Mr. Beaky Goes Visiting.

       "Hey! Mr Beaky," Marc stood under the big tree in their back yard, looking up into the branches "Are you up there, Mr Beaky, come on down if you are I've got something to tell you."

   The leaves began to rustle and Mr Beaky, the cockatoo, appeared, looking annoyed, as if he'd just been wakened from a pleasant sleep.

    "Mr Beaky here," said the bird, spreading his wings and bouncing his body up and down.

    "Don't be such a grouch, Mr Beaky," Marc smiled as he watched his pet prancing about, "We are going out to the country to visit Aunt Vera and Uncle Ken on their farm and Mum said I could take you with me, you want to come, don't you Mr Beaky."

    " Mr Beaky, Mr Beaky," squawked the cockatoo, as he started climbing down the tree.

    Marc picked the bird up and with him sitting on his shoulder, ran to the front of the house and hopped into the car, where the rest of the family were waiting.

    It was a beautiful afternoon and everybody, even Mr Beaky, enjoyed the trip to the farm, it only took thirty minutes to drive there.

    As soon as the car stopped, Marc jumped out and with Mr Beaky still sitting on his shoulder ran to meet his Aunt, Uncle and cousins, who were waiting on the front verandah.

    "Hello everybody, this is Mr Beaky, my pet cocky, he introduced the cockatoo. "Say hello, Mr Beaky."

   "Hello, my name is Mr Beaky, what's yours?" said the cockatoo.

    Everybody laughed and told him their names, then Aunty Vera told Marc and the other children, to take Mr Beaky, and go round to the back of the house and play.

   Marc and the other children played with Mr Beaky for a while then leaving him sitting on a low branch of a tree, ran off to have a look at some of the animals on the farm.

    Mr Beaky, feeling abandoned, jumped down off the limb, and went looking for something to amuse himself with.

    Spotting some birds that looked something like he did, only a lot bigger, he walked down to them and finding a gap in the fence, climbed through.

   The hen were startled by his appearance and started cackling, Mr Beaky was intrigued by this noise and started mimicking them, this just seemed to upset the hens more and they raced round the pen flapping their wings and cackling louder.

    Mr Beaky got all excited and chased the chooks and sprang at them just to make them cackle more, adding his squawking to the clamour. The rooster in the next pen got all upset and began crowing, altogether they were making quite a lot of noise.

    All this noise brought Marc, Aunty Vera and the others out to see what was happening. When Aunty Vera saw what was going on she grabbed a broom and chased Mr Beaky, "Oh you naughty bird, stop chasing my chooks," she cried, swiping at him with the broom.

  Mr Beaky ducked the broom and ran to Marc, Marc picked him up, "Naughty Mr Beaky," he exclaimed, shaking a finger at him, "You've upset all Aunty's chooks, now you be a good boy and say you're sorry to Aunty Vera."

   Mr Beaky hung his head and apologized ,"Sorry, Mr Beaky sorry." But if anyone had been looking closer at Mr Beaky, they would have seen a twinkle in his eye that belied what he said.

   Marc shook his head at Mr Beaky, then he followed the others back onto the verandah.

   Putting the cockatoo down on the floor, Marc warned him, "Now you behave yourself, Mr

Beaky, or else!"

   Marc should have kept his eye on Mr Beaky, for it seemed he was just full of mischief this afternoon. No sooner had Marc gone back to play with his cousins, when Mr Beaky spotted a cat sleeping on the floor, sneaking up to it he nipped it on the tail.

   "Meeooowrrr roowrr," howled the cat, leaping with fright onto Uncle Kens lap, digging his claws in, Uncle Ken who was almost asleep, jumped up with a yell, sending the cat, still howling, flying, tripped over the dog that had come running out and bumped into Aunt Vera, who was just carrying a tray of afternoon tea things from the kitchen, the tray fell to the floor with a crash and clatter, the dog started barking and chased Mr Beaky.

   Cat howling, dog barking, cockatoo screeching, Uncle Ken yelling and Marc crying all made an awful din. 

   In the midst of all this clamour and confusion the older children came running in asking what

had happened, which only added to the chaos.

    Mrs Swann and Aunt Vera stood, open mouthed, looking at the scene before them, then looking at each other, burst into laughter. They laughed and laughed and laughed, they laughed

so much everybody else just couldn't help joining in.

    The rest of the afternoon passed in peace and quiet, with Mr Beaky quite subdued.

    When the Swanns arrived home that night Mr Swann carried Mr Beaky to the back of the house and put him in his cage, saying, "No more visiting for Mr Beaky, you get into too much

mischief."

    My Beaky, feathers all ruffled and still shaken from his alarming experience, agreed, "No more visiting for Mr Beaky."

                                                             The End

                                                            (Maybe?) 

                                                Mr. Beaky Goes to the Beach.

  The Swann family where just finishing breakfast when Mr.Swann looked up at his children." It's such a beautiful sunny day, your mother and I thought we would take you to the beach, would you like to go?" he asked.

    "Oh yes please." The three of them replied together. "I can try out my new surfboard," said Todd, who had just turned thirteen.

    "Todd said I can have his old board and he'd teach me to ride," Marty, nearly nine, exclaimed excitedly.

