What is an animal?
Scott: An animal… I don’t really know how to explain it… An animal is a thing that’s sometimes useful and sometimes just does nothing and is hardly ever useful. Well, all animals are useful.
Helen: Sometimes cockatoos can be bad.
Scott: Cockatoos don’t exist.
Helen: They do, dumbhead.
Scott: No-one wants to hear the ‘D’ word on my blog.
Helen, what is an animal?
Helen: A tiger.
Scott: An animal is a tiger?
Helen: I know an animal – a cockatoo. And an elephant.
So what’s the difference between an animal and a human?
Scott: They can’t even speak.
Some can.
Scott: Like, name one.
Helen: An elephant.
A parrot or a mynah bird.
Scott: I don’t know what a mynah bird is, but maybe they can speak in movies.
So is the only difference between us and animals speech?
Scott: And some animals can fly – and and animals are sometimes big and sometimes smaller than a medium size human.
Are animals friends or enemies?
Scott: It depends on which animal it is.
Helen: They’re not friends.
Scott: They are – they give us food.
Helen: No they don’t, cows give us milk.
Scott: Pigs give us food, cows give us milk and cheese, don’t they Daddy?
What do you think, Helen?
Helen: No.
Scott: Milk, cheese and yoghurt.
What do tigers give us?
Scott: They just sort of give their meat and you could use their teeth for knives.
Are there any animals you know that aren’t real?
Scott: I’m sure cockatoos are made-up animals.
Why?
Scott: Well, because… I don’t… They’re from a book and not all animals from books are real.
So, you’ve read books about dragons and unicorns and you think cockatoos aren’t real?
Scott: I just thought it – I don’t really know about it.