Feathers in the Wind Page 3

  Poor Aesha, fancy staying in bed and missing this, he thought as they chugged along a narrow backstreet where chickens skedaddled and children waved excitedly as they passed.

  Eventually, they left the city centre behind and came to a vast open area of scrubby grassland. Sachin stopped the rickshaw.

  ‘Here we are,’ he said. ‘There’s plenty of space here for us to practise, though when you’re an expert you’ll be able to fly a kite from the smallest rooftop.’

  He helped Joe from the rickshaw, grabbed a holdall from the front and brought out a red and blue kite that opened into the shape of a diamond. Joe had been hoping for something more elaborate and his disappointment must have been obvious, because Sachin explained that it was best to start with something simple.

  ‘We need to attach the line and then we’re ready.’

  He showed Joe how and where to tie the string and, once it was secure, handed him the spool.

  ‘This string hasn’t got glass on it, has it?’ Joe was anxious to know.

  Sachin shook his head. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘The vultures are safe with us. Now, hold on tightly to the handles of the spool while I walk away from you with the kite.’

  Joe did as he was told, watching the line unravel as Sachin moved away in a direction he had chosen by wetting a finger and holding it up in the air.

  ‘Can you feel the wind blowing from you to me?’ Sachin asked him.

  Joe wasn’t sure he could feel any wind at all, until a gentle breeze tickled the back of his hair.

  ‘There’s not much wind,’ he called.

  ‘It’s enough,’ Sachin called back. ‘Now, I’m going to let go of the kite and I want you to pull on the line, not too hard and not too soft. Try to pick up the wind.’

  Sachin lifted the kite up as far as he could reach and let go. Joe pulled on the line, willing the kite to fly. It tilted and swayed and plunged to the ground.

  ‘Try again, Joe,’ Sachin encouraged him. ‘If you feel the kite start to tug, let out some more line.’

  Joe tried again and again. The kite resisted his every attempt to get it airborne, until he was left biting his lip with frustration, especially when a group of local children arrived and started telling him where he was going wrong.

  ‘I’m useless,’ he cried out. ‘I’ll never do it.’

  He felt like throwing the spool away and demanding to be taken home, but suddenly he felt the kite tugging hard at the line, straining to free itself. This time it was rising upward.

  ‘Let out the line, Joe, let out the line,’ Sachin urged him.

  Joe allowed the string to roll off the spool and watched the kite streaming up, up into the sky.

  ‘Cool!’ he cried. ‘Look at it go!’

  ‘Now you can control it by feeding the line in and out,’ said Sachin, coming to stand with him. ‘Learn to understand how the currents of air move it about.’

  For the second time that day, Joe was exhilarated. I wish Mum and Dad could see me, he thought, as he manoeuvred the kite so that it dipped and dived and swerved and soared. I hope they’ll buy me my own kite so that I can join in with the festival.

  Chapter 8

  They met up with Binti, Peter and Aesha for lunch in a restaurant close to the rescue centre. Joe couldn’t help going on about how brilliant the rickshaw ride had been and how he had mastered the art of flying a kite.

  ‘It’s not easy,’ he assured them. ‘It takes a lot of practice.’

  ‘You can show us how,’ Binti suggested.

  ‘I would if I had a kite,’ Joe immediately responded.

  He tucked hungrily into a bowl of chicken biriani and decided he much preferred it to the sandwiches and apple he would probably have had at home. It certainly beat school dinners.

  ‘I thought you might like to visit the rescue centre after lunch,’ Binti suggested. ‘It’s housing a few interesting patients at the moment.’

  ‘Are they all vultures?’ Aesha asked.

  ‘Wait and see,’ said Binti. ‘The vets and volunteers are looking forward to meeting you and showing you their work.’

  ‘I’ll be able to take photos, won’t I?’ Joe said. He was excited at the prospect of photographing wild birds close up.

  ‘I’ll pose nicely for you,’ Sachin said, pulling a ridiculous face, which made Aesha laugh, despite her attempts to appear aloof and uninterested.

