Loro/Parrot

Out front, parrots squawked in the pepper tree. They shimmied along the branches, their kelly green bodies blending in with feathery leaves.

Madeline Perkins watched the birds. On the phone with her mother, she leaned her head against the window and assured her mother that yes, she would be at dinner tonight. It was her mother’s birthday, after all. It would be her treat; she knew how much her mother loved a good steakhouse— not for the steak, mind you, but for the sides. Her mother was all about baked potatoes. And yes, she told her mother, she could afford it. They paid people these days to put data into spreadsheets, and she was an Excel queen. Madeline raised her eyebrows at the last bit and held her breath at the thought of the check at Morton’s that night.

She grabbed a notebook and counted the parrots. Seven of them. She expected more from the noise, but she wrote down the number. Seven. The birds shrieked, an ungodly act at six-thirty on a Saturday morning, but Madeline loved the birds. She loved the bright flash of green outside her window. She loved that they roosted in her part of Orange County, California, but she didn’t love the feeding frenzy that woke her up on the only days the commuter train started late.

The parrots walked the branches, their heads bobbing side to side as their dinosaur eyes peered at the red peppercorns. Madeline counted the birds again. Just seven.

But then, she saw it—a bright green-and-red splotch on the gray sidewalk.

“I’ve got to go, Mom,” she said, adding before her mother could remind her, “I’ll be safe.” She hung up and ran out the door and down the stoop to the bird.

It was Larry, she thought, or maybe Penelope. It was hard to tell the two apart.

A lawnmower started, despite the early hour, one block away, reminding her that people were awake, that people could see her standing in a pink terrycloth bathrobe with matching slippers, but she didn’t move. She wrapped the bathrobe tighter and stared at the bird. Its eyes were open, a thin band of yellow in the middle of its pebble-like pupil. Her brown hair dangled in her face. She pushed it back, retying her ponytail, brushing her bangs into place. She tried to look as presentable as she could with unshaved legs and bed head. Standing above Larry/Penelope, she wished that he/she had closed its eyes when it died. The bird looked stuffed, one green wing splayed against the gray, painted-over sidewalk, the other covering its body like a blanket.

Above her, parrots jumped from branch to branch feasting on peppercorns. They ate, dropping half of each pod until a red snow covered the sidewalk. It sounded almost like rain.

Pans clattered inside the apartments next to her. Cartoons shouted out of a window. Down the street, a car door opened and shut. People were on the move. She needed to act.

She had once read on the Southern California Wild Parrot Association’s website what to do in this situation, but in the six months that she had lived here, the only thing she ever did was count the neighborhood’s parrots. She wasn’t needed for anything more. With her foot, she scooted Larry/Penelope into the grass and went back inside. She went on the organization’s website and clicked the link What to Report. Dead parrots should be preserved, she read. It was a way to allow the organization a chance to analyze the birds’ dna. To find out where they came from, how they were related.

Madeline paused, read through it again. “But how?” She couldn’t leave it there. People would touch it. Plus, Carl, the chapter’s president, lived in San Clemente, a thirty-minute drive away, and he boated on the weekends. She didn’t have anybody else’s number. She had thrown away Jim’s when he winked and told her that her eyes were the color of the underside of...