Read Online Bronze Pen (9781439156650) by Zilpha Keatley Snyder - Free Book Online

dish. It did look as if the sunflower seeds, which he’d always seemed to prefer, had been eaten up.
    â€œAll right, I’ll get you some more sunflower seeds,” shesaid, “if you promise not to peck me when I put them in your dish. Okay?”
    Sputnik flapped his wings and screeched something in his usual cockatiel voice that sounded vaguely like “okay.” Or maybe not. But whatever it was, he said it over and over again—“oke, oke, oke”—while Audrey got down the bag of sunflower seeds, took out a cupful, and proceeded to carefully open the door of the cage. While she filled the dish Sputnik went on screeching and bobbing his head up and down, but for once he didn’t try to bite or to escape before she could close the door. So maybe he had been saying “okay” or something similar in cockatiel language.
    When the door was safely shut and Sputnik was busy eating, Audrey went on standing in front of the cage, watching and wondering. She wondered about what she had heard or had seemed to hear. And after a while it occurred to her to wonder about something she hadn’t heard. Leaning closer to the cage, she whispered, “Hey, Sputnik. How come no cussing?”
    The cockatiel went on eating sunflower seeds. So she asked again. “What happened to all the cussing?”
    Sputnik rolled a black eye in the direction of the feed dish, ate another sunflower seed, looked again, and then said, “I don’t know. Maybe I ate it.”
    Audrey couldn’t help laughing. “Cussing isn’t something you eat. Cussing is all those bad words you alwayssay.” She whispered a couple of his favorites through the bars of his cage. “You know. Words like that.”
    Sputnik squawked and threw up his head in a threatening manner. “Those are yelling words. Anderson yelled them, so I yelled them back. That’s just angry squawk-talk. Angry squawk-talk.”
    After Audrey thought about that for a minute, she began to feel really indignant. She’d never liked Andy Anderson much because when she used to visit her dad’s office at the newspaper, he would always start to tell a joke and then think up a reason to send her out of the room before he got to the funny part. And now she was discovering that he himself had cussed at Sputnik, and when Sputnik cussed back, he named him Bleep and threatened to throw him out where the chicken hawks would get him.
    â€œWell,” she told Sputnik, “that’s despicable. Anderson swore at you and then got mad at you for saying the same words. That’s really despicable.”
    Sputnik did his aggressive strut, the way he always did when he was daring Beowulf to bite him. “Despicable,” he said. “Despicable Anderson.” But now he was using his cockatiel voice again, high-pitched and raspy.
    He was still saying “despicable” several minutes later when Audrey left the kitchen.
    CHAPTER 10
    O N THE WAY BACK TO HER ROOM AUDREY was in a trancelike daze when she met her mother in the hall. “Oh, Audrey.” Hannah looked tired and pale. “Did you take the dog out?”
    Audrey must have said yes or at least nodded because her mother said, “Good for you. I almost forgot about him.” She patted Audrey on the shoulder and turned away. Watching her go, it occurred to Audrey to think, She didn’t notice anything. So I must not look any different. The only difference is that now I can talk to animals . She kept whispering it as she arrived at her room, got into her pajamas, and climbed into bed. Over and over again. “I can talk to animals. I can talk to animals.” But after a while it sometimes came out, “I guess I can talk to animals. I guess I can, or else…” Or else what? Or else she really was going crazy.
    Lying flat on her back with the covers pulled up to herchin, she kept on saying one version and then the other. The “I can talk