Feathers in the Wind Read online

  ‘Try telling that to the dog outside,’ snorted Aesha. ‘And we’re lost as well.’

  Are we lost? Joe asked himself. They had certainly wandered quite some distance from the field, but he was sure they’d be able to find their way back.

  They fell silent, partly listening out for the dog and partly because neither of them felt able to say anything, until Joe asked Aesha, ‘You’d be sad if the vulture died, wouldn’t you?’

  Aesha knelt down next to him and stared hard at the bird. ‘Yes,’ she said after a while. ‘I would be sad.’

  The vulture stirred a little as if in response and then became still again. Joe scrambled to his feet and went to the window. He could hear voices, faint but persistent. He tried to identify which direction they were coming from. If we can hear them, can we make them hear us? he wondered.

  ‘What if we stand here and keep yelling “Help!”?’ he suggested. ‘Someone’s bound to hear us eventually.’

  Aesha looked doubtful. ‘Everyone’s focused on the kites,’ she replied.

  ‘What if I could get out of the window?’ Joe said. ‘What if we break the glass and I climb through it?’

  ‘Then what?’ Aesha was curious.

  ‘I shout for help – or . . .’ Joe was warming to his idea ‘. . . or I fly the squid in the hope that Dad sees it.’

  Aesha looked doubtful now. ‘You’ll never be able to fly your kite from such a small space,’ she said.

  ‘I can give it a go,’ he said simply.

  Aesha nodded. ‘I’ll break the window,’ she said. ‘I’m stronger than you and you might hurt yourself. Stand clear.’

  Joe pulled a face, but he was too pleased that his sister had agreed to want to argue with her. He moved out of the way. Without a second’s hesitation, and to his utter astonishment, Aesha picked up the swivel chair and crashed its wheels against the glass, shattering it into a thousand pieces.

  ‘Wow!’ was all he could find to say. He would never have told Aesha, but in that moment she grew in his estimation.

  ‘I’m not just a pretty face,’ she said loftily.

  Taking great care not to cut themselves, they removed the remaining shards of glass from the window frame and placed the table underneath the gaping hole. Joe grabbed his kite from his rucksack and clambered on to the table. I’m going to be first out!

  ‘Wait, Joe.’ Aesha held him back. ‘What if the roof’s not safe?’

  Joe hadn’t thought of that, but he was certain that flying his kite would be the only way to alert his father to their whereabouts.

  ‘I’ll spread my weight until I’m sure it’s OK,’ Joe promised.

  He crawled through the window and once he was on the roof he went down on all fours. He was pleased to discover that the roof was larger than he’d first thought. It seemed to be solidly built as well, with a parapet protecting the edge.

  ‘It’s fine,’ he called back to Aesha. ‘It’s perfectly safe.’

  He stood up and walked to the parapet. The street below was empty. The surrounding buildings were taller than the building they were in, which meant he was unable to see beyond them. But there were kites in the sky not too far away. That must be the field over there, he thought. Please, Dad, look up here!

  Aesha crawled through the window and joined him. ‘Let’s give it a try then,’ she said. ‘I’m worried the vulture’s getting worse.’

  Chapter 14

  The roof might have been bigger than he’d expected, but there was very little space compared to the vast expanse of the field, and there was hardly any breeze because of the tall buildings nearby.

  ‘This is hopeless!’ Aesha was close to screaming with frustration after many failed attempts at launching the squid. ‘I’m going to see if the dogs are still there.’

  Joe watched her climb back through the window and waited, the squid’s crossed eyes seeming to mock him. ‘Why won’t you fly?’ he muttered. ‘It can’t be that difficult.’

  It was a few minutes before his sister returned, the sound of a dog’s bark telling him what he needed to know, followed by Aesha’s furious face.

  ‘I thought they had gone. I got all the way to the bottom of the stairs and the street was empty, then one came bounding back round the corner,’ she said, joining him on the roof again.

  ‘Let’s try the kite once more,’ said Joe.

  ‘You can’t fly a kite without any wind,’ Aesha hissed.

