by Des Hunt
‘Come quick!’ she said. ‘Come quick!’ She left his shoulder and flew off towards Murph’s place.
When we didn’t immediately follow, she turned and flew back. ‘Come quick!’ she repeated. ‘Come quick!’
‘Something’s wrong,’ I said.
Nick was already on his way. So, too, was Harriet. This time, she didn’t turn back.
There was no sign of bird or Murph around the aviaries, so we ran to the house. Nor were they in the kitchen or lounge. By then I was real worried.
‘The bedroom?’ suggested Nick.
I’d never been in the rest of the house before, but it didn’t take much to find Murph’s bedroom. He was not there. I put my hand under the sheets of the unmade bed — it was still warm.
The bathroom and toilet were also empty.
‘I’ll call Harriet,’ I said, and then with my fingers in my mouth let out a long whistle. A moment later there was an answering call.
‘That’s down in the gully,’ I cried, heading back down the hallway.
Harriet kept calling as we rushed along the path towards the native birds. We found her perched on top of the penguin cage. Inside, Murph lay on the ground. His face was a ghastly purple colour. There was no sign of movement. Surrounding him were the bodies of dead penguins.
‘What do we do?’ asked Nick.
I was thinking about how to answer that when Murph did it for me. ‘Get me out of here,’ he whispered.
So we did.
It was tricky getting him through the narrow doorway, but after that it was much easier. He was so light that one of us could have carried him. Nick had his body, with me supporting the legs. There was so little flesh on his bones that I felt I was carrying a skeleton.
I had no doubts that Murph was seriously ill. Each breath brought gurgling from his lungs. At one stage he tried to cough, but he was too weak to shift anything other than air.
When we finally got him on his bed, he lay for a time with his eyes closed, breathing noisily in a most distressing way. Then he opened his eyes and swore. ‘Bugger!’ More gurgling. ‘I’m done for this time.’
‘I’m going to get a doctor,’ I said, half-turning towards the door.
He tried to lift his hand. ‘No — wait!’
I waited while he took several painful breaths.
‘Harriet,’ he called.
In my anxiety, I hadn’t seen that she was sitting on the windowsill watching us. With a couple of flaps of her wings, she was standing on his pillow. He turned his head to see her more clearly. ‘Hi, girl,’ he said. ‘I’m going away. Danny will look after you while I’m gone.’ A pause to breathe. ‘And Nick.’
He turned to me. ‘Take her away from here. You’re going to have to tell BIRT about the others. But I don’t want them knowing about Harriet. They can do what they have to do with the others, but not her.’
‘I’ll make sure she’s right,’ said Nick in a broken voice. ‘I promise nobody will harm her. Nobody!’
CHAPTER 12
Getting Harriet to our place ended up being a bit of a mission — a real one, not a Nicholas Clarke hyperactive version.
While Nick looked for a box big enough for her and all the gear, I rang Mum at the Albatross Centre. As soon as she heard how bad things were, she decided to ring 111. That meant we had to get Harriet out of the way quickly, before the emergency team arrived. But I didn’t want to leave Murph by himself, even though he was now unconscious. Nor did I want Nick taking Harriet off on his own. I decided that we’d get Harriet all ready to go, and leave only when we heard the ambulance coming up the hill.
The cardboard carton that Nick found was perfect. It would take all Harriet’s feed containers and perches, and still leave plenty of room for her. Plus it would fit on the carrier of Nick’s bike. The only problem was that Harriet didn’t want to go in it.
‘Help! Help!’ she cried. ‘Murder! Murder!’ Even after we eventually got the lid closed, she continued with the screaming.
‘We can’t take her through the streets like this,’ I said.
‘I’ll shut her up,’ said Nick. He put his face close to one of the holes he’d made in the side. ‘Harriet,’ he said. ‘Give us a kiss.’
‘Give us a kiss,’ repeated Harriet, pushing her beak through the hole. Nick touched it with his lips. Amazingly, from then on she settled down.
