“Shoo, shoo,” Nimi said, waving her towel at the pigeon perched on the dressing table inside her room. She had left her room for a few minutes and the pigeon had flown into the empty space.
Hearing her shrieks, the pigeon flew around in alarm, trying to find its way out.
Inside the room
“To the right, to the right,” Nimi screamed, waving her towel, as though the bird would hear her and follow her instructions. The pigeon flew round and round, unable to find its way out.
It was the same pigeon that annoyed her to no end. Nimi recognised it immediately as it had a big white spot on its left wing. “What a dumb bird,” Nimi said. “The window is beside my study table and the stupid pigeon can’t see it. It definitely needs an eye checkup.”
The bird alighted on her study table, right on top of her open Biology textbook. It stared at the diagram of the frog she was studying.
“I can’t leave my room even for a few minutes, because this silly bird loves to drop in unannounced,” Nimi grumbled.
Ten-year-old Nimi hated pigeons. She considered the grey birds dumb, constantly making the gutar-gutar sounds outside her window and disturbing her whenever she was studying. Their sounds and presence irritated her; their very presence bugged her.
Suddenly, the pigeon looked up from the textbook it was peering at and turned its head this way and that way. As its eyes swerved to the window, it flew out.
“Such a huge relief,” Nimi sighed shutting her window.
The next morning, after breakfast, Nimi opened her bedroom window and sat down to study.
As she started studying for her Biology exam, from the corner of her eyes, she saw the plump pigeon with the white spot on its wing alight on the branch of the tree outside her window. As she continued studying the anatomy of a frog which she had left midway yesterday, the pigeon moved towards her window, as though it wanted to drop in for a morning visit.
Nimi balanced her long ruler at the edge of the study table, making it stick out through the window.
“Hope this trick will keep the pigeon away,” she muttered.
Nimi watched wide-eyed, as the pigeon flapped its wings and tried to sit on the ruler. The ruler tilted and then fell out of the fourth-floor window.
“Oh no,” Nimi said. “This pigeon needs to be locked up.”
She ran out of the room, all the way to the ground floor. As she made her way to the side of the building, she saw her ruler on the ground. On it sat the bird. As Nimi moved towards it, the pigeon squawked and flew away. Nimi picked up her ruler, dusted it and went back home to continue studying.
A treat for Nimi
A few days later when the results were announced, Nimi smiled when she saw her Biology marks. In spite of the pigeon disturbing her, she had aced the exam. Her parents decided that she deserved a treat.
Illustration: Sreejith R. Kumar
The next day, Nimi came out wearing her favourite blue dress; a birthday gift from her grandparents. As she headed to the car park with her parents, the pigeon with the white spot flew over their heads. Suddenly, Nimi felt something warm on her head.
Slowly, the liquid trickled down all the way to her chin, dropping on her dress. Nimi grimaced as a foul smell struck her nostrils. “Oh no,” she stared in dismay at her dress. “Looks like the silly bird has dropped a week’s poop on me.”
Turning around, she scowled at the bird which had alighted on a low branch. It stared at her with mischievous eyes as though saying, “See what I did”.
The pigeon had finally got its revenge.
Published - February 07, 2025 10:00 am IST