  ‘Let’s go then,’ said Peter. ‘I, for one, am fascinated to see your work.’

  They walked the short distance to the rescue centre. The sun was shining brightly and wherever they looked people were chatting animatedly. Even though they had just eaten, Joe was tempted by the delicious smells coming from the street vendors’ stalls – a mixture of spicy and sweet and scented. Sitting cross-legged on the pavement, a shoemaker was hammering leather into shape while he sang along to rock music on a radio. Peter asked if he minded having his photograph taken. The shoemaker was delighted and grinned up at him toothlessly.

  ‘I didn’t realise he didn’t have any teeth,’ Peter whispered, chuckling as they walked away.

  They reached the rescue centre and Sachin showed them in. It was very clean and modern, not at all how Joe had pictured it. Sachin introduced them to two of the volunteers who were on duty and a young vet called Dipak, who had been working with Binti.

  ‘How’s that little monkey of ours?’ Binti asked her. ‘Still causing havoc?’

  ‘She likes to pull the kittens’ tails,’ Dipak replied. ‘She’s very mischievous.’

  ‘Is there really a monkey here?’ Joe was thrilled. ‘Can we see it?’

  ‘She’s called Nanu and she’s an orphan,’ Binti told him. ‘Her mother tried jumping from one tree to another and misjudged the distance. Sadly, she died, but her baby survived. Nanu was only about three days old when she was brought in, but now she’s three months and doing very well.’

  She led them through a door into a long corridor-like room lined with cages of all sizes. They stopped at each one in turn. Several contained owls, some asleep, some staring out with big watchful eyes.

  ‘They’re victims of road accidents,’ Binti explained. ‘They fly down to catch prey on the verges and aren’t quick enough to get out of the way. There will be more here after the festival.’

  ‘They’re so beautiful,’ said Aesha. ‘It’s sad they get injured.

  ‘No more sad than the vultures,’ Joe protested.

  Aesha pulled a face but didn’t comment.

  The next cage contained a fruit bat, which Binti said had got caught up on barbed wire. It had injured not only its wing but its mouth as well, in trying to bite itself free.

  ‘Yuck!’ said Aesha when she saw it. ‘Bats are the worst.’

  ‘You certainly won’t be following in your mother’s footsteps,’ Peter observed drily. ‘It’s just as well she doesn’t discriminate between different species depending upon how they measure up in the beauty stakes.’

  Joe peered into the cage, wanting to like the bat, but he couldn’t help agreeing with his sister that there was something disturbingly menacing about its face. And all the stories he’d read recently about vampires didn’t help its cause.

  ‘They’re fascinating creatures,’ Binti said. ‘Apart from anything else, they’re the only mammal capable of true flight and, despite what you might have heard, they can see almost as well as humans.’

  ‘I thought they used echolocation,’ said Joe, pleased with himself at knowing the word.

  ‘Not fruit bats. Some species do, though,’ replied Binti. ‘Another interesting fact is that a single bat can eat up to six hundred mosquitoes in an hour, so as someone who seems to be a target for the infernal mozzie, I say it’s a pity there aren’t more of them!’

  The following cage contained a cobra. Aesha was about to express her views on it, when Peter jumped in.

  ‘I suppose this makes it on to your list of nasty horrible ugly creatures as well, does it?’

  ‘Yep,’ Aesha agreed.
‘Snakes are revolting and I don’t know why anyone would want to go near one. Can’t we go and see the monkey now?’

  ‘What happened to the snake?’ Joe asked.

  ‘It had its tail run over,’ Binti told him.

  They moved quickly past the next few cages, most of which contained cats and dogs, though Aesha stopped to coo at a litter of five kittens. Another door opened up to an extensive outdoor area where numerous other animals were housed. Binti headed straight for a cage in the centre.

  ‘Here she is,’ she said. ‘Little Nanu.’

  Joe was instantly enchanted. The monkey leapt over to the fence right by them and peered at him curiously, her head cocked to one side. She bounced up and down excitedly and put her hand through the netting as though asking for food.

