The blue parrot drove by the hitchhiking mongoose.

 Strange things happen in the jungle at night. Leopards sometimes lose their spots, only to find them the next dawn when they catch the jackals trying to run off with them. While tigers’ stripes get broader and eventually become one big wide stripe and the blue parrot which is a rare breed of bird, drives by a hitchhiking mongoose.

“Ma!” shouted John, “Ma!” he shouted even louder when his mother didn’t come running into his room to see what the matter was that time.

For the past three or four years, ten year old John has woken up at 1am believing that it was indeed time to get up and go to school. Eventually, after the third of fourth time of shouting for his mother, Mildred opened the door to John’s room and poked her head in.

“What’s the matter now?” she asked hoping he had fallen back to sleep so that she could return to her warm cozy bed and fall back to sleep as well. She needed to be up in about 4 hours to get the entire household moving in the right directions. Unfortunately, as always, John was wide awake and sitting up in bed wearing his striped pyjamas with blue polka dots. “Those aren’t the sort of pyjamas a boy of your age should be wearing,” his mother told him when a package arrived from Amazon. But John who had seen them online, had to have him. His father, John senior, had paid for them. “Yes, what is it this time, John?” she asked closing the door behind her as she did not want to disturb the entire house. Bunty, the large great Dane which they had to have when they visited the local pet store on adoption day, had groaned loudly hating to be disturbed at that time of night. They were promised he was a miniature Great Dane, but the problem was that the person didn’t know what he was talking about, even though he said he was a breeder of midget Great Danes par excellence.

Bunty was nearly as tall as John on a bad day.

“Ma,” said John scratching his head. Thank goodness it was dark so no one could see the bugs that were disturbed. “I had a bad dream yet again.”

“What is it this time?” sighed his mother.

“Do you know that the blue parrot who drove by the hitchhiking mongoose showed up again?”
“The same blue parrot?” she asked, “what was he driving this time?”
“A jaguar, until he got pulled over by the cops.”
“Oh, what for, speeding?”
“No,” replied John junior, “this time he got pulled over for doing 50 in a 30 mile per hour zone.”
Mildred scratched her head as she got closer to his bed, as some of the bugs that inhabited John’s thick, greasy, uncombed and unwashed hair jumped into hers, not wanting to be disturbed while they slept soundly dreaming their own wretched dreams.

“Yes, Ma. The same blue parrot.”
“What’s his name again?” his mother asked, smacking her left arm as she felt something crawling up it. “You really have to start taking showers like the rest of your family.”
“Jonathon. I can’t Ma,” whined John, “I can’t because if I did, then all my friends would be washed away.”
“That’s ok,” his mother smacked her hand this time. “That’s ok, because the rest of us don’t want to share your menagerie.”
“Maybe soon Ma.”
“Is that all you wanted me for?”
“No, Ma. Can I have a glass of milk?”
“Goat or cow?” asked his mother.

“Bunty is a boy, isn’t he?”
“Yes, John. Come one now, goat or cow?”
“Do we have any cow’s milk?”
“No we don’t. I would have to go out in the field and milk a cow, but I think they may be sleeping so it will have to be goat.”
“Ok Ma,” he whined again and Mildred left the room as quietly as she could, which wasn’t very quiet considering she was a mother of massive proportions. She woke up the dog who thought it was time for his daily 10 mile run, but she soon made sure he understood that it was the middle of the night and the only reason she was moving around was because his brother needed milk.

Bunty groaned and laid his head back down, but yet again right on top of Ju Jitsu the blue Persian cat who meowed loudly and scratched him on his forehead for the 200th time, that year.

Mildred creaked down the stairs and returned a few minutes later with a carton of expired goat milk. “It’s all we have,” she told her son when he went to drink it and the smell repulsed him.

“Ok Ma. But can we get some fresh milk?”
“I will when the goats start producing. They need to understand that they can’t keep going on strike when the weather changes for the worse.”
Soon John was fast asleep in a pool of spilled expired goat milk and Mildred sighed knowing that when she woke up, she would need to do another load of laundry.

“It was that damn blue parrot again!” she told her husband when she climbed into bed nearly crushing him. “I need to get rid of that blue parrot.”
“Was it driving past that damn mongoose again?” asked her husband as he gasped for air. “You know he would stop having that dream if the parrot would give him a ride.”
“I’m not sure. Was it going in the same direction though?” he asked half asleep.

“Yes, it was,” replied Mildred as she began to drift off to sleep. “I’ve got to get rid of it. Maybe we need to call the exterminator.”
“You can’t do that,” John senior said, “that’s the only friend he has.”

“It’s about time for him to make human friends.” His father began to snore and Mildred reached over to the bedside table and picked up her ear plugs.

“What do you want for breakfast?” she asked as she fell to sleep, snoring as well.

“How about turkey bacon?” she thought he said but he hadn’t. It was another one of her ridiculous dreams. Soon, the entire Smith household was fast asleep and another disaster had been averted. That was until the Smith household woke up four hours later and Mildred had to go out into the barn to kill a turkey for breakfast.