Le discours indirect (reported speech)

« Crossed wires » — a short story by Hana, Year 10.

On Tuesday evening, my brother Idris came into my room with a strange smile. He told me that Mrs Reilly, our neighbour, had asked him to look after her parrot for the weekend. He said the bird could say fifty words and that it would be great fun. Then he asked me if I could help him, because he had football on Saturday morning. I said I would think about it.

The next day, Mrs Reilly stopped me in the street. She wanted to know whether Idris had told me about the parrot. I said yes. She explained that the bird needed fresh fruit twice a day and warned me not to open the window when the cage was open. She added that she was leaving the following morning and that she would be back on Sunday night.

On Saturday, the parrot escaped. Idris had opened the window « just for a minute ». We found it two hours later in the garden of the pub, where it was repeating one sentence to the customers: « Idris is late! » Mrs Reilly laughed when we told her the story. She said she had taught the bird that sentence herself, years ago, when Idris was a little boy who was always late for school.