Finally! I've reached the chapter where I can write about the Jak-worlds cutest animals! The flut-fluts!
All the facts about flut-fluts mentioned in this chapter is all made up by me, the only thing I really know about them is how they look, how they sound and that they can be used as horses even shortly after their birth.
So well... thats about what I had to say for now. I give you, chapters nine and ten of Growing up in Haven City
CHAPTER 9
FLUT-FLUTS OF ALL SIZES
208, month six
Cornelius
When I came into my room this morning Tanya wasn't sitting on her normal spot.
"Tanya?" I asked, "Where are you?"
"Up here stupid" a voice from above me said.
I looked up; Tanya was sitting on the lamp under the ceiling.
"How did you get up there?" I asked in surprise.
"Guess" said Tanya and glided down and landed on my head.
"Hey, you're flying!" I said.
"I am? Gee, I hadn't noticed" Tanya said while laughing, "it wasn't so hard, I just watched the other birds from the window. Now I won't have to hide under the bed anymore"
"It might be useful today" I said laughing, "We are going to visit my uncle at the flut-flut-ranch. Uncle Charlie says he's got at present waiting for me"
"So not all of your family has forgotten your birthday then" said Tanya.
"I doubt they've forgot it" I said, "My dad just won't care"
"Cornelius! Are you coming or what?" my brother appeared in the door.
Since it was summer vacation, he was home for a while. Actually I liked it this way; it meant my dad would be to busy praising Erol to yell at me.
"I'm coming!" I said to him.
"You better hurry, or we'll leave without you" said Erol (he sounded just like my father) "and leave that stupid sparrow at home, it will just get stomped on or eaten by a flut-flut"
I was just about to tell him most domestic flut-fluts are vegetarians but he slammed the door shout before I could even open my mouth.
"He drives me insane sometimes" I said.
"Sometimes? I can't understand how you survive!" said Tanya and flew down and landed in my hand.
"Well. You don't have to stay" I said, "now that you can fly you can survive on your own right?"
"I guess" she said, looking at the window, "but are you going to be okay?"
"Listen, you should go find your family, your real family" I said, "Its not good for you to stay around these guys"
She hesitated for a moment, but then she flew out of the window and landed in three.
"I'll miss you" she said.
"I'll miss you too" I said back as she flew away, "you're lucky you can leave"
I didn't close the window, I just let it stay vide open and ran down the stairs so fast I almost tripped.
Dad had already started the engine on the zoomer when I came out.
"We almost left you. Come on!" he shouted high enough to drown the sound of the zoomer.
I jumped into the back seat next to mom; Erol was in the front seat. Dad said it was because of his good grades.
I had never been sitting in the front seat, although my grades in theoretic subjects were way higher than Erol's.
We drove the zoomer down to the harbour in South Town where the air train waited.
The flutranch was located far outside the city; you can't drive a normal zoomer out there because of all the metalheads.
The air train however had tick walls and it needed a lot of metalheads to break it.
After flying in the train for half an hour I could finally see the ranch under me.
The one place I felt free.
Large birds, mostly blue and yellow though a few was green or purple instead of blue, was running over the large grass fields.
Flut-fluts, real flut-fluts, a lot different from sparrowfluts like Tanya.
The air train landed between the stable and Uncle Charlie's house where my uncle was waiting, at his side stood a small bright blue flut-flut, hardly over a meter tall.
"Hey guys, nice to see you" uncle said as we walked out of the train.
"Hi Uncle Charlie! Hello Tiny Blue" I said cheerfully.
Tiny Blue made a happy squeaking sound and ran towards me.
"My brother attracts losers like an ecowell attracts metalheads" Erol said laughing.
"Don't laugh at Tiny Blue Erol, he can't help that he's a little small" uncle said, "but enough talking, Cornelius, I've got a little something for you"
He led me into the stable, Erol and Tiny Blue followed us, curious about what he had in there (Tiny Blue probably knew already, but he tagged along anyway)
We walked past the boxes where the adult birds stood when they where not outside and in to the room for sick or injured birds.
He opened a box bigger than most of the others, it was bigger because it usually contained a mother and her chick, and this time was no exception.
I knew the female bird in there; it was Katja, Tiny Blue's mother.
