HELLO, JIMMY!

A dramatic and remarkably unkind pet departs, leaving a child and parent room to become closer.

When Jack stays at Dad’s house, they sometimes talk and make tacos and milkshakes. But their kitchen table is long, and they sit apart, neither animated nor chatty. Dad has stopped telling jokes, and his son’s concerned: “Jack couldn’t be there all the time. The house was so quiet. He wondered if his dad was lonely. Jack knew what that felt like.” Distance sits inaudibly between them. Then, Jack arrives one Tuesday night to find that a parrot—found on the doorstep after a storm—suddenly lives with them. Jimmy is bright green, boisterous, and mocking, even stealing Jack’s underwear. Jack’s intimidated and meekly jealous—but Dad, oblivious, finds Jimmy funny and “amazing.” In a wondrous two-spread climax, hurt feelings take physical form: Jack’s darkened bedroom fills with multitudinous parrots of many colors, all staring straight at him. Desperate, he opens the window and they all fly out. “Then morning arrived”—and three dropped green feathers show that Jimmy went too. Walker’s artwork is delicate and understated; gentle precision gives a light touch to everything from facial expressions to chairs, shoes, and headphones. When Dad makes the change that’s necessary for emotional intimacy, dialogue is spare and simple, and all the more satisfying for it. Jack and Dad appear White.

A sensitive arc depicts a journey from alienation to connection.