Winston Goes Live

Milo and Winston are back. Channel Six wants the famous parrot on live television Friday morning — and Milo has just worked out what Winston overheard in a closed-door meeting on Wednesday.

Six weeks after the assembly, Milo Fontaine had a laminated badge.

It said RIDGEWAY ELEMENTARY — ANIMAL PROGRAM — M. FONTAINE, and it had a photograph on it in which Milo was blinking, and he wore it every single day, clipped to his shirt, even on Saturdays, even once in the bath by accident.

The badge existed because Winston existed. Winston was an African grey parrot with a dove-coloured chest and a tail like a struck match, and he lived in a converted supply closet off the front office that now had a window, a perch, a heat lamp, and a hand-painted sign that said THE WINSTON ROOM. He was, at this point, moderately famous. Two newspapers had photographed him. A boy from a different school had asked Milo for his autograph and then, realising his mistake, asked for the bird's instead, and Milo had pressed Winston's foot onto an ink pad, which Winston had strong feelings about.

Winston had one rule, and it was the rule that had nearly ended Milo's entire life in March.

Everything Winston hears, Winston says. Two days later. At full volume. Wherever he happens to be.

'We had a deal, Winston,' Milo said, refilling the water dish. 'You are retired. You are a retired bird.'

Winston looked at him with one orange eye, the way he did, and said nothing at all, which should have been the first warning.