rang, ‘that’s probably them!’ And indeed it was! ‘Come in, Zigzag, come in, dear!’ coaxedVisu, and in tottered the strangest, weirdest-looking bird the Krishnan family had ever seen. About a foot and a half tall, its bald head was fringed with a crown of shocking pink feathers while the rest of its plumage was in various shades of the muddiest sludgiest brown. Its curved beak was sunflower-yellow and its eyes were the colour of cola held to sunlight.
‘This is Zigzag! Announced Visu with a flourish. ‘His full name is Ziggy- Zagga-king-of-the-Tonga. How I’m going to miss him!
So beautifully he talks! He can even recite French Poetry!’ The object of all this praise was standing cool and unmoved, with an expression of almost-human grumpiness in his cola-coloured eyes. Arvind, finding that Zigzag was sulkily refusing to say a word despite all 10th - - their efforts at striking a conversation, dashed into the kitchen to return with a plate heaped hurriedly with juicy fruit slices and some nuts. Bored eyes brightened momentarily as Zigzag picked up a walnut.
But refusing to speak, he dropped one wrinkled eyelid in a solemn wink and flew clumsily to deposit the nut on the enormous chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Bit by bit, and in total silence, all the fruit on the plate was transferred to the chandelier and on to the blades of the ceiling fan (now switched off). Then perching comfortably on a curtain rod, Zigzag dropped one wizened eyelid in another solemn wink as he sank his beak into a plump guava. ‘Don’t worry, children,’ Visu comforted as he left, noticing how disappointed they looked when Zigzag stubbornly refused to say a single word to them even though they tried speaking to him in English, Hindi, Tamil and French.
‘Just wait till Zigzag settles down in this new home, they you can have a great time listening to him.’ As it happened, the children didn’t have to wait more than ten minutes to have a great time listening to Zigzag. For as soon as Visu left, Zigzag,