Can a Canary Get Fired, Too?

I had three minutes to get a broken spotlight working before the first audition when I heard a tiny, furious chirp from the service alley. I knew better than to stop. I had a clipboard under one arm, a headset around my neck, and a theater full of people waiting for me to finish the lighting check. I also knew the difference between a sparrow and a canary. The sound was too clear, too bright, like a glass being tapped with a fingernail. I stopped anyway. A cardboard carrier sat beside the dumpsters. One side had gone soft from the rain, and the top flap quivered whenever the bird inside moved. I crouched and lifted it. A yellow canary glared at me through the slats. "Hey," I said. "You're not supposed to be out here." The bird struck the cardboard with its beak. I called the number on the tag tied to the carrier. It went straight to voicemail. I called our building manager. He told me there had been a storage-unit cleanout that morning and that somebody had left a box of "miscellaneous stuff" in the alley. He couldn't tell me who. I should have called animal control and gone back inside. Instead, I put the carrier in the empty wardrobe room, where the radiators still worked, and left a note on the door. The bird attacked the note when I came back ten minutes later. "That's not helpful," I told it. "Everything okay?" my assistant, Mel, asked from the doorway. "Found a canary outside." Mel looked past me at the carrier. "Like, a singer?" "Like a bird." "Oh." She leaned closer. "He's beautiful." "He's mean." The bird opened its beak and let out a sharp, offended note. "Or she's mean," I added. The first audition began while I was still looking for a safe place to put the carrier. I asked Mel to keep an eye on it, then ran to the booth. By the time I got back, the bird had escaped the carrier and perched on top of a garment rack. Mel held the empty carrier like she'd been caught stealing a prop. "I was trying to check if it had food." "Please don't try to grab it." "I wasn't going to grab it." The canary hopped from the rack to my shoulder. Its claws pinched through my shirt. Mel pressed her lips together. "That looks like a decision." I carried it back to the wardrobe room, found a clean box, and lined it with an old cotton scarf. I had to finish the auditions, but I couldn't leave a strange bird in a drafty alley. I called a local avian clinic and booked the last appointment of the day. At six, after the final singer left, I tucked the box under one arm and took the bird to the clinic. The vet found no injury, just a slight weight loss and a temper strong enough to be mistaken for good health. "Canaries don't usually love being handled," Dr. Sloane told me. "He'll need a cage, proper food, and a stable home. If you're only keeping him overnight, I'll give you a list of rescues." "I can do overnight," I said. The bird pecked the cardboard beside my thumb. I took him home. My apartment lease allowed small caged animals with written approval. I emailed the property manager while I bought a cage, food, and a perch at the all-night pet store. I set the cage on my kitchen table and waited for the bird to settle. He climbed to the highest perch and stared at me. "I'm Nora," I said. He chirped once. "That's all I get?" He turned his back. I slept on the couch because the cage was in my bedroom and the canary began singing at 4:17 a.m. I called him Caper because I needed a name and because he had already made my life more complicated. At the theater the next morning, Mel asked how my canary had done overnight. "Not great," I said. "He kept me up." She gave me a look I couldn't place, then said, "I won't ask." "Ask what?" "Nothing." I had to run. The second day of auditions was starting, and my boss, Grant Heller, was waiting in the lobby with the board chair. I didn't see Mel watching me leave.