"I am a serious athlete," Pete said solemnly, blowing more feathers and bits of bangs out of his face so he could grin up at Ryland. "This is what they used to have to do in the olden days."
The bird man (he believed it was Mikey, from the protests) seemed to be at least attempting to right himself, but Pete was still angling to come out on top of this situation, so every time he got vaguely upright and tried to mount the round backside of Mikey's costume, he would find himself either thoroughly or very nearly rolled beneath a mound of feathers again.
He stopped these efforts, and let the leg he'd had wrapped around Mikey's costume flop to the floor. "I think the books all said they were significantly smaller than this, though."