Bird Brain Read online

  But then, at the four corners of the horizon, little clouds began to form. They moved swiftly towards me, growing larger and denser with every second.

  As they came closer, a raucous din filled my ears. And no wonder! Those weren’t clouds, they were flocks of birds. They had heard my cry for help and were coming to my rescue. Imagine!

  You should have seen them attack that hawk. And you should have heard them. They shrieked and called him all sorts of vile names in bird talk. There is nothing like it in human language — just imagine the worst insults you can think of.

  And that hawk got the message and blew off like a gust of wind. Good riddance!

  I tried to identify my parents in the flock of rescuers, but I couldn’t find them.

  But then I remembered — one of the kids in my class.map had done a presentation on this very subject! My bird mother must have a new brood. As soon as one set of children leave the nest, the parents start a new family somewhere else.

  That’s the way birds live, anyway!

  Here, my rescuers and I were on cloud nine, celebrating our victory. Wing to wing, we danced around, chirping and peeping and singing joyfully.

  But all good things must come to an end, including recess. I could hear the school bell ringing.

  My drawing! I had completely forgotten about it!

  First I would have to find some way to break the spell I was under. A bird’s life is a fine life, but you can’t spend all your time up in the clouds.

  Regretfully I said goodbye to my new friends. They flew away in a big V — for Victory, I guess!

  Maybe it would bring me good luck.

  On the way back, I tried to figure out how to turn into a little girl again. Probably I would have to go in through the window backwards.

  Uh-oh! I had totally forgotten about Chester. But he hadn’t forgotten about me, and there he was, waiting smack in the middle of the windowsill.

  As if that wasn’t enough, there was Mrs. Chester too! She had obviously just woken up and didn’t seem to be in a very good mood.

  I was in big trouble.

  CHAPTER SIX

  HEAD IN THE CLOUDS AND FEET ON THE GROUND

  MRS. CHESTER RAN to the window, crying, “Shoo! Scram! Get out of here, you dirty cat!”

  Chester the cat didn’t wait for directions. He could tell Mrs. Chester was not a cat lover, so he scrammed.

  Well, that was one problem gone!

  But the other problem remained. Mrs. Chester kept standing at the window. She raised her arms and stretched, like a big feline. She took little sniffs of the sweet fragrance of the spring air.

  I couldn’t smell much. I remembered reading that birds do not have a highly developed sense of smell. Whatever!

  I perched on the top of a tree and waited. What else could I do?

  Mrs. Chester seemed like a different person, as she basked by the window. She seemed about to purr with delight. And I had thought she was such a grump!

  She reminded me of Mr. Gusto when he told us about a rare bird he had spotted. You should have seen her, with her eyes half-shut, totally absorbed in her own thoughts.

  It was now or never for me!

  I swooped in between Mrs. Chester’s head and the window frame. It was such a tight squeeze that I banged against the wooden frame and almost lost one of my feathers — it was only hanging on by a thread. Oh well, I would never notice one feather more or less.

  The noise of the children coming upstairs brought Mrs. Chester back down to earth. And back to her bad mood, to judge by the look she gave me. And I was back at my desk, and back to being a girl, just as if nothing had ever happened.

  Which totally floored me!

  Of course, I looked all around for the little bird, but it had disappeared, as if by magic. I closed my eyes, and wished with all my heart that I could do the same. Because Mrs. Chester was walking over to my desk, obviously intending to examine my drawing. My non-existent drawing!

  She was bound to say I was disobedient and send me down to the office.

  She bent over my drawing. I waited for the storm to break out. But instead she said, “I see you finally saw reason and finished your drawing.”

  What? What did Mrs. Chester mean? How could I have drawn anything? I wasn’t even there!

  I glanced down — and I couldn’t believe my eyes!

  There was my bird, in the one place I hadn’t looked: on my paper! In the middle of a beautiful blue sky in my drawing.

  I remembered the sky as being bluer than that — I had been dreaming. In my dream I had flown, on the wings of my imagination, as Mr. Gusto would have said.

  I was so impressed by my drawing that I felt that I was flying for real. Honestly!

  “This is not bad at all…” Mrs. Chester said in a funny voice. As if her mouth might get scorched if a compliment came out of it.

  I shivered as she placed her pointy nail on my bird.

  “It looks strangely like you,” she said.

  It did! The bird had my features exactly!

  Mrs. Chester walked her finger all over my drawing, stopping at every little detail.

  It was all there! At the top of the picture was the hawk — my drawing of the hawk. It was flying away, pursued by a flock of smaller birds that I had drawn.

  At the bottom was the crazy-quilt landscape. But was that Chester the cat in the foreground, sitting on the windowsill?

  Oh, no! Now what had I done? You could tell that I had drawn Chester to look just like the supply teacher! The same yellow eyes, the same claws, everything was there. Including the same cross look at having missed a good chance at a meal.

  Mrs. Chester’s nail was tripping slowly but surely across the picture towards the cat. I would never come out of this alive!

  Suddenly the door burst open, and the class.maproom was invaded by a flock of kids, making a raucous din!

  Mrs. Chester hurried over to her desk and tried to restore order.

  Whoa! That was a close call! But now I felt as lighthearted and happy as a lark! Anyway!

  It’s amazing, the trips you can take in your imagination! Don’t you think so?

  But, believe it or not, that wasn’t the last of my surprises. When I was putting away my pencil crayons, I found a tiny feather on my desk.

  Do you think it was the one that broke off when I was flying back into the room?

  I know, I know. That’s a totally crazy idea. But I can’t get it out of my head.

  I can’t wait to see Mr. Gusto again! He’s the only one who can help me figure this story out. Because he’s just like me: his feet are on the ground, but his head is in the clouds.