Flight – a short story for English reading comprehension

“She can fly,” I said. “I’ve trained her.”

Dad didn’t even look at me.

“Rubbish. You got wings? Where are they?”

He pinched the skin between my shoulder blades and laughed. I shook his hand off and held onto the box. Inside, the bird flapped around and let out another cry.

She hated being inside that box. But I had to put her in the thing to get her here.

The wind blew harder. Icy-cold in my face.

“That’s a strong wind,” said Dad. “Sure that pigeon can fly in this?”

He knew she wasn’t a pigeon.

“She’s not a pigeon,” I said. “I told you before.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right. A seagull. One of those noisy damn things.”

I went to say something but clamped my lips together.

He didn’t have one good word for Elsie. That’s what I called her. After Mum’s grandmother. Elsie.

It just sounded right. An old-fashioned name for her. It suited her.

She flapped around inside the box and screeched. I held tightly onto the sides of it. She moved around so much I nearly dropped the box earlier.

Dad didn’t notice. He was busy telling our neighbour about going to the top of the hill at the end of Station Road.

“Got to let this bird out,” he said. “It’s been with us since he found it on the ground. Surprised it lasted this long, to be honest.”

The neighbour gave me a friendly nod, but I pretended to be busy securing the box. That’s when Elsie shook about inside and the box nearly fell out of my hands.

All the way to Station Road, Dad made comment after comment. Always the same thing.

That stupid bird won’t fly.

That stupid bird is lucky to be alive.

No reason she shouldn’t be alive. I fed her. I made sure she ate every day.

Just a little blob when I found her on the ground. She hardly had any feathers and her eyes were almost completely shut. But I touched her and she moved a little bit.

So I took her home.

Mum said I couldn’t keep her in the house.

“It’s dirty,” she said. “It might have fleas.”

“She’s a she, Mum,” I said. “And she doesn’t have fleas. I washed her.”

At first, I didn’t know what to give her. I crumbled up some bread and soaked it in water, breaking tiny bits off for her to swallow. She spat most of it out, and I thought she was going to die. The pet shop man said she wouldn’t last more than two days anyway. He wasn’t interested.

I didn’t want him to be right.

So I went to the library instead and found a book on birds. There was a picture of a man using a little dropper, giving a baby bird some water and soft mash.

I didn’t know birds drank water. I thought they drank something special, like a secret food only they knew about.

The book said a few drops of water could keep them alive. Mashed-up grains or soft food, too.

So that’s what I did. And she lived.

I wanted to go down to that pet shop one day, hold Elsie up high and say: See? You were wrong.

“So what you planning on doing,” said Dad. “Throwing it off the top here?”

He didn’t know anything.

“I’ll help her,” I said. “I’ve been helping her the last two weeks.”

Dad laughed again. The same laugh whenever he thought he was right.

A smug laugh, Mum called it. But she always smiled when he laughed like that. She liked it when he proved himself right and her wrong.

That’s what being married is all about. One person is always right and the other one is always wrong, and that’s how they live for the rest of their lives.

I wouldn’t do that.

“Come on then,” said Dad. “Get on with it. It’s freezing up here.”

I put the box on the grass and knelt down to open the lid. As I fumbled around opening the cardboard box, Elsie flapped around inside.

“Come on, girl,” I said in what I hoped was a soothing voice. “Come on now.”

“Saying your last goodbyes?” said Dad. “So sad.”

He couldn’t say any more as he went into one of his coughing fits. He bent over and hacked and hawed as he tried to clear his chest.

I got the flap open and Elsie let her wings spill outside and into the cold air. She stretched them above her head at awkward angles.

“Come on, girl,” I whispered. I put my hands down the insides of the box and slid my fingers under her tiny body. She pecked at my fingers in a rapid motion. I was used to her doing it. When she first did it, I pulled my fingers away.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’ll help you.”

Elsie calmed down a little, and I got my fingers underneath her body. She appeared so strong with all her feathers now, but I could feel how skinny she was. She ate her own weight in food every day, but still like a little bag of bones.

I pulled her out of the box and held her close to my chest.

Dad had gone quiet. I didn’t look at him in case it made him start again.

The grass sloped in a decline in front of me and then went at a sharp angle down. I got as far as I could and stopped. She had done it so many times before with me. I had held her, and she flew right to the end of the garage. One time she flew into the door.

She was strong, I could feel it.

I held my hands up higher to give her a full view of what was in front of us.

“Come on, girl,” I said. “You got this.”

I closed my eyes and lifted my hands higher. She let out a cry; it sounded like she said Far.

Faaaar!

Then I felt her wings pound the air. I could feel her body lifting.

She left my hands and flew up a little. But the wind was strong. She was batting around like a butterfly.

Her wings flapped around awkwardly and with no grace at all.

But she persevered. She flew ahead, straight to the edge of the cliff.

I watched in horror as her small body dropped out of view.

The whole world went quiet. And I held my breath, unable to move.

Then I saw her rise up again and soaring into the air.

And she was gone.