TWEETY

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TWEETY
C 1995 Joanna Woodhouse

Unbelievable though it may seem, what I’m about to tell you is a true story. This event took place back in 1971. At that time, my family and I were living in Lorraine, Quebec.

While strapping my youngsters into the car following a trip to the supermarket, I suddenly heard what sounded like a bird chirping in a very agitated manner. To my astonishment, it seemed to be coming from under my car. I went down on my knees and peered around but there was no bird in sight, so I decided it must’ve flown away, so I drove on home. As soon as we pulled into our garage and I was unloading my groceries, I heard it again. At this point I realized that there was a bird trapped somewhere under my car.

Leaving the kids with a neighbour, I immediately drove to the nearest gas station. Anxiously I started explaining the situation to the two garage attendants on duty, but they both looked at me blankly and said they didn’t “parlais anglais”. So I started explaining it all over again in French. I was pretty anxious about the bird’s welfare at this point, and was very agitated. To my horror, I suddenly realized that in my excitement, instead of saying “un pauvre petit oiseau” (a poor little bird), I had in fact said that “un pauvre petit poisson” (a poor little fish) was trapped under my car. Understandably, the attendants looked at each other in total disbelief. I could see in their eyes the question (in French naturally): IS THIS WOMAN STARK, RAVING MAD AND IF SO, SHOULD WE CALL THE LITTLE MEN IN WHITE COATS RIGHT AWAY OR WAIT AND SEE IF SHE’LL GO AWAY ON HER OWN? I tried to correct my mistake but at that point, I’d lost all credibility as far as they were concerned. They simply shrugged their shoulders and walked away.

There was nothing for it – I had to take action. I got into the car and drove it right into their garage, got out and instructed them to lift her up. The attendants went into a huddle and when they emerged, I could see from their expressions that they’d decided to humour this poor demented creature and let her see for herself that there was neither fish nor fowl trapped under her car. They hoisted it up and using a wrench and an air hose, they tapped and squirted air around the various underparts of the car in a disinterested fashion. Just when they were about to lower it and send me on my way, there was a loud chirping coming from one of the shock absorbers. The fellow holding the wrench was so startled he dropped it on his foot which, judging from his language, was a fairly painful experience for him.

And there was Tweety – a small little sparrow who had somehow found his way up into my shock absorber. To this day, I can’t imagine how he did it. That he had survived the 5 mile journey home from the supermarket unscathed was a miracle. Once we’d managed to extricate him, it became obvious that he was just a baby, because his wing feathers weren’t fully grown and so he was unable to fly.

We were well into the Fall and I didn’t dare let him loose in our garden – not only due to his inability to fly or look after himself, but also because of the large cat population in our area. So Tweety was put into a cage and there he remained throughout the winter months.

We made no attempt to tame Tweety realizing that he was a wild bird and would stand a much better chance of surviving once we’d released him if we didn’t tame him. However, my son Mike, developed a very close and loving rapport with the little bird. He used to talk to him by the hour and hand him individual bird seeds which Tweety carefully took from his fingers. Whenever Mike approached his cage, Tweety would become very vocal and excited at the sight of his pal. There was a real bond between them.

In the spring, Tweety had developed into a fully grown, very smart looking fat little sparrow. As soon as he heard the other birds out in the garden, he became very agitated and was obviously longing for his freedom. We decided the time was right, so one day the family all gathered around on the back porch and we ceremoniously released him. Off he flew into the wild blue yonder, and we all worried as to how he’d make out on his own in the wild.

We needn’t have worried. From that time on, every day when Mike went out to catch the school bus, a little bird living in the tall pine tree in front of our house would start chirping furiously, so we knew that all was well with Tweety.