Chapter 4- an escaped cockatoo and the return of the dogs
Rio
The usual routines and activities of the exotic city of Rio de Janeiro continued to flow by under the tropical sun. In the city, people went about their daily activities with many going to work, tourists going to the beach to sunbathe, sightsee or play, and security patrollers out on duty. In Tijuca Forest, the animal inhabitants, most of them birds, foraged, met with friends and family, raised their chicks or other babies, and played like they usually did. The activities of Tulio's Aviary also continued with the team, most of them ornithologists, continuing their work in caring for the injured animals, most of them birds, their studies and checking the security system that had been set up to enclose the Blu Bird Sanctuary and protect it from illegal poachers. A fence consisting of electric wires and barbed wire had been erected and set up around the edge of the sanctuary and was designed to keep poachers out of the protected land. The electric current flowing through the electric wire was at a low enough voltage to cause a painful shock to any poacher that would dare touch them. Next to Tulio's Aviary, a large enclosure, the Recinto para Animais Permanentemente Mutilados, (Enclosure for Permanently Maimed Animals in Portuguese), which was a building with a large glass dome rising above it like a diamond bubble from behind a smaller block, which houses the entrance and exit, a study area, medical room and some other important facilities, stood. This place served as a permanent home for any animal that was too badly injured and maimed, especially if they were of a rare and critically endangered species, such as a rare bird. The glass dome enclosed an artificially developed jungle with natural trees and plants grown and a small lake dug in the middle, intended to resemble the real habitat of the real forest. This artificial habitat however, had special modifications to suit the needs of the crippled and maimed animals and birds, particularly flying birds that were permanently grounded due to severe wing injury, such as a ladder for them to climb to a hollow in a tree. Among the permanent residents were the Lear's macaws Luke who was one such permanently grounded bird with a removed wing, a harrowing testament to the incredibly violent confrontation he had with the evil Nigel; his mate Hauyne and their only son Quaoar. We will physically meet this family of three Lear's macaws later. Human carers entered and exited the enclosure to check the animals within, especially the three Lear's macaws and one of those humans was Luke's human companion Nick who hailed from Australia and had raised Luke since he was a chick but had to come to South America for the sake of the conservation of Luke's species, except he went to Peru and not Rio to begin with. However, Nick, together with Luke, Hauyne and Quaoar, moved here to Rio for the latter three's safety from poachers. Like Linda and Brendan, his wife May and their son Matthew who cared for Blu and Aurora, Sirius and Bellatrix respectively, Nick had permanently moved here to be with his Lear's macaw companion and to help in the conservation of rare birds and has chosen to specialise in blue macaws and archaeobirds of which a flock of the latter lived right out in the Amazon rainforest. Nick was a frequent visitor to the enclosure and always checked on Luke and his tiny family. He liked working at Tulio's Aviary and the enclosure and caring for the birds and other animals there but there was one particular bird that he did NOT like at all, especially after what he had done to his beloved Lear's macaw companion and how he had rendered the macaw grounded for life due to the loss of a wing, in addition to what he had done to other birds and animals. The bird Nick had developed a caustic hatred of was the cockatoo Nigel.
