My brother’s nuts, because he thinks the pigeons in our bedroom are a sign of good luck, but I know it’s better to get pigeon control in here immediately.
We live in a typical big apartment building, devoid of any personality. From the outside, it’s just an ugly white, broken up by tiny black windows, fire escape ladders, and streaks of bird droppings. It has even less personality on the inside, where ancient floors echo footsteps off white walls, and the doors leading to individual apartments are decorated only by little black numbers.
It’s a whole different world inside our apartment, though. Mom doesn’t make a lot of extra money at her job, so it’s not like we had an interior designer come through to transform our small, two-bedroom apartment into a sanctuary from the world. But, Mom sure does believe in color, and she’s draped bright red curtains over the windows, painted our room an eye-searing blue, and she’s filled every shelf with brightly colored glass knick-knacks.
My brother’s turning ten next week, and the only thing he’s begged for is a pet. I know that’s not going to happen, and Mom’s even explained to him we can’t have a pet in this small apartment. It would stink, we don’t have room for a pet, and worst of all, my brother’s allergic.
So, I can’t really blame him when he thought his birthday wish came true early. He loves to open our bedroom window to hear all the noises of the kids playing in the playground below, and to his delight, two pigeons flew in the open window. Once the pigeons were in, he slammed the window shut. The pigeons didn’t seem to mind too much. They just walked around on the window sill and cooed every now and then.
As soon as I realized what happened, I went to call the building supervisor so he could get pigeon control up to our apartment whenever he got around to it. I knew Mom would have a fit if she came home from work tonight to find two pigeons in the house. Already, there was an ugly stain on the wall under the window, and I swore I would not be the one to clean it up. My brother was rushing around the kitchen looking for old bread and a bag of sunflower seeds he swore was in the cupboard, while I yelled at him that we had to let pigeon control take care of the problem. He kept yelling back that the pigeons were not a problem, that they were his birthday pigeons, so I should just shut up.
When my brother’s got something in mind, he’s super stubborn, so I just sighed. The guys who come up to do pigeon control can deal with my brother. I did my part, I dunno who’s gonna clean up the mess, but it ain’t gonna be me. I just laid back down on the couch with my book and waited for either pigeon control or Mom to come home, whichever came first.