After one last look in at Murph, and a final check that we had all of Harriet’s gear, we were ready, and not before time, because we had barely climbed on our bikes when the whoop-whoop of a siren came from the direction of Portobello.
As we raced down the hill, we met the ambulance roaring its way up. While the sight of the paramedics and the urgency of the flashing lights increased my anxiety, I knew it also meant that Murph would soon get the help he needed to stay alive.
Harriet remained silent until we got to Portobello. Coming up to the café, a mobile phone rang. It belonged to a woman enjoying a coffee in the morning air. Just as we came alongside, she picked it up and said, ‘Hello!’
‘Hello!’ said Harriet from inside the box.
The woman blinked. ‘Who is it?’ she asked.
‘I’m Harriet the Parriet’ came the reply.
‘What the hell …’ cried the woman.
‘Get out of here, quick,’ I snarled at Nick.
He changed down a gear and took off. I held back.
‘Are you boys being rude?’ the woman asked.
‘It was him,’ I said pointing at Nick. ‘He’s always like that. Sorry.’
She was about to say something more when a voice from her phone caught her attention. She put it to her ear. ‘Hello!’
This time there was no echoing ‘Hello’, even though I was tempted to give one. Instead I accelerated away, hoping to catch up with Nick before he or Harriet created any more trouble.
As soon as we got home, Harriet wanted to be out of the box; she started ripping at the cardboard with her beak and claws. If she kept it up much longer, she’d soon escape. The problem was where to put her. I doubted that either Mum or Dad would be happy with her flying freely around the house. She needed a cage of some sort, but the only one was Cecil’s and that was far too small. The solution was to build one.
By lunchtime it was finished and installed in the bedroom. I’d planned the cage so that it could fit at the head of my bed. It didn’t work out that way, however, as Nick somehow organized things so that the only way the beds and cage could fit was if Harriet was closer to him than me. I accepted that without comment.
Now that Harriet was safely hidden away, we needed to tell BIRT about Murph’s birds.
Cathy wasn’t at the motel. Instead, there was a note attached to the sandwich board urging visitors to ring her mobile. We didn’t, as we figured she must already be up at Murph’s place.
She was, along with several other BIRT workers. What was surprising was the absence of media people: no cameras, no microphones, no reporters.
Cathy saw us as we approached the aviaries. ‘You knew about this, didn’t you?’ she said, as she walked towards us. ‘You knew when you came and saw me this morning.’
I nodded.
She stopped and glared at us. ‘Did you know these birds were dying when you first reported the ones around Peco?’
Before I could answer, Nick took a couple of steps towards the aviaries where workers in protective gear were wrapping the cages in plastic. ‘What are they doing?’
‘Doing what should have been done days ago,’ answered Cathy. ‘This place is a major source of the disease. The birds have to be euthanized.’
‘How?’ demanded Nick.
Cathy’s tone softened. ‘With carbon dioxide. We pump in the gas and they go to sleep. The only difference from normal sleep is that they never wake up.’
We watched as the workers finished one cage and connected a gas cylinder. It was a disturbing sight. The only good thing was that Murph wasn’t here to see it. He would have been absolutely shattered
to watch his much-loved birds die in that way.
‘What’s happened to Murph?’ I asked.
‘If that’s the man who lived here, then by now he’ll be in isolation at Dunedin hospital.’ She thought for a moment. ‘We found some green feathers in the house. Did he have any other birds?’
‘No!’ said Nick, far too quickly.
Cathy looked at him and was about to make a comment when Colin Saxton marched up from the direction of the house.
‘What are these two doing here?’ he demanded.
‘I was asking them about the feathers in the house,’ said Cathy. ‘They know the man.’
‘Funny that they’re always around when we’re called to a scene. Makes me suspicious, that does.’
Nick gave a snort. ‘The one you should be suspicious of is that Bryce Shreeves,’ he said. ‘He’s the one who brought the disease here.’
Saxton was not impressed. He turned to Cathy. ‘Take down their names and addresses, and then get them out of here.’ He turned to us. ‘And don’t come back. You hear?’ He then stalked off looking for more people to bully.
