Black Warrior

by Tiffiny Hall

  Hero reaches up tentatively to the bird and the bird bows its head. A thick smile spreads across his face. ‘He likes me too!’ Hero says, his voice childish and transforming his face with light. For the first time I realise how handsome he is when he isn’t scowling, with his dark hair, mysterious eyes, sharp jaw and strong muscled martial arts bod.

  ‘Have you been here before?’ I ask him.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Kidding! Everyone’s been to the bird park. Didn’t your mum ever take you when you were little?’ Cinnamon asks.

  Hero shakes his head. ‘She’s always been sick.’

  ‘Tragic,’ Cinnamon whispers to me.

  Jackson leads the way. ‘So you want to start with South Africa? The birds are divided into regions that replicate their natural habitats. There’re snakes next door too.’ His eyes glitter. Cinnamon and I hate snakes. I remember Cinnamon screaming in the bushes on our way to Samurai Falls. A snake nearly had us all killed when that samurai hunted her down. Lucky she can handle a sword.

  ‘Over there,’ Jackson points to the left, ‘is Sumatra, Java, Papua, South America, Birds of Paradise, East Indonesia. And down there,’ he points ahead, ‘is conservation, breeding, veterinary care. Crossing fingers there’ll be a bird show too!’

  ‘Been here before?’ Hero jokes.

  Jackson nods excitedly. ‘My family had lovebirds. Until they were crazy in love. They loved too much and we had too many to look after. The bird park took them for us and we would come to visit them nearly every weekend.’

  Jackson also grew up with a parrot who bullied his hamster. The hamster gave up and moved out. He still doesn’t know where the hamster went. I feel sorry for the hamster. I hope he found a nicer place to live, without bullies.

  We pass an enclosure for ground hornbills with red turkey necks and scarlet eyes. ‘They don’t fly but walk for miles,’ Jackson says. ‘Did you know their feathers weigh more than their skeleton does? Many birds have hollow bones to help them fly.’

  ‘True story?’ Cinnamon asks.

  ‘True story,’ he confirms.

  ‘Wow,’ Hero says, leaning against the fence of another hornbill jungle enclosure. A massive bird with a horn on its beak eyes us off. ‘This bird has a horn like a rhinoceros.’

  ‘Captain Obvious, that’s a rhino hornbill,’ Jackson mutters.

  Cinnamon is laughing at the next habitat. I join her and search the cage. A sound like high-pitched hiccups floats through the fence.

  ‘These guys should come with a health warning,’ Cinnamon says, pointing to the baby owls. ‘Possible side effects include uncontrollable giggling, smiling and OTT happiness.’

  I laugh. The owls sound like they have drunk way too much soft drink too quickly. They are cute but not as cute as those otters who hold hands that Elecktra showed me on the internet.

  Jackson continues his tutorial. ‘There’s more than ten thousand species of birds worldwide.’ We pass the parrot enclosure, admiring the onslaught of colours and sounds. I sidestep around a turtle the size of a chest of drawers basking in the sun as Jackson tells us that hummingbirds can fly backwards.

  ‘Gross. Check it out!’ Cinnamon calls.

  We stare at a prehistoric-looking bird that is disgustingly ugly. He is bald with a few stray grey hairs spiking through his scalp, jaundiced skin with grey spots and wrinkles, wasted feathers and blue cataract eyes. He looks a thousand years old.

  ‘A grandpa bird!’ Hero says and we all laugh, even Jackson.

  ‘I think these birds eat flamingos,’ Jackson says.

  ‘No!’ Cinnamon gasps. ‘I love flamingos. They are my second favourite animal in the whole world.’

  ‘Bet ya don’t know what a group of flamingos is called?’ Hero asks.

  We stare at him, surprised.

  ‘Mum told me once. They’re called a flamboyance.’

  We laugh again and Hero looks to grow taller.

  ‘That’s cool,’ Jackson says. ‘But no one really knows why flamingos stand on one leg.’

  ‘Maybe it’s to dry their feet? Otherwise they’d get all wrinkly standing in water all day. Hey, why do we get wrinkly when wet?’ Hero asks.

  ‘Our skin probably wrinkles so we can have better grip in the water, like scales or something,’ I suggest.

  The boys nod.

  Cinnamon walks over to the flamingos in the next enclosure. ‘It says here they are pink because they eat too many shrimps and their ankle is where their knee should be and locks shut to help them balance,’ she calls to us.

