Intelligence: Joey's story

Intelligence: Chapter One

Christie flicked through the pages of the ancient book, the spine wiggling under the pressure of her soft, slim hands. She choked due to the dust filled air smothering her. "We've tried everything. Joey's intelligence will never improve!" Christie sighed, irritated that every method she found didn't help her parrots intelligence. The book laid upon a marble shelf, surrounded by piles of over information-filled resources, dust piling up over them.

Fiddling with her short, brown hair, Neave spoke up. "Check this out," She swiped through pages on her phone, bringing attention to a certain piece. Sighing, she poked at a website that read 'HIGH IQ PARROT SPELL!'. 

"Oh come on, we're not resorting to witchcraft." Christie mumbled profoundly, staring at her dusty palms. Closing the book she'd been flicking through for hours, she was hoping for a more realistic option. "As desperate as I am, I'd rather stick to repeating the same word for another month or two until he gets it!" Snatching the phone out of her girlfriend's hand, her gaze instantly faced towards the words on the screen. Her eyes flashed back and forth, scanning the hypnotizing words.

HIGH IQ PARROT MACAW SPELL – GIFT YOUR BIRD INTELLIGENCE SAFELY! The title of the site read in bold, green font. Neave chuckled, followed with a sigh. "He's not a macaw." Neave continued to scroll through the pages, looking hopefully for the two words 'African Grey'.

Minutes pass by, Neave stumbled across an intelligence spell. Christie rested her head on Neave's shoulder, disappointed after all the trouble. "The bird is known to have great intelligence, why does it take him months to learn 'I love you'?" She slumped herself down on her bed, placing her head in her hands.

The website had a sleek design and light colours, not to mention it was owned by a professional psychic wiccan. It was beautifully designed, happy comments and reviews from satisfied customers on each page.
Along with the page, the title read: NO HARM SHALL BE DONE TO YOUR BIRD. ONLY LOVE, CARE AND INTELLIGENCE WILL BE GIFTED TO YOUR BIRD WITHIN THIS SPELL.

"This seems okay," Christie whispered under her breath, her eyes scanning the page. "Anything to make our little Joey happier. Imagine how happy he would be, speaking to us, learning new words." She lightened up a bit, her nervousness fading away. Neave giggled and grabbed the iPad, "Let's do it. Who knows if it'll even work?" she said, leading Christie out of the dust-filled room. "Let's go to the staircase, that means we're closer to him."

Placing a little tea light on the top of the staircase, a small match was used to ignite the candle. "I'm nervous! What if it goes wrong and hurts Joey?" Christie cried out in fear. "Everything will be fine." Neave reassured her before they began chanting the spell. They held each other's hands, reading out the words on the screen.

Blowing out the only candle, they watched as the smoke twisted and turned before disintegrating into the atmosphere.

They rushed to put everything away, the candle stored somewhere safe, the iPad on the table, the matches in the cupboard. They went downstairs into the living room, the home of Joey. Neave pushed the white door open, wondering what would happen next. Did the spell work? Will Joey be different from now on? What if he's harmed? Questions flooded her mind, but they soon vanished after entering the stuffy living room.

"Joey?" Christie called out, not expecting a response. Her heart was beating fast, after the spell was cast all she did was feel anxious. As they walked into the living room, all eyes turned to face the clueless Joey. Relief flushed through their bodies.

"He's alright!" Neave cheered, hugging her girlfriend tightly. "I told you! I told you!" She jumped around in delight, making up mini dance moves, the feeling of fear quickly disappeared.
"Hello, Joey! How are you feeling, little one?" Christie calmly approached the parrot, gradually her heart rate getting back to normal. Joey looked around aimlessly and started happily munching on a sunflower seed. Once he was done with bits of food, he would drop them onto the bottom of his cage, glaring at it for a while.

They all were in silence for the next minute, gazing at Joey, their elegant African Grey. He stood on one strong claw, using the other to hold his delicious sunflower seed. This seed was soon to be demolished by his beautifully defined beak.

Joey was a gorgeous little boy, his grey feathers were perfectly lined up in a pattern all over his body. His beak was black and shiny, it had the perfect shape and sharpness for cutting up food easily.

Crunch! He split the seed in half, soon destroying the lot. Gradually, a pile of broken and neglected seeds had gathered on the floor of his cage. Joey's eyes turned to look at Neave, then to look at Christie. He bopped his head, as if he were dancing.

"Buggerous."

He seemed relaxed, yet joyful. He continued to stare emotionlessly for a few seconds, but quickly swapped his attention back to his fresh seeds.

The girls exchanged looks and giggled. "Nothing new!" Christie smirked, heading for the kitchen. 'I guess I was just being silly.' she thought to herself. She grabbed a glass cup from the kitchen and filled it up half way with apple juice. 'Deep down, I knew he'd be fine.'

Both in the kitchen, they sipped at glasses of fresh apple juice.  Ice cubes clinked loudly against the sides of the patterned glass like wind chimes. The smell of chocolate cake flooded the air, left from the night before. They sat calmly and were watchful of birds flying out and around the elm tree which lived at the end of their pebble-filled garden. "I wonder what it would be like if humans could fly." Neave spoke out of the blue. "I don't know but it would be pretty cool..." Christie muttered, placing her empty glass down on the table.

"Joe... Joe Joe!" Joey exclaimed from the lounge. Christie and Neave got up and went into the lounge to see their feathered friend. Happily, they escorted themselves towards his cage, getting hit by shock. "What the hell? Where's Joey?!" shouted Christie, resulting them to run to his barred cage. They looked up and down trying to find their parrot, but he was nowhere to be found. "How on earth did he get out?" Neave questioned, unable to figure out how he had escaped. "His bars are still blue tacked shut!" Christie opened the cage waving her hand slowly around the cage.

Suddenly, she jolted her hand back, letting out a small squeal. She quickly closed the cage door and looked down at her now bleeding hand. "Something just bit me!" Christie grimaced, making her way to the kitchen to clean the wound with water, Neave following. After cleaning the bite and putting a plaster on it, they returned to the living room and to their surprise; Joey was resting happily on his perch. "Oh, buggerous."