A peacock of one's own

The majority of Fia’s eighth birthday came and went without incident. She’d spent the school day staring into space, wondering what her family had bought for her, and how her dad had managed to wrap the pet peacock she’d asked for, without suffocating it. She really hoped that he’d remembered to get her a peacock and not a peahen. She’d seen the difference between the genders in her animal encyclopaedia and hated how grey and dull the hens were. She’d resigned herself to putting on a brave face and smiling for her dad’s sake, if he’d bought her the wrong gender, but she knew, deep down, she would probably never forgive him.

By the time Wren came to collect her from school, Fia was ravenous for presents.

Wren was Fia’s older brother. He was five years older than her, and he was enrolled at a prestigious art school. Everyone was always going on about how talented he was, but Fia wasn’t convinced. Their dad said Wren’s paintings were abstract, but Fia had figured out that abstract was just an adult codeword, for rubbish. None of Wren’s paintings ever looked like anything, except a bunch of random colours and shapes, slapped, haphazardly, onto canvas.

‘Walk faster,’ Fia squeaked, as her feet pounded the London pavement.

Wren smiled, taking one stride for every two of Fia’s. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘Your presents will still be there when we get home.’

‘I hope Dad remembered to poke airholes.’

‘What?’

‘My peacock.’ Fia rolled her eyes. ‘I hope Dad remembered to poke airholes in the wrapping paper, or it won’t be able to breath.’ She imagined pulling back the paper and Sellotape to reveal a dead bird, its vibrant plumage stiff and unmoving. Tears pricked at her eyes, for a moment, until she remembered their uncle had stuffed his pet dog, after it’d died. ‘Could I still keep it as a teddy, even if it is dead?’ she asked.

‘Dad hasn’t bought you a peacock.’

‘You don’t know that.’

‘I do. You can’t buy a peacock in London.’

‘He could have ordered one online.’

Wren sighed. ‘You’re such a baby, Fia. Why do you think Dad didn’t let you open your presents this morning?’

‘Because Granny and Granddad are coming over for dinner, and they want to watch me open them, too,’ Fia parroted what her father had said to her, that morning, when she’d begged to open her presents before school.

‘He hasn’t bought you anything, yet. He’d probably forgotten it was even your birthday. I bet he buys you a load of crap on his way home from work and doesn’t even bother to wrap it.’

‘Nuh-uh. You don’t know what you’re talking about, Wren.’

‘Alright, we’ll see when we get home then. But I’d bet you a million pounds, there’s no peacock.’

‘Deal!’

Fia knew that Wren didn’t have a million pounds to bet, but she wasn’t going to let him off that easily. He’d just have to spend the rest of his life in debt to her, if that’s what it came down to. It would serve him right for being so grumpy all the time.

Wren took Fia by the hand, as they rounded the dock beside the tower they lived in. At over seventy storeys tall, the tower was the tallest residential building in all of Western Europe. The apartments inside were some of the most luxurious in London, with views over Canary Wharf and the Thames.

‘We really hit the jackpot with this place,’ Fia’s dad had said, when they first moved in. Fia had hugged her dad and told him how grateful she was, but, secretly, she had been afraid of the tower. She’d thought it was only pretending to be a tower, and not a giant, glass-and-metal crocodile, all cold blooded and reptilian.

Fia’s mum had died shortly before the family had been due to move into their new apartment, and Fia had known, from the first second she saw the tower, that it had eaten her mother.

For the first few weeks after moving, Fia slept as little as possible. She fought to keep her eyes open, terrified that the tower would devour her in her sleep. But as the months passed and the tower remained dormant, Fia had gradually got used to the monster. Then, one night, she’d had a dream that the tower had grown human legs and was stomping around London nightclubs, wearing her mother’s favourite evening dress – a red dress, with a tiny rip in the hem, that only Fia knew about. After that, Fia had started to believe that the tower was possessed by the spirit of her late mother. Instead of fearing it, she’d started to see the tower as a symbol of protection. It was like living inside her very own Mechagodzilla.

Fia knew most of the concierge and security staff that worked in the tower by name. She’d expected a few of them to buy her presents, for her birthday, but when Fia and Wren walked into the main foyer, the place was almost empty. The only person in there was an old man that neither of them had ever seen before.

The old man was short and walked with a stoop, which made him look even shorter. His pale head was bald and liver-spotted, and he had a grey goatee beard that he’d tied into a puff with an elastic band. Wren nodded politely at the old man, then averted his gaze, but Fia couldn’t take her eyes off him. ‘He’s a bit scruffy, isn’t he?’ she said.

‘Shhh,’ Wren shot her a furious look, ‘he’ll hear you.’

The old man sat down on a chair, behind the reception desk. He was so short that all Fia could see of him above the desk was the top of his head. Mottled and pale, it looked like the egg of some huge bird.

Wren pushed the button for the lift and squeezed his sister’s hand. Fia continued to watch the old man, who was now using the handle beneath his chair to pump the chair higher. Just as his chin finally cleared the desk, the lift arrived, and Wren yanked Fia inside. The old man grinned, revealing a mouth full of golden teeth.

‘Well, he won’t last long.’ Wren shuddered, once the lift doors had slid shut. ‘I can’t believe they hired someone like that.’ He pushed the button for the seventieth floor, but nothing happened. He pushed it again and again, but the button refused to light up, and the lift refused to move.

Click. A faint buzz came over the intercom. Sorry about this, the voice was thin and shaky, bit of a problem with the lift, you see. Which floor was it you wanted?

‘Floor seventy, please,’ Wren replied.

Floor seven hundred and seventy-seven it is.

‘Wait, no—’

Click. The intercom fell silent. The lift lurched upward. Fia felt as though she was being pressed into the floor. Her knees trembled as her legs strained to keep her standing. Wren was gripping her hand so tightly he was almost crushing it, but Fia didn’t feel frightened at all. They were in their tower, after all. Mum wouldn't let anything bad happen to them.