Whenever Nick saw or went by Nigel, he always insulted the cockatoo by calling him a 'rotting chicken', a 'disgusting, vile bag of rotting meat' and a 'rabid vulture', deliberately banged on his cage to scare and provoke him, spat at him and even hurled caustic threats at the rotten bird, including feeding him to the cats or giving him to a taxidermist to turn him into a stuffed display thing. Maybe the former would be best he often told him and he even scoffed at the cockatoo whenever the little frog, Gabi, kept snuggling up to him to the cockatoo's serious humiliation. Nick's extreme hatred for the cockatoo eventually escalated into physical abuse and he had begun to reach into the cage to jab the cockatoo hard with his finger and take hold of his head feathers and yank on them despite being told not to by the other workers, just to get a reaction out of the cockatoo for the fun of it. This disgusted his colleagues, especially Tulio and even Jack and Jill and Fernando despite the cockatoo being a former helper of his when he was a part of Marcel's group. Though Nick found Nigel's reactions incredibly hilarious, it was NEITHER that NOR a wise thing to do and Tulio and company couldn't agree more. Nigel sported a mutual caustic rancour as corrosive as hydrochloric acid with a pH as low as car battery acid towards Nick too and always lashed at Luke's companion with either a beak bite or claw swipe and once, he had managed to plunge his beak as hard as he could into Nick's left hand when Nick tried to grab his crest, his trait of pride, to pull on it. Believe me, Nigel didn't half inflict a NASTY injury on Nick's hand and Nick had to go to the hospital to have the injury treated and was put off work for a month while his hand healed but even THAT didn't plunge a painful lesson into his thick skull. When Nick returned to work once his hand was healed, he got back at Nigel by taking a stick and whacking the bird with it in revenge and seized some feathers from his tail and tore them out, causing the cockatoo agony. This had been the final straw and Tulio had commanded Nick to STOP his abuse of the cockatoo or he will be fired for abuse of animals in ANY way and of ANY sort, even those with an UTTERLY bad attitude like Nigel, was NOT tolerated. This ultimatum finally convinced Nick to stop abusing Nigel and at Linda's suggestion, Tulio had placed him in the Maimed Animal enclosure to work there to nip any temptation to abuse Nigel in the bud for Luke's companion, and Nick gladly took this offer for he could NOT stand the cockatoo at all.
The rancour for the cockatoo was projected onto Luke and Hauyne, and they despised Nigel more than ANY other creature in the world besides smugglers and those who abused animals for the fun of it. In fact their rancour for the cockatoo was as caustic as Blu and Jewel's. Hauyne had NEVER forgiven Nigel after what he had done to her now-mate and when the pair had heard that the cockatoo was kept in the Aviary, they had been INFURIATED and had wanted to go there and KILL the cockatoo in the most agonising way. However, due to potentially serious implications, they vowed to NEVER set foot in the Aviary unless that cockatoo was removed and they had STRICTLY forbidden Quaoar from entering the Aviary for his safety. After all, they did not want their only son to meet the beast that had rendered his father grounded for life and tortured his mother with her most loathed fear: enclosed spaces. However, only recently and one time Quaoar defied his parents and went to explore the Aviary and had met the cockatoo while he was being bathed and washed by Joanna, Ahsoka's human companion and foster carer, something the cockatoo UTTERLY detested for he liked being smelly and filthy. While Joanna left to fetch some more soap designed especially for birds, Nigel had seen the young Lear's macaw. When he saw how much Quaoar resembled the macaw he had mauled and rendered flightless by damaging his left wing beyond repair such that it had to be surgically removed, he scoffed at the little macaw and boasted how he had 'grounded that dark blue piece of (bleep)', angering Quaoar for he had so much respect for his father. In retort Quaoar deliberately stepped on Nigel's sensitive nerves by calling the cockatoo a flightless chicken with a 'froggy girlfriend' and that Blu and Jewel (or Mr Blu and Mrs Jewel to him) were better than him, especially the former since he had learned to fly and he was no longer able to. That made Nigel EXPLODE, jump out of the bathtub in a spray of water, soap suds, froth and caustic abuse with content Quaoar should NEVER hear and attempt to pounce onto Quaoar to savagely attack him but Quaoar managed to counter with a NASTY claw attack by scoring his claws over the cockatoo's brow. Though his claws were still small for he was still Carla, Bia and Tiago and company's age excluding the new additions to their family such as Neptune, Arrokoth and Chrysocolla and also Ganymede and Gordie, the new sons of Orion and Ahsoka, Quaoar did manage to draw some blood. Then after raking his claws over Nigel's forehead, Quaoar made a break for it out of the Aviary and back to the enclosure next door, where he was met by a VERY displeased Luke and Hauyne who grounded him for a whole month, though Hauyne was impressed that Quaoar had managed to inflict a NASTY injury on the cockatoo's face. As for Nigel, he had caused a SERIOUS alarm for the workers in Tulio's Aivary, especially Joanna when she returned with some soap and found the soaked cockatoo out of his bathtub and flailing on the floor in a shower of water and soap suds, as though having an electric shock, screeching in agony with his tatty wings clasped over his forehead where Quaoar had struck, his scratch bleeding. The commotion had also attracted the attention of the other birds and animals in the room and they had been stunned to see the cockatoo thrashing on the floor with a scratched face, and Gabi the frog had been UTTERLY horrified. Joanna had then rushed forward and seized the cockatoo and called for Tulio and Nigel was rushed into the surgery room. The workers including Tulio had no idea how Nigel had suffered a scratch and they had assumed it to be one of the other birds but they had no idea that that bird was Quaoar, but the claw marks were so nasty that they had to be stitched up. Quaoar had certainly done some damage. However, since that incident, Quaoar had obeyed his parents, learned his lesson from his grounding and had stayed out of the Aviary and away from Nigel, but enough of this story of Quaoar's first meeting of the infamous Nigel. However, it will NOT be his last.