The baby bird next to her was just a bit bigger than Tiny Blue himself; perhaps a few weeks old, he had the usual blue/yellow-colour combination.
The main colour was blue, yet a lot of his body was yellow as well, his stomach, the back and top of his head was yellow, and of course he had the usual yellow streak down his spine.
The blue field on his tail which separated the yellow streak from the small green and blue tail-feathers was spotted, one spot above each tail-feather. (Ms.EF: does this make sense to you? I'm not very good at descriptions)
"Wow! Is that a flut-flut-chick?" I asked.
"That's right, Tiny Blues little brother" said Charlie, "and he's all yours"
"Little brother? He's bigger than Tiny Blue!" said Erol, "are you sure they both have the same father?"
Tiny Blues father was the leader Charlie's flut-flut-herd, an old male named Rocko.
He was getting really old by now, Uncle Charlie said his old age could be the reason Tiny Blue turned out as he did, Tiny's oldest little sister and youngest older brother were stillborn.
"I though you didn't want to mate Rocko anymore?" I said to Uncle Charlie.
"I didn't mean for it to happen" Uncle Charlie admitted, he tried to hide the disappointment in his voice, "I tried to mate Katja with a younger male but Rocko simply wouldn't accept it"
He looked towards the next box.
A striped bird named Jimbo was laying in it, his leg and neck bandaged.
"But enough about my failed breeding-experiments aren't you going to name your new bird?" Charlie asked me.
"I think I will call him Spot" I said, "because of the spots"
"A dorky-looking bird with a dorky-looking name" said Erol.
"You're just jealous because you don't have a flut-flut" I said.
"As if I ever wanted one of those silly pets! I want to catch my own bird! Straight from the wilderness!" Erol said.
"Good luck" I said while laughing, as if that dork would be ever to catch, let alone tame, a wild flut-flut.
Even the first tame flut-fluts had been hatched along elves.
Sometimes their parents would go missing but quite often an elf could actually steal an egg from a nearby nest.
These birds knew nothing of the life in the wild and would not possibly survive without elven help.
Wild flut-fluts however would instinctively attack an elf coming to close, if the bird grew up with elves this instinct would be forgotten but even taming a chick from the wild was extremely difficult.
Nobody had ever managed to take a bird from the wild and tame it to become just as nice as a domestic flut-flut.
But then again, Erol is, and have always been, a jerk, he thinks he can do anything.
CHAPTER 10
THE BIRD FROM THE FIRE
208. That night
Erol
We slept at the ranch that night.
I guess it's true what Cornelius said about me wanting a flut-flut, but the tame birds just weren't my style.
They were too kind, too cosy, I wanted a tough flut-flut, and the only place you can find tough birds is in the wild, where they have to fight for survival, don't get their dinner served on a plate.
Of course my parents would never let me go out to find one, so I sneaked out unnoticed in the middle of the night… almost unnoticed.
"Where do you think you are going?"
Man I hade little brothers.
"None of your business!" I said.
"You're not going out to the forest are you? What about the scary metalheads?" Cornelius said, totally ignoring my threats as usual.
"Actually, yes" I said, "I'm gonna find a real flut-flut, not a stupid pet like yours, or a tiny bug like the sparrow you found in the trash".
"I did not find Tanya in the trash!" Cornelius complained before I slammed the front door in his face.
I walked towards the stable, to catch a flut-flut; I needed a flut-flut, they might be cowards but they are fast cowards.
I got the one of Charlie's fastest birds saddled up, a really annoying bird named Fluffy, (named by Charlie's daughters).
As soon as I was ready I heard steps from the recovery room, Cornelius came out of the door, followed by a fully saddled Spot.
"Where are you going?" I asked, even though I knew what he would answer.
"I'm coming with you" he answered "and don't try to stop me or I'll tell mom."
She would of course find out sooner or later anyway, but then again, if Cornelius came with me I could say I followed him to get him back.
"Fine you can come" I said, "but don't blame me if your chicken flies away".
"Flut-fluts don't fly" Cornelius corrected, "besides, one of the first domestic flut-fluts, Chici, was ridden only days after her birth, and that was in the middle of the Bogey Swamp!"
"Why do you think I care?" I asked and climbed up on Fluffy's back.
Surprisingly enough Spot managed to keep up even though I made Fluffy run at top speed into the forest.
