Uncle Percy Flies A Kite

Man, one week into our three month stay at Uncle Percy and Aunt Maureen’s house, and I can safely say: uncle would make a really good looney tunes character. So anyway, let me brief you on the family: there is me, Rachel. My mum is aunt’s sister. I’m 16. Then there is Tamara and Pepper, the world’s funniest sisters. Their dad is aunt’s youngest brother, but Tamara is the oldest amongst us. She’s 17, and Pepper is 10. Then our triplets, Tyson the smarty pants and oldest by 5 seconds; Millie, the prankster, and 3 seconds younger to Tyson; and Rebecca, the immature one and 2 seconds younger to Millie. They’re all 1.

This particular unfortunate mishap takes place on a sunny and windless day. Uncle was watching a video, the only thing he could do without messing up. It was about fancy kites. He suddenly shouted “I have a brilliant idea!” “Oh no,” groaned aunt. Uncle ignored her comment, and continued “we should go fly a kite.” “But it’s practically windless outside,” Tamara pointed out. “I know, but we can go to the park. It will be windy there.” We all were up to it, happy to get away from aunts moaning and groaning about crazy ol’ Uncle Percy. We had a reel in the car, (only God knows what all resides there. We even found a dead rat there the other day) and of we went to the park. Uncle was right, it was pretty windy.

We got a kite, and began to make attempts to fly it. First went Pepper. She managed to get it quite high, but Millie started to tug at the reel and the kite fell. Next went Tamara, who’s only skill was getting kites stuck into trees. There was a cherry blossom tree about a few 100 metres away. Tamara being, well, Tamara, had to get it stuck into the tree. As for me, the kite wouldn’t get off the ground.

Uncle was watching with a frown; after some time he came up to us and said, “You all are nuts! Watch the master fly a kite now.” Giggling, I handed him the reel. After a few minutes the kite was stuck in a tree, like when Tamara flies it. Only here, the ‘master’ did it. We got our fiftieth kite, the kite seller looking at us like we were about to buy his whole stall. Uncle tried again, and this time, he succeeded in getting the kite up into the air. But, of course, this is Uncle Percy we are talking about. In a span of thirty seconds, he was trussed up like a turkey in the reel. We cut the reel off and got a new one. The triplets took turns throwing the kite up and the only distance it covered was how high the kids could throw it.

Pretty soon uncle realised he wasn’t exactly the ‘master’ of kite flying; the only time the kite stayed of the ground was when Rebecca held it up and ran around the park. We went home and there was aunt, sitting in the recliner of the living room. “Back so early,” she asked. “We were gone for 4 hours,” Pepper said. “How was it,” she inquired. “Uncle spoiled it again,” Tamara said. “Seriously Percy, when will you learn that even the triplets are more skilled than you, and that you are not the master of everything,” aunt chided.