The jailbreak...

[fajrdrako]

I was sitting and typing at my computer when a bird flew by my right ear.

This was, you understand, inside my apartment.

With the budgie cage door firmly shut. Or at least... it had been.

I examined the cage. Door open. Peter and Logan were sitting on their perches saying, "It wasn't us! We're innocent! We don't know anything about this. Really."

Jubilee was sitting on a cardboard box near my computer, smirking.

Now, in normal times, I would throw a towel over her, pick her up, and dump her back into the cage with a stern lecture about unscheduled forays outside the cage. But on crutches I can't even get a towel, let alone carry her, let alone approach quietly and smoothly enough to get close enough to cover her.

Or alternately, I would play it cool, let her enjoy her freedom, and expect her to go back to her cage when ready. This process sometimes takes a couple of days. With me on crutches... I was afraid something would happen to her when I was out, or even when I wasn't, and there'd be nothing I could do. Budgies do sometimes get stuck in odd places. They get curious. They explore.

Jubilee was smirking as only a budgie can smirk.

So I let her play. She flew to the witch-ball at my window and climbed up the chain. She visited my curtain-rod, and went back to the chain, where she sat and contemplated the world outside the window, and did a little display of cuteness and budgie acrobatics.

I went to masseru's place to watch Doctor Who.

When I came back, I couldn't see Jubilee, but I'm not mobile enough to look behind curtains or under furniture or in the places budgies like to hide. I panicked. I phoned masseru, who came to the rescue with Catherine, who found Jubilee perched on one of my lamps. Looking rather pleased with herself, too.

There followed a brief chase to the floor behind the television, the floor behind my Lord of the Rings picture-screen, to the curtain-rod by the ceiling, to the kitchen doors, and, finally, to the Ikea crocodile, Kermit.

There's something rather suitable about a small bird perched on a crocodile.¹

Catherine then did the towel trick, and Jubilee was deposited in the cage, with much to tell Peter and Logan. She was both indignant and jubilant.

Little devil.

I now have two bull-clip locks on the cage door.

~ ~ ~

¹ Actually Kermit looks more like this, only with red antlers that light up. He is an unusual crocodile.