  Hero joins her while I stay with Jackson at the grandpa birdcage. ‘Eeeew, that’s really the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen,’ I say.

  ‘He’s ugly all right, but it’s driving me crazy that I can’t remember the name of this bird and the sign’s fallen off the enclosure,’ he says. ‘Hang on, I’ll check my bird app.’

  ‘You have a bird app?’ I ask.

  Jackson smiles slowly, the kind of smile that spreads to you, then shrugs. ‘It makes me appy.’

  I punch him playfully in the arm. ‘Dork.’ Then I reach up and kiss him on the lips. He forgets about the app and holds me there. I lift one leg up like a flamingo and lean into him. He smells like warm gravy today. I pull away from him and he brushes the hair off my face, then gently flicks my lower lip with his thumb.

  We turn to watch Hero and Cinnamon laughing as they try to catch a roaming peacock. The peacock fans its technicoloured feathers.

  ‘I don’t trust the guy,’ Jackson says.

  ‘What if he’s a good person, just bad with people?’

  ‘Roxy, he hurts people.’

  ‘No. He hurts himself. See?’ I point to Cinnamon chasing him and laughing. ‘He just needs to stop hanging around bullies and find some real friends.’

  Huffing, Hero approaches us. ‘Are there any puffins?’

  Jackson’s eyebrows peak. ‘Serious?’

  ‘Little puffins in their tuxedo jackets. Are there any?’ Hero looks so hopeful. I grit my teeth, waiting for Jackson to make fun of him.

  ‘Unfortunately no,’ he says.

  Hero’s disappointment is palpable. Who would have ever guessed he was a puffin fan?

  ‘The worst thing about being a puffin,’ Jackson says, ‘is if it gets angry and tries to walk away, they still look totally adorable.’

  Hero smiles. I smile. Jackson using the word ‘adorable’ is so adorable.

  ‘But there’s a bird show starting in five minutes,’ he adds.

  We take our seats on the wooden benches in front of a grass clearing. There are two beams set up at either side of the pitch about ten metres apart. A birdkeeper introduces herself quickly, then an eagle named Roy swoops over her head onto the perch, ruffling her hair in his wind. We watch owls dive for mice, an eagle snatch a piece of meat off an audience member’s head, while gold and blue macaws circle the open arena. Hero watches the show with his mouth open, like a mechanical clown waiting to catch a ball.

  ‘Milton is our oldest macaw. He’s seventy-five years old,’ the birdkeeper says.

  We watch Milton blaze through the sky, the flaming exhaust of his golden stripes glistening in the sun.

  ‘Isn’t he magnificent?’ Jackson asks.

  Hero follows Jackson’s eyes up into the clouds. ‘He is,’ Hero agrees. I try to hide my smile. They finally agree on something.

  Milton races a lap around the clearing, then disappears.

  ‘Milton!’ the birdkeeper calls. The audience searches the empty canvas above them. Hero excuses himself to find a toilet. The birdkeeper radios someone on her walkie-talkie as the audience begins to murmur and become restless. Roy is summoned again, but compared with Milton’s electric colours, he looks like an old pair of curtains hanging in the sky.

  ‘Milton!’ the birdkeeper calls again.

  I look around for Milton. Hero should be back by now. I hope he hasn’t gone MIA too. I think of Sergeant Major’s new hair, then glance over at Cinnamon’s straightened lo
cks. A shiver rattles through me. Cinnamon had walked into the café with silver eyes. It’s like she studied ‘how to be possessed’. One. Change your hair. Two. Practise the death stare. Three. Act the opposite to who you used to be. Cinnamon seems to be herself right now, but there is something edgy about her, unpredictable. More has changed than her hairstyle. The old Cinnamon was nervous and shy, but this new girl is measured, confident and very calculating. I remember how Sergeant Major looked at the dance as he heard the tiger dragon coming. When Elecktra and I went on holiday for the first time to Asia, we found a lemur in a cage swaying from a beach umbrella. Tourists were taking photos of him and his eyes were petrified, two black globes with raw scarlet rims. He was trapped. Sergeant Major had those same trapped eyes. The thought sucks my breath away.

  ‘Miiilton!’ the birdkeeper screeches. Her arms fly open. The audience snaps their neck back to the entrance. Hero stands on the entry steps holding Milton in his arms. Milton lies on his back like a baby, his beak and claws pointing skywards.

