The Peco Incident (9 page)

While the H6N3 virus might not affect humans, it could be disastrous for birds. Authorities were now expressing fears of an ecological disaster on the Otago Peninsula. They banned any movement of birds onto or off the peninsula. Any persons
with sick or dead birds were urged to use the BIRT hotline, or visit a BIRT representative who had taken up temporary residence at a Portobello motel.

After we got all this information, I continued watching with Mum and Dad, while Nick disappeared to the bedroom. An hour must have passed before I joined him. He was working on the computer. As soon as he saw me, he hurriedly leaned forward and covered the screen with his arms.

‘What you got there, Nicholas?’ I asked with a smirk. ‘You been looking at dirty pictures?’

‘No!’ he said, shaking his head vigorously, and yet he still kept his arms over the screen.

‘What is it, then?’ I said, beginning to think that this might be something serious.

‘Nothing important. Stop snooping and go away!’

‘Show me! Now!’

Slowly he lowered his arms. The image filling the screen was one of the photos he’d taken inside the Peco sheds. ‘What are you looking at those for?’ I asked.

‘Nothing!’

I let out a sigh: he was a lousy liar.

‘What have you done?’

For a while he seemed to weigh up his options. Eventually he mumbled, ‘I sent them to the TV station.’

‘You what?’

‘I sent them—’

‘I heard the first time!’ I yelled. Then a little more quietly, I added, ‘Why?’

He lifted his head. ‘I think people should know what was happening in there. He shouldn’t be allowed to keep animals like that.’

Now I understood. ‘It’s because of what Brio said, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah, I suppose so.’

‘And it doesn’t matter that we’ll be in trouble for trespassing and that Dad will lose his job?’

‘That won’t happen,’ he said. ‘They’ll never know where the photos came from.’ He then explained how he’d set up a new webmail address in the name of Broost99. The photos had been sent as an attachment from there.

By the time the explanation was finished, his normal confidence had returned. In fact he was almost bragging about what he’d done. I certainly wasn’t so confident. I had a feeling that if someone really wanted to find out which computer had sent the images, then they would. Even the name he chose could be linked to Brio and Roost, and on to us. However, there was nothing I could do about it now except wait and see.

In the morning, Cecil the canary was dead. That started a breakfast-table conversation about whether we should tell BIRT or not. Mum said it was the responsible thing to do; Dad was worried that they might come and investigate. ‘I don’t want anyone around here asking questions,’ he argued. ‘We’ll be in deep trouble if anyone finds out we went into those sheds.’

I kept my mouth firmly closed, hoping that Nick would do
the same. This was not the time to reveal that pretty soon the whole country might know where we’d been.

In the end Mum convinced Dad that the sparrows had carried the disease here, and that BIRT would understand that. So, Nick and I were given the task of telling the BIRT person in Portobello.

The motel was part-way up Murph’s street. As we turned off the main road, I wondered if Murph knew that BIRT was now one of his neighbours.

There was no problem finding the person we wanted at the motel. A sandwich board outside the unit nearest the office declared it to be the
BIRT On-Site Reporting Station.
We knocked on the door.

‘Hello, you two,’ said a cheerful voice as the door slid open. It was Cathy Andrews. ‘Come on in. Welcome to my temporary home.’

We followed her inside and took the offered chairs. The eating area had been changed to an office, with a large map of the peninsula leaning against the wall, and a laptop on the table surrounded by a pile of papers.

She saw me looking at the pile and smiled. ‘Yes, my boss, Colin Saxton, has made sure I’ve got plenty of work to do, just in case nobody comes and sees me.’

‘Are we your first customers?’ asked Nick.

She nodded. ‘And hopefully the only ones. We’re beginning to think that the worst of the epidemic might be over.’

‘It’s not,’ I said. ‘Cecil, our canary, died during the night.’

‘Where do you live?’ she asked.

‘Harwood.’

She beckoned me over to the map. ‘Show me.’

I did, and she marked it with a coloured pin.

‘Do you have sparrows around there?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and they used to pinch food from Cecil’s cage.’

‘Seen any dead ones?’

I shook my head. She turned to Nick, who shook his head as well.

She studied the map for a while. ‘I think,’ she said slowly, ‘that those sparrows might have come from Portobello. You’re within their range. Just.’

‘Could they have passed it on to the local sparrows?’

‘Yes, but you’d be seeing dead ones if they had. This time of year, when they’re breeding, the various populations of sparrows tend to keep to themselves. That’s what we’re hoping anyway. That only the local birds are infected and the disease will die out by itself.’ She moved away from the map. ‘You see any more dead birds, or hear of anyone who has, then come and let me know.’

I thought of Murph’s birds up the road, and wondered if I should mention them. I didn’t, though; I couldn’t, not without first discussing it with Murph.

That discussion never happened.

We left the motel and began riding up the steep section of road when a bird flew over in a flash of green.

‘That was Harriet,’ said Nick.

‘You sure?’

In answer he stopped pedalling and let out a loud whistle. Straight away the bird was back — it was Harriet. She glided down to sit on Nick’s shoulder.

‘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!’

G
etting 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.