Oskubljeni papagaj

Besedilo

Oskubljeni papagaj

Once upon a time there was a flock of parrots that lived in the forest. Early in the morning they went to eat corn in the fields, and in the afternoon they ate oranges. They made a tremendous racket with their cries, and always kept one parrot on lookout in the tallest trees, to see whether anyone was coming.

Parrots are as destructive as locusts, because they tear open the ears of corn to peck at them, and afterward the rain makes them rot. And since parrots also make a tasty stew, the farmhands used to shoot them.

One day a man shot a lookout parrot out of a tree. It fell wounded and fought for quite a while before letting itself be caught. The farmhand took it home for his employer’s children, and the children nursed it, for it had only a broken wing. The parrot healed very well and became completely tame. His name was Pedrito. He learned to offer his foot; he liked to sit on people’s shoulders and tickle their ears with his beak.

He lived at liberty and spent almost the whole day in the orange and eucalyptus trees in the garden. He also liked to tease the hens. At four or five in the afternoon, when the family had tea, the parrot would come into the dining room too, and climb up the tablecloth with his beak and feet to eat bread soaked in milk. He was mad about tea with milk.

Pedrito spent so much time with the children, and they said so many things to him, that he learned to talk. He would say, “Good morning, little parrot!...” “Yummy food!...” “Food for Pedrito!...” He said other things that cannot be repeated, for parrots, like children, learn bad words very easily.

When it rained, Pedrito would ruffle his feathers and tell himself all sorts of things in a very low voice. Then, when the weather cleared, he would fly about, shrieking like a mad thing.

As you can see, he was a very happy parrot, who, besides being free, as all birds wish to be, also had his “five o’clock tea,” just like rich people.

Now, in the midst of all this happiness, it happened that one rainy afternoon the sun finally came out after five days of storms, and Pedrito began flying about, shouting, “What a lovely day, little parrot!... Yummy food!... Shake hands, Pedrito!...” He flew far away, until he saw beneath him, far below, the Paraná River, which looked like a broad white ribbon in the distance. And he flew on and on, until at last he settled in a tree to rest.

And suddenly, through the branches, he saw two green lights shining on the ground, like enormous fireflies. “What could that be?” the parrot said to himself. “Yummy food!... What could that be?... Good morning, Pedrito!...”

The parrot always talked like this, as all parrots do, jumbling his words together without rhyme or reason, and sometimes it was hard to understand him. And because he was very curious, he climbed down from branch to branch to get closer. Then he saw that those two green lights were the eyes of a jaguar crouching there, staring at him.

But Pedrito was so pleased with the lovely day that he was not frightened at all. “Good morning, jaguar!” he said. “Shake hands, Pedrito!...” And the jaguar, in that terribly hoarse voice jaguars have, replied:

“Good morn-ing!” “Good morning, jaguar!” repeated the parrot. “Yummy food!... Yummy food!... Yummy food!...” He said “Yummy food!” so many times because it was already four in the afternoon, and he was longing for tea with milk. The parrot had forgotten that forest animals do not drink tea with milk, and so he invited the jaguar.

“Lovely tea with milk!” he said. “Good morning, Pedrito!... Would you like to have tea with milk with me, my friend?” But the jaguar grew furious because he thought the parrot was making fun of him; besides, he too was hungry and wanted to eat the talkative bird. So he answered:

“All right! Come a lit-tle clos-er. I’m deaf!” The jaguar was not deaf; he wanted Pedrito to come close enough for him to catch him with one swipe of his paw. But the parrot could think only of how delighted everyone at home would be when he arrived for tea with milk in the company of such a magnificent friend. And he flew to another branch nearer the ground.

“Yummy food at home!” he repeated, shouting as loudly as he could. “Clos-er! I can’t hear!” replied the jaguar in his hoarse voice. The parrot came a little closer and said:

“Lovely tea with milk!” “Clos-er still!” repeated the jaguar. The poor parrot came closer yet, and at that moment the jaguar made a tremendous leap, as high as a house, and caught Pedrito with the tips of his claws. He did not manage to kill him, but he tore all the feathers from his back and his entire tail. Not a single feather was left in his tail.

“Take that!” roared the jaguar. “Go and have your tea with milk...” Screaming with pain and fear, the parrot flew away. But he could not fly properly because he had lost his tail, which serves a bird as a rudder. He flew through the air, lurching from side to side, and every bird he met fled in alarm from such a strange creature.

At last he managed to get home, and the first thing he did was look at himself in the cook’s mirror. Poor Pedrito! He was the strangest, ugliest bird imaginable, all bare and tailless, and shivering with cold.