  ‘There’s the odd current of air,’ Joe contended. ‘We just need to be patient and make sure we catch it. And we don’t have a lot of choice, unless you can think of anything better.’

  Aesha snatched the squid from his hands and walked away from him as far as she could go. ‘This is never going to work, even if we do manage to launch the kite,’ she grumbled loudly. ‘Nobody’s going to see it.’

  Joe told her to hush while he focused on the breeze and ignored it when she pulled a face at him. He asked her to move slightly to her left, a bit further, then a bit further still.

  ‘Make up your mind!’ she groaned. ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to stand on the parapet?’

  Briefly, Joe thought that wouldn’t be a bad idea, but dismissed it with a wry smile.

  ‘Right, stay there,’ he said, ‘and when I say “now” I want you to hold the kite above your head and let it go.’

  A few seconds later, he shouted his instruction, pulled the line tight and the kite, falteringly, took off. Joe let out more line, slowly but surely. The squid somersaulted and threatened to plunge, then it was ambushed by a strong current of air and swept upward. Joe and Aesha watched with their hearts in their mouths, unable to speak until they were sure it was safely sky-bound.

  ‘We did it!’ Aesha clapped her hands with excitement. ‘We did it, Joe!’

  Joe grinned. He kept releasing more line and could feel the squid trying to escape from him. ‘Look at it go!’ he exclaimed. ‘The wind’s so much more powerful up there.’

  ‘Don’t take off, will you?’

  Aesha laughed, but Joe was finding it difficult to control the kite, it was pulling so hard at his arms.

  ‘We’ll have to make sure we don’t let it fall, and we’ll have to keep it out of the way of any fighter kites,’ he said, though what few kites he could see were too distant to cause a problem.

  They took it in turns to hold the squid. Joe had wanted to do it all himself, but his arms were already aching so much when Aesha offered that he was glad to let her play her part. For a while, they enjoyed the thrill and challenge of keeping the kite airborne, acknowledging to each other that it was quite a feat and that they were improving their aerodynamic skills by the minute.

  As time went by, though, Joe became more and more convinced their plan wouldn’t work. Why should Dad look in this direction? he thought gloomily. It may not even be obvious that the squid is a squid from where he is. He may not even be on the field any more.

  ‘What if Dad’s gone back to the hotel?’ Aesha said, handing the spool to Joe. ‘It’s killing, keeping the kite flying.’

  ‘I don’t think he’d go away, in case we came back,’ Joe said. ‘He’ll probably have asked for help.’

  ‘From the police?’ Aesha grimaced. ‘I hope we don’t get into trouble.’

  ‘It’s not really our fault,’ muttered Joe. He was exhausted, but didn’t want to let on to Aesha that he was beginning to think they should just sit and wait for the dog to go. He watched the squid dancing above and listened to the voices coming from below.

  Voices! Shouting!

  ‘There’s somebody there!’ he yelled at his sister.

  Aesha ran to the parapet and looked down. ‘It’s Sachin!’ she cried. ‘Up here, we’re up here.’

  Joe was so relieved that he let go of the spool. The squid, free at last, took off with the wind.

  Chapter 15

  In no time, Sachin and the group of men he was with had frightened off the dog and scaled the stairs to the roof. Joe felt like throwing himself
at him he was so joyful.

  ‘We saw the kite,’ Sachin told them. ‘Your father contacted the rescue centre and asked anyone in the area to look out for you and your kites. He’s very, very worried about you.’

  Aesha explained what had happened.

  ‘We only meant to be gone a few seconds,’ Joe confirmed. ‘But we couldn’t leave the vulture and the dog wouldn’t go away.’

  Sachin bent down to examine the bird. ‘It’s very poorly,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘We need to get it seen to urgently.’

  He took a walkie-talkie from his backpack and made a call to the rescue centre, asking them to send a van and to let Peter Brook know that his children had been found and were fine.

  ‘Does Mum know we’ve been missing?’ Aesha asked.

  ‘We’ve kept it from her,’ Sachin replied. ‘She’s got enough to deal with at the moment, and your father was certain you’d turn up safe and sound.’

  ‘He won’t be very happy when he finds out we’ve both lost our kites,’ Joe said quietly.

