The Drama Queen

“Mummy, Mummy, Mummy!” cried out Rosa as she staggered into the living room making sure she didn’t trip over the magical unicorn hair rug in front of the couch as she turned, placed her wings over her heart, closed her eyes and collapsed on the feather couch.

There was no one else in the living room. Rosa realised that as soon as she opened her eyes and looked around. “Mummy I’m dying,” she shouted and that did the trick.

Sybil was at that time negotiating world peace with the seagulls and in particular Rae, who preferred to use the pronouns they and them, which Sybil refused to comply with. In exchange for the leftovers from the dinner last night, they promised to leave the Jewish community alone. Sybil engaged their delegation who promised they spoke for the entire seagull community on North Topsail Beach. The seagulls would’ve promised everything in the world with no real intention of abiding by the truce, just so they could ram all the food they could smell into their beaks and down their gullets.

“Excuse me,” said Sybil much to their disappointment, “I have a slight emergency.” Sybil walked away from the open window from where she had been conducting her delicate negotiations, but then turned back and pulled the glass window down which made the seagulls groan. They were obviously going to raid the kitchen when she left the room. Sybil was too smart for that, especially after reading the book on one Ronald Reagan in which she underlined the sentence he used a lot, ‘trust but verify,’ several times in different coloured pencils. She was proud she hadn’t decided to trust the seagulls, even though they appeared to be trustworthy.

She walked into the living room and saw her seven year old daughter laying on the couch clutching her heart moaning “I’m dying, I’m dying, I’m dying.” At first, Sybil wanted to rush over to her daughter to see what was wrong but George’s appearance with a cheery hello put a stop to that.

“What’s the matter Rosa dear?” she asked stopping so that her husband could join her.

“I’m dying, Mummy!”

“Why are you dying?” asked George, the smile on his face growing larger by the second.

“I’m dying because of the food I ate last night.”

“And what in particular?” asked Sybil noticing out of the corner of her eye the non-binary seagull climb on to the window sill and peer into the kitchen. A quick glare from her accompanied by a loud shoo and a clap of her wings did the trick. The seagull appeared to apologise and flew away. Back to Rosa. “What food in particular young lady?” asked her father.

“The food the foolish people brought.”

“Foolish people?” asked George.

Sybil turned to her husband, “she means the Falashas, honey.”

“Oh, I see. I don’t think they’d like to be called foolish young lady.”

“I’m sorry Daddy. The whatever brought.”

“I thought it was all very good!” George was enjoying this scene. One in a long line of dramatic scenes from Rosa’s life.

“The one with the egg. Timmy said that it had egg in it and so I’m a murderer,” Rosa moaned.

“It’s ok Rosa, because the dish also had chicken in it.”

“Chicken?” Rosa made a quick recovery. Timmy had been in his room dutifully playing with his Legos trying to construct a bridge to nowhere when he heard the conversation in the living room. He was feeling a little evil that morning, especially when he realised he was in the unique position of having two young sandpipers care for him.

“Yes Rosa, Mummy ate chicken.”

“Chicken livers?” asked Rosa knowing full well there were no chicken livers in the dish. She wanted to resurrect last Friday’s debate. Sybil began to blush and George was highly amused at how his family up and down the age brackets handled situations. “Mummy did you eat chicken?” Rosa who had now miraculously made a complete recovery asked. When her miraculous recovery was pointed out to her as a way of getting her off the subject, she calmly looked at the rug and reminded her mother it was a magical unicorn rug and it obviously works. Touché!

Sybil looked to her husband for support, but found that lacking. George was just having too much fun. “Timmy, don’t you have to do something today?”

“It’s Sunday, Mummy. There’s nothing to do.”

“How about with Max?”

“Mummy,” Timmy reminded her, “Max went to church.”

“All day?” she asked.

“No,” he replied, “but he has a luncheon at the church after services.”

“And he didn’t invite you?”

Sybil was desperate to go back to the negotiations where she felt she was making headway and not get mired in a situation that wasn’t going her way. The others required her to remain.

“Yes, he did, Mummy. But I didn’t want to go.”

“Was the chicken yummy?” asked Rosa beginning to smile evilly.

“You tell me young lady. You ate it as well……. George,” continued Sybil, “I need your help here.” “Why?” he asked, “you seem to be doing just fine.”

“But I need to get back to negotiating with the seagulls. I think I’m getting somewhere.”

“Are you kidding?” replied George eager to remind his wife of the time there was a formal agreement drawn up at Elisabeth’s office some months ago, which they arbitrarily broke. “They only want the food. They would break the agreement as soon as they finished.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Sybil felt beaten down. “But we have all the leftovers.”

“Can’t we freeze some of it?” her husband asked. “After all, the chicken and egg dish was fantastic.”

Sybil bit her tongue. She was about to agree but one look at a revived Rosa and an evil looking Timmy convinced her otherwise. “I know,” she said, “let me see if Elisabeth can give me that Knish Palace number and maybe that vulture can pick up the food for a charity in Brooklyn.” George wasn’t happy with that suggestion, but couldn’t really object.

“I think that’s a great idea honey,” he replied and stretched out his wings to Timmy and Rosa who immediately ran up to him and walked out of the living room leaving Sybil with her mobile phone.

It wasn’t till the next day that Sybil stood outside waiting for the arrival of the vulture. She constantly scanned the skies for any sign of her gym loving creature and soon her heart began to beat faster as she saw a giant speck in the northern sky getting closer and closer. But soon her heart sank as the speck was accompanied by other specks. Soon much to her disgust, the area in front of her house was covered with vultures some large, some small and there in the middle was her heart throb.

“Thank you for inviting us,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind. I brought my family, though I wasn’t sure how much food there was.”

“No, I think that’s wonderful,” she replied, “why don’t you come inside away from the looks of the seagulls.”

“Oh don’t worry about them,” he replied, “by the way, my name is Rocky, what’s yours?”

Of course it is, Sybil thought to herself. It was impossible for him to have a different name!