Pets in Prospect - Malcolm D. Welshman [82]
‘Mandy, what on earth …’
But she’d gone, vanished in a swirl of sheets, the feathers doing likewise as they floated to the floor. Cursing, I craned my neck round to peer at the mutilated parrot only to discover someone had smeared cottage cheese down my jacket in imitation of bird droppings.
Then Liza was let out. The first I knew of it was when she landed on my shoulder with a friendly squawk, bobbed her tail and produced her own version of cottage cheese down my back.
Mandy hovered into view again, even more high spirited. ‘Wooo … wooo …’ she said, raising her hands in the air, fingers fluttering. ‘I’m a ship’s ghost. Wooo …wooo …’ She moved closer. ‘Wooo … wooo …’ If she was trying to scare me, it didn’t work. But it certainly frightened Liza. With a shrill screech, she lashed out at the fluttering fingers.
‘Wooo … ouch … you little sod.’ The fingers were snatched away, one dripping blood.
The next morning, with hammers in my head, I surveyed the mortal remains of the Amazon Green. It was tail-less, exposing a strand of rusty wire; the dangling eye had been lost, revealing a white socket; the other eye was now loose and hanging out at an odd angle as if the bird was trying to study its toes; and its lower mandible had become dislocated and so twisted that the parrot appeared to be sneering at me. Worse still, more stuffing had worked loose so that the bird looked as if it were trying to give birth to an eiderdown.
‘I can’t possibly take it back in this state,’ I moaned.
‘Well, you’re a vet. Stitch it up,’ said Lucy, less than sympathetic.
I took the parrot into work and attempted to operate on it, suturing with some nylon, but my trembling hands weren’t up to it. The more I bundled the stuffing back and stitched across it, the more distorted the bird became. Its head swelled up and curled over like a dying duck while its back developed a hump worthy of Notre Dame’s bell ringer. All resemblance to a parrot was lost.
Back home, I phoned the theatrical outfitters and explained the situation. The assistant was most sympathetic.
‘It was on its last legs anyway,’ he said. ‘So I doubt if it would have survived another panto season.’ He must have heard Liza squawking in the background as he suddenly added, ‘Have you got a live one there?’
‘Yes. A cockatoo.’
‘Well, let us know if she ever snuffs it. We’ll pay a good price.’
I didn’t elaborate on Liza’s condition; she’d never make a mounted specimen. But at least from that moment on, whenever her squawking provoked me to yell at her, it gave new meaning to the phrase ‘Get stuffed’, since I now knew where it could be done.
‘So what are you going to do with it?’ asked Lucy, looking at the disfigured Amazon Green. ‘Throw it away?’
That had been my intention.
‘Why not let Liza have it?’ she continued. ‘After all, it can’t do her any harm. It’s not as if it can peck her back.’
Liza stared suspiciously as the Amazon Green, wired to a broom handle, was propped up against her cage. But friendly as ever, she waddled up to the bars, raised her one remaining crest feather, and gave a little cluck. The lack of response clearly puzzled her. She gave another cluck – this time it was a little more strident. Still no reaction. Cautiously, she pushed her beak between the bars and tweaked one of its feathers. The parrot rocked on his handle. Liza scuttled back down her perch.
As the parrot slowly came to a halt, Liza advanced again, clearly fascinated despite the creature’s very un-parrot-like shape. She cooed and clucked at it; she snuggled up against the bars; she reached through and nibbled another of its feathers. Then, with a frustrated screech, she yanked. Her head bobbed up, the feather dangling from her beak. She snatched it into her claws, stared down at it with one coal-black eye, ran her tongue over it, and then proceeded to mash it into a pulp before dropping it to the floor. Then, with