Cathy sighed. ‘OK,’ she said, taking a notebook out of her pocket. ‘What are your names and addresses?’
‘Dad gave that information when he first rang the BIRT hotline,’ I said.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘But he’s told me to do it, so that’s what I need to do.’
We gave her the information.
‘Is he going to come to Danny’s place?’ asked Nick.
Cathy shook her head. ‘No, I doubt it.’ She took a quick glance to see how far Saxton was away. ‘Look,’ she said quietly, ‘it’s best if you go home and forget about him. You can bet that in quarter of an hour he’ll have forgotten about you.’ A pause. ‘I suspect that before this day is over, he’ll have much more important things to worry about.’
We got some idea of what Saxton might have to worry about as soon as we left Murph’s drive. In the short time we’d been in there, both the police and the media had arrived.
The police let us pass without comment. Not so the media. We were bombarded with questions.
‘What’s going on in there?’
“What sorts of birds are involved?’
I pushed through with my bike, praying that Nick was doing the same.
‘Why was the ambulance here?’
‘Who lives in there?’
‘How many people?’
I kept walking.
‘Nick! Nick! Over here!’
That stopped me. I looked up to see a man leading Nick towards a TV camera. It was Jim Black, the reporter who had interviewed him earlier.
‘Oh, no!’ I groaned. ‘Here we go again.’
Within seconds, the pair of them were being filmed. I could either go over and become part of it, or stay in the background and cringe. I chose the latter.
‘Nick, can you tell us what’s going on in there?’ asked Jim in a smooth mate-to-mate voice.
‘Yes,’ replied Nick, looking directly at the camera. ‘They’re killing a whole lot of birds.’
‘Are these hens or caged birds?’
‘Budgies and canaries mostly.’
‘Why was an ambulance needed?’
Nick glanced over to me, as if asking for permission to answer. I kept a blank face. He turned back to the camera. ‘Because somebody in there was sick.’
‘Is it bird flu?’
‘How would I know?’ replied Nick, shrugging.
‘Maybe it’s something else,’ said Jim. ‘Perhaps it’s that killer virus from outer space?’
Nick studied him for a moment, shaking his head slowly. ‘What an incredibly stupid thing to say.’
With that, he turned and walked away. But as soon as his back was turned to the camera, I saw that his mouth had spread into a wide, satisfied smile. Now the score was one-all.
CHAPTER 13
Mum rang not long before dinnertime to say she was working late, and that she’d asked Dad to bring home takeaways. That suited Nick and me as it meant we could have Harriet flying free around the house for a while longer. Unfortunately, we had cartoons blaring on TV and neither of us heard Dad arrive, which meant she was still in the lounge when he opened the door.
He walked in loaded with pizzas and bottles of drink. ‘Hi, guys!’ he said, taking the pizzas to the kitchen bench. He turned to me. ‘These will need heating up a bit. Could you do that while—’
He’d spotted Harriet. His face darkened. ‘What is that doing here?’ he demanded, walking towards her.
‘Hello!’ said Harriet. ‘I’m Harriet the Parriet. Who are you?’
Dad stopped. ‘Is that Murph’s bird?’
‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Murph’s in hospital.’ I went on to give him a rundown of what had happened during the day.
After I’d finished, he opened a beer and sat down at the kitchen table. ‘That doesn’t sound too good,’ he said. ‘If he’s got flu on top of the emphysema, then …’ He let the words dangle. I could see he was pretty upset by the news. He took a mouthful of beer. ‘I told the silly bugger to give up smoking or he’d kill himself.’
‘We don’t know that he’s got the flu,’ said Nick.
Dad nodded. ‘Maybe there’ll be something on the news.’ He moved through to the lounge and changed the television to the news channel.
A big empty pit formed in my gut as I remembered Nick’s photos. Oh yes, there would definitely be something on the news. Something Dad would not want to see.
