The first victim from A Mr. Kitten Murder Mystery speaks....

I'm Winston Churchill the parrot. You've probably never heard a parrot, unless you've heard one of us "in person". So to speak. On TV and radio and so forth, they always have a human voice actor do the parrot voice, so that it'll sound more like what people expect. Our actual voices sound exactly human. Or exactly whatever. I can also do a mean imitation of the microwave and the smoke detector. That's why they don't keep me in the kitchen anymore. I can do the doorbell, too, and the telephone, police sirens, the works. I'm a pretty fun companion, especially in the middle of the night.

Today I'm hanging out in the conservatory, out of my cage. Madeleine--who pretends to like me, but doesn't--has brought in a box of chocolates. She probably wants to tempt Helen, the poor dear; chocolate is her only vice. Madeleine, however, to quote my namesake, has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire. Good. Helen steps out of the room without noticing the chocolates; it's just me and the Captain here now. I decide to help her by helping myself.


I'm named Winston Churchill because Winston Churchill supposedly had a macaw that survives to this day, still screaming obscenities at the Nazis. Is it true? That's a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside and enigma, but it's possible. Macaws can live over a hundred years. I'm a macaw.

The Captain winks at me. "Did you take that chocolate, Winston?" he asks.

“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.” I reply. He knows I took them.

He laughs and puts the chocolate in the bottom drawer of the sideboard. He's trying to help Helen as well.

I don't feel well. I think back on the famous exchange between the real Churchill and Lady Nancy Astor. She said, 'Sir, if you were my husband, I would put poison in your tea' and he said, 'Madam, if I were your husband, I would drink it.'

Madeleine poisoned the chocolate. And I've eaten the chocolate meant for Helen, my owner.

My eyes grow dim. Although always prepared for martyrdom, I preferred that it should be postponed.

And if I could have but one wish before the end...oh, how I want a cracker. Pin It Now!