Mister Cassowary Read online

  ‘Like on the map? Inside?’

  ‘Exactly right. We have six cassowaries who regularly use your grandad’s corridor. It’s been a big success—’

  ‘Six?’ I said.

  ‘Yes, we think so. Actually, that’s just an educated guess at this point,’ said Cathy. ‘Although we’re gathering more information from the cassowaries’ dung to identify each individual, and we do tag a few. But at the moment, we mainly rely on regular patrols and people registering any sightings. So far six is our closest guestimate, although a few chicks have been sighted in recent months, which is good.’

  ‘What if a cassowary went missing? Like the dad of a pair of …’ I had been about to say ‘chicks’, but I quickly shut my mouth. I didn’t want to give away my secret. Besides, Dad was striding towards us.

  ‘There you are,’ he said. ‘I thought you were going to collect the leaves out the front, where I could see you.’

  ‘Hi, Steve,’ said Cathy, holding out her hand. ‘Thanks so much for coming along.’

  ‘No worries,’ said Dad, shaking her hand quickly while glancing towards the pens behind the nursery.

  ‘I was just explaining our buyback scheme to Flynn,’ said Cathy. ‘But I guess you’d know about it?’

  Dad’s eyebrows were crashing together like storm clouds.

  ‘The trouble is, a lot of the forest around here isn’t protected,’ continued Cathy. ‘So we rely on landowners, like yourselves, to help us by selling all or part of your land to be revegetated.’

  Dad’s face grew darker.

  Cathy turned to me. ‘We didn’t call your grandad Mister Cassowary for nothing, you know,’ she said. ‘They were all his ideas: the corridors, the tree program, the buyback scheme. You must be pretty proud.’

  Dad cleared his throat. ‘We better get a move on with the clean-up,’ he said. ‘The weather’s really closing in.’

  Cathy glanced up at the sky. ‘You’re right. It is coming in quick. Want an express tour of the cassowary enclosure before you start, Flynn?’

  I said ‘yes’ before Dad could stop me. Now it didn’t matter that I’d wasted our snooping time. Not if Cathy showed us around! I grinned at Abby, and she grinned back.

  ‘Don’t be long,’ Dad called as we headed through the nursery and out another gate. ‘I’m going to start on the drains. I’ll check on you shortly.’

  My heart was racing so fast I hardly heard him. I took a deep breath. This was it. I’d finally get to see if the cassowary we hit was here.

  Abby and I followed Cathy to the high-wired pens that filled the area behind the house. I half expected to see people in prison clothes parading up and down inside the fences. The wind made the green shade cloths attached along the sides billow about like sails on a boat. The sound made my stomach flutter.

  ‘Should I ask Cathy about the cassowary?’ I whispered to Abby. ‘It’s just that, I’m not sure, she might know if it used the corridor.’

  ‘Shhh,’ said Abby. ‘Just wait.’

  Cathy stopped at a pen and gestured for me to look through a small square cut into the shade cloth. ‘This is Judith,’ she said. ‘We’re not sure if she was hit by a car, or if she was bitten by something. Anyhow, we’ve got her on antibiotics, so we’re waiting to see how she goes.’

  Abby shot me a look. ‘Where did you find her?’ she asked.

  ‘Near Tully Beach, I think,’ said Cathy. ‘I’d have to check her records. We had a few casualties last week.’

  A few? Like the one on the road to Grandad’s farm?

  I stood on tiptoe and peered in. There, hiding under the shelter of a bush, was a beautiful cassowary. Its eyes blinked, watching me. I sucked in a breath. Was this the one we had hit?

  I let my breath out. No, Judith looked too small. But she was still amazing. Up this close, I could see her body feathers were like jet-black quills. Her neck was electric blue, her wattle redder than Mum’s Cherry Delight lipstick. The skin above her eye was fluorescent, like it had been coloured with a yellow highlighter pen. There were even jagged yellow stripes on her casque.

  I stared at Judith a minute longer. She definitely seemed too small, so she couldn’t be the one we’d hit. I pulled my head away from the viewing square and followed Cathy and Abby to the next pen.

  In this one, I saw a knee-high cassowary chick splashing in and out of an artificial pond. He was taller than Peanut and Jumble and, instead of brown and yellow stripes, his feathers were soft and mousy. He looked like an ugly duckling playing in the water, just like my hide-and-seek chicks.

