The Story of Tiberius

Chapter 13

A Month Later...

"Hey Mommy, look at these parrots!" a little boy cried, giggling happily. Thunder and Rain woke up from their nap and stared blankly at the child that was bouncing up and down in front of their cage. In the month since they had arrived, this was the first day that they had been put out where everyone could see them. And, according to Phil, someone would buy them for a large sum of cash and they'd find a home of their own.

It appeared the little boy wasn't going to be that someone as his mother came and dragged him away towards the rodents, a look of fear in her eyes.

"Thunder, do you think they're scared of us?" Rain asked quietly, trembling at the back of their cage. Looking over at his sister, Thunder was about to answer when he was interrupted by laughter. Both siblings looked over at the cage close to their own to find a trio of tiny colorful birds. All three were laughing their heads off and pointing at them. Frowning, Thunder grumbled, "What's so funny?"

"You two are!" one of the tiny birds screeched in laughter. He fell over and rolled around on the floor of his cage that he shared with a whole bunch of his own species of bird. His two companions were shaking so much from laughing. The one who had spoken got back up to his little feet. Still giggling, he pointed over at Rain as he snickered, "Little lady here has a point! You two are scaring off the customers with just one look! Ain't no way you're getting out here!"

"Never ever!" a red colored bird squawked from a different cage.

"There's a small chance we might get out of here-" Rain started to say as kindly as possible but was rudely interrupted by all the birds in that corner of the pet store exploding with laughter. Seeing how distraught his sister looked, anger boiled up inside of Thunder as he slammed his body against the side of their cage with a shriek. Glaring at the tiny birds who had started this whole thing, he hissed, "Be grateful that I'm not in your cage right now, slitting your throats and ripping your filthy carcasses apart!" The laughter died down at that threat. It was eerily silent for a few seconds.

Then the laughing picked up again, followed by hissing and screeching.