Night Fright

I like Miss Prissy, who shares my cage, but sometimes she startles me. The other night, she suddenly started fluttering about, even though the Tall One had left the night light on and Miss Prissy could clearly see that there was nothing to be scared of. She has a habit of sleeping on a perch leaning forward, until she almost forms a horizontal line; I have never seen a fellow tiel doing this. I think she lost her balance and started slipping off her perch, so she fluttered about.
Anyway, the noise startled me, and I fluttered about as well. I bumped against the bars and the perches with my pretty wings until the Tall One came, turned on the lights, and told us everything was fine. Well, Miss Prissy and I settled down right away, and the Tall One checked us to see if we were alright. Then, we all went back to sleep.

Well, I didn't really think about the incident very much, and neither did the Tall One. I seriously doubt that Miss Prissy wasted even a second of her time reflecting on it; she gets startled quite frequently, and she probably thinks it's part of her cockatiel routine. The next day, though, I wanted to fly about the living room for a while, but I lost altitude and could not steer. I made an emergency landing on the table by the window, and I tried again to reach the cage, this time landing on the floor. I like the Tall One a lot, and she is very busy, and she already does so much for me and spends so much time with me, so I do not like to bother her, but this time, I needed help. So I chirped for her, and she picked me up and petted me and told me the left wing feathers I had lost kept me from flying evenly. Not to worry, though, she said; they would grow back soon. I'm lucky to have such a nice human who knows so many things about tiels, otherwise I would have been worried. I'll just have to wait for my feathers to grow back in. On the upside, the Tall One gave us extra millet spray to make us feel better. Yum!