This is not a fun story to write. Nobody likes to go to the doctor, especially not Joey and Josie. However, Josie had some blood on her and their mommy was not taking any chances with them, so off to see Doctor Anne.

We could hear her calling the clinic telling that Josie had been bleeding but it had stopped. They told her to bring her to the office. “Oh great!” said Joey. He would have to go to, as the budgies did not like to be parted at any time. “Why couldn’t you have stayed out of trouble?”

“It’s not my fault, we were playing too hard and I slipped.” said Josie quietly.

“Well we are in for it now, that long car ride and then Dr Anne fussing over us”.

“I heard that,” said their Mommy, “Dr Anne is a very nice lady and a good vet, you should be glad to see her.”

“I’d like it better if she gave us a treat while we were there, we get hungry travelling.” stated Joey. Josie nodded her agreement.

“Alright, lets get ready, Joey into your carrying cage.”

“No, I won’t, I don’t want to,” chirped Joey. “You can’t make me.” He lost that argument in a hurry; his mommy picked him up and put him in the cage very quickly.

“That’s enough of that,” she said. “Come on, Josie you’re next.” Josie did not act up
as usual, she really was scared; maybe Mommy was right this time.

Into their travelling cases they went. “Everyone is already; we will just have to wait for the taxi to come.”

The taxi came quite quickly, mommy loaded all of them in and off they went.
The driver was nice to them, he asked about budgies and Mommy told him about
us, she told him how we can talk like people, and the fact we are context speakers with the Budgie Research Group and that we are mates for life.

She also told him what kind of budgies we are and how old, all that sort of thing. He seemed interested in us and the trip went quickly. We like it when she tells people about budgies; they respect us more after that.

We finally got to the clinic and went in, the woman at the desk said, “Joey and Josie Smarty-pants, how are you today?” Funny, she never asks Mommy how she is. We guess that budgies are more important than their guardians are at the vets.

She took us to the examining room and we waited for Dr. Anne to come in. Mommy took us out of our cases and sent the cages on the table. She said, “You will be OK, Josie.”

Josie did not say much, which is unusual for her; usually she talks up a storm and tries to get out of her cage. “Maybe she really is hurt,” thought Joey. “I sure hope she will be OK, we don’t want to stay here all night.”

Dr. Anne came in; she was a large lady, dressed hospital clothes with funny glasses on her head. She was a very kind person, who loved all animals, but especially the littlest ones. She said hello to us just as if we were grownups, we like that. She makes us feel very important.

Mommy explain that Josie had possibly hurt herself when we were playing and that she was concern and brought us to see her. Dr. Anne took Josie out of the cage, cuddled her and then looks in her mouth to see if she had cut herself.

“She seems to be OK, there is no sight of injury,” said the vet. She looks through the funny glasses and still could not find anything wrong with her. Then she took me out of my cage, hugged me (girl stuff), and looked me over too. She told mommy to keep an eye on Josie, but she seemed to be fine. As usual, she calls me double trouble, the funny thing is Josie is more trouble that I am and she is treated like a good little girl. Right, she is not that good.

After paying the bill and getting another taxi ride, Josie and I were very tired, hot,
hungry, thirsty and very, very glad to be safely back home. We really do not like to go to the vets, but maybe mommy was right in this case, what if Josie had been hurt. I think next time, we will not complain so much about going to see Dr. Anne.

“No we won’t, we still won’t want to go, just you wait and see,” stated Josie.

“Oh be quiet, you have caused enough trouble today, I just wanted to have a nap,” said Joey.

With that, Josie stamped her pink feet, put her head under her wing and pretended to go to sleep.

Mommy stood here watching us, we heard her say, “Thank goodness they are alright.”

Josie got in the last word as usual, “We could have told you that!”

© Ceol

Joey Smarty-pants here, you have read stories about budgies but have you ever read one written by a budgie?

Josie Smarty-pants Nibbles (my mate) and I want to tell you about what it is like to be a budgie. For starters, Josie is a 3-month-old Lutino female and I am an 11-month-old grey wing, green and yellow male. We live in a flat in Burnaby Canada with our two mommies.

We are very ordinary budgies but we can talk in context and you can understand us if you listen very closely. Josie is just learning how to talk and she still has some trouble with human words, but I am teaching her and someday she will speak as well as I can.

We fight and make up; I always tell her I love her every morning when I wake up. She
is a special budgie to me, Carol (my mommy) tells us that humans do not always say I love you,
maybe they should.

Josie and I love western music, especially when it tells a story. Carol calls me the Cowboy Budgie and I agree. Josie is more of a city budgie but she likes the love songs.

Of course, we do live in cages, fly around, eat millet and generally get into trouble, all the usual things a budgie does. We do not do tricks, but we have other things we like to do.

I have created a book for a little boy with cerebral palsy; the name of the book is ”Budgies Talk, I Talk”. My budgie friends and I got together to create stories, poems and songs for Little Ryan, Carol put them in book form and gave them to him. Every night his parents read it to him that is our greatest accomplishment so far, we hope to write many more poems and stories.

