Thunderstruck & Other Stories by Elizabeth McCracken

polite to ask even if he disregarded the answer.
    “Izzy’s asthma,” said Tony, helplessly.
    “Izzy’s not here.”
    “She’s—”
    “She’s not in the room,” clarified Sid. “Where is she?”
    “Budgies,” said Tony.
    “What?”
    “She’s in the budgie room.”
    That was the advantage and danger of an eight-bedroom house: eventually the oddest things would have their own rooms. When Malcolm sold the house—if Malcolm sold the house—the new owners would walk around sniffing, saying, as Tony and Izzy had before them, “What do you suppose they did in
this
room?”
    “Ah, the budgies,” said Sid. “I’ve never met the budgies. Did you know that
budgerigar
means ‘good eating’ in the Aboriginal language?”
    “I hope it doesn’t come to that,” said Tony.
    “That would make you a psittiphage,” said Sid.
    “A what?”
    “A psittiphage: an eater of parrots. Psittiphobe: one who fears parrots. Psittophile: one who—”
    “Yes,” said Tony. He filled Sid’s glass again.
    “So you already have parrots, and now here’s another.”
    “The budgies are Izzy’s minions. This one’s mine. I don’t even like those budgies. I love you, though,” he said to Clothilde. “Do you love me?”
    She bobbed her head and said nothing.
    “They talk?”
    “The budgies? One or two,” said Tony. Most of them couldn’t, they just babbled. Then suddenly one would say
Hello, there. Hello, there
. It always made Tony feel as though he’d been doing something vile in a room full of deaf and dumb and blind nuns, only to find there were a few regular nuns mixed in.
    “Anthony,” Sid said grimly.
    “What?”
    Sid pointed at him. He waved his finger around, indicating something in general about Tony that was displeasing him. “Your hair,” he said at last. “Your beard. It’s a disgrace.”
    “I need a trim.”
    “One or the other. No man should ever keep his beard and hair the same length. Shave your head and let your beard go, or grow your hair and affect a Vandyke. One or the other. As it is, you just look
fuzzy
.”
    “I
am
fuzzy,” said Tony. He rubbed his hair ostentatiously and stared at Sid’s bald head.
    “All right,” said Sid. “I get your point.”
    “I am fuzzy,” Tony said sadly.
    “I know, mate.”
    “Malcolm tell you?”
    “Malcolm tell me what?”
    But Tony couldn’t say it aloud.
    Sid lumbered to his feet and snagged the carafe off the mantelpiece. He poured himself another glass.
“Jamais deux sans trois,”
he said,
Never two without three
, the drinker’s motto. He took a great gulp, then looked at Tony. “Bloody rude of me!” he said, filled Tony’s glass, too, and splashed the rest of the wine into his own. He held the empty carafe by the neck and pointed to the corner.
    “What’s wrong with that dog?” Sid took a drink.
    “That’s Macy,” said Tony.
    “But what’s wrong with her?” Sid took another drink.
    “That’s
Macy
.”
    “But what happened to her?” Another drink.
    After a second, Tony said, “Land mine.”
    “That’s not what I mean. She’s all, she’s got, she’s
swollen
.” Sid indicated his own bare torso with the empty carafe and finished the wine. It was just like Sid to be prudish about a dog’s teats.
    “She’s nursing. She had pups. You want one?”
    “I live in a truck,” said Sid. He held out both the wine glass and the carafe.
    Tony went to the box of wine on the kitchen island. “Don’t look,” he said, filling the carafe.
    “
I
don’t care.”
    “I was talking to Clothilde.”
    “I don’t mean to harp on the fifty euro,” said Sid, “but it is fifty euro.”
    “Yeah, yeah,” said Tony. “Where’d Malcolm find her?”
    “Mine.”
    “Yours?”
    He looked at the parrot with some suspicion and came back to fill Sid’s wine glass. Sid watched the rising level with the concentration of a telekinetic.
    “You’re selling her why?”
    “I see we’ll be ordering off the children’s menu,” said Sid, and