In the main medical room, the workers at Tulio's Aviary continued their jobs of caring for the birds, writing journals and articles and typing in data into their laptops and computers. Ahsoka's human carer Joanna had just finished writing an article for a science journal centred on bats. This article was about the Amazon flying fox and its story, starting from Joanna's finding and raising a female she had found as a pup in Tijuca Forest after smugglers had been and raised to her meeting of a male flying fox in Tulio's Aviary, their eventual pairing and having their first pup to the discovery of more Amazon flying foxes out in the Amazon rainforest, alongside other supposed-to-be-extinct creatures like the Cuban red macaw, the several species of archaeobird and forest pterosaurs, in addition to the glaucous macaws and Spix macaws. As Joanna checked her article, Fernando came by and smiled at her.
"Hey, Joanna how's your article about the Amazon flying fox coming on?" asked the adopted son of Linda and Tulio.
"I've just finished it, Fernando," replied Joanna, flashing him a smile before continuing her proofread, "I'm just checking it for any spelling and grammar mistakes before submitting it to my group leader and head of the chiroptologist department of Tulio's Aviary, Pablo Sullivano, so that he can send it to the journal for public publishing."
Fernando leaned in and briefly read Joanna's work with a smile. He then moved onto another subject. "How did it feel when you saw your foster bat Ahsoka fly for the first time?"
"I was UTTERLY thrilled," replied Joanna, "I remember me saying that my foster bat is flying at last."
"That was Mom (Linda) when she saw her macaw Blu flying for the first time," said Fernando with a smile, "According to her, Blu had NEVER flown a single flap his entire time under her care since she found him in a box as a chick in Minnesota."
"Strange coincidence really," said Joanna, "When I found Ahsoka and I took her in as a foster bat, she had NEVER flown a single flap her ENTIRE life until during the second smuggler incident."
As she said this, two workers who cared for Nigel and observed him and his 'unusual' pairing with the frog went by to check on Nigel and his 'little froggy girlfriend' who had caused the poor cockatoo NOTHING but UTMOST trouble and humiliation with her overflowing affection for him.
"When Pablo Sullivano visited me and Ahsoka while we were studying a degree in Brazilian flora and fauna," continued Joanna, "He had been surprised that Ahsoka could not fly, despite my own attempts to get her to do so. It was when he wanted to bring Ahsoka to Tulio's Aviary for breeding purposes, especially upon hearing the news that a male Amazon flying fox had apparently been sighted in a park's lake in Peru... that is until it had been confirmed and that flying fox captured and brought to here, which occurred after I brought Ahsoka to here and she was put into the breeding chamber with those two Spix macaws and two glaucous macaws (that is, Zephyr, Brisa, Antares and Samara)."
"It would have been a problem if she were to have pups back then," said Fernando, "Mother bats cannot properly care for their pups if they cannot fly."
"We would have had specialist helpers lending a hand," said Joanna, "But Pablo wanted the pups to be raised like every other wild bat in the natural environment so we had plans to get Ahsoka to fly whether she liked it or not."
"I believe that it must have been the trauma of facing smugglers that had left her grounded for so long," said Joanna, "And I believe Blu might have been put through a similar event that rendered him too scared to fly..."
"I doubt it," said Fernando in disagreement, "Brendan, Matthew and May's macaws Aurora, Bellatrix and Sirius had all been able to fly in their care, and Nick had managed to teach his Lear's macaw companion Luke to fly during the macaw's life in Australia with success. But I suppose it must vary between poached birds and bats."
