Entry 30: Bird Alliance

After searching for a week, Louis and Samson managed to track down the lab where the research scientists were keeping Kookie. They had missed it a few times because it was in a hidden corner of a zoo. Flying over the back fence of the zoo, they waddled around on the edges of walkways and corridors inside the offices, making sure to keep out of sight, until they found the lab, ‘Milestone Science Laboratory’. It was in the corner of the offices that bordered the enclosures of the more carnivorous animals, including lions, tigers and bears, and Samson giggled nervously every time they heard a distant roar.

“Can you please be quiet?” Louis hissed. “Don’t want to alert the authorities.”

“I’ll be a quiet as a mammoth after feasting,” Samson tittered.

“Ugh.”

Louis had timed their visit so that it was at the end of the working day, and sure enough employees were clearing out for the day. As one of the last ones used their swipe key to exit from the door to the lab, Louis caught it just before it closed and darted in with Samson. They waited underneath some vacant desks until the lab was completely empty, then Louis began searching for Kookie. It turned out he was at the back-end of the lab, behind a special door labelled ‘Unique case studies’.

“Bingo!” he yelled as he caught sight of Kookie through the window in the door, sitting in a transparent box with holes poked in it.

“Bingo indeed,” a voice came from behind.

Louis groaned. That was the unmistakable voice of the main duck skater, cackling and high pitched. He turned around to see they were surrounded by the skaters. “How’d so many of you get in?” he asked.

“As if that’s nothing but a cinch,” the main duck skater said.

“If you have half a brain, at least,” Jazz added. Today she was wearing a black and red striped beanie that drooped over her eyes.

“We’re ninjas, didn’t these guys hear?” a third duck skater nudged another, who guffawed in response.

“Alright alright, don’t need so many echoes!” the main duck skater yelled and they all hushed up.

“So what do you want this time?” Louis said wearily.

“Thing is, Louis my friend, you hurt the Duck’s feelings when you called him out on national television calling him a- what was it?” the main duck turned to Jazz.

“Sinister mathematical genius, believe it was,” Jazz said.

“That’s it – awful insensitive.”

“Well, I kept it anonymous,” Louis said.

“Alright well maybe you can explain it to the Duck himself.”

Louis’ eyes darted around until he saw the Duck: sitting atop a work trolley at the other end of the lab that one of the skaters began pushing up towards them.

“Quack,” the Duck said once the trolley had stopped before Louis, its wheels squeaking.

“He says that he saw you on live TV and it was pretty off-putting being referred to in such ways,” the main duck explained.

“I’m really sorry, I should’ve thought things through before calling you sinister-” Louis started explaining.

“No, no,” the main duck interrupted, “He wasn’t offended by that, sinister suggests prestige.”

“Yeah maybe...”

“It was off-putting being called a mathematical genius, because of his keen sense of humility.”

Louis scratched his brow in confusion. “Alright, is that all?”

“Quack,” the Duck said.

“Not at all. You think it’ll be so easy? Don’t think so. The Duck is moving up your debt payment from next week to now in compensation for his personal grievances.”

“Oh come on!”

“Pay up or we’ll see to it you’ll pay in other ways.”

“What exactly are you planning to do?”

The main duck skater turned to the Duck, who said “Quack”, then turned back to Louis, “Well you see we’re here at the lab to catch you red-handed stealing a valuable government asset – if you don’t pay up that is. We’ve hacked into the surveillance systems and will harvest all the video footage to send to the police.”

Louis swore under his breath, but also because he was impressed.

“I’m the hacker,” Jazz added.

“Not the time for brags, Jazz,” the main duck skater snapped. “Alright what’s it gonna be?”

Louis thought fast: this was it. It ended now or never. As his mind raced, he saw the Duck jump off the trolley and waddle on his own around the lab, in no rush for an answer. He grabbed a pen and began to casually solve mathematical equations left half-solved on the white board and in notebooks lying around on tables and desktops.

“I want to strike a deal,” Louis said suddenly.

The duck skaters groaned and the main duck skater said, “You really think you can strike more deals? It never works.”

“Yeah you’ve struck out,” one of the others yelled.

“Done deal,” Jazz said in a lethal voice.

“Hear me out,” Louis insisted. “Look, I just want to free Kookie and- and isn’t that in your interests too? I mean, they start with one bird and before you know it they’re gonna be locking us all up! For whatever reason,” Louis’ eyes swivelled from one bird to the next, giving out reasons for each one as he went, “Witty sarcasm, casual bullying, petty insults, extortion, running an illegal accounting empire, painting with melted lollipops, scamming animals and humans indiscriminately!”

He seemed to rouse the crowd of duck skaters and even Samson, who all began to nod and agree in muttering voices.

“So what I suggest is,” Louis continued, “We unite temporarily – birds against humans – and rescue Kookie. Delete all the footage from tonight. Then, once I’ve gotten Kookie to safety, I’ll voluntarily surrender to the Duck for indentured servitude – for life!”

This had a more mixed reaction in the group, with doubtful voices and mainly boos including from the main duck skater, “Huh so you’ll just voluntarily return, hey? You think we trust you after everything that’s happened?”

“We trust you like a tree trusts a saw,” Jazz said.

“Yeah no way,” the main duck continued, “I reckon you don’t go out of our sights. Any disposal of Kookie happens right in front of us.”

“I won’t be disposing him…” Louis said grouchily.

“Disposing, stowing away, kicking out of the country – whatever you call it.”

“Quack.” The Duck had returned and pronounced his opinion.

The duck skaters were stunned and started chatting among themselves.