  ‘This is Rocky,’ said Cathy. ‘He’s about seven months old. A dog attacked him. Poor thing. See the bite wounds?’

  I bit down on my bottom lip. Ugly bloodied patches gaped where feathers had once been. But Rocky seemed happy enough. There was plenty of room for him to run around, as well as green grass to peck and ferns to hide under. A bowl of fresh fruit and another of pellets sat beside a bowl full of fresh water.

  I wondered how Peanut and Jumble would like this enclosure? It didn’t seem like prison, but …

  ‘We lock Rocky in at night,’ said Cathy, pointing to a wooden shelter in the corner of his pen. ‘So the scrub pythons don’t get a free feed.’

  Scrub pythons? I hadn’t even thought about that. What if snakes attacked my chicks? I didn’t lock them inside Grandad Barney’s at night.

  At the last enclosure, the green shade cloth was higher than the others.

  ‘Have a peek through here, but don’t put your face too close,’ said Cathy, nodding towards a tiny square. ‘Real beauty this fella.’

  My toes tingled. Was this him?

  I edged closer and peered inside. But I leapt back as a huge cassowary paced past me, his vicious beak only centimetres from my face.

  ‘That’s Doug. We’ve had him here for a couple of months, retraining him to be a cassowary,’ said Cathy. ‘Before that he was hanging out in a local’s carport, making a menace of himself.’

  ‘Got a taste for Chiko Rolls, silly doofus.’ Walter had come over while we’d been watching Doug, and now he stood beside me.

  ‘How do you retrain them?’ I asked.

  ‘We use a lot of noise to scare them, basically. To teach them to stay away from people,’ said Walter. ‘Makes it all a bit unpleasant, so they learn humans aren’t their friends.’

  ‘And when we feed them,’ added Cathy, ‘we never let them see us putting out their food. Cassowaries are actually very shy birds. We have to teach them to be shy again.’

  I hadn’t taught Peanut and Jumble to be shy. I’d thrown food to them like they were puppies waiting for treats. I’d done the opposite of what I should have done.

  ‘Hey, Walter?’ A man in shorts and work boots came over carrying a chainsaw. ‘Which branches do you want off?’

  ‘You right, kiddos?’ asked Walter. ‘I’d better go.’

  ‘I’d better get going, too,’ said Cathy. ‘I need to clean the ute after this morning. You okay to take Flynn back out the front, Abby?’

  Abby nodded, pushing her hair from her eyes. The wind was blowing it everywhere.

  ‘There’re a couple of rakes in the LandCruiser,’ said Walter. ‘If you could pile the leaves up with the rest of the stuff to get burnt, that’d be great.’

  Once Cathy and Walter had gone, Abby and I stood alone beside Doug’s pen.

  ‘Looks like he’s not here,’ I said, my lip quivering. ‘What are we going to do now?’

  Abby peeked through the shade cloth at Doug. ‘Are you sure it wasn’t that first one? I reckon Judith came in about the same time as you hit your bird.’

  I scratched my head. ‘No. Ours was bigger. I’m sure of it. Maybe that rescue Cathy did this morning was him?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Abby drew her face away as Doug’s black shadow passed. ‘But then, where’s he been all this
time?’

  The chainsaw began to roar in the distance. I waited till a group of helpers carrying handfuls of dead palm fronds had passed. ‘I don’t know. But we have to find out. My chicks won’t survive if we don’t find their dad.’

  ‘I think we should tell Cathy. Tell her the whole story. Now, before the cyclone comes,’ said Abby.

  My mouth went dry. Telling Cathy would mean I might never see my chicks again. I dug my fingernails into my palms. I couldn’t bear not to see their cute little faces. Then I thought of Rocky, splashing happily in his cage. They’d be safer here at the centre. I took a deep breath. ‘Maybe you’re right.’

  Abby shook her hair from her face again. ‘Why don’t you think about it while we clean up,’ she said. ‘Come on, let’s go get those rakes.’

  The sky over the car park had grown so dark, it felt like late afternoon already.

  ‘Do you think the cyclone will really hit?’ I asked.

  Abby passed me a rake from the back of the LandCruiser and screwed up her nose. ‘Who knows? Do you get cyclones in Brisbane?’

  ‘Well, we did have a really bad hail storm last year. But I’ve never been in a cyclone.’

