The Birds

As many of us would probably agree, birds like to insult people.
Blue Jays, red-winged blackbirds, and grackles especially. When we stray too near their nests, they cackle and squawk at us, and it isn't such a leap to imagine that they're hurling vicious insults at us. This is my idea of what would happen if they could talk (An excerpt from the As Yet Unnamed Story):

            Diddle tottered unsteadily, the rotted beam beneath his feet swaying as a gust of wind howled through the missing wall of the old barn.

            “Curse it, Anajyrosima,” he muttered under his breath, clinging desperately to the wall. “You always choose the worst moments.”

            The wind seemed to laugh in response.

            Diddle waited for the beam to stop rocking as the wind faded, and then cautiously began edging his way forward out into the rafters of the barn. If the beam gave way now, there would be nothing to grab onto. Fortunately, the great weather goddess seemed to be in a good mood.

            Once he got to the end of the beam, Diddle found himself in the supporting triangle structures that held up the barn roof. They were in better condition than the beam and the rotted ladder he’d used to get up there, but he was cautious anyway. Below him, a pile of moldy straw that was almost as old as Diddle himself lay strewn in a towering heap across the floor, peppered with the occasional black pit where the floor had caved in.

            If Diddle’s mother had been able to see him, she would have skinned him alive and hung his hide on a pole in the front yard. She never seemed to understand why her son had to risk life and limb for the sake of satisfying his curiosity. It was worth the risk, though; Diddle had discovered a nest of giben birds.

            He’d caught sight of the male a few days ago; a huge, crow-like creature with a feathery crest on the back of its head and bright golden eyes. It had pitch-black feathers, peppered with flecks of gold that were densest around the hackles. They hunted in pairs—the female distracting the prey while the male swooped down to catch it—and they nested in the early summertime.

Diddle had traced these two back to their nest over the past couple days, and had lain in wait until the parents left. As soon as they were gone, he set about climbing the old, rotted walls of the barn, his goal a messy lump of willow twigs perched precariously on the beam in the middle of the ceiling. He was very close.

            The boards creaked in protest with every cautiously-placed step Diddle took, his back hunched so he could grip the beams with his hands. He must have looked strange from below; a small, wiry, scruffy-looking boy crawling around in the rafters of a barn like a monkey. He was glad there wasn’t anyone to see, since, strictly speaking, he wasn’t allowed on this property. It didn’t help that his neighbor didn’t really like him anyway.

            A sudden squeal of shifting wood warned Diddle just in time to jump away from the board he’d been about to set his weight on as it wrenched free of its notch and plummeted to the floor. It missed the hay pile, and instead snapped in two against an old milking stall. Diddle took a shaky breath.

            “That was me,” he warned himself as he proceeded, taking extra care to test each board before setting his weight on it. Finally, he reached the nest, which was built alongside an old pulley rope that dangled from the rafters, an old tire swing trapped against the ceiling to prevent the rope from pulling through. Diddle used it as an anchor as he kneeled down next to the nest and cautiously peered over the edge.

            “Beeeek!” cheeped an angry voice, followed by a chorus of tiny, indignant protest as all four inhabitants of the little nest caught sight of Diddle. The boldest hatchling rose up onto its tiny legs, flapping its stubby little wings and clicking its oversized beak. The half-formed crest on the back of its head rose threateningly, reminding Diddle of a pincushion. He laughed as the other three hatchlings followed suit and waddled at him with their wings raised.

            “You’re fierce, aren’t you?” he said, wiggling a finger at them. The lead chick snapped at his finger and tried to swallow it, but he pulled away in time.

            “You’ll have quite the glib tongue when you grow up, won’t you?” Diddle said fondly, resting his chin on the side of the nest. The hatchlings folded their wings, and a couple of them cocked their heads towards him as if they were listening. Diddle grinned.

            “I’d wager you can understand every word I say,” he said. The lead chick ruffled its wings, and then squawked a single word:

            “Mam!”

            Diddle’s grin dropped; they weren’t looking at him at all.

            “Idiot! Jerk!” shrieked a voice, right into Diddle’s ear. He yelped in surprise and tried to duck out of the way, but the owner of the voice was relentless and angry, and she attacked Diddle with her claws flashing and insults rolling from her tongue in a cacophonous barrage of gibe.