‘Those pizzas will be hot enough now,’ he said. ‘Could you dish them up, please, Danny? And Nick, could you get me another beer from the fridge?’
Soon we all had our drinks and food, ready for the news to begin. Nick was scoffing down pizza, clearly excited about what was going to happen. I couldn’t eat for fear that my churning gut would throw the food straight out again. Dad sipped at his beer, unaware of the disaster that was about to unfold.
He soon found out.
The newsreaders appeared with a photo of the Peco compound as a backdrop. ‘Tonight,’ said the newsreader, ‘we begin with a NetNews exclusive on The Peco Incident. NetNews has exclusively obtained images from inside the Peco egg farm taken immediately before a biosecurity emergency was declared.’ His voice became more sombre. ‘We warn that some viewers may find these images disturbing. Parental discretion is advised.’
One by one, Nick’s photos appeared on the screen, with the newsreaders giving a commentary on what we were seeing. Of course, I’d seen the photos before; I’d even seen the real thing. But somehow there was a greater impact from them being on the screen where a short time before we’d been watching cartoons. I realized that millions of people would see these images. I think I viewed them with their eyes and saw how shockingly terrible they were. And also, for the first time, I understood why Nick had felt the need to leak them to the media.
I glanced over to the others. Dad was absolutely still, with his eyes fixed on the television. Nick was slowly nodding to himself. I had expected a look of satisfaction, but instead I saw sadness: he, too, was seeing the images with fresh eyes.
NetNews followed the photos with their ‘other big story of the day’ — the possibility that the H6N3 flu had spread to humans.
It started with a live feed from a reporter standing outside Dunedin Hospital. She reported that ‘in a secret isolation room behind me, an un-named man lies suspected of being the first human victim of H6N3 influenza’. She went on for some time without adding much that we didn’t already know. About the only thing was that all the man’s known contacts would also be tested for H6N3.
That information sent a shiver of apprehension through my body. It was not just the fear that I might have bird flu: I was worried about people visiting our house and finding Harriet. I looked over to where she was half-asleep on Nick’s shoulder. From now on she would have to stay in our bedroom. I knew that neither she nor Nick would be happy about it, but that was the way it would have to be.
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When the ads came on, Dad picked up the remote and pressed the mute button. He turned to me. ‘How did that happen?’
‘What? How did what happen?’ I asked, trying to buy some thinking time.
‘You know what,’ said Dad, tersely. ‘How did they get those photos?’
‘I sent them an email,’ said Nick.
‘I figured that!’ said Dad, his anger now coming to the surface. ‘I’m asking Danny why he didn’t stop you.’
I breathed deeply. This was just what I’d feared would happen when I’d first heard that Nick was coming to stay. I knew he’d get into all sorts of trouble, and that I’d be the one who got blamed.
I opened my mouth to protest, but Nick got in first.
‘Danny’s not to blame,’ he said. ‘I sneaked. I did it while he was watching TV.’ He turned his head to check that Harriet was still on his shoulder. ‘Uncle Bob, this is not one of the stupid things I do without thinking. I really wanted to do this. I planned it. I wanted everyone to see how horrible it was in those sheds.’ He paused, letting the intensity of his words sink in. ‘We shouldn’t keep animals like that. It’s not right, and I had to do something to stop it. So I did. If you have to punish somebody, punish me, not Danny.’
We sat in silence for a while, looking at the television screen. I don’t know about the others, but I wasn’t really seeing anything.
Dad was the first to recover. ‘All right, Nick. I accept that. But what happens next? Will the photos be traced back to us?’
Nick then explained the steps he’d taken to hide the source.
When he’d finished, Dad was nodding. ‘OK. I don’t know much about these things, but that sounds reasonable.’ He had the TV remote in his hand, flipping it over and over with his fingers. ‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘it probably doesn’t matter anymore whether they trace them back here or not. Nobody’s going to lay charges against us. Not now that they know what Bryce Shreeves has done.’ He flipped the remote a few more times. We waited, expecting further comment, but in the end he stopped fiddling and pressed the mute button to return the sound.
