Darryl

Once upon a time there was a crow named Darryl.

Sometimes he was a loudmouth which sometimes led to disagreements and sometimes those disagreements got out of hand and pecking ensued.

One day that’s exactly what happened. Unable to dodge the rapid-fire pecking of his opponent, feathers flew (mostly Darryl’s) and when the victor departed and quiet returned to the farmer’s field, Darryl looked completely different.

It was early summer and the weather was kind and the sun was warm so flying around with a bald head proved to be no discomfort in the least. In fact, Darryl found it rather invigorating and completely refreshing to feel the gentle breeze on his skin as he dipped and dove through the skies over his territory. At night he tucked his bald head under his wing and slept soundly. In every regard, he had a lovely summer.

The weeks passed, the summer heat ended, the days shortened and the sun yawned herself below the horizon in the early evenings. Clouds moved in, the days became cool and the air temperature dropped. Darryl was getting ice-cream headaches dipping and diving through the cloudy skies over his territory.

Something had to be done.

He had seen other birds use mud and grasses to build their nests so he headed over to the pond and landed beside the turtle.

“Here’s what I’m thinking,” Darryl said, and he launched into describing his idea of some sort of mud cap with little bits of grass, or straw, or anything really, whatever the turtle thought best, to cover his head and sort of do a stand-in job for his missing feathers.

“Then my head will stay warm,” he finished. “What do you think?”

The turtle didn’t understand any of the dialogue about flying and he certainly didn’t understand why a perfectly good bare head (that looked much like his own, beak included) needed to be covered. But he did understand the bit about mud and such so he told Darryl,

“Bend,”

and went to work.

It took a long time. Darryl didn’t know if it was because the turtle moved slowly or because there was a lot of skin to cover, but anyway, it was dark when the job was finished and he had no chance to check his appearance in the pond before departing.

“Thanks and good night,” he said and flew off to the murder (not the crime-scene kind, the group-of-sleeping-crows kind).

That night he had trouble tucking his head under his wing. Then he remembered he didn’t need to, his new cap would keep him warm. Little did he know that this is how that new cap looked;

In the morning, when the other crows woke and saw this mess you wouldn’t have believed the screaming, terrifying noises they made in their rush to get away.

CAW CAW CAW !!!

Darryl was mortified. Feeling dejected, he flew off to the farmer’s field and perched on a fence post.

“What’s up?” asked the farmer.

“My new Get-up scares the crap out of my friends and family,” said Darryl. “One glimpse of me and they fly off, screaming.”

“Really,” said the farmer thoughtfully, and he slowly turned his head from Darryl to gaze across his field of ripened corn then back to Darryl perched on the fence post. Then he drove his hoe deep in the furrow so the handle stood straight up.

“Come perch on this,” said the farmer. “I’ll be back later.”

“Sure,” said Darryl, the original scare-crow.