            “You fat-faced, slimy thief! May you rot in the demonlands and lose your eyeballs to the genies! May your ugly face be pounded flat by the demons! I’ve never seen anything more disgusting! You filthy, evil pilferer! Why, I’ll—”

            Diddle tried to kick the female giben bird with his free foot, but all she did was latch herself onto his ankle and claw at his pant leg while cussing and hurling insults at him with unbridled fury. The chicks were at it, too, cheeping out half-formed insults as they waved their stubby wings and hopped around excitedly.

            “Jeeeeerk!” one squeaked. “Eeeeevl jeeeerk! Maaaae oo rot en the deeeeemnlaaa!”

            Another squawk from the entrance to the barn threw Diddle into a panic; the male! Between the mother and the father giben birds, they’d likely rip him to shreds. He needed to get out of there!

            His eyes searching frantically for an escape route, Diddle lit upon the old pulley rope. It was old and frayed and didn’t look like it would hold much. He briefly glanced at the approaching male giben bird, and without second thought, he leaped for the rope.

            He managed to seize the rope in midair, his arms very nearly popping from their sockets as his body’s falling weight suddenly yanked on his shoulders. He fell for a few meters—his legs windmilling frantically and the rope burning his hands—before he finally managed to bring himself to a stop.     

            He quickly twisted the rope around his legs and tightened his grip with his hands, his breath coming in ragged gasps and his limbs shaking. Thoughts of splattering against the floorboards were whirling through his brain, fueled by fear and adrenaline. When he’d collected himself enough to think coherently, he risked glancing upwards at the giben birds. He was surprised to find that the entire family was staring down at him, even the babies. They looked like they were waiting for something to happen.

            Diddle heard a loud snap, and then the rope suddenly gave way beneath him as something up above broke.

            Ironically, it wasn’t the rope.

            The board that fastened the rope to the ceiling was one of the most unrotted, stable beams in the building. Yet for some reason, it chose that moment to give way and send Diddle plummeting to the ground below.

            Diddle shouted frantically as he fell, but he had sense enough to curl himself into a ball and angle his feet downward, his muscled tensed for impact. He hit the mound of rotted hay, and then, with a splintering crash, kept going.

            The floorboards underneath the hay were even worse than the rafters, and they crumbled beneath Diddle’s weight like toothpicks. He, the rope, and a flurry of hay tumbled into the basement floor of the barn, crashing through the ceiling and into another mound of moldy hay at the bottom of an old calf stall. Diddle landed on his feet, but the force of the landing sent him sprawling flat with his face on the ground, his ribs aching and his butt sore from punching through the ceiling with it. He moaned miserably into the ground as the dust and hay settled around him.

            Nothing was broken, but Diddle probably would have laid there all day if it weren’t for the distant sounds of shouting that drifted down through the hole in the ceiling. It wasn’t the giben birds this time.

            “Crap!” Diddle cursed as he shot up to his feet, his bruises forgotten as he recognized the voice of his neighbor, Ian McClillan. The old, retired farmer sounded angry, and quite willing to take off Diddle’s head if he discovered him in the barn.

            Diddle ran for the downstairs exit, brushing off hay and splinters and praying all the while that Mr. McClillan would check the upstairs first.

            Not for the first time that day, luck was in Diddle’s favor.

            He ducked out of the basement and dodged behind a nearby bush as Mr. McClillan stormed by, on his way towards the upstairs loft.

            “Curse that rotten kid! If I find him in there, I swear by Anajyrosima’s tail I’ll wring his skinny little neck!” the old farmer muttered as he passed. Fortunately, the thick hair growing out of his ears prevented him from hearing Diddle chocking back a laugh.

            Once the coast was clear, Diddle shot away from his hiding place as quickly as his feet would carry him, heading for the small grove of woods that marked his home. He picked hay and wood out of his hair as he ran, hoping all the while that his mother wouldn’t notice the moldy barn smell that was clinging to him. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d grounded him for something he’d only sort of done on purpose. 

I rewrote the beginning of this story about a week ago. What I had before didn't seem like quite enough to introduce such an energetically curious character like Diddle. He needed to start out doing something...something he wasn't supposed to. The next chapter is up as well, so be sure to check it out!