How could he show himself in the dining room looking like that? So he flew to a hollow in the trunk of a eucalyptus tree, which was like a little cave, and hid deep inside, trembling with cold and shame.

Meanwhile, everyone in the dining room was wondering where he was. “Where can Pedrito be?” they said. And they called, “Pedrito! Yummy food, Pedrito! Tea with milk, Pedrito!”

But Pedrito did not stir from his hollow or answer a word. He stayed silent and still. They looked everywhere for him, but the parrot did not appear. Then they all thought that Pedrito had died, and the children burst into tears.

Every afternoon at teatime they remembered the parrot, and how much he had loved eating bread soaked in tea with milk. Poor Pedrito! They would never see him again, because he was dead.

But Pedrito was not dead. He was still in his hollow, keeping out of everyone’s sight, because he was terribly ashamed to find himself as bare as a mouse. At night he came down to eat and went straight back up again. At dawn he slipped down once more and went to look at himself in the cook’s mirror, always very sad because his feathers were taking so long to grow.

Until at last one day, or rather one afternoon, the family was sitting at the table having tea when they saw Pedrito come in quite calmly, swaying from side to side as though nothing had happened. They were beside themselves with joy to see him alive and well, with such beautiful feathers.

“Pedrito, little parrot!” they said. “What happened to you, Pedrito? What shiny feathers our little parrot has!” But they did not know these were new feathers, and Pedrito, looking very solemn, did not say a word either. He did nothing but eat bread soaked in tea with milk. As for talking—not a single word.

So the master of the house was very surprised the following morning when the parrot flew onto his shoulder, chattering like mad. In two minutes he told him everything that had happened: his trip to Paraguay, his encounter with the jaguar, and all the rest. And he ended each part of the story by chanting, “Not a feather in Pedrito’s tail! Not a feather! Not a feather!”

Then he invited the man to go and hunt the jaguar with him. The master of the house, who was just then on his way to buy a jaguar skin to put in front of the stove, was delighted at the chance to get one for nothing. Going back into the house for his shotgun, he set off for Paraguay with Pedrito. They agreed that when Pedrito saw the jaguar, he would distract him with his chatter so that the man could creep up quietly with the gun.

And that was just what happened. The parrot perched on a branch of the tree and chattered and chattered, looking in every direction all the while to see whether he could spot the jaguar. At last he heard branches snapping, and suddenly saw two green lights beneath the tree, fixed on him: they were the jaguar’s eyes.

Then the parrot began to shout, “Lovely day!... Yummy food!... Lovely tea with milk!... Would you like tea with milk?...” The jaguar was furious to recognize the plucked parrot he thought he had killed, now covered once more in beautiful feathers. He swore that this time the bird would not escape, and his eyes flashed with rage as he answered in his hoarse voice:

“Come clos-er! I’m deaf!” The parrot flew to a nearer branch, still chattering. “Lovely bread and milk!... HE’S AT THE FOOT OF THIS TREE!...”

At these last words, the jaguar let out a roar and sprang to his feet. “Who are you talking to?” he bellowed. “Who did you tell I was at the foot of this tree?”

“Nobody, nobody!” cried the parrot. “Good morning, Pedrito!... Shake hands, little parrot!” And he went on chattering and hopping from branch to branch, drawing closer. But he had said, “He’s at the foot of the tree,” to alert the man, who was creeping nearer, crouching low, with the shotgun at his shoulder.

At last the parrot could come no closer without falling into the jaguar’s mouth, and then he cried, “Yummy food!... GET READY!” “Clos-er still!” roared the jaguar, crouching to spring.

“Lovely tea with milk!... LOOK OUT, HE’S GOING TO JUMP!” And the jaguar did indeed jump. He made an enormous leap, which the parrot dodged by shooting into the air like an arrow. But at that very instant the man, who had rested the barrel of his shotgun against a tree trunk to steady his aim, pulled the trigger, and nine pellets, each the size of a chickpea, shot like lightning into the jaguar’s heart. With a roar that made the whole forest tremble, he fell dead.

And the parrot—what cries of joy he gave! He was wild with delight, for he had taken revenge—and a fine revenge it was!—on the hideous beast that had torn out his feathers.

The man was very pleased too, because killing a jaguar is no easy matter, and now he had a skin for the stove in the dining room. When they got home, everyone learned why Pedrito had spent so long hidden in the hollow tree, and they all congratulated him on his brave deed.

They lived very happily from then on. But the parrot never forgot what the jaguar had done to him, and every afternoon, when he came into the dining room for tea, he would go up to the jaguar skin spread out in front of the stove and invite him to have tea with milk.

“Yummy food!...” he would say. “Would you like tea with milk?... Food for the jaguar!...” And everyone would burst out laughing. And so would Pedrito.