  ‘I think he’ll be happy just knowing you’re OK,’ Sachin assured him.

  A short while later, the van arrived and the vulture was carefully placed inside. Joe gently patted its feathers. ‘Please live,’ he said under his breath.

  Aesha copied him, saying out loud, ‘I hope it lives’, and he wondered if she had finally decided that vultures were worth saving.

  Sachin walked Aesha and Joe back to the edge of the field, where it had been agreed Peter would meet them. As soon as he saw them, he rushed over and hugged them tight.

  ‘Those were the longest few hours of my life,’ he said weakly. ‘I knew you would be all right, but I just couldn’t imagine what had happened to you.’

  ‘Sorry, Dad,’ they both whispered.

  Sachin left them to it and returned to vulture duty, while they made their way to a restaurant for something to eat and drink. Joe was so thirsty he devoured a glass of lemonade in one go and demanded another. Above the cacophony of music and voices, Aesha began the story of their escapade, embellishing it somewhat, especially the danger from the dogs.

  ‘You should have seen them, Dad,’ she recounted. ‘They were both huge and they had froth coming from their mouths. I threw a potato at one of them and because I managed to throw it so far we had time to get the vulture away, otherwise they’d have torn it to pieces, and us as well probably.’

  ‘The kite was my idea,’ Joe put in. ‘We just hoped and hoped you would see it.’

  ‘Thank goodness you chose a cross-eyed squid, that’s all I can say.’ Peter smiled. ‘If you’d chosen a common or garden diamond, we’d never have found you. Where is the blue beast, by the way?’

  Joe bit his lip. ‘I’m sorry, Dad, but I let go of it when Sachin arrived,’ he said guiltily. ‘It was pulling my arms off.’

  ‘Thank heavens,’ Peter said, wiping his brow dramatically. ‘I’ve had enough of kites for one day.’

  ‘Does that mean we can’t see the tukals tonight?’ Joe wasn’t sure what he thought about that. He’d sort of had enough of kites too, but he didn’t want to miss out on the illuminated kites Sachin had mentioned to him when they were together.

  ‘We’ll see,’ Peter said.

  They finished eating and arranged for a taxi to take them back to their hotel. Even Joe didn’t feel like a ride in an autorickshaw. All he wanted to do was lie down on his bed and close his eyes. It was only six o’clock in the evening, but it seemed as if they had been awake for twenty-four hours. He wondered how his mother would cope with staying awake all night, and what she would think when she heard about his and Aesha’s adventure.

  ‘Will we be able to go and see our vulture tomorrow?’ he asked his father as they walked into the hotel.

  Peter nodded. ‘Your mother had agreed that we should see some of the results of her work, and I think there’s even more reason now.’

  Stretched out on his bed, Joe played back the events of the day. It had been exciting and exhilarating and scary and exhausting. He was glad Aesha had been with him. He wouldn’t have wanted to be on his own to deal with an injured vulture and hungry stray dogs. It had been bad enough when he found himself just metres away from an injured tiger in Russia.

  The day wasn’t over yet, though. I’ll sleep for a short time, then wake up and go and watch the tukals. Dad won’t want to miss them, I’m sure he won’t, and if Mum can stay awake, then so can we.

  Chapter 16

  Joe didn’t wake up, though – not until noon the next day. He was cross when his father came into the room and he realised what time it was.

  ‘Why didn’t you get me up?’ he complained.

  ‘Because you and your sister were like a pair of Rip Van Winkles,’ said Peter, ‘and nothing would stir you.’

  Joe was about to grumble on, but his father told him to hurry up because they were due at the rescue centre. Joe leapt into action, feeling increasingly impatient when Peter insisted they have something to eat first.

  ‘Have you spoken to Mum?’ he asked as they lunched in the hotel. ‘Do you know if our vulture’s all right?’

  ‘I haven’t spoken to her since last night,’ Peter replied. ‘I’m afraid it wasn’t looking too good then. I didn’t want to disturb her this morning. They’re struggling to cope at the centre with the number of injured birds.’

  Ravi was outside waiting for them in his Wolseley.

