A Peregrine's Peculiar

Chapter Five

The nightmares were soon quickly forgotten and Toria had become all the more brighter for it, she was finally back to happy and energetic self. Sometimes during the week Toria would have tell herself that it wasn't yet Thursday and she couldn't just go down to the beach, not without her new bird friend.

Nobody new about Toria's new bird companion, who the young girl had now officially nicknamed 'Pretty Bird' and Toria actually liked that nobody new, it made her excitement all the more, as she now had a secret friend that nobody knew about.
Now on several occasions during lessons Toria had been caught drawing the blue feathered bird on blank piece of paper she found laying around the classroom. Soon her teachers became irritated due to Toria's lack of concentration during lessons, so it was quickly established that the brunette wouldn't be allowed blank paper during lessons unless she was in an art lesson.

After her mishap last week, Toria made sure to keep an eye on the time, not wanting to arrive early one again and irritated her bird friend like she had last week. So Toria the smartest thing to do was to set an alarm so that she would never be nor late to the beach again.

This week Toria had arrived right on time and as soon as she took her usual seat on the large slab of stone, Pretty Bird decided to land on the girl's shoulder, which at first caused Toria to scream slightly in fright as she wasn't paying the greatest attention of her surroundings and wasn't entirely sure of what or who had landed on her shoulder.

"Pretty Bird, don't do that!" Toria scolded the winged animal as she tried to calm her racing heart by taking several deep breaths, in through her nose and out through her mouth. "You nearly gave me a heart attack," The bird didn't seem to pleased with the accusations and gave an exasperated caw, as if to say 'I did no such thing' and Toria soon calmed her self down and apologised for shouting at the bird sat on her shoulder by stroking its feathers.

"Guess what," Toria said looking at the blue winged bird, who in response tilted its head to the side as if asking the green eyed girl to continue. "I found out what bird you were," Toria answered, excitement flooding her features, "Your a Peregrine Falcon!" Toria's revelation was followed with a quite childlike squeal as the girl was excited about receiving an answer from all her research on the internet.

The now discovered Peregrine Falcon cawed happily at Toria for guessing her breed of bird correctly and as the falcon finished its caw of praise, it decided to jump down from the girl's shoulder, trying its best to not get its talons caught up in the girls light brown locks and take a seat on Toria's lap.

"So I take I guessed correctly," Toria then began to shuffle her knees closer together and move her skirt slightly more over her knees to make a more comfortable surface for the bird to rest upon.

"You know I was thinking, I've not been very polite to you, have I?" Toria asked the Peregrine in her lap, who looked up confused at the eleven year old not quite sure what she meant by that comment, and so the falcon moved its head from side to side to try and get Toria to elaborate further.

"I mean I haven't even introduced myself yet and I met you nearly three weeks ago," The blue falcon seemed to understand as its eyes lit up in understanding. "So here goes nothing, My names Toria, Toria Damar," The proud look on toria's face was enough to make the bird smile, in a birdlike way of course.

Toria then had the clever idea to extend who pinky out to her feathered friend and see what it would in return, if would respond to Toria's movement in the first place anyway. At first the Peregrine Falcon looked at the small finger as if it were the most fascinating thing, soon the bird seemed to understand what Toria had intend with the action and placing its beak atop the finger, the Falcon moved its head up and down in a shaking motion, supposedly mimicking a handshake.

"I knew you'd understand, such a clever thing aren't you Pretty Bird." Toria smiled brightly as she brought her little finger along with the rest of her hand back down to her side. "Well you now know my," Toria placed her chin atop the palms of her hands as she leant her elbows atop her lap, far enough away from 'Pretty Bird' as to not push them off her lap.

"I wish I could know your name," The girls let out a deep sigh, she was so disappointed that yet she could communicate with her new friend and tell the Falcon about herself but she'd never be able to know anything about the bird. Were they a female a male? Young, middle aged or old? What had they been as a human? There were so many questions that Toria had and all she wanted were answers to these questions but that wasn't possible.

The Peregrine bird looked up at Toria's saddened face, who's eyes seemed to be becoming glassy with tears, was this really upsetting her so much? The bird began to feel bad for the young and started nudging the girls left arm with its wing to try and get her attention. Soon Toria pulled herself out her zoned out state by the nudging against her left arm, "What is it Pretty Bird?"

The Falcon began to look around its surroundings and Toria could only imagine that the bird was trying to think. Then it seemed as if the blue bird had come up with an idea as it began to move its wings more often then before.

"I don't understand," Toria was becoming confused what was her friend trying to tell her. She began to think of all the possibilities and then she'd thought back on the previous conversations and suddenly Toria thought she had the answer. "Are you trying to get me to guess your name?"

The Peregrine Falcon then gave a single caw in answer as if it were trying to mimic a human yes, "Right, well how am I supposed to guess it from you flapping your wings?" Now Toria began to discard the birds actions in favour of her own new found method of how guess her companions name.

Toria's plan was quite simple, she was just going to simply treat it like on of those online surveys she'd received from school. On the surveys they would ask you to fill out bits of information, like your gender, title (Such as Miss, Mrs and Mr) and then your forename and surname.

Quickly Toria explained her plan to the bird and when received a single wing nudge in response Toria began asking the all important questions. "So are you a man or woman?" That seemed easy enough, there were only to options.

"Left wing up for up for man and right wing up for woman," Toria then instructed and began to wait patiently for the Peregrine to answer the question. About ten seconds later, after the bird had processed the information it lifted its right wing, though Toria shouldn't have been excited and certainly shouldn't have shown her excitement, she couldn't help it her bird friend was female.

"So your a female, that's amazing!" Toria sound that last bit a little louder than she actually intended and the now discovered female bird hopped back slightly away from the loud noise. "Sorry," Toria quickly apologised in a whispered voice and the bird now happy with the level of volume, hopped back into place. "So that must mean your either a Miss or Mrs," Toria then tapped the side of chin with her index finger before asking the Falcon to repeat the same action which she did without question and this time the right wing was raised.

"Wait so your not married?" The eleven year old was shocked by this revelation, "But you've got such an amazing personality," Even after the Falcon shrugged her wings Toria was still sat in disbelief and even more so when she found out that her friend wasn't even in a relationship. Now this made Toria upset, she worried that the Peregrine was alone but with some quick flapping of the wings and a vigorous shake of her head the bird made it clear that this wasn't the truth.

"That's good, I worried for a minute then," Toria's attention was momentarily stolen from the bird as the girls darted to where her watched sat on her wrist, as she checked the time, she needed to start heading home.

"I'm sorry to say Pretty Bird but I've got to start going but I'll see you next week same time and all and at least now each week we can play a guessing game, can't we?" Toria suggested before collecting all her things together and waving good by to the Miss Peregrine Falcon.
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I wonder if Toria will be able to guess Miss P's name next.