We were divorcing, and the division of our shared belongings had begun. Then came the hitch. “Take this!” snapped my wife. “You two deserve each other!”
And so, a magnificent cockatoo with the feline name Marquis entered our home—though Mum swiftly renamed him Kipper.
That parrot came into my possession after my first wife and I split our assets, though he wasn’t technically joint property, having lived in her house long before I arrived. Kipper was flawless in every way, save for one glaring flaw—he refused to speak. No matter how hard we tried, coaxing even a single word from him was a lost cause. Kipper stayed silent as a spy under interrogation. Only Granddad disapproved of our efforts.
“Leave the bird alone!” he’d grumble. “Don’t you have anyone else to talk to?”
Perhaps that’s why the two of them bonded. Granddad appreciated Kipper as a quiet, attentive listener, and the parrot adored tilting his head, absorbing every word as Granddad tinkered with woodwork or settled in with an evening whisky.
Eventually, we decided to consult our neighbour, a self-proclaimed expert in teaching birds to speak, who kept two chatty budgerigars. Needless to say, Kipper left her spellbound.
She was utterly smitten! Circling him, clapping her hands, murmuring praises—then, on impulse, she reached out to stroke his head.
Startled, Kipper cracked one eye open, glared at the unfamiliar woman, and suddenly spoke—clear as a bell:
“Leave the bird alone!”
The neighbour fainted. From that moment, the floodgates opened. It was like that old joke about the mute boy who finally spoke at dinner, complaining, “The soup’s too salty!” When asked why he’d stayed silent for ten years, he replied, “Before this, it was fine!”
So it was with Kipper. Silent for years, then suddenly a chatterbox. The problem? He spoke in Granddad’s voice, his tone, and—most damningly—his vocabulary. Granddad, a tough old bloke who’d driven lorries in the war and returned missing a leg, had spent his life as a carpenter. He never minced words, and his language reflected it. Why Kipper chose *him* as a role model remains a mystery, but one thing was certain—that parrot swore like a sailor, with flair and gusto.
The neighbour was horrified but not deterred. She took it upon herself to reform him—to teach him proper manners and decent English. Almost daily, she’d march in, armed with some foreign training method she’d studied, determined to civilise him.
Granddad fumed but bit his tongue, muttering only after she’d left. It wasn’t hard to guess what about.
Months later, over tea, she dropped by to check on Kipper’s progress. The moment he saw her, he perked up and announced:
“Take care of the parrot! Kipper’s a precious bird!”
It was the very phrase she’d spent months drilling into him. Even delivered in Granddad’s gruff tone, her triumph was undeniable. She might’ve even teared up.
Then Kipper squinted at her, glowing with pride, and added in the same voice:
“Should’ve taught the sodding cat instead, you daft bat.”
Author: Gennady Pimenov.