Joanna breathed a sad sigh but then Fernando gazed in the direction of the entrance to the breeding chamber.
"I wonder how the two golden fruithawks and two white-and-silver owls are doing in the chamber where my foster bat Ahsoka met her mate are doing," she asked.
"They are not interacting with each other much and still no sign of any eggs yet," said Fernando, "They are younger than Blu and Jewel and company but old enough to have chicks. Maybe they need some bonding time before they do pair up and mate but in the meantime, it is important that those four are kept in that breeding chamber as they are, after all, the last known members of their species. And if they do have offspring, those chicks will be monitored constantly during their time in their eggs and for several years after hatching to ensure that they are all healthy throughout those times."
Joanna nodded to this in agreement, remembering how Ahsoka had been the last known female of the Amazon flying fox species, along with the male brown flying fox (Orion), until the discovery of a small clan of more Amazon flying foxes in the Amazon rainforest which were now included in the protection of the Sanctuary de Amazon alongside the other creatures living with them including the only population of pterosaurs and archaeobirds and also Cuban red macaws and other thought-to-be-extinct macaw species including the glaucous macaws which were now a part of that community. Well, only half of them, anyway. Then Joanna and Fernando returned to work with the latter heading off into the monitor room of the breeding chamber to help check on the fruithawks and owls.
While the workers continued their jobs, the two workers in charge of Nigel and Gabi approached the cage with some fruit to feed the cockatoo. They had struggled to feed the cockatoo fruit for Nigel absolutely DETESTED fruit and fancied meat, but it was not just the meat of chickens. When he glared hungrily at a green-winged macaw, the researchers had been disturbed. They had never known a cockatoo express such predatory interest in the meat of other parrots and it was indeed abnormal. After all, Nigel was an absolutely SICK, PSYCHOTIC, MURDEROUS cockatoo who DESPISED exotic birds, especially those able to fly... and had blue feathers of ANY shade. In fact, hyacinth, glaucous, Spix and Lear's macaws were what he DETESTED the most and his caustic rancour extended to large fox-faced bats now as well for Nigel had included a certain family of such bats in his list of most-hated animals.
"I sure hope the cockatoo will take this mango, Maggie," said one of the carers, a man, "It had been difficult feeding him fruit."
"He's HONESTLY like a bird of prey, Alejandro," grumbled the woman, Maggie, "Always demanding meat but when we saw him glare at the other birds like one, we had become concerned."
"Maybe we could move him to somewhere else so that he will not harm other birds?" asked the man, Alejandro, "The Enclosure for Permanently Maimed Animals is TOTALLY out of the question because we know that that tiny family of Lear's macaws are like with this cockatoo..."
"Not to mention Nick, Luke's former owner," put in Maggie with a disgust-laced voice, "He certainly did overstep the mark in treating Nigel badly."
Alejandro nodded in agreement and went to feed Nigel in the cage with another piece of mango. Maggie followed but then Alejandro stopped.
"Hey, Maggie, come here," said the man. Maggie went over to him.
"What is it?" she asked. Alejandro gazed into the cage that was supposed to contain Nigel. To his dismay, he could not find the cockatoo anywhere, except a few ragged grey-white feathers. He then left the desk and began to look around the room. Maggie followed. After a few moments silence as Alejandro searched, the man finally returned.
"Nigel and the frog, Maggie," he said with dread, "They're gone."
Maggie looked on in disbelief and began to search for the cockatoo and the frog as well. However, she soon reaped the same result. Returning to Alejandro, she said, "We're gonna have to alert Tulio about this."
With that, the pair rushed off to find the team leader. Joanna looked on with concern and gazed at the empty cage where Nigel and the frog, Gabi, were held, or should be.
Meanwhile, in one street
A series of shops lined the street and one particular shop was a meat shop, or butchers. On display on its front window were a variety of meats sold. Pork, beef, chicken and a number of other farm animal meat decorated the display desks and hooks to show customers what the butchers sold. A line of customers snaked out of the shop's entrance as customers queued to purchase some of the meat. Around the line, other people went about their usual business and vehicles drove past on the road. It was quite a peaceful scene until...
"STOP, CANINE THIEVES!"
