the kitchen quickly.
The child looked around near the cabinets, trying to run after the bird. The back door was open.
His heart began beating faster and faster. It was the first time he could get into the garden alone. Running outside barefoot with joy, he called mother. The grass looked higher than usual, obviously his mind playing tricks because of the excitement. Walking through it, the child came to the old shed found at the end of the garden.
A light came through the windows showing the room inside. The door was open and the child hoped that his mother might have hidden there preparing some treat or trick.
So he went inside.
The light entered through the glass revealing the darkness that was in the room. At the center, there was something hanging in the air, not moving much and was even dripping, a little.
It was the bird hanging in front of the window.
The mother came home to see the boy there. She smiled and said you weren't supposed to see that till Christmas. That was my gift to you. The boy was filled with so much joy and the bird was actually a parrot. The bird called the boys name because apparently the mother had taught it only that, with intentions to make the boy happy with the pet.