I first encountered Charlie on Cat Street in Hong Kong. I was browsing for antiques when I heard a terrible screech and turned to see an evil-eyed opium peddler squatting on the curb beside a balding, scruffy, white cockatoo.
Manacled to a wooden perch, the bird was surrounded by children who were taunting him with sticks. The children laughed when the half-crazed creature snapped back with his hooked beak, flared his saffron crest and cursed in Chinese. I was overcome with admiration. This little creature was a fighter.
I wanted to rescue him but could not bear the thought of keeping a bird in a cage. As I started to walk away, a cockatoo looked at me imploringly and said, “Okay, okay, okay.”
I was hooked. How did he know I spoke English? After some haggling, I bought him—and a whole new dimension came into my life.
At home, I removed his shackle. He was grateful and, doglike, began following me around the apartment. He couldn’t fly because the peddle had cut his flight feathers, so he waddled like a duck and used his beak and claws to host himself up our potted trees.
In the wild, baby cockatoos learn survival from their parents and other members of the flock.
They pick up alarm and comfort signals and social communication. Now, in captivity, Charlie began imitating the only flock he knew, my family.
Charlie had a remarkably quick mind and long memory and was soon calling us by name. He cried out when we left him, so to reassure him, we all shouted back, just as his cockatoo flock would have done.
Every day he picked up new words. His first phrase was “Hello Charlie” and then “Hello” to anyone in range, the “Shut the door,” which soon became “Robin (daughter No.4)”, “go back and shut the door.”
His most frequent word was “Why?” Often when I spoke to the children, Charlie would ask “Why?” just as they did. It drove me crazy. I finally shouted back, “Because I’m your mother!” That became his next phrase.
Before long we could see the results out of love and care. Charlie’s feathers grew back thick and glossy. He developed an arrogant glint in his eye and established himself as top of the pecking order with our four cats who, to my amazement, restrained their killer insects even when Charlie filched their food.