Parrots - Kevan Smith

‘I want to be one’ Tommy blubbed. ‘I want to be a big one, a bright one. One with a big tail and bright wings,’ he sniffled, whipping snot over the back of his hand. ‘Mummy let me be one, I wanna I wanna,’ jumping up and down on the spot so mummy’s tea and cucumber sandwiches bounced on the plate and sloshed into the saucer all at once.

Mummy tried to push the white triangles back together, rescuing one of them from its soggy saucer resting plate.

‘Mummy mummy pleeeease’

‘Would Madam wish me to take Master away from the setting and help clean him up, as he shovelled some more susumber sandwich down his throat, while brushing a slice of see-through green from his tunic.

As gently as she could manage without totally twisting his arm to make him squeal Mrs Fobbattry lef her charge away from the now stained crocheted tablecloth to inside the Orangery. He winced but didn’t squeal until she got him out of ear-shot of her mistress.

‘Your mother will have migranes all day now Master Tommy. You have ruined her lovely high tea just once too often for my linking.’

‘But I want to be a parrot, a great big parrot with a really big beak and large wings and massive claws. I’ll come back and claw you, you old crow, I’ll gouge your eyes out.’

With that Miss Fobbattry rose to her greatest height. Her eyes glistened. Tommy stopped mid-whinge and gaped, his eyes as big as Mummy’s Villeroy saucers. His mouth dribbled, shoulders shook.

FLASH

A blinding flash. The room blacked, stuttered the lightning, flashed, partially singing the lace curtains.

Then all was quiet. Not even a cricket.

As the window flung open and a massive flurry of beating rainbow wings. A squawk. And through the flung open French doors, Tommy flew for his first but not last time.