Undercover Agent 5

The next morning Denton removed my sheet to feed me seed cake.

I could see in his face that very moment when he realized I’d been there. That I had heard everything.

I could see the cogs whirring in his mind, though his cogs weren’t wheeling as fast as mine were.  He would eventually realise that he could never use me again. A parrot with perfect recall would have perfect recall of that conversation. I could be used by any gang I was sent to spy on. 

As long as I lived I would be a danger to him.

But he was still processing that while he fed me seed cake.  “Denton, get over here,” someone called.

“This was my chance. My only chance. I plucked a feather out of my wing, one of the really big ones, and set to work picking the lock.  Denton had taught me to do this, he envisaged a situation where I had ‘hot’ information and had taught me to break out of the cage and head back to the station.

It took me about 30 seconds. I was good. Before leaving the cage I sniffed the air. Fresh air, there was a window open somewhere, I flapped my wings and tore from the cage towards the fresh air. I soon found the source, someone had opened the toilet window, then left the toilet door wide open, the air from the thus blowing the toilet smells right into the heart of the office.

I didn’t stop to point this out. I sped out of the window before anyone could say, ‘oh look, it’s a parrot’.

I was out. I was safe, for now at least. But the problem is, what do you do, where do you go, when you’re a parrot who knows nobody in town and the entirety of the police force will soon be on your tail.