LOVE IS A BIRD by GENE VINCENT. Story by Robert Lastdrager.

Woodridge, Brisbane, Queensland. 1977.

Late on a hot Saturday night I was suddenly awoken by the sounds of rasping metal and an urgent whispering voice. It was coming from inside the laundry at the back of our house. My parents were next door enjoying their weekly card game with the neighbours. I was 13, home alone and frozen with fear.

My anxiety increased tenfold as hushed squabbling, chortles and crashing noises ensued. Burglars? I lay rigid and fought to stay calm, listening intently and now sweating profusely.
I finally worked up the courage to ease out of my creaking single bed in the pitch dark. Arming myself with a tennis racquet, I tiptoed along the hallway and into the kitchen to confront the intruders. Raising the racquet as I flicked the light switch, I yelled at the top of my voice: “Who’s there?”

“Get stuffed!” came the reply. It was a young cockatoo my father had found that day injured on the side of the road. His crest raised as he hissed at me from the cage where Dad had put him to recuperate.

Barney with the author in the backyard pool.

I called him Barney, and we soon became inseparable. I was his family favourite and could flip him on his back and cradle him like a baby. I would cuddle and tickle him while feeding him raw peanuts from my lips to his chiselled beak.

He would sit on the handlebars of my bike as we flew down the steep incline of our street at high speed. Barney, with his snow-white wings spread out, yellow crest ablaze and beak open would be screeching with joy.

On hot days he enjoyed sitting on my arm in the swimming pool for hours on end. I loved his cheekiness and chatter and that little boxing glove tongue poking in and out to share my ice-cream.

Barney had perches inside and outside the house. We’d always assumed his injured wing had grounded him for good. That was until I arrived home one day to find my distressed mother telling me Barney had flown up into a large eucalypt tree on the corner of our street and had not returned.

He could be heard telling confounded neighbours to “get stuffed!” from above. For the next two days I spent hours before and after school with food, water and ice-cream trying in vain to coerce him to come down. After rushing home from school on day three, I found he was gone for good. I was sad but I soon came to the joyful realisation that Barney was now free as a bird.

Stereo Story #824