  ‘Larry and Yasi just about flattened Mission Beach,’ said Abby, pulling out a rake for herself.

  ‘Did your house get wrecked?’ I asked. ‘My mum told me they caused millions of dollars’ worth of damage.’

  Abby started raking the leaves. ‘Our house was fine, but my pop’s roof got blown off. He and Nan had to live with us for nearly a year.’

  I started raking, too, but it was nearly impossible. The wind was so strong it kept blowing leaves back the way we’d swept them. ‘I wish my grandad could have lived with us for a year,’ I said. ‘That must have been awesome.’ Maybe that way I would have got to know him.

  Abby and I had raked for more than an hour before Dad came over to us. ‘Not going too good?’ he said, looking at our dismal pile. ‘Me neither. Walter thinks we should pack it in. The weather’s turning too nasty. I’m going to fire up the barbie now, so I’ll give you a call when it’s ready.’

  It wasn’t long before the smell of sizzling sausages filled the air. My mouth watered.

  ‘Want to check it out?’ Abby asked. ‘I’m starving.’

  I looked across the road. Dad had stacked fresh white bread in piles on the small fold-out table and set out bottles of barbeque and tomato sauce, plus two plates each of caramel coloured onions and delicious-looking grated cheese. My stomach rumbled.

  ‘Race you!’ shouted Abby.

  I took off after her, still holding my rake. We were halfway to the barbecue, when some yelled, ‘Watch out!’

  Abby and I skidded to a stop. One of the volunteers was making broad sweeping motions with her arms. ‘Hey, shoo! Get out, go on, shoo!’ she yelled.

  At first I thought she was shouting at me. My face burnt. But then Abby tugged my arm. ‘Not you, silly, behind you!’

  I froze. An adult cassowary was striding towards us. It had lost most of its feathers and pink skin shone through in patches. It was huge, but it looked thin. And hungry.

  ‘Don’t run. And don’t look it in the eye,’ hissed Abby. ‘Just stand really, really still. Otherwise …’

  I stood still like a statue, my pulse drumming in my ears. The cassowary kept coming, placing one enormous clawed foot deliberately in front of the other. I tried to take deep breaths. It was now only four steps away from me and Abby.

  Three … Two … One …

  The cassowary stood directly in front of me. It was so close that I could smell its wet feathers. I held my breath and gripped the rake tightly to my chest. Despite Abby’s advice, I glanced up at its face.

  It wasn’t looking at me. It was staring over my shoulder at something else.

  Someone else.

  One … Two … Three …

  I let a shaky breath out through my nose. The cassowary walked steadily past me. But now it was headed towards the barbecue, its strange yellow-and-black eyes focused on Dad’s back.

  ‘Dad!’ I shouted. ‘Dad, be careful!’ But Dad couldn’t hear me above the chainsaw roaring across the road. He continued to turn the sausages with tongs like nothing was wrong. I had to get closer.

  I took one step towards him. ‘Dad! There’s a—’

  ‘Stand still!’ hissed Abby.

  The cassowary darted its head left and right and shook its remaining feathers. It was now only metres away from Dad. The cassowary puffed out its chest.

  ‘Dad!’ I screamed. ‘Behind you!’

  Dad finally turned around. When he registered the huge cassowary before him, his eyes grew wide and his jaw dropped. ‘Big Blue! What on earth?!’

  Dad stepped backwards, bumping his bottom against the barbecue. He gripped the tongs tightly. They were his only weapon against Big Blue’s murderous claws.

  Big Blue raised his neck so that his face was level with Dad’s. I watched, as if in slow motion, as he lifted one threatening foot …

  ‘STOP!’

  I ran before I realised what I was doing. In an instant I stood between the world’s most enormous cassowary and my dad. My stomach clenched as the black pupils of Big Blue’s eyes stared right into mine. His sharp beak snapped at me.

  ‘Flynnie!’ Dad lunged sideways, to dive in front of me, but Big Blue jumped and blocked his way. He wasn’t letting Dad out of his sight.

  ‘Go away!’ I bellowed, waving the rake. ‘Get lost!’

  The cassowary opened its beak and hissed.

  ‘GO AWAY, BIG BLUE!’ I yelled.

  ‘It’s okay, Flynn,’ yelled Abby. ‘Look!’ Abby’s voice trembled almost as much as my knees.

