A Short Story By Maureen O’Hara Pesta

Karen kicked snow chunks from her boots at the front door and fumbled in the dim porch light for her key. Roger stamped his feet on the mat.

It had been a long day. Ahh, good to be home. She pressed the latch and nudged the door open with her shoulder, brushing against the big, evergreen Christmas wreath hanging on the front door. Setting her purse and keys on the table, she flicked the light switch.

Then it began, the flapping.

Karen and Roger froze at the sight: A panicky bird circling in the living room. Flap, flap flap, swish, thump. Into the lampshade. Against the wall.

Following his initial shock, the bird landed on a cedar paneled wall. His feet dug in, tail twitched up and down. Glaring, taking stock.

Karen psyched herself up for the effort that loomed ahead. Robe, slippers, TV, the plan for the evening was fading fast. She recalled something brushing her sleeve as she entered. Now she realized, it had been a little brown wren.

“Roger, I bet that bird was in the wreath. I bet he’s roosting in there.”

Karen and Roger enjoyed birdwatching, filling their feeders and suet bags and watching through binoculars, calling one another to the window to observe every new visitor. But this wren had crossed the cuteness barrier by invading human personal space. Cute no more, he had to leave.

Karen knew what to do. Still in her puffy winter coat, she went to the linen closet, grabbed some bedsheets and unfurled them over the sofa and around the room. No bird bombs on the furniture, please. Roger went down the basement stairs in search of a ladder and laundry baskets.

Karen wondered if the bird would retreat to its native habitat, the Christmas tree. She shivered at the prospect of her prized glass ornaments rattling and crashing to the floor during the coming bird safari. However, the wren bypassed the Christmas tree as, perhaps, being not tall enough for its purposes. Instead it flapped upward, to the uppermost branch, so to speak, of the entire house. That would be a 12-foot-high segment of cedar paneled wall, far out of reach, at the very point where the roof of the house peaked.

Roger set up a tall ladder but the wren remained out of reach. So, wobbling on the ladder, he tried to scare the bird into flying somewhere else. 

“Boo!” he said, which didn’t work. 

But pounding on the wall did work. The startled wren flapped over to a second-floor balcony landing. Game over, Karen thought. She was poised there with a laundry basket to trap the bird against the wall.

But the wren was too quick. Back and forth he flew, back and forth, back and forth. After a time, the two humans and the bird all became overwhelmed with this Herculean effort to establish order. Karen, still wearing her puffy coat, had worked up a sweat. Roger called out the plays from atop his ladder. The wren, when he landed, fluffed out his feathers in misguided hope of looking bigger, more intimidating.

And then, it happened. The bird hesitated a millisecond too long. Over his head clomped the laundry basket. But there was just one problem. It was a poorly chosen laundry basket. It had holes big enough for the bird to wiggle through.

“Roger, he’s gonna get away!” Karen yelled. The bird poked its head out first here, then there. Karen tried to block each opening with her free hand. 

“Help!”

The merest of seconds passed, but it seemed like a bird eternity. Time slowed down. Bird head pokes out. Hand blocks bird. Bird head pokes out somewhere else. Karen's puffy jacket hissed and crackled as she fought a battle of wits with a bird intent on freedom.

“Hold on. Hold on! I have a plan!” Roger said.

Clomp, clomp clomp, down to the basement he went, and then back gain with a big, flat piece of cardboard.

“What are you gonna do with that, swat him?” Karen said.

“Of course not! Take off your coat — but don’t let him get away! But hurry! But don’t …”

Aha, the plan snapped into focus. She took off her puffy coat and held it over the basket, creating a more perfect bird prison.

Roger then carefully slid the cardboard underneath the basket, then gently pulled the whole thing off the wall.

Okay, done.

Step two involved conveying their makeshift bird contraption — basket, cardboard, puffy coat, bird — safely down the steps and out the back door. Outside, Karen swept away her coat like a magician’s cape and lifted away the laundry basket with a flourish. The bird took off like a shot high up into a tree out back.

Back inside the house, Karen watched for the wren. Now that he was liberated, she worried for his welfare. Would he ever come back? Or flee as far as possible to escape the nightmare of “boos” and entrapment. But to her delight it seemed to be recuperating nicely in the lofty tree. Pretty bold for a little bird, really. 

“Guess what? The wren is okay,” she said.

“Unflappable,” Roger said. He ripped open a bag of pretzels.

“I bet he was living in the wreath on the front door,” Karen said. “Guess he figured out that was a bad idea. Cute little bird. I hope he makes it through the winter.”

That night in bed, Karen thought about people and animals and their homes. Yellow jackets had once chased Roger all the way back to the house from the far meadow. He had run a lawnmower over their house, a hole in the ground. Homes are sacred, she supposed, not to be invaded, even if you’re a bee.

Well, the wren had learned a lesson. The big wreath looked enough like a bush, it’s little surprise the bird was confused. Too bad he had to be traumatized by the laundry basket and all that.

Roger certainly had been punished with several stings for disturbing the yellow jackets’ house. Those bees had been furious. After that, Roger became a lot more careful in the meadow.

The next evening, coming home from work, Karen stepped up on to the front porch. Ahh, home, she thought, reaching for the latch. And, then from within the wreath came a sudden, sharp, rustling. The motion set a little Christmas-bell ornament to jingling ... tink a tink tink.

A wren head emerged and gave Karen a look as if to say, “get lost.” Karen went around to the back door.