I don't want to kill it

Little Boy Elliott hated it when his mommy called him Little Boy Elliott. Just because he was the youngest boy and had four nasty older sisters didn’t give his mommy the right to call him that when she wore those really scary old pointy glasses and wagged her finger at Elliott and yelled at his daddy and chased Elliott around the house with a ruler after he ate all the ice cream up. Little Boy Elliott didn’t like it.

“Little Boy,” his mommy yelled up the stairs, a screech in her voice like fingernails on a chalkboard, “”you’re up to no good, I know it! You come down here now and show me you’re being a good boy.”

Just one day, Elliott wished, he could get by without doing something bad, something to make his mommy yell at him and chase him around the house with that ruler.

“I’m lying on my bed, Mommy,” Elliott yelled back, “reading The Diggingest Dog. Promise, come check yourself.”

“Don’t you be smart with me, Little Boy,” she replied, and Elliott heard her feet stomping away from the landing. But then Elliott heard a flapping noise from his mommy and daddy’s bedroom in the back of the house.

He went over to investigate. A bright red cardinal had gotten inside the window and was flying around the room. Elliott closed the door and ran around the room after the little birdie.

“Nice little birdie, let me hold you,” he said, reaching out, but each time the little red birdie flew to another side of the room. The bird landed on his mommy’s nightstand and knocked over a bottle of Chanel No. 5 and the photograph of Grammy with Grampa. The bird flew by Daddy’s desk and all the bills and papers and whatever Daddy did when he sat there every evening, not talking to anyone, all that flew up and coasted down to the floor by the fireplace. And then the birdie pooped on his parents’ navy blue bedspread.

“Oh, that’s enough, little birdie, time to go outside,” Elliott said, and chased the bird to the open window, but he didn’t fly out – and then to the other one, and then he did fly out. Elliott closed the windows in the room.

Elliott smiled. Just wait until he told his mommy, he saved a bright red cardinal!

Just then the door opened and his mommy towered above him with those pointy glasses and her wagging index finger.

“Just look at this ungodly mess. I knew you were up to no good, Little Boy Elliott. You go to your room. You’re grounded for a month.”