Fickle feathering swept beneath her fingertips.
She peered at the whiteness that enveloped her sight and her attention and her world. It was the neck of an ostrich. A silly circumstance had brought them together.
The ostrich was very still. It stood upright like a surly guardian secretly kind at heart. It tolerated the girl’s rapt touches with a disdainful expression yet didn’t move. The ostrich didn’t move because it was dead. It had been stuffed.
The other birds perching in the white and grey high-roofed room were also still.
The girl, however, marvelled at the ostrich’s feathering. It was very soft. She wondered if she could grow feathers. On closer inspection though she realized that it was not likely and that further feathers were a repulsive thing to have. Her hair which was almost as soft as the feathers and much shinier was better.
The thought cheered her. Her hair flowed gracefully like ribbons catching in a mist while the ostrich’s feathers were like large furry arrow heads and were stumpy and would turn disheveled and unpleasing in the rain. The ostrich, the girl concluded, was irregular to her. It felt soft but it looked strange. All the birds looked strange.
It brought a frown to the girl’s face, it was deep. It was of undisguised disapproval. The bird took no offense. The girl then made a point of straightening her white dress which was much whiter than any of the feathers in the room and she snugged tight her headband. The headband didn’t need refitting but she needed to make a point. Her appearance now was proper and right. She looked around at the birds in the room with the air of a stern teacher. When the birds didn’t react she blew a frustrated sound at them that carried disgust and meanness despite its inarticulateness and she ran from the room. She thought to herself how stupid birds were, they didn’t understand beauty, they didn’t understand that some things were right and some things were wrong. When she ran away the ostrich didn’t blink.
When she went to the room a few doors down she found her father, who was polishing a favourite rifle, and she told him how stupid and boring birds were and that they didn’t understand anything. She spoke of them as if they were alive and the father nodded as she talked and kept polishing.
The Compendium 