Shouts in Spanish and Portuguese erupted from within the butchers, alongside some barks and shouts from the customers. Then the line of customers nearest to the entrance was broken as several queue members were suddenly knocked out of the way and backwards. A bunch of four-legged furry creatures then exploded out of the door and darted off down the street. These animals were dogs of various breed and they had come to pinch some meat from the butchers and now they were making off with their catch like thieving children with a bag of sweets they had managed to nab from a sweet shop. One of the dogs, a brown retriever, its jaws holding tightly onto a snake of sausages which flailed behind it as it ran, led the pack away from the butchers. Several other members of the pack had lumps of meat clutched in their teeth. Behind the pack, the butcher pursued them, shouting and cursing at them in Portuguese with a cleaver clutched in his hand. At the shop, onlookers both on the queue, in the shop and around on the streets looked on in stun as the butcher continued to chase the thieving dogs down the street. One dog with a lump of steak in its mouth, a black Dachshund, flashed a terrified look at the butcher and continued after its pack. The dogs weaved in and out of the forest of passers-by and several times, they deliberately knocked some down to continue their escape. They continued to flee until finally, they had managed to shake off the butcher who eventually gave up and returned to his shop, a torrent of curse words in Portuguese gushing out of his mouth in frustration at his failure in catching the thieves.
As soon as they were safely out of the butcher's reach, the dogs retreated into an alley which was full of a massive pile of rubbish discarded here and were greeted by the rest of the dogs, among them a hulking, intimidating black dog with a muscular build, a Doberman.
"Good job, my canine underlings," shouted this dog proudly in a deep, equally intimidating voice, "Breakfast is now SERVED!"
Then with a triumphant bark together, the dogs began to dig into their prizes.
These dogs used to be owned by a group of humans who poached animals from the environment, mostly birds and bats, and smuggled them out of Brazil to be sold through the black market in countries abroad. Their main targets had been rare birds and bats, especially blue macaws and Amazon flying foxes. The pack also used to be much larger than it was now but now, it was only less than half that size when their owners had been caught. When their human owners had been imprisoned with two of them, Jack and Jill, becoming adopted into a certain family, the dogs had been sent to a dogs' shelter for re-homing or some other fate though one, Milo the Dalmatian, had been taken in by Brendan and his family, along with Ellie, a stray dog of the same breed, as pets and breeding animals. However, these dogs had managed to escape the shelter and were now street dogs, and had been for a number of months. All this time they had been scavenging for food, stealing from meat shops, competing with alley cats and hiding from humans and also the animal inhabitants of Rio. The black Doberman was Brutus, and he was the leader of the smugglers' dogs. He still was and had always sent scout dogs to scavenge for food and to steal meat from meat shops and stands. During the time when he had managed to escape his captors after being captured and fled into hiding, through reuniting with some of his former pack underlings as they managed to escape the dog shelter up until now, Brutus had been plotting revenge against Milo for ruining his and his group's future of getting rich, but they had been unable to put together a sturdy revenge plan. After all, Brutus was high on the most wanted list of the dog catchers for he was an incredibly dangerous dog, though not as dangerous as a certain cockatoo that used to work with him before the smugglers split into two groups after conflict over money and profits, but still.
The former dogs of Frank's smuggling team, or what's left of them, continued eating their breakfast when the brown retriever opened up a conversation.
"Hey, guys, what do you think has become of that lousy Dalmatian Milo?" he said, "Do you think he's still living as a family dog right now?"
"I think he still is, Paws," growled a female black and white border collie disdainfully, "In fact, I overheard a couple of visiting parakeets discuss about how a 'spotted puppy' used to help in catching us birds but is now the mate of a female Dalmatian and a father of a litter of puppies..."
"He'll have grown into an adult dog now, Paws and Bryony," said the hulking Doberman, Brutus as he bit into his steak lump, "That traitorous Dalmatian is responsible for landing us into THIS miserable mess with our future in gettin' rich miserably destroyed. It is ALL his fault that we are like this. He was the one who alerted the police and had us captured and our owners arrested."
"It's a good thing you managed to escape and go into hiding for so long," said a male black and white spaniel, "We often thought that you had been..."