    "And I can take Mr Beaky, he has never seen the sea," piped in Marc, who was nearly seven now.

    There was silence, everybody looked at Marc, they all remembered the last time Mr Beaky went somewhere with them.

    "I don't think that would be a good idea Marc," said Mrs Swann. "You remember what happened when we took him to the farm with us, don't you."

    "Yees, but this would be different, there'll be no hens or cats or anything like that, and I'll watch him, I promise, please Mum, please Dad, pleeeese," begged Marc.

    "Oh well, all right then, but you remember to keep an eye

on him now agreed his father.

    There was a mad scramble then, everybody rushing to get what they wanted to take with them, then getting it all into the car, luckily it was a station wagon with racks on the top.

    Mrs Swann packed a lunch, then they all got into the wagon and away they went.

    An hors drive got them to the coast and Mr Swann pulled up in a shady spot, overlooking the beach. They all piled out of the car and grabbing their various belongings headed off.

    Todd, with his new surfboard, headed to the spot reserved for board riders.

    Mr Swann went with Marty and watched while he tried out a few waves.

    Marc carried Mr. Beaky down to the edge of the water and put him on the sand. The waves were receding just at that time and Mr Beaky thought this paddling was a lot of fun, but when he looked up and saw a big wave rolling down towards him he panicked and turned and ran,

up the beach, squawking loudly, but he couldn't run fast enough, the waves caught him, and rollled him up the sand, then started pulling him back again.

    "Sqaaawk, sqaaawk," went Mr Beaky, being rolled over and over on the sand, then he felt himself being picked up. "Thank goodness," he thought, "I'm saved."

    Marc had seen what happened and had grabbed Mr Beaky just as quickly as he could. "Poor Mr Beaky, poor Mr Beaky," he cried as he ran up the beach to his mother.

    "Mum, Mum Mr Beaky got knocked over by a wave and he is all wet, can I have a towel to dry him please?" He showed the poor bedraggled cockatoo, who was still squawking and shaking

with fright to his mother.

    Mrs Swann took the bird and dried him off as much as possible, then put him on the sand beside her.

    "Leave him here with me, for a while, and you go and have a swim with Marty and your father," she told Marc.

    When Mr Beaky calmed down he looked around for something to do. He spotted some seagulls, and thinking they were also cockatoos, he headed off to play with them, but when the

seagulls saw Mr Beaky coming they flew off and landed again in another spot. Mr Beaky gave chase. After this happened a few times, Mr Beaky got annoyed and squawked at the seagulls.

"Mr.Beaky wanna play," Mr Beaky wanna play," but the seagulls took no notice and continued to fly away.

    Mr Beaky soon got sick of this chase and went looking for something else to amuse himself with.

    Waddling along the sand, Mr Beaky spotted some funny looking things scurrying along the sand, he had never seen anything like them before. Of course Mr Beaky didn't know but

they were crabs. He started chasing them and was having a jolly old time when suddenly one of the bigger ones turned and started chasing him. This didn't suit Mr Beaky at all, he liked to do the chasing, so he waddled off in another direction.

    Mr Beaky was heading for the end of the beach where there were some rocks, when Marc caught up to him. "Mr Beaky, you shouldn't go wandering off on your own, something bad might

happen to you," he scolded. Mr Beaky and Marc continued to the rocks. When they got there, Marc lay along one of the rocks, looking into a pool of clear water, watching some little fish swimming around.

    Mr Beaky came up to see what Marc was looking at and leaning over too far, lost his balance and fell into the pool.

   "Squaaargle," was the odd noise that came from Mr Beaky in the water.

    Laughing, Marc pulled Mr Beaky out of the water, "It seems like you just can't stay out of the water today, Mr Beaky."

    Just then Marty turned up, "Marc, Mum wants you, it's time for lunch" he told his brother, so Marc put Mr Beaky on his shoulder and walked to the car, where they had lunch.

    After lunch they all rested for a while then Todd went out on his surfboard and Marc and Marty went for another swim with their father then sat on the sand near their mother

building sandcastles.

    Mr Beaky watched for a while, then getting bored, he looked around for something new to interest him. Spotting something sticking up out of the sand, he hopped over and

nipped it. "Ouch!" yelled the owner of the toe, jumping up and holding onto his sore toe while he jumped around on the other leg.

   "This looks like fun," thought Mr Beaky, then spotting another foot trotted over and nipped it.      "Ouch!" came the cry again, and someone else was dancing around on the sand, soon Mr Beaky was attacking in all directions and people, holding their toes were yelling at him and trying to catch him, "I haven't had so much fun for a long time, " thought Mr Beaky.

    But Mr Beaky's fun came to a sudden halt when Mr Swann threw a towel over him and picked him up.

 Turning to his family, Mr Swann told them to gather their things and follow

him to the car.

    Mr Swann, was very annoyed with the cockatoo. "You are a very naughty bird, you aught to be very sorry for what you did," he angrily shook Mr Beaky.

     "Naughty boy, naughty boy, Mr Beaky sorry," squawked Mr Beaky, not looking very sorry at all.

     Needless to say, that was Mr Beaky's last visit to the

beach.               

                                                                   The End.

                                                     (But not his last adventure.)