  ‘Did you enjoy the Uttarayan?’ he asked once they were driving along.

  Joe and Aesha looked at each other. ‘Yes,’ they said. ‘We had an amazing time.’

  ‘Today everybody will be sleepy and not wanting too much noise.’ Ravi laughed.

  ‘I bet!’ Peter laughed in reply.

  ‘The vulture I showed you, I looked for it this morning and it’s still there in the tree,’ Ravi told them. ‘When I saw it I thought that is a lucky bird.’

  ‘That’s good to hear,’ said Peter.

  ‘I waited to fly my kite, you know,’ Ravi continued. ‘I waited until after early morning and before the evening, and I told all my family and friends they must do the same. I think that bird is still in the tree because we waited.’

  ‘I’ll tell the people in the rescue centre,’ said Peter. ‘Every bird that survives gives hope for the future.’

  Every bird that survives gives hope for the future, Joe repeated to himself.

  They arrived at the doors of the centre. Joe couldn’t wait to see his mother, but he was afraid she might have bad news. He could tell Aesha was tense as well. When they entered, it was noticeable how different the atmosphere was from their previous visit. The vets and volunteers were working flat out to save the many different species of birds that had been caught up in kite strings. Binti was in the centre of it all, dealing with a badly injured owl, while issuing instructions to the younger vets who were bandaging, cleaning, anaesthetising or operating on other wounded birds.

  Mum’s worn out, Joe thought, when she acknowledged them.

  ‘I’ll be with you in a minute,’ she said. ‘I just need to stabilise this poor chap.’

  Joe gazed from one cage to another, searching for the vulture they had saved. Aesha pointed at one sorry-looking bird, but there were quite a few that were similar. Peter had pulled his camera out and was photographing the vets at work and taking close-ups of the injuries they were treating. For once, Joe didn’t want to copy him, even when his father explained that the photographs could be used in conservation campaigns. It was all too sad.

  At last, Binti finished what she was doing and came to talk to them.

  ‘Thank goodness you’re safe,’ she said, putting her arms round them both. ‘I couldn’t believe it when they told me what a scrape you’d got into.’

  ‘We were never in any real danger,’ said Aesha, ‘but it was a bit scary.’

  Joe took a deep breath and asked the burning question. ‘Is our vulture all right?’

  Binti smiled. ‘I told you we would save one h
undred per cent of the casualties – and we have. Your vulture’s the one over there with the bandaged neck and wing. He’ll never fly again, but he wouldn’t be alive if you hadn’t found him when you did.’

  Aesha and Joe stared into the vulture’s cage. They were surprised to see that it was on its feet and eating. It stared at them; a knowing stare, Joe thought.

  ‘He’s actually quite handsome – in an ugly sort of way,’ said Aesha. ‘I’m glad we saved his life.’

  Binti had to continue with her work, but promised she would be joining them for dinner that evening.

  ‘The worst is over,’ she said. ‘What I need is food and lots of it, and an early night.’

  ‘And tomorrow is playtime,’ Peter reminded her.

  ‘Ah, yes.’ Binti nodded her head. ‘Science City, a picnic by Lake Kankaria and, best of all, the textile museum, which Dipak assures me is the most fascinating place in Ahmedabad and not to be missed on any account.’

  ‘It’s Joe’s worst nightmare, isn’t it, Joe?’ Peter grinned at him.

  Joe was still so thrilled that their vulture had been so lucky that he didn’t protest. ‘I’ll survive,’ he said.

  Zoological Society of London

  ZSL London Zoo is a very famous part of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL).

  For almost two hundred years, we have been working tirelessly to provide hope and a home to thousands of animals.

  And it’s not just the animals at ZSL’s Zoos in London and Whipsnade that we are caring for. Our conservationists are working in more than 50 countries to help protect animals in the wild.

  In Nepal and India we are fighting to save endangered vultures through field conservation projects and providing veterinary expertise to help care for birds injured during the kite festival.

  But all of this wouldn’t be possible without your help. As a charity we rely entirely on the generosity of our supporters to continue this vital work.

  By buying this book, you have made an essential contribution to help protect animals.