"I KNOW, Otis," snapped Brutus, cutting the spaniel, Otis off and making him flinch.
"He is now a family dog with a family of his own... while WE are left here wandering around the streets like stray dogs in the slums struggling to find food and shelter, though we used to have our hideout with our owners ironically IN the slums," growled Paws the retriever, the other dogs emitting growls of hate against Milo, "Oh, if he were right here now, I could BITE DOWN ON HIS NECK and STRANGLE HIM!"
"So would I," said a female brown Labrador vengefully. The other dogs, among them a male black Dachshund and two identical twin brown and white spaniels, barked in agreement. Then an idea entered Brutus' head and widened his mouth into a smirk.
"What are you smirking about, Brutus?" asked one of the twin spaniels. Brutus then turned to him and his identical twin brother.
"I think Paws and Adriana have suggested an EXCELLENT idea, Hopper," said the Doberman. The spaniel, Hopper, exchanged a confused look with his brother while the Labrador and Paws, the former's name being Adriana, walking over to their boss.
"Have we, Brutus?" asked the female Labrador. Brutus then turned his wicked smirk to her and Paws.
"Indeed you have, Adriana," he replied, "And I think I have an EXCELLENT way to serve the dish of revenge as cold and cruel as a blizzard in the Arctic to that traitorous Dalmatian for what he had done to us those years ago."
"Let's hear it," said Paws, an evil smirk forming on his muzzle. More evil smirks appeared on the muzzles of some of the other dogs including the twin spaniels Hopper and his brother named Jackie. A few of the dogs, however, remained uncertain but paid attention anyway as Brutus began to explain his idea to revenge to them.
"You mentioned Milo being a family dog with a mate and a litter of puppies, didn't you Paws?" Brutus asked the brown retriever. Paws nodded and Brutus continued. "Well, if that traitorous Dalmatian has indeed settled with a mate and a litter of puppies of his own, then his family will make the perfect target and main course to formulate the dish called revenge."
"What do you mean?" asked Adriana while the other dogs exchanged confused looks. An evil twinkle appeared in Brutus' eyes.
"Targeting and kidnapping them and then hold them hostage as a ransom so that he could turn himself in exchange for their freedom," the Doberman spoke in a low, thrilled voice. This widened the smirks of some of the dogs in the pack though some maintained their uncertain looks.
"That sounds like an excellent idea indeed Brutus," said Jackie, Hopper's twin brother excitedly.
"Yes, revenge is INDEED a dish best served cold with a sprinkling of cruelty spice," snickered his twin brother, Hopper. But then the two spaniels' faces fell.
"But the question is, where does Milo and his family live now?" asked Hopper. This question and problem wiped the smiles off the other smirking dogs' faces as they realised this obstacle. The smirk on Brutus' mouth, however, remained.
"We're gonna have to track down that spotted lab rat mutt's house and then plan a surprise attack," said he, but then his smirk of thrill melted to a frown, "But that poses another questioning: how are we gonna get there unnoticed by those humans and other animals, and stealthily?"
"That's a good point," said Adriana.
"Especially with those dog catchers out on the run searching for us up and down the city," put in Paws.
"Not to mention the size of the city," added Hopper.
"That Dalmatian brat could be anywhere and we do NOT know where he lives," said Jackie. The other dogs nodded in agreement to this massive problem that was indeed huge, like the city of Rio. There was indeed a LOT to think about and consider if these dogs wanted to find Milo and implement their plan of revenge on him for ruining their future of raking in a LOT of money from the smuggling business. Then another thought entered Brutus' head. It was a thought about a certain animal member that the dogs used to work with until the smugglers split up over dispute over profits from illegal poaching and the animal trade.
"Come to think of it, we haven't seen or heard of Nigel the cockatoo for years," said the Doberman.
"We haven't seen him since our group split up and his team went one way and we went ours," said Paws.
"Where is that cockatoo these days, anyway?" asked Adriana.
"Well, he's none of our concern anymore, anyway," said Brutus, "Let's just finish our breakfast and move on, shall we?"
The other dogs released barks of agreement and continued eating their looted meat. Then once they had eaten their fill and had hidden any bone that remained in the dirt, the pack moved on.