  ‘Mind your hair,’ Binti warned. ‘She’ll either pull it or check it for anything edible.’

  ‘She’s so cute!’ Aesha cried. ‘Can I hold her?’

  Binti shook her head. ‘We’re trying to limit her contact with humans because when she’s ready she’ll be reintroduced into the wild.’

  Aesha pouted. ‘One quick hug wouldn’t do any harm.’

  Nanu weed just at that moment, causing Aesha to shriek and Joe to fall about laughing.

  ‘It’s just as well you weren’t hugging her then,’ Peter said.

  The monkey set off across the cage, squealing loudly as though thoroughly pleased with herself, before returning to hang upside down from her tail in front of her observers.

  ‘She’s excited by the attention,’ said Binti. ‘She won’t be so happy when our time is taken up with the vultures and other injured birds. One more day of relative peace, then all hell will break loose.’

  Chapter 9

  The next day Peter finally let on to Joe that, yes, he would have his own kite to fly.

  ‘What about me?’ Aesha had demanded instantly. ‘I want my own kite too.’

  ‘You won’t know how to fly it,’ stated Joe. ‘It’s not easy. You should have come out with me and Sachin instead of staying in bed.’

  ‘Blah, blah, blah,’ growled Aesha. ‘I bet it’s not that difficult, anyway. You’re not just going to buy one for Joe, are you, Dad?’

  ‘Pull a face like that and it won’t be the kites causing vultures to drop from the sky,’ he remarked.

  ‘Not funny, Dad,’ she said. ‘And not fair if you buy a kite for Joe and not me.’

  They had spent the morning at the hotel. Aesha had gone for a swim, while Joe wandered through the hotel taking photographs and Peter caught up with emails and the newspapers. Binti had left early to visit another rescue centre and work with the vets there.

  The hotel was buzzing. Every room was booked and there were guests from all over the world. Joe caught snatches of conversations in languages he could only begin to guess at. The hotel owners had gone to town in decorating the public areas with kites and festoons of ribbons. Even the table decorations were fashioned to represent spools of string.

  The mounting excitement was infectious and Joe couldn’t wait to set off for the Patang Bazaar, which Sachin had told him was the name for the kite market.

  ‘You must go at night-time to buy,’ Sachin had insisted. ‘It’s the best time. Everybody is there. Everybody is happy. It’s an adventure at night-time, especially for young people.’

  ‘We will go at night-time, won’t we, Dad?’ Joe asked anxiously. ‘Sachin says it’s an adventure then.’

  ‘We’ll go this evening,’ Peter promised.

  Joe was delighted because it meant his mother could go with them, and he knew he would see precious little of her for the next day or so.

  When the evening finally came and his father ordered two autorickshaws to take them to the market, Joe could hardly contain himself while they waited for them to arrive.

  ‘It’s fun in a rickshaw,’ he said to his parents and Aesha. ‘It’s a bit scary and noisy because you’re so close to the other traffic, but you get used to it.’

  ‘Hark at our seasoned international traveller,’ Peter teased him gently.

  ‘For a nine-year-old he is a very seasoned international traveller,’ Binti said, squeezing Joe’s shoulder. ‘Not many children his age, or Aesha’s for that matter, will have had so many opportunities to visit other countries.’

  ‘Nor to help save endangered species like we have,’ added Joe.

  ‘We haven’t exactly done much to help,’ Aesha countered.

  ‘You’re learning, that’s the main thing,’ said Binti.

  Joe secretly thought that he’d done more to help than his sister. After all, he was the one who’d found an injured tiger in Russia and even now, as he was setting out to buy a kite, he wondered if he might in some way help with the injured vultures.

  ‘Can I have a big kite?’ he asked Binti after they had settled into the first of the two rickshaws. ‘And can I have one that’s not a diamond shape but something a bit different?’

  ‘We’ll see what choice there is,’ said Binti. ‘But you don’t want something too big or you’ll take off with it!’

