Newsworthy

– Peabody and Chipper

A pleasant cool breeze diluted the hot sun. Peabody relaxed on her perch and surveyed the other birds on the branch; all of them, like her and Chipper, enjoying the pop-up bar, sipping on fermented nectar, and eating bar flies dipped in warm pollen.

“So,” she said, spitting out half a dozen hairy legs. “The story so far.”

“What story?” Chipper said sardonically.

“Exactly!” Peabody struck the table. “We don’t have a story for the front of tomorrow’s leaf.

“That might be one.” Chipper said, sipping her drink and casting a side-eye at the opposing branch.

“That mudlark’s been lying in that bolehole for a while now. It’s that big feather-dresser’s, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Chipper said. “I saw him come out and flop down when I got the last round.” She shook her empty drink pointedly. “Wasn’t even in there long enough to have any work done.”

“How do you know?” Peabody asked. “Besides his feathers still looking so boringly natural, that is.”

“I saw him go in earlier while I was waiting for you.” Chipper leaned in and lowered her voice as though about to impart some big secret. “After Pumpkin told him her life story.”

“I thought I heard her screech on my way over.” Peabody laughed. “So he’s just dizzy with tinnitus?”

Chipper shook her empty again.

“Whose shout is it?” Peabody asked.

Chipper shook her head. “Don’t even try it, chum.”

“Always worth trying,” Peabody said as she hopped off their perch. “Same again?”

“Nah, think I’ll have something frothy and pink and sugary. ‘Course the same again you idiot.”

“Tell me if I miss anything.”

“You’re missing it now—but you better get my drink first.”

Chipper wasn’t lying. The stench of rotten meat and death carried on the late summer breeze—if it wasn’t such a familiar smell in her line of work Chipper would have gagged. Instead she upped the zoom on her vision and settled back to watch.

It was a butcherbird, a female by the size of her, and she was having a predatory sniff of the mudlark. And a nudge with a claw. Chipper leaned forward. She was just thinking about whether she should intervene when another mudlark appeared from nowhere, blindsiding the butcherbird with a wing-slap.

“And don’t come back!” The newcomer yelled as the butcherbird flew away screeching. The newcomer leaned over the prone mudlark but Chipper couldn’t hear what they were saying and couldn’t read their beaks from this angle.

“Hey!” The newcomer yelled suddenly. “Somebody get me some water!”

Peabody came back with the drinks. “What’d I miss?”

“Well, we almost had a butchering, but this here newcomer stopped it. Look, now he’s pouring water over him. Maybe something’s really wrong.”

They watched as the saviour grabbed the now-wet bird under his wingpits and dragged him out of the entrance, propping him up on a perch with his back to Chipper and Peabody. The saviour hopped on a perch opposite, giving Chipper her first view of his face.

“Oh my hawk!” Chipper said, sitting up straight.

“That’s Margaret Magenta’s chick!” Peabody said.

“Are you recording?”

“Shhh!”

They watched Manfred Magenta offer a wing for shaking. The wet bird ignored it.

“Take it, take it!” Chipper urged under her breath.

“You’re good at beak-reading,” Peabody said. “What are they talking about?”

“Something about curlews, I think. And now whimbrels, common sandpipers, something about greenshanks? ‘Soon the terek sandpipers will be going, then the ruddy turnstones’.”

“They’re all migratory birds. You think he’s on some kind of job for his mother?”

“Probably just telling him why he should have made an appointment weeks ago. Yep. Now he just said ‘the marsh sandpiper comes back’.”

“It’s got to be code!”

“Black-tailed godwits, bar-tailed godwits—”

Suddenly wetbird burst out so loudly they could hear it plain as day. “Stop it with the migration talk!”

Peabody saw Manfred’s beak moving again. “What’s he saying now?”

“Something about ticks? Golder ticks? Oh! Hold your ticks! And something about friendly. I think he said he’s being friendly?”

Manfred turned for take-off while Wetbird heaved himself up.

“Where are they going?” Peabody asked.

“I don’t know,” Chipper answered, downing her drink. “Not even I can beak-read when they’ve got their backs to me.”

“We following?” Peabody downed hers too.

“Well, there’s only one way to get this story.”

They watched as the two birds, knees bent and wings stretched, continued talking—wetbird seemed both defensive and resigned at the same time. Finally Manfred took off. But wetbird stood where he was, clutching at the branch, staring at his feet.

“What’s he doing?” Chipper asked.

“I don’t know…but he reminds me of my first chick,” Peabody said. “On fledging day he was so scared, he just sat there while all the neighbourhood chicks took to the skies.”

Wetbird tilted forward, still clutching, still staring at his feet.

“He did that, too,” Peabody said. “Just leaned and leaned until eventually—”

Wetbird fell off the branch. They both watched in horror as he plummeted to the ground, flapping out of control, screeching and squawking and squealing.

“I can’t look,” Chipper said, covering her face and looking away.

“Oh my hawk!” Peabody exclaimed.

“Is he dead yet?”

“Look! Oh-my-hawk-just-look!”

Chipper looked. Wetbird was flying. “I never would have believed it!”

“He must have had an inch left of down when suddenly it was all up. It was incredible!”

“Well, at least we’ve got a backup story.”

“No,” Peabody said sadly. “No-one’ll ever believe that.”