When Did You Forget?

We have an odd alarm system in our house left over from our previous owner. It's not connected to any central system that can notify the police, but every time any of the outer doors is breached a brief "beep beep beep" sounds, and a mechanical voice controlled by the alarm says which door has been opened.

I heard the front door alarm sound on Sunday morning and I went downstairs to investigate. Here is what happened next:

Me: Who went outside?

Jacob: Casey

Casey: I went very quietly, and then I heard someone say "Casey….Casey.”

Me: Who was it?

Casey: Maybe it was the birds who can talk?

Casey said it very matter-of-factly, and it was so lovely and trusting. It reminded me of the passage in Mary Poppins, which is written from the point of a starling who converses with all of the babies in the story:

Mrs. Banks had another child, Annabel Banks. She was a very cute baby who, like all other babies, could talk to birds and the sunlight. She told the Starling of her journey into the earth, but within a week, had forgotten all about it. That made the Starling upset, because he loved to talk to babies and they always forgot how to so soon.

For some reason this passage has always stuck with me, long into adulthood, and I thought about it a lot when Jacob and Casey were babies. It always struck me as probably quite true. Perhaps Casey can still hear them!