“What’d he say?” Louis asked in excitement.

“He says you’re a slippery one and tracking your movements ain’t no guarantee that you won’t manage to escape,” the main duck skater explained. “And he also sees the merit in the ‘birds against humans’ scheme. So the only solution is to let Kookie out and then you can get him to safety before returning for lifelong slavery.”

“And the Duck will just trust me?” Louis said with narrowed eyes.

“Ah no, not that – he wants to raid the suitcase you have there.”

Louis had been carrying a mini suitcase, originally intended for when he escaped with Kookie and Samson. It was sitting beside him on the floor.

“The Duck reckons your one key weakness is your ego – his guess is that suitcase is stashed with all your most precious items, including accolades from your latest stint as the author of a worldwide sensation.”

“Oh well I’m not sure about that,” Louis said sheepishly.

“Sounds like a resounding yes to me,” one of the skaters yelled.

“Grab it, Jazz,” the main duck instructed, his wings folded, and Jazz snatched up the suitcase before Louis could stop her and hit it hard against the floor until it banged open.

“You could’ve just opened the clasp,” Louis said.

“Not our style mate. Now Jazz, what do you have there?”

Jazz peered at a document she’d pulled out, looking at it with beady eyes from underneath her beanie, “Ooh looks like a letter from one of those famous persons – a celebrity personality – congratulating Louis on his ground-breaking new book.”

“Bingo,” the main duck skater said. “Now, we’ll be keeping that letter of congratulation, and also your other suitcase items for good measure, until you’ve returned – back to the park where we first met, at the treehouse.”

Louis thought about it then sighed, “Alright, fine. Now can we please free Kookie?”

The main duck skater glanced around at the others, “Ducks, let’s do it.”

It didn’t take long to rescue Kookie. It turned out that the duck skaters had gotten into the lab by stealing several swipe keys from exiting employees. “More than a few for good measure,” as Jazz explained it. One of these keys also happened to work on the door to the special room where Kookie was locked. When Kookie saw them, he said, “What a rowdy party for an experimental laboratory.”

“Rowdy party is the right way to describe it,” Louis said through gritted teeth.

They parted ways with the ducks at the lab’s exit door.

The Duck stared at them with eyes like glass, scrutinising and keen, “Quack.”

“The Duck says that while it has been far from a pleasure getting to know such a mix of oddballs like you three, and not a pleasure at all from a monetary perspective, it has lent his life some entertainment – in a laughing-at-you not with-you kind of way. And that he looks forward to your return, Louis, otherwise the letter gets ripped apart. As well as all your other personal items.”

Louis lowered his eyes in supposed deference and nodded, “I apologise for all the inconvenience I’ve caused and will see you soon.”

“Now, now, no need to miss us so much.”

The duck skaters jumped on to their skateboards and rode off down the walkways in the zoo, the Duck on the back of one of them, disappearing into the darkness of the night.

When they were gone, Louis turned urgently to Kookie and Samson: “Just one more thing – we need to head back into the lab. Luckily I still have a swipe key,” he added with a grin.

It was a sunny day in the middle of the week when Kookie, Louis and Samson entered The Café. They were put at their usual table and sat around it in wonder, not quite believing they were back – and no longer being chased by anyone.

After the Duck and the duck skaters had left, Louis had gone back into the lab and stolen all the notebooks that the Duck had written in. He then called the lead research scientist who had abducted Kookie that day after the talk show, happening to have his contact details on hand. The lead scientist, Dr Stickler, had rushed back over to the lab after-hours at Louis’ request. That was when Louis strong-armed him into a deal: free Kookie for the return of the notebooks and the name/location of the mathematical whiz who had solved all the extremely complicated mathematical equations in them. It turned out that these equations were even more important than Louis had thought, as they had held up the progress of a new top-secret government project for years. As Louis paged through the notebook for Dr Stickler, his eyes widened and he immediately agreed to the release of Kookie. It turned out Kookie’s capture hadn’t been all that useful, anyway – besides his stupefying proclamations about business and life, nothing in his medical or behavioural examinations was shining any light on the so-called Cwazy Gene.

Dr Stickler immediately dispatched some lackeys with the appropriate authority to apprehend the Duck, and so suddenly the Duck was the one in their crosshairs, detained indefinitely to assist with mathematical problems.... Only it turned out in a matter of weeks, he was so prolific in his contributions that he started to earn extremely high amounts of money and became so famous and popular, that everyone almost forgot about Louis and Kookie. All of this chagrined Louis to no end.

Still, he couldn’t complain. They had their freedom back and other than a few stares, they were left alone to enjoy their first meal back at The Café. He hadn’t lost the items in the suitcase, either – they were returned to him, intact, by the scientists. Dr Stickler noted with bemusement that the duck skaters had chucked the suitcase in a bin lit up with flames in anger as they ran away, but one of his personnel had rescued it. Louis was glad to have his precious items back, but it was mainly because he knew they would be cherished memorabilia of an exciting time in his life.

“I don’t think you can argue for the creation of a new kind of cake that amalgamates all the cakes of history and has each as a layer of flavouring,” Kookie was arguing with Samson. “If it could be done, why wouldn’t I think of it?”

“Well I thought of it-”

“Your sugar intake is too high to be a thinking bird, I mean I was too busy to tell you before but have been meaning to let you down easily all this time since I’ve known you.”

Samson giggled in disappointment then muttered, “If my sugar intakes are so high, why am I buzzing like a bee?”

“Kookie, Samson,” Louis interrupted. “Let’s celebrate! Hold up your strawberry milