Time to Fly Read Free Page A

exam.”
    â€œDon’t worry,” I tell him through the window. “Gran’s the best. She’ll make you feel better soon.”
    But I can’t help wondering about the other parrot with the pretty blue head, the one that talked to me. Can there really be two parrots flying loose around our neighborhood?

    After half an hour, Dr. Gabe eases the parrot out of the oxygen cage. The bird looks a little more alert, but he still doesn’t struggle much. Dr. Gabe holds the bird in a towel, the same way Gran did earlier.
    He and Gran both have on surgical masks. Gran tells me to put one on, too, “just in case.” A face mask makes me feel very official—but also a little anxious. If this bird has something serious, he might not make it.
    â€œOK, Pickles,” Gran says, nicknaming her small green patient. “Let’s see what’s bothering you.”
    I love watching Gran at work. She’s focused but affectionate with her patients, calm and quick and gentle at the same time. Her hands move effortlessly, like a magician performing a trick that’s been rehearsed a thousand times. And her face never gives away her thoughts. She keeps her feelings inside, so she won’t frighten the animals—or their owners.
    As Dr. Gabe holds Pickles in the towel, Gran begins by checking the bird’s basic vital signs. She listens to his heart with a stethoscope and peers in his eyes with an ophthalmoscope. She parts the feathers on each side of his head to check his ears. (Yes, birds do have ears!) With the lightest touch she feels his neck, chest, and belly. Very gently she extends each wing and leg, one at a time.
    Pickles looks frightened, but he doesn’t struggle.
    â€œCan you tell what’s wrong?” I ask impatiently.
    â€œWell, there’s nothing obvious, like a broken bone,” Gran replies. “But the nasal discharge and listless behavior tell us this bird is clearly not well. It could be a number of things. We’ll just have to rule them out one by one. Can you grab me some cotton balls and alcohol, Zoe?”
    While I get the supplies from the counter, Gran goes to a cabinet and comes back with a syringe. She wipes the bird’s chest area with alcohol, then gives him an injection in the breast muscle.
    â€œWhat’s that?” I ask her.
    â€œIt’s a broad-spectrum antibiotic,” she says. “I want to get something into his system right away. Then, when we know what’s wrong with him, we may switch to a more disease-specific medication.” Gran looks up at Dr. Gabe. “What do you think, doc? Is our patient strong enough to give a blood sample?”
    â€œI think he can handle it,” Dr. Gabe replies. “The oxygen seems to have perked him up.”
    Carefully but firmly, Dr. Gabe tilts back Pickles’s head. Through the small feathers I can barely see the pale skin of the neck that covers the bird’s jugular vein.
    â€œAlcohol,” Gran says, and I hand her a soaked cotton ball. After cleansing the area, she slowly slips another needle into the vein and draws a thread of blood up into the syringe. Again, Pickles doesn’t react to the needle at all.
    â€œSterile cotton swab, please,” she orders.
    I open a fresh one, and she uses it to take a quick stool sample from the bird’s hind end.
    â€œThat’s it,” Gran says. “You’re all done, Pickles.”
    Pickles blinks at us. He looks woozy, the way I felt when I had the flu last January.
    â€œShall I prepare one of the small cages?” I ask.
    â€œYes,” says Gran. “And I think we’d better quarantine him, just to be on the safe side.”
    â€œHe has to stay all by himself?” I ask. “You think it’s something that serious?”
    â€œWell, we won’t know till we get the tests back,” Gran says. “But we don’t know how long Pickles has been loose in the wild. He could have