We are good at protecting my second mommy, we watch closely because she is very elderly.
we always let her caregivers know if she needs help by shouting.

As you can see Josie and I are very busy budgies, we have fun teasing each other, making up and keep our mommies very busy.

I want you to have one of my poems, I hope you like it.

Come Fly with Me!

I can fly,
I can fly so high!

Make a wish and spread your wings,
Come and play with me!

For, I am a little budgie, and
I can fly and I can really soar!

You are a little boy, who can only sit and watch,
You dream and plan that magic time when you will really fly!

Then come fly with me and feel the wind lift up my tiny wings,
For I am your dream of flight come true!

When you dream the way, you do

©  Ceol

“I wonder what kind of mischief I can get into today?” says Josie. “It is rather a dull day, there doesn’t seem to be any thing to do.” You can only play with your toys for so long, it gets boring after while.

“What I really want to do is tease Joey, he is so prim and proper, and I don’t think he even knows how to do laugh…” “I know let’s ask mommy to let us out for a while, sitting in a cage all day is no fun at all.”

Now Josie is an adventurous budgie, she just loves to get into trouble, after all when you are only four months old; you are supposed to get into mischief.

Joey on the other hand is a year old and he is more serious, but one of his pleasures is to get Josie all riled up, he teases her and she responses the same way everytime she has a temper tantrum.

Josie of course does not see things quite that way, maybe because Joey is always is scolding her and telling her what to do.

Josie starts calling, “Mommy, we want out! Mommy we want out!”

“OK, OK, I will let you out for a while, just stay out of trouble,” says Mommy.

“We promise, no trouble,” chirps Josie, “Let’s go play.”

First, they run around the top of the Josie’s cage that is fun, but then things a little out of hand. Joey has a very long tail that Josie would just love to have and every chance she gets she pulls it, very hard, she wants those feathers for her little tail.

She pulls and pulls and pulls some more, but the only thing happening, is that she is dragging Joey across the top of the cage. The feathers will not come out, but Joey is very scared and yells, and screams, “MOMMY! HELP ME! HELP ME!”

Mommy comes running and rescues Joey, “Joey are you alright, let’s see your tail feathers, Josie, naughty budgie, you must not hurt each other, that is not a nice thing to do.” scolds Mommy.

Josie just sits and stares at both of them, “I didn’t do anything wrong.” she thinks, “I only want a longer tail just like Joey.” Her mommy knows that, but she does not want either of her budgies to get hurt.

She has tried to explain to Josie that when she is as old as Joey her tail will be just as long. Of course, Josie is a very impatient budgie, she will not listen, after all, she is quite young yet and waiting to be a year old is a very long time.

Everything starts to calm down, Joey is sorry he yelled and he thinks Josie is sorry for hurting him. He goes over to her and starts to preen her head feathers that always seem to calm her down.

Josie is not so sure about, but she really is sorry that she got into trouble and she does like to get her head feathers preened, it is very relaxing and shows Joey does love her, sometimes. Besides which, it beats being grounded and not getting to have more playtime.

“I like playtime,” says Josie. “Even if I get into trouble, it is still fun to have a friend to tease and play with”.

“I am not too sure about that,” answers Joey, “especially if you keep pulling my tail and nibbling my feet.”

“True, but then you come into my house and eat my dinner, I think that makes us even,” retorts Josie.

Joey replies, “You may be right and you know something, you are still my best friend, for a girl.”

“Gee, thanks.” Said Josie (she always has to have the last word.)

©  Ceol

I wonder why humans are so different.” thought Joey. “This man and his children seem very nice, why aren’t they nice to little budgies?”

The daddy had been bragging about how smart macaws are; but he looks at me like I dumb or something, doesn’t he know I am a parrot too? “Hey mister, that’s not nice,” Joey chirps. However, the man isn’t listening; he keeps on about how parrots talk and how smart they are. Mommy and I are sitting right there, we really can’t say anything because it will upset the other parrots.

Then a woman asks mommy about me, she says that I am 8 months old and a context speaker (that means I speak like a human), one thing leads to another. Mommy tells her about me belonging to the BudgieResearch Group and she seems interested. Mommy explains how all the budgies are very smart and can talk just like she can.

The man in the mean time is getting a little upset, and keeps talking on about parrots. I don’t say a thing, because I don’t want to embarrass my mommy, but I am getting a little tired of him. I decide to take action, I stand up really tall, take a deep breath and as loud as I can give a very nasty “Tweet”. (I can’t use bad language and it was only sound I could make to get my point across.) Everyone looked at me and Mr. Know It All shuts up. He did not realize I understood every word, my mommy taught me. I saw my mommy trying very hard not to laugh; hey, I did the best I could.

I must remember that a single tweet speaks more volumes than a hundred words. Imagine a six-foot man silenced by a 1-ounce budgie.

I do like big parrots, cockatiels, cockatoos, and all the rest, but I’m a parrot too, and people should respect little budgies and realize that the quietest and smallest are just a smart as everyone else.

So children don’t you forget you are smart and have a right to be heard and respected.

©  Ceol