  ‘Is he dead?’ I gasp.

  ‘No, that’s one of his best tricks,’ Jackson murmurs, his eyes wide.

  The birdkeeper runs to Hero, panting into her head microphone, ‘You found him! He never lies down for anyone — he must really like you!’

  Hero carries the macaw carefully to the front of the clearing to a standing ovation from the audience. He fixes his gaze on the bird’s feathers, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. The birdkeeper shoves a microphone in his face.

  ‘He flew onto my shoulder when I was walking back from the bathroom. I held out my hands and he lay down. He must have had a tough day,’ Hero says. The audience laughs. The birdkeeper snaps her gloved fingers and Milton rolls over then leaps into the air and flies over our heads. The sun, like a chandelier, lights Hero’s face and makes his stone-black hair sparkle. He looks friendly for the first time and the birdkeeper thanks him and the audience cheers. Hero takes a shallow bow, which makes Cinnamon giggle. The boy who was emotionally AWOL finally found his feelings to capture the missing bird. I can’t help but smile.

  ‘From bully to bird whisperer,’ Jackson says.

  ‘So will you talk to Hero? Ask him to organise a meeting with the Emishi and Chiba clans?’ I ask.

  Jackson sighs. ‘All right,’ he agrees. ‘Anything for you, Roxy Ran.’

  Later, Jackson gives us a tour of the reptile park. We see snakes and lizards, then Jackson reveals his surprise: a direct descendant from a dinosaur, the komodo dragon. The komodo dragon is three metres long and stomps with elephantine strength but is as fast as a spider.

  We are distracted by a family of Australian crocodiles basking in mud in the next enclosure, their ancient scales stroked by the shining fingertips of the sun. The crocs are longer than Jackson, Hero and I lying down in a straight line and as wide as a barge. They are so still they seem dead, their jaws ajar with tiny insects feeding off their razor teeth and festy gums. It almost looks like they’re smiling.

  ‘Lunchtime,’ Jackson says.

  A man appears next to us with a chicken. The chicken has its feet tied together to a long stick and flaps wildly. I’ve seen the crocs being fed before. The zookeeper breaks the chicken’s neck, then dangles the body over the enclosure and in one chomp, the crocodile eats it. At least the chicken is already dead and feels no pain.

  ‘Can I hold the chicken?’ Cinnamon asks the zookeeper. ‘I’ve never held a live chicken before.’

  The zookeeper looks puzzled, but holds out the stick. Cinnamon whisks it from him and leans over the enclosure. She dangles the live chicken in front of the crocodile’s nose. The chicken screams. The zookeeper scrambles for the stick. Then stops as the crocodile twitches. In a thunderclap of jaws the crocodile launches for the chicken. The echo reverberates through us. The zookeeper snatches the stick from Cinnamon and drags her away by the arm. Jackson, Hero and I look at each other, our eyes wide. Feathers stick in the mud.

  Cinnamon looks back at us over her shoulder. Her eyes have clouded with grey storms. Hero turns away. Cinnamon rescues kittens from freeways, she doesn’t feed live helpless animals to monsters. Cinnamon smiles like the crocodile, then disappears around the corner, and I can’t help thinking, where did my best friend go?

  SIXTEEN

  Smoke burns the holes in my face. I scream but make no sound. I reach for something. The struggle makes my muscles elastic; I’m waiting for them to snap. At my fingertips is a flash of silver. At the knife end, drips blood.

  I hammer awake. The dream is a mosquito in my ear, still buzzing. I shake my head to clear it. The dream was so real, I can still smell the smoke and feel the strain in my muscles. The blood, the stain of blood. I can’t stop thinking about it.

  I dress quickly in my jeans and black T-shirt, slip my nunchucks and ninja stars into my back pocket, then jog downstairs to grab a drink bottle of prepared Hulk juice out of the fridge to take with me.

  The fumes from the Hulk juice float up from my stomach as I enter the dojang looking for Jackson. The dojang is hair-dryer hot, a relief from the biting cold outside. My instructor, Sabo, is at the far end talking to a stranger. I take off my shoes, bow at the entrance and approach them.

  Sabo turns to me, scratching his jaw. ‘Roxy! I have someone I’d like you to meet.’ He does the saliva slick of the eyebrows and motions to the tall man with his back to me. ‘This is Kimo, a professor of martial arts sent to us by the Emishi clan to help.’

