Chapter 3: Evening

The city was bathed in the light from the street lamps and the lights coming from the houses where families were enjoying the home fires, but it was clear that the night had not quite arrived yet, as people were walking in the streets talking to each other, children were playing games, even some stalls were open! During the summer especially during the holiday season Rio was always very active, it didn't matter if it was day or night, the main thing was the nice sunny weather that Rio is famous for. During the carnival season most things would normally be closed and everyone would be at the carnival, so Blu enjoyed the fact that no matter what the circumstances the people of this city were able to enjoy life with others. He remembered that in Minnesota it was hard to see anyone outside, most sat locked up in their homes separating themselves from the outside world, although this may have been due to the rather harsh climate that prevailed there.

Linda and Tulia's house stood on a hill, not far from the man's clinic where the two parrots met. The building was at the other end of town, but that did not dampen the Gunderson family's enthusiasm, they had come such a long way...

Flying over the town, Blu watched the town from below, observing the people marching along the streets or standing by the stalls. At one point he was so lost that he almost flew into a voltage pole! Fortunately, Jewel warned him at the last moment, so he avoided crashing into the obstacle.

After a quarter of an hour, the Spix Macaw family arrived at Monteiro's house. The lights in the house were on, so they were most likely still awake, Blu was already able to notice from quite a distance that the living room window was open wide, so he guessed that this was in a kind of invitation for them to boldly fly inside. Taking advantage of this, they headed towards the living room where the window was open and flew inside.

Flying into the living room, they immediately met Linde, who was watering the plants with a watering can. When she heard the flutter of wings she turned to them and immediately a fiery blush and smile appeared on her face. She put down the watering can and approached them quickly, hugging Blu as hard as she could, but so as not to hurt him.

"Oh, Blu! There you are! It's good to see you, really! " said an overjoyed Linda hugging her charge. A moment later she put him down and looked at the rest of his family, mostly for his descendants. "It's good to see you all! I see you have grown into decent parrots, Tiago, Bia and Carla," Linda said proudly. And they did. The three of them stood out from the other younger parrots in the flock. A lot of training and a lot of exercise and a well-chosen diet to have nice, shiny feathers gave a lot.

"Fernando, come down here for a minute!" Linda asked. Blu had just wondered where both he and Tulio, who seemed to be absent from the house, had gone.

"Ah these youngsters...they play games all the time...but well, such times. Tulio stayed at the clinic, he's filling in some papers" The woman communicated, seeing Blu looking for other people with his eyes. After a few moments, a tall, rather heavily built man with curly hair was coming down the stairs. After a couple of years of training Fernando was showing strong results in what he was doing. His height was also impressive, he was now 17 years old and his height surpassed his peers.

"Mum, I don't play, I just watch...never mind anyway. Good to see you Gunderson team!" Fernando greeted, nailing a turtle with each parrot.

"Please fly inside, it's starting to get a bit cold outside" invited Linda. The parrots flew inside and the woman closed the window behind them to keep the cold air from flying in.

"Tiago, Blu, I assume you know what I'm watching?" Fernando asked. During the summer there was always the championships, the Counter-Strike competitions. Even before they decided to fly out to Amazon Blu, Tiago and Fernando watched the competition together, cheering for their favourite teams. Tiago and Fernando were rooting for a team called Fury, Blu was rooting for them too, but not quietly dreaming that Team Liquid would win. Blu still remembered such competitions before the newer version of Counter-Strike came out, watching the competition on the old, classic Counter-Strike 1.6, when there were no unnecessary additions, in his opinion.

"Oh, Fernando. They are certainly very tired on their way. Right? Give them some rest?" Linda asked. Jewel, Carla and Bia modestly nodded, while Blu and Tiago were eager to watch a few games with their boyfriend.

"Alright, I'll show you the room you'll be sleeping in. We made an aviary for you...in a way. Blu, I see you still have the strength to watch at night?" Said the woman sarcastically, to which Blu nodded with a laugh.

"Enjoy watching boys," said Jewel, after which she and her daughters headed to the room Linda had pointed out to them.

Fernando, meanwhile, went with Blu and Tiago to his room to watch the Counter-Strike matches.

When the 3 of them locked themselves in Fernando Blu was impressed with the room the boy had. It was furnished with various gaming equipment, glowing items, and various gadgets of the team they were rooting for. Jerseys, scarves, various banners from previous editions of the championships (that year it was held in Rio), everything looked very neat and composed with each other, everything blending together nicely with the green, red and black elements. On the desk, there were all sorts of sweets prepared as well as drinks, at the sight of which Tiago smiled. His attention was drawn to the salty popcorn that he was so fond of.

