Spoiled by Eight Uncles (Lily) novel Chapter 9

Gilbert continued to accompany Lilly in her efforts to persuade the parrot after chasing Debbie away. He was irritated at the prospect of having to sweet-talk an animal into following them home rather than trapping it.

“Come on, Polly. I’ll feed you delicious meat if you come down,” the man coaxed.

The parrot stared at Gilbert and shook its head. “No meat. No meat! No fat!”

When he saw the animal was refusing to cooperate, he took a deep breath and resorted to his last resort, “Lilly, let’s go. Ignore the parrot.”

Tears welled up in Lilly’s eyes as she clutched Gilbert’s shirt and begged, “Please, Uncle Gilbert. Don’t abandon Polly.”

It broke his heart to watch Lilly in such distress. Hence, he apologized, “I’m sorry, Lilly. This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have said that.” He wanted to slap himself hard when he realized that he had forgotten the little girl was overly protective of her friends.

Lilly was surprised because that was the first time anyone had apologized to her. She smiled and patted Gilbert on the shoulder. “It’s all right, Uncle Gilbert.”

Even though she had expressed her regrets in the past, no one had assured her that everything was fine. The little girl promptly comforted her uncle, knowing that the apologizer would feel horrible if she did not respond.

They then turned their focus to the parrot.

“Polly, be good now. Uncle Gilbert didn’t mean to trick you. He isn’t a bad person,” Lilly assured.

“I’m sorry, Polly. Please come down. We are going to Clodston and the garden there was huge. We can even find you a female friend…”

Bryson, Edward, and Jonas went to the backyard to look for Lilly and Gilbert after they had been missing for a long time. They were taken aback by the duo’s peculiar behavior, and upon further clarification, they discovered that Lilly had returned to the Hatcher mansion in search of the parrot. The ordinary bird with green feathers watched on as the Crawfords quibbled.

“Are you kidding me, Gilbert? What’s so difficult about persuading a parrot? Why are you so useless?” Edward hissed.

Bryson and Jonas remained mute, knowing that fooling the parrot would be difficult; Gilbert had spent a lot of effort on this with no results.

Suddenly, Polly started singing, “Gilby Gilby! Stupid Gilby!”

Gilbert scowled and retorted, “Why don’t you do it if you’re so capable?”

“Watch and learn!” Edward scoffed and raised one arm. “Squawk! Squawk! Squawk!” The man patted his raised arm to signal the parrot to land on it.

Lilly widened her eyes and thought, Uncle Edward looks like a gorilla!

While Bryson watched on with a mocking smile, Jonas crossed his arms and uttered, “It’s just a parrot. Why does he need to embarrass himself?”

“Dumb Dumb! Dumb Dumb!” Polly chirped.

Infuriated by the lack of response, Edward pointed at the parrot and screamed, “Damn it! Get down here right now!”