For All His Feathers - Chapter 3: The Roommate
As it turned out, Sarah's current roommate, Samantha, was not pleased with the arrangement.
Sarah had rescued the ancient Australian Magpie years ago, and she was equal parts good company and a constant source of stress. On top of stealing all of Sarah's things, Samantha harassed her all day with a barrage of every word, phrase, song, and sound she had ever committed to memory.
Most of the time, it was little Sarah-isms. When Sarah was unlucky, it was the sound of her coffee maker, and when she was even less lucky, her fire alarm.
Most unbearable, though, were the commercial jingles.
"Call J.G. Wentworth! 877-CASH NOW!" Samantha cheered from her enclosure as Sarah pushed into her entryway.
"Hi, Sam," Sarah cooed at her. "I know, you want your dinner."
"CASH NOW!" Samantha agreed. "Dinner time, baby!"
Sarah set the cardboard animal carrier on the kitchen counter and turned toward the garage where she stored Samantha's food. "Do you want crickets or worms?"
Silence.
Samantha was never silent.
Sarah turned around to find the magpie staring daggers at the carrier.
"Sam?" Sarah hedged. "Crickets or worms?"
Samantha ruffled her feathers, puffing herself up indignantly. "No," she croaked, turning her back on Sarah and the owl. "No, cash now. No, dinner time, baby. No, no, no."
"Okay, geez," Sarah said with a huff.
It wasn't uncommon for Sarah to bring patients home. Samantha had never behaved like this. The owl was relatively large compared to her, but still, it was unusual. Sam was typically more prone to curiosity than displays of territorialism.
Sarah took the carrier into the guest room that would have to serve as a makeshift rehabilitation center. The room was sparse, mostly used to store the various research articles and scientific journals she hoarded. A few clothes of Toby's were folded into a box for the rare occasions he slept over. There was a twin bed and a small side table, but that was about it as far as surfaces went.
She shrugged to herself before setting the carrier down in the middle of the bed. That was fine, she decided, since she needed to keep him contained in his carrier overnight to limit his movements, and she didn't want him on the floor where he could get chilled.
"Goodnight, my friend," she whispered to the owl before she clicked off the light and closed the door behind her.
"No," Samantha greeted as she walked into the living room.
"Excuse me, ma'am." Sarah opened the door to the enclosure and held her hand out. "What are you complaining about?"
Samantha pecked her thumb. Not hard enough to hurt, but insistent enough to be a clear fuck you.
"Hey!" Sarah yelped. "You mean old cuss, what's gotten into you?"
"Mean old cuss!" The magpie repeated. "No." She broke off into a round of ambulance sirens before clarifying, "Mad. Mad old cuss!"
"Okay, so you're mad," Sarah acknowledged gently. "Why are you mad?"
Samantha looked pointedly down the hallway and let out an all-too-human-sounding scream.
Sarah jumped and looked over her shoulder. There was nothing there, just the closed door to the guestroom and the rest of the empty hallway beyond it.
"You scared the bejeebs out of me," Sarah said, clutching her hand over her heart as she turned back to the magpie. "Wait, are you still upset about the owl?"
Samantha screamed again before exclaiming, "Mad. Owl. No owl!"
"Yes, owl," Sarah told her with fracturing patience. "He's only staying for a little while."
She reached her hand back into the enclosure and stroked Samantha's chest.
The magpie looked Sarah dead in the eye as she bit down on her finger. "No owl."
"Alright, that's it," Sarah scolded lightly, closing the enclosure. "I'll leave you alone for a bit. But in thirty minutes, it's dinner time, baby!"
"No owl," Samantha said again. She let out a garbled sound she often made when trying to form a word she hadn't mastered yet. "Not."
"Not?" Sarah was stunned. It was rare for Samantha to come up with a new word she wasn't directly repeating. Magpies were very intelligent, but distinguishing between 'no' and 'not' was a linguistic semantic she was sure was beyond any bird.
"Not," Samantha echoed, the word coming easier this time.
"Not, what?" Sarah asked, feeling a bit ridiculous but the curiosity was too strong to not engage.
"Not, not, not not," the magpie chanted.
Sarah sighed and headed to the kitchen. Samantha was quiet as she prepared her dinner and washed her dishes. She even allowed Sarah to feed her, though she made it clear they were not on speaking terms by thoroughly giving her the cold shoulder, turning her body completely away in between bites.
It wasn't until Sarah turned off the lights in the living room that Samantha spoke again.
"Not owl."
A/N: Thank you, Geliot99 and rantobi, for beta reading!
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Not the J.G. Wentworth jingle! 😆
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