  The professor pivots and I instantly recognise him as the man Mum couldn’t take her eyes off in the park. He is wearing jeans and a white T-shirt with bare feet. He has hair like melted dark chocolate in waves over his shoulders, shiny brown moon eyes and an unusually pretty face for a man. His picket-fence white teeth gleam in a non-threatening smile, the relaxed expression of someone waking up from a therapeutic massage.

  I shrug him a smile and turn to Sabo. ‘I really need to find Jackson,’ I say.

  Sabo nods. ‘Kimo has come to prepare my best students,’ he says, a knuckled hand under his chin. He stares at me with his muddy hazel eyes.

  I stare back at them. There’s no time for training. I don’t know what to do. I need to find Jackson. Cinnamon is acting weird and Hero is speaking with the Chiba clan this very moment.

  Sabo leans in so close I can smell the strawberry gum on his breath. ‘And he would like to train you.’

  ‘Now?’ My voice is bright red with impatience. This is a bigger time-waster than computer classes at school — we all know more about computers than our teachers. The only people to figure out how to slay the tiger dragon are me, Mum, Jackson and Hero.

  Kimo smiles and offers me a calloused hand. I can’t look away. I try. But I’m drawn to him, positive to negative in an electrical current. His giant brown eyes swirl. As soon as he touches me, I’m achingly aware of the heat rolling over me, my clattering heart, things slowing down, moving like lava around me while I stand dizzily still. I feel stuck in a can, it’s suddenly that hot. A shimmer of nausea comes over me. The room is swimming a slow backstroke. Is it hot or is the humidity coming from him? Standing next to Kimo is like standing next to a campfire.

  An hour later, I’m bubbling with sweat and Kimo has thrown me in the deep end, fighting me with shuriken, sticks and nunchucks. It’s as if he knows my every move before I attack. I kick at his face and he grabs my heel. I hop on one leg.

  ‘This,’ he says, looking at the tiger-shaped birthmark on my foot. ‘Where did you get this?’

  I whip my heel away from his clutches. ‘I was born with it. Why?’

  His eyes darken a shade, his face taking on new angles and contours. He looks different. Dangerous different. He pulls his hair off his face and stares at me, then wipes his expression as clean as plastic and smiles. His eyes lighten. ‘Our feet tell stories. Stories of our father, our destiny,’ he says.

  I swallow my lips. Father. The word flies at me like an elephant dart, instantly making me feel heady and faint. />
  Kimo turns his broad shoulders on me, a dismissal. I wipe the sweat from my brow. I’ve been distracted, I wanted to find Jackson. Instead I’m here with a stranger who smiles but it feels like a scowl and who looks like a Japanese cartoon character — his arms all veiny and wired with strength and his neck all strings and branches, showing years and years of discipline and training. I feel a gust of warmth towards him, the same gust I feel towards Jackson: strength and protection. Maybe Kimo will know what to do, or even better, what to fight.

  ‘So what’s going on?’ I ask.

  He turns to me, his eyes dark again. He understands what I mean. ‘It’s a curse,’ he says.

  My dream squirms back into my brain, the bright blue stars, the silver blades and blood. ‘Not samurai?’ I test him. Again, wings thrash the air, the voice calls …

  Kimo says nothing. The dojang is brutally hot after our fight. Our clothes stick to our skin. Sabo disappeared a long time ago to attend to business in his office. Kimo is so close I can smell his shampoo, which makes me think of hot towels, tea candles, logs in a fire. A similar scent to Cinnamon’s hair when she returned. I feel a lilt of nerves.

  ‘Lanternwood is cursed,’ he says, then stares deep into my eyes, past the colours into my thoughts. I feel him reach inside my brain and squeeze for ten mind-contorting seconds. I can’t think, I can’t move, his eyes have me captive. I am completely bogged.

  ‘Cursed,’ he repeats, then adds, ‘Because of you.’

  ‘What?’ I say. There is something about him that flares my instincts. Wrong, this is so wrong. I look around for Sabo as my head swarms with thoughts of Jackson, my protector, always there.

  Kimo’s fingers motion someone inside the dojang. Cinnamon walks in, calculating me with her frozen blues.

  ‘Cinnamon!’ I run to her. She raises a hand to stop me, her straight red hair running down her shoulders like two red slides. I scrunch my face, confused. ‘Hey. What are you doing here?’