"Mmm...popcorn!" Said Tiago cheerfully, flying over to the desk. He didn't take anything from the countertop, however, because the host didn't allow it. It was a mannerism learned straight from his father. Blu did the same, except that he was calmly watching the players play on the desk.

"Take what you want, it's too much for me anyway," said Fernando slipping a carton of popcorn towards Tiago. This one, however, looked uncertainly at Blu, who nodded and waved with a head movement.

"Jewel won't know about it. Besides, we're on holiday, right?" Blu asked rhetorically. This gave the green light for Tiago, who started eating the popcorn without looking at the crumbs falling on the desk. The real spectacle, however, was before them - the match was about to begin.

While watching the match of their favourite team it was very noisy both in the stands and in Fernando's room. Several times Linda intervened to get the three boys' attention to be quieter, because Tulio, Jewel, Carla and Bia were trying to fall asleep and not succeeding, due to the boys who were giving vent to their emotions. They didn't even look at the hour, they enjoyed what they could watch, the duels breathtaking, the ecstasy of joy, sadness, surprise, all this at once made them disappointed when the meeting ended, with a positive result however for Fury, which made them very happy. Watching together gave them a lot of fun, both for Tiago and Blu, who could reminisce about the old times, when they did exactly the same thing while sipping chocolate. Even Linda watched from time to time!

After finishing watching, Fernando went to bed, as did Tiago, Blu escorted him to his specially decorated room, then flew downstairs to join Linda, who was alone gazing out the window at the starry sky. He was interested in the reason why she was not going to bed at this hour. Flying over to her, he noticed the time on the clock - it was 2.00 a.m.

"I'm glad you guys flew in. It's a bit quiet here without you guys...Fernando will be moving out soon, he's becoming a man...you know Blu that this holiday is special for us, right?" Linda asked. Blu nodded his head knowingly. He knew full well that this was no ordinary time spent together, he had been thinking about the moment they would get together since the new year broke.

"Can you realise that it's been 10 years that we've been here? We've been living in Brazil for 10 years, something amazing! You for 5 already in the jungle! You'd think we'd make it this far from Minnesota?" Linda asked. Blu shrugged his shoulders. It wasn't so obvious when you looked back on it. That time had passed so quickly and unpredictably that it was hard to think they were celebrating a decade!

"Ah, I remember when you were a flightless still! And our watching movies together...ah, and remember how I always wanted to study and you got in my way?" Linda laughed. Blu remembered the school period when the girl wanted to study, but he, as a still young Spix Macaw male, wanted to play, hooking young Linda to play along with him. In his high school days, however, Blu stopped bothering her when she wanted to study, he was older now and knew she should study (he did sometimes too, by the way).

"Oh, or how you tried to fly at night! Ah...it would be a lot to mention, but let's go to sleep better. We have a special surprise that we will tell you about soon,,,,now let's go to bed" Linda communicated.

"Surprise?" Blu thought. Blu's gaze immediately betrayed his desire to know more details about the thing, but Linda was adamant.

"No Blu, you'll find out some other time. Let's go to bed now," Linda denied. She headed upstairs with her bird, where they split up on opposite sides of the corridor.

The room where the Gunderson family spent the night looked like something of a small aviary prepared especially for them. It was a rather small, unused room which had been turned into a small aviary with permanent access to water, artificial lighting, a single plastic tree with food and sand. Blu could see the family sleeping in the nest but he did not go to them for the moment. He flew up to the window where there was a view of part of the city. He was delighted. Delighted that he could return to the people, to Linda, to take a little break from the jungle. It wasn't that he didn't like her, it was just that after that one evening he found he was still comfortable (if not better) around people. He just felt more at ease here despite the fact that life in the jungle turned out to be not so bad. Then there was the news of the surprise. What could it have been? Could it be some kind of gift? Linda had often given him such things in his youth, so it would be nice to receive something again. Whatever it was, he would be very happy with it, it would mean a lot to him.

Soon Blu felt the fatigue. A whole day's flight and watching games in the game meant that it wasn't until around 2.45 a.m. that Blu felt tired. He flew up to the nest where his family was sleeping then lay down next to them. A few moments later he fell asleep.