  Joe imagined himself flying over the city, weaving in and out of the clouds. That would be so cool!

  The roads and pavements were heaving as the rickshaws trundled towards the city centre. It was true what Sachin had said, that everybody would be there and everybody would be happy. Men, women and children swarmed in all directions, some already clutching precious purchases, others eagerly spilling in and out of stores in search of their own treasures. Street vendors mopped their brows as they served up one plate of food after another, while queues filled the doorways of restaurants where waiters were run off their feet trying to keep up.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much excitement,’ said Binti, and Joe caught the ring of excitement in her own voice.

  The rickshaws came to a halt and they clambered out.

  ‘I think everyone in the entire city must be here,’ said Peter. ‘There’s hardly room to move.’

  ‘Stay close to us,’ Binti told Joe and Aesha. ‘We don’t want to lose you.’

  ‘I don’t want to get lost!’ exclaimed Aesha.

  They made their way towards an outdoor stall, its tables covered with an array of spools, ribbons and strings in every size and colour. The stall next to it was the same, the vendors vying with each other to clinch a sale.

  ‘Sachin says homes all over Ahmedabad turn into kite-producing businesses months before the festival, with family members all doing their bit,’ Binti informed them. ‘The paper and sticks have to be cut, the glue mixed and stirred, and the strings coated with a special glass powder and rice paste.’

  ‘The families must be desperate to see some return for their efforts,’ Peter said. ‘You can understand why they try so hard to grab your attention.’

  ‘We won’t be making our own kites, will we?’ Joe was puzzled by the amount of kite-making equipment when the festival was due to start the next morning.

  ‘Not us,’ his father assured him. ‘But a lot of people obviously will be.’

  They came to a central hall, where hundreds of ready-made kites covered the walls, ceilings and countertops. Joe couldn’t believe his eyes at how many types there were.

  ‘Wow!’ he cried. ‘How do we choose?’

  There were kites with smiley faces and fierce faces; kites the shape of wind socks, doughnuts, parachutes and sails; kites as small as twenty centimetres, others larger than a metre; kites with one colour, two colours and all the colours of the rainbow. Everywhere they looked, people were asking to take a closer look at one kite, dismissing it and demanding to see another. When they’d made up their mind, they spent the next few minutes haggling over price. The cacophony of voices was so loud Joe could scarcely make himself heard. He wondered how the vendors managed to negotiate with so much din going on, yet they dealt with several people at the same time.

  ‘What do you think, Joe?’ Binti had to put her mouth right up to his ear.

&n
bsp; Joe felt so overwhelmed he was on the point of asking his mother to choose for him, when he spotted a blue kite in the shape of a giant squid hanging from a railing by a stall in the corner.

  ‘That one!’ he shouted. ‘Over there.’

  He headed towards it, pushing through the crowds and turning to check that his family was following. As soon as Peter had caught up with him, he pointed again.

  ‘The blue squid,’ he said. ‘That’s the one I’d like.’

  ‘Good choice.’ Peter laughed. ‘You can’t beat a cross-eyed squid.’

  He began to haggle with the stallholder and then went through the whole process again when Aesha decided she wanted a multicoloured arrow-shaped kite from the same place. By the time he had finished he was sweating profusely and desperate to get out.

  ‘In terms of effort expended,’ he said as they emerged on to the street, ‘these are the most valuable purchases I’ve ever made. I hope you’re happy with them.’

  Joe and Aesha nodded. ‘Thanks, Dad.’

  Chapter 10

  Joe and his family ate at a restaurant that evening. The atmosphere was electric with anticipation, everyone talking loudly, some of the diners demonstrating their prowess with a kite through elaborate arm waving and hand gestures.

  ‘If only there wasn’t such a big negative side to it all,’ Binti sighed. ‘I can’t quite bring myself to rejoice in their excitement because of that.’

  Joe felt a bit guilty that he and Aesha were going to be joining in the celebrations, even though they had bought normal string for their kites. We won’t be doing any harm, he kept trying to convince himself.