Read Online The Bird Market of Paris by Nikki Moustaki - Free Book Online

African Lovebird Society. We met inside a junior high school at eight in the evening and listened to lectures by local veterinarians, bird breeders, and genetics experts. Sometimes members prepared lectures on proper feeding, cage building, or hurricane preparation. Between twenty and thirty people showed up, all much older than myself, mostly retirees. I couldn’t wait to tell them about the egg.
    â€œWhere’s your little peachie?” asked Marge, the club’s treasurer, a retired grandmother who bred lovebirds and cockatiels.
    â€œBonk had an egg ,” I said, forming an egg shape with my fingers to show her how big it was.
    â€œThat’s wonderful!” she said. “Now you can breed her. It’s great to have a healthy egg-laying hen.”
    â€œBut she doesn’t like me anymore.”
    â€œShe’ll like you again as soon as you take away the egg.”
    â€œShe won’t let me near it.”
    â€œLet her sit on it for a week, then put on some gloves and take it away. In no time she’ll be your buddy again. It’s the same when they have babies.”
    â€œIsn’t that … mean ?” I said.
    â€œIt’s meaner to let her sit for weeks on an egg that won’t hatch,” Marge said. “It’s a waste of her time and takes away from her happiness. She’ll never have a baby from an infertile egg, and that’s got to be more frustrating than anything.”
    Other group members suggested removing all paper material from Bonk, even the newspaper lining her cage. Shredding paper stimulates breeding behavior in lovebird hens. Bonk shredded any bit of paper in her reach—newspaper, paperback books, tissue boxes—into thin, identical strips, and stuffed them between the turquoise feathers of her rump. This is how peach-faced lovebirds transport nesting material. Male lovebirds don’t do this, so it’s a reliable way to tell the difference between genders. I must have been daydreaming in some of the bird society meetings, because I hadn’t registered that before.
    Poppy arranged to pick me up to spend the night with him and Nona that weekend, saying he had errands nearby. I don’t think he had errands—he didn’t want to worry about me on the road by myself. I was excited to show him the egg.
    â€œShe will not have a baby from that egg,” he said, bending at cage level to peer at Bonk as I lured her out of the corner with a wooden spatula.
    â€œI know.”
    â€œShe might have more eggs.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œShe wants a boyfriend.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œWhat do you not know, Chérie ?”
    â€œI don’t know how to take it away from her.”
    â€œDo you want my help?”
    â€œI’m not ready,” I said.
    He put his arm around my shoulder and we watched Bonk for a minute as she warmed her egg, eyeing us like a security guard.
    â€œYou are a good mother.”
    We left, and it was the first time since I’d had Bonk that she didn’t accompany me for a sleepover at Nona and Poppy’s apartment. I was lonely without her.
    I let the cranky, protective new “mom” pamper her single egg for well over a week. Then, with an acidic taste in my mouth and trembling hands, I slid on my mother’s yellow dishwashing gloves.
    I tiptoed to the cage and stood for a long time, watching Bonk. She huddled in the corner, crouched on top of her egg, watching me. It was a face-off, nose to beak.
    Bonk rushed at me with her beak wide as I pulled the cage door open. I distracted her using a pencil and led her away from the egg. She bit the pencil eraser off and fought with the crimped silver ferrule. With my other gloved hand, I reached toward the egg and removed it from the cage.
    Bonk hurried to the corner where her egg had been. She seemed disoriented for a minute, then hopped to her food dish and began munching the end off a carrot.
    In the kitchen, I rested