"How are you going to find the flut-fluts anyway?" Cornelius asked, "They won't just come right towards you, besides they could see you as a threat and attack"
"If you're scared you can go back home" I said, "there's no need to be afraid, I brought my pistol just in case"
"Me too" said Cornelius.
I have to admit I was a bit surprised Cornelius had kept his old school-gun; all students at the crimson school get one the first week.
But then again, it wasn't that much of a surprise when I gave it a thought.
Although Cornelius was almost voluntarily expelled from school he was no pacifist, his efforts of being thrown out involved hitting the teachers with water guns and once he even killed one of the guard dogs at school.
It was midsummer so the forest never became completely dark, even so I had to bring out my flashlight as we entered the woods.
Hours passed before we even saw signs after the birds.
Sometimes I wondered if they had all been taken by metalheads or lurkers but then…
"Something smells burnt" Cornelius said, "You don't suppose it could be a forest fire or what?"
Before I could answer Fluffy started screaming.
Cornelius was right; I could se smoke over the treetops.
"It's a forest fire alright" I said while trying to keep Fluffy calm, "And you know what that means?"
"Some predators run towards the fire" said Cornelius, "They try to catch small animals that try to escape from the heat"
"Precisely! So let's do as the predators and try to catch flut-fluts that are running from the fire!" I said exited.
I had to force Fluffy to go towards the fire, but it wasn't easy, he was completely petrified.
Spot on the other hand was too young to understand the meaning of the word dangerous so he ran straight towards the smoke.
As we ran towards the fire we could se lots of small animals running away from the fire, rats, rabbits, ottsels and even small metalheads, but no flut-fluts.
Soon we could se the fire in front of us.
Orange glowing fire making a perpendicular wall through the forest.
Wait a minute! A straight line?
"This can't be a natural fire", Cornelius said out loud what we both were thinking, "Someone must have started it, but who and why?"
I looked over the fire, and noticed large black flying creatures diving down at the other side, all with a shining greenish yellow gem at their heads.
"Metalheads!" I said, "real meatalheads! This is completely different from seeing them at pictures in school"
"That's wonderful Erol, but weren't we hunting for flut-fluts" said Cornelius; he drove Spot, who started to become nervous, under a three for cover.
Perhaps I should have done the same thing, Fluffy obviously wanted me to, but I was too amazed by the sight above my head.
The metalheads looked like large birds covered in a metal-armour flying down and hunting whatever was on the other side of the fire wall.
I thought about how jealous the kids at school would become when I told them I'd seen real metalheads.
"Ehm, Erol? I think you'd better hide" Cornelius whispered, he sounded quite nervous.
"Relax, I'll be fine" I said, giving Fluffy a small kick, he was starting to move backwards.
I could hear screaming from the other side, it sounded like…
"Flut-fluts! The herd is on the other side!"
Suddenly I saw one of the metalheads moving, it had heard me!
The metalhead dived down towards me.
If Fluffy wasn't halfway scared to death before he certainly was now, he raised himself up to look bigger and trying to scare the metalhead away but he only accomplished one thing, I fell off.
The metalhead went for Fluffy, the bird tried to peck it and kick it away but it must have felt only as prickling at the metalhead's armour.
I had only one option, the gun! But if I tried to shoot I could hit Fluffy, Uncle Charlie would kill me! But what was I supposed to do? Wait until the metalhead had finished of with Fluffy and attack me? Or perhaps Spot and Cornelius?
I couldn't just tell my uncle I was trying to hit the metalhead either, he would only ask me what I was doing out in the forest in the middle of the night.
Suddenly Cornelius leaped out from under the three, he quickly took his gun out of his pocket and rolled in between Fluffy and the metalhead and shot the metalhead in its stomach. He couldn't miss; there were only a few inches between the gun and the metalhead's soft skin.
The metalhead died at once, it rolled backwards into the fire, leaving only the skull gem on the ground.
I was in shock; I couldn't believe what I just saw! My stupid little brother had just risked his life to save Fluffy and me.
Fluffy lay on his back behind Cornelius breathing hard, his stomach had a large rift but it didn't seem life-threatening.
Cornelius took out a bandage-roll from his pocket and used the saddle to fasten it around the wound.
"Well aren't you a great hunter what?" he said teasing.
