Part 1
My name is Steve and I’m fourteen years old. Something very peculiar happened last month and I have to record it because I’m almost going nuts thinking that it was just a dream. I thought – and I never used to believe in such stuff – I thought that it only existed in the world of children’s books. So I believed. But now it’s different, and don’t say that I’m childish. Just listen!
I have a couple of budgies called Micky and Nickie. They’re very tame, and when I let them out of the cage, they like to sit on my head or shoulders – one on each side – chatting bird-sense to each other through my ears. I haven’t succeeded to make them talk, you see – I gave that up a long time ago. Anyhow, Nickie had started to lay eggs on the floor of the cage, and so I fixed up a nest for them and hoped for the best.
A week or two later, I noticed that an egg had indeed hatched, but I didn’t see the young one because Micky had it under him. So I decided not to disturb them. But the following afternoon when I returned home from school, I really got a fright. I unlocked the front door (I live alone in this townhouse with Mom, and she works) and heard a faint scream.
It wasn’t really that, that frightened me, though – and I didn’t know where it came from – but the strange way it echoed in my head as if someone had blown a trumpet right next to my ear... Without knowing why, I rushed into my room where the cage was, and soon I found out that here help was needed. Because Nickie was pecking at the young one and didn’t seem to want to accept it at all. I quickly opened the cage door, pushed away the budgie and succeeded in fishing the baby-bird out of the nest. And that was when I, right then and there, almost got the shock of my life. A bird? What I was holding was a baby human being in miniature!
My hand shook as I carefully took it out of the cage. Less than an inch and a half it was: on its head, short blonde hair, and on its clear soft skin I saw the wounds that Nickie’s beak had caused... That put me into action. Whatever was going to happen to this little creature, I definitely had to at least try to help it. Somehow, it had caught my liking.
I went to the bathroom to wash it and see to the sores the best I could. I had to stop up the drain; it could’ve swallowed this little thing whole. I felt a little stupid doing this kind of girls’ stuff. I really hoped that Mom would take longer to come home that day. Meanwhile, I discovered that it was a baby girl and so I tried to find a name for her. Dabbing some diluted Listerine on the cuts with a Q-tip, I ransacked my brain for a suitable name... But, no, none of the ones that I could think of would fit her. And then I couldn’t think at all because she was crying again, this time because of the antiseptic burning on her skin – and it really pierced through me.
“Sssch, sssch, Joni,” I said, disturbed, wagging her gently between my fingers. The miniature baby girl quietened and looked up at me as if she’d never known any other name.
Yes, that’s it!
“From now on your name is Joni,” I said solemnly and let a drop of water fall on her head so that she’d be properly christened.