  Walter and Cathy were sneaking across the road, wearing what looked like cricket batting pads around their chests. Cathy carried a net so mammoth she had to hold it with two hands, and Walter ran with a strange plastic stick.

  Big Blue inched closer to Dad and me. ‘It’s okay,’ whispered Dad, placing a shaking hand on my shoulder. ‘Walter knows what he’s doing.’

  ‘Stand back!’ shouted Walter, aiming the stick at the cassowary’s leg. He pressed a button, and a tiny dart shot out, lodging deep into Big Blue’s thigh.

  I drew in a sharp breath as Big Blue looked around, his eyes fuzzy. His long legs wobbled and his head drooped. Then he swayed and almost fell on top of Dad and me. He tried to stretch his neck up again, but he had grown too weak.

  Meanwhile, Walter and Cathy continued to creep towards us.

  ‘Here, chook,’ Walter soothed. ‘We’re not going to hurt you.’

  Big Blue stumbled and spotted Cathy with the net. He tried to dive to the side, but his legs were too shaky. Cathy closed in quickly and slammed the net down over Big Blue’s head. At the same time, Walter leapt forwards, using his body to pin the cassowary to the ground. Big Blue’s eyes were big and wide and frightened.

  A lump grew in my throat.

  Seconds later Big Blue had gone limp. ‘Walter, you right to secure his legs?’ said Cathy, trying to catch her breath. ‘I’ll pop on the hood.’

  Walter tied Big Blue’s legs together with a noose-like rope while Cathy slipped a fabric hood over Big Blue’s head.

  ‘We’ll need a hand to lift him,’ said Walter, looking hopefully at Dad. But Dad was frozen behind me.

  ‘Can we have some help here? Quick smart?’ yelled Walter.

  Volunteers appeared from all directions. They must have been watching from the safety of the surrounding bushes, and now, under Cathy’s guidance, they positioned themselves around the cassowary while Walter counted, ‘One … Two … Three.’

  They lifted the cassowary and carried him away. I could hear them puffing as they passed us. Big Blue might have been skinny, but he seemed heavy.

  When they were gone, Abby sprinted over but stopped short
when she saw Dad.

  ‘Is he okay?’ she whispered.

  I turned to look. Dad was bent over double, taking in deep shaky breaths. His face was red and covered in sweat, and his eyes were staring straight ahead, not focusing on anything.

  I ran over and put an arm around him. ‘Dad? Dad, it’s gone now. We’re safe.’

  ‘Lucky Walter’s a ninja with the tranquiliser gun,’ said Abby, her eyes glued to Dad. ‘That was pretty close.’

  Dad was still making raspy noises with his breathing. I wished Mum were here to help.

  ‘Haven’t seen Big Blue for a while,’ Walter said, when he came back out. He looked worriedly at Dad. ‘You okay, Steve?’ Finally Dad coughed and gave a half-hearted nod.

  I rubbed his back, like Mum did when I wasn’t feeling well. ‘Was that cassowary really Big Blue?’ I asked.

  ‘The infamous Big Blue?’ said Walter. ‘My word. No other cassowary has ever been so big. How old would he be now, Steve? Twenty-five? Thirty?’

  Dad slowly straightened. His face was pale, and his hands were shaking.

  ‘Dad,’ I whispered, stepping a little closer. ‘Walter just asked you a question.’

  When Dad finally spoke, his voice was husky. ‘Thirty-two,’ he murmured. ‘Ten years younger than me.’

  Walter whistled. ‘And still the biggest cassowary around. Not looking too grand, is he? Something tells me the big fella’s missing your grandad, Flynn.’ He glanced over to the rehab centre. ‘Cathy’s taking some bloods and we’ll send them off to see what’s wrong with his feathers. Poor bloke.’

  ‘And then what will they do with him?’ I asked.

  ‘Depends on what’s wrong. We might have him here for a while, I’d say. But one thing’s for sure – he’s not a well cookie.’

  Lightning flashed in the distance and rain started to fall in big plops all around us.

  ‘Listen, you two,’ said Walter, ‘you’ve both had quite a shock. How about coming inside to sit down?’

  ‘No, that’s okay,’ said Dad, swallowing hard. ‘I think Flynn and I might just head home. Any chance of a lift back to Dad’s?’