"Shout up!" I snarled, and got up.
"Come on. I just saved your life!" said Cornelius,"is that how you show gratitude?"
I just stared at him for a while, "thanks" I muttered, "I owe you one".
"You could thank me by not sentence me to death in a later opportunity" said Cornelius and laughed, "Now at least we know where the flut-fluts are, do you want to go around the fire wall and pick up one?"
He looked at me and smirked, "or perhaps the great crimson king is scared of a bunch of metalheads?"
"I'm not stupid! Going after those metalheads is suicide!" I said.
"So standing under them shouting is not?" Cornelius asked, still with that very annoying smirk on his face.
I didn't answer; there was no reason to start an argument with Cornelius. He always managed to get the last word anyway.
I was angry, angry at myself for making such a huge mistake, angry at Cornelius because he… was smarter, but most of all, I was angry because I wouldn't be able to come home with a wild flut-flut. That also meant I had no excuse for going out in the first place, and with Fluffy injured there was no way I could hide it.
I could still hear the flut-flut-screams from the other side, only a few of them sounded scared.
The other sound was a sound you hardly get to hear from domestic flut-fluts, they sounded threatening, the birds behind the fire walls were fighting the metalheads, not running from them.
I walked straight towards the flames, there was no vegetation on the ground so it spread slowly, and I was so angry because there was no way I could cross it.
The wild flut-fluts were so close but yet so…
"Hey!"
Something flew straight trough the fire and knocked me over for the second time in just a few minutes, all I saw was a flash of blue and yellow.
"Wait! Stop!" I shouted, pointless of course.
Cornelius, who was still checking out Fluffy's injuries got out his gun again and shoot a bullet into the ground right in front of the scared animal.
It stopped and turned its face towards us.
A wild flut-flut, covered in blue feathers on its back with a thick yellow stripe and a white stomach.
It was young, hardly older than Spot really, but still it was so different.
Fluffy seemed scared of the new bird, if he weren't still on his back I would have sworn he'd run away, from a chick!
"It's a male" Cornelius said, "Probably Spot's age. Maybe older"
"He's amazing" I said, "And he's all mine"
Cornelius looked sceptical, "yours? And how are you going to take him back? Pick it up and put him in your pocket?"
I ignored him; instead I walked up to Fluffy and took out a rope which hanged on his saddle.
I walked up to the wild chick which still looked scared at me until…
"Shiir!" I jumped backwards and fell to the ground again.
Incredible! It was scared to death but still it tried to defend himself. If I had scared Fluffy like that he would have ran away quicker than an ottsel ate a fish.
"Krik!" Spot came out of his hiding space.
He hadn't learned that even other flut-fluts could be dangerous and saw this bird as a potential playmate.
The wild flut-flut seemed a bit surprised over Spots behaviour but didn't attack.
It had probably never been attacked by another flut-flut before (especially not a chick) and didn't see Spot as a threat, yet he was a stranger. I think wild flut-fluts are instinctively scared of strangers.
Domestic birds like Spot however are petted so much that young birds, who have never seen adults fight think any other bird is a friend.
This bird had probably seen some strangers attack its pack and seemed a bit sceptical about Spot. Spot pecked the wild bird at his beak, a sign of friendship amongst flut-fluts.
This was a language even the wild flut understood; he happily pecked Spot back, all earlier scepticism was forgotten.
This was the chance I had been waiting for; while the wild bird was busy I quickly threw the rope over his head.
He screeched and tried to peck me but this time I was prepared.
I shoot a bullet in the ground in front of him like Cornelius did earlier.
That was enough for Spot who ran back to Cornelius.
The wild bird had no owner of mom to run to, he bend down in front of me and squeaked weakly.
"Hah! I got you now!" I said triumphant.
The flut-flut tried to back of but was stopped by the rope.
"Hey, relax. I won't hurt you" I said with a calm voice, I tried to pet the bird but it just backed of as far as the rope let him.
"He should have a name" said Cornelius. "We can't just call him "it" all the time"
"I know that you moron! Stop telling me what to do" I said angry, "I will call him…"
"Chicken?" suggested Cornelius.
"No you dork! I shall call him Phoenix, the bird who came from the fire"
So, how was it? stupid? boring? Just tell me please!