Summer opened the sliding glass door to the wide wooden terrace to find her husband having a heated argument with a magpie.
Braedon clearly understood the bird’s trills and caws and was glaring at it in a way that would cow most other creatures. She put her coffee and breakfast down on the table, interrupting them, and turned her brightest smile on the pair of them.
“What a handsome bird. Is he friendly?”
The magpie preened; Braedon grunted. “He’s an opinionated pain in the arse.”
Summer offered the bird a chunk of apple. He gave Braedon an assessing side-eye, then gently took the fruit from her fingers. He dropped it on the table and began stabbing it into smaller pieces. He trilled at Braedon, then looked pointedly at Summer.
“She’s used to me having conversations with idiots.”
Summer finished her mouthful and said. “And I don’t ask questions I might not get an answer to, let alone ones I probably won’t like the answer to. So, as far as I’m concerned, my husband has made friends with an unusually social magpie and if said magpie wants to be friends with me, he’ll leave it at that.”
The answering caw sounded more like a cynical chuckle but, really, so long as Summer knew she had her head in the sand, she was quite happy to leave it there until something insisted she come up for air.
The DNA of Stories 