Our Daily Bird 34: A Very Dirty Bird

I love children's books.  While I have yet to have any children, I have a small but growing collection of books that will absolutely be read to any children that I might have one day. In the meantime, I enjoy these myself.

Norman Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth, illustrated by acclaimed cartoonist Jules Feiffer, narrates  the journey of Milo, a bored young boy who is swept, after passing through the titular tollbooth, into a strange land where concepts of language and mathematics are ridiculously literalized.  He is quickly sent on a quest, accompanied by Tock (a Watchdog) and the Humbug, to rescue the lost Princesses Rhyme and Reason, who alone can restore peace between Dictionopolis and Digitopolis. Along the way he meets many strange creatures who obstruct his way including The Dirty Bird, a creature whose behaviour seems appropriate to recall as our American friends find themselves smack in the middle of election season:

     Clinging to one of the greasy rocks and blending almost perfectly with it was a large, unkempt and exceedingly soiled bird who looked more like a dirty floor mop than anything else.  He had a sharp, dangerous beak, and the one eye he chose to open stared down maliciously.

    "I don't think you understand," said Milo timidly as the watchdog growled a warning. "We're looking for a place to spend the night."

    "It's not yours to spend," the bird shrieked again, and followed it with the same horrible laugh.

    "That doesn't make any sense, you see----" he started to explain.

    "Dollars or cents, it's still not yours to spend," the bird replied haughtily.

    "But I didn't mean----" insisted Milo.

    "Of course you're mean," interrupted the bird, closing the one eye that had been open and opening the one eye that had been closed. "Anyone who'd spend a night that doesn't belong to him is very mean."

[...]

     "Let me try once more," Milo said in an effort to explain. "In other words----"

     "You mean you have other words?" cried the bird happily. "Well, by all means use them.  You're certainly not doing very well with the ones you have now."

     "Must you always interrupt like that?" said Tock irritably, for even he was becoming impatient.

     "Naturally," the bird cackled; "it's my job[...]I'm the Everpresent Wordsnatcher[...]"

[...]

    "Is everyone who lives in Ignorance like you?" asked Milo.

    "Much worse," [the bird] said longingly. "But I don't live here.  I'm from a place very far away called Context."

     "Don't you think you should be getting back?" suggested the bug, holding one arm up in front of him.

     "What a horrible thought." The bird shuddered.  "It's such an unpleasant place that I spend almost all my time out of it. Besides what could be nicer than these grimy mountains?"

     "Almost anything," thought Milo as he pulled his collar up.  And then he asked the bird, "Are you a demon?"

     "I'm afraid not," he replied sadly, as several filthy tears ran down his beak.  "I've tried, but the best I can manage to be is a nuisance," and before Milo could reply, he flapped his dingy wings and flew off in a cascade of dust and dirt and fuzz.

     "Wait!" shouted Milo, who'd thought of many more questions he wanted to ask.

     "Thirty-four pounds," shrieked the bird as he disappeared into the fog.

Comments

[Elaine]

I recall reading this book a long time ago but not being quite so annoyed by this dirty bird as I am this morning. Nuisance is the kindest way of describing him. Definitely a P.I.A.