Pigeonholed

In Which A Gaytime Is Had

Fortunately the thing landed on was not bones. Well, actually, it was bones.

"Oh, don't be so clumsy next time," tutted a girl in the bed. "I spent a long time constructing that lifesize owl model, you know."

Griselda immediately looked down and saw the splayed corpse of a pseudo-owl (or pseudowl) scattered over the floor beneath her. It was made from soft, downy craft feathers and papier-maché bones. And she, the clumsy godless oaf, had ruined it. She knew by the look on its now separated face that she had done wrong. In those glassy eyes screamed endlessly the words, why, Griselda? Why? Why me?

"Well, never mind." The girl got out of bed and stood somewhat warily by her nightstand, addressing her petite face at the new intruder. "I'm sure it's nothing I can't fix. You must be Griselda Pules. My owls told me about you."

"Wha- yeah, that's my name, I think... owls?" Griselda turned around in slow horror to realise her every blunder had been observed under the watchful mire-like eyes of Titus, the barn owl, who was perched on the window. Actually, he just wanted to check things were okay, but you know how things are with owls being misconstrued as deadly omens and all...

"Why, don't you know about the owls?" Attie asked primly. "You should do, you know."

"I know nothing about owls," Griselda spat, "I'm a pigeon farmer."

"So I've been told." Attie was actually rather proud of herself, as she looked like the smart one in this conversation. "And why are you here, hmm?"

"It's going to sound really weird, I know, but-" Griselda attempted to struggle away from her possum-like posture, but accidentally slipped on a metacarpal and bashed her chin on the floor. "Ow! Er... you see, you have some un-returned library books on that shelf there." She waved a pathetic arm where she thought the bookcase was.

"Do I?" Attie posed a finger against her chin in shallow thought. "Maybe I do. Sometimes it takes me a long time to finish books. It happens."

"But wait- there's more!" Griselda shouted from face-down. "Not returning library books is d-dangerous... and immoral! And it's really selfish! So I'm going to have to kill you!"

Attie paused. She did not feel shock. Nor did she feel anger. In fact, she was so nonplussed by this that she could have actually been said to be anti-expressive. "Oh."

"Don't take it personally, it wasn't my idea-" the significantly homelier girl grunted, struggling to her elbows. "-but all in all, it's sort of like a greater good type thing, society needs it, you know, and-"

Now, Griselda was finally at eye-level with Attie. "...and- wow! You're cute!"

Attie was legitimately confused, but managed to restrain her confusion to the single raise of an eyebrow. "What?"

"Look at you!" Griselda beamed all of a sudden. "I didn't get to see you properly when I came in through the window! You're so pretty!"

Attie's eyebrow settled. "Right."

"Look at your cute little face!" Griselda struggled to her feet at last and bumbled over to the owly girl, touching her cheek and giggling. "So adorable! You're like an owl except you don't scream at everything!"

"I don't believe I ever gave you permission to talk shit about my owls," Attie said pointedly, her face a beautiful watercolour portrait of offence.

"Jesus, I just want to take you home," Griselda slurred, "and dunk you in my coffee!"

"Griselda, I am not a homosexual," Attie muttered. "You are far too tired. Stop these coffee antics and go home."

As it turned out, late-night antics bumbling around town talking to pigeons and breaking into houses had a negative effect on Griselda's health that following morning.

Arriving home had largely been a blur and a mystery. She did not remember how she left Attie's house, or for that matter how she got from Attie's house to her own. She had splattered herself over her bed like a freefaller approaches a high-speed drop, parachuteless, against a concrete school playground. And she still couldn't drive away the bounteous mental images of pigeons.

Her father had found her in this position upon entering her room. Griselda didn't usually oversleep; her lifestyle was too boring to have her compromise hours of shuteye. Amazingly, he wasn't drunk yet. "Griselda?"

"I feel..." she began croakily, voice arising from a mountainous hell of pillows, "like... DEATH ITSELF."

"You want to stay off school today?" he offered. Griselda's dad may have been considered a bad parent by some, as he wasn't really in the business of enquiring into his daughter's lifestyle, but he was capable of identifying a girl who wouldn't do well at school that day.

She emitted a "please" with a specific kind of pathos that seemed to evoke the creaking of an old door. Griselda's father understood this.

"Alright, sweetheart. Just take it easy. Would you like some ice cream? One of my work-mates brought us back a box from Australia."

"Yes, please."

The man left and returned a bit later, with an ice that was in a pleasantly gleaming golden wrapper. "I'm off to work now, pops. See you a bit later."

Griselda sat up a bit more and removed the ice cream from its foil enrobing. The snack was dipped in chocolate and covered with rocky clusters of honeycomb biscuit; beneath it was a combination of toffee and vanilla ice cream that was simultaneously delightful and moreish and also very, very cold. Griselda decided that she liked this ice-cream, and checked the label to see what exactly this brilliant Australian invention was.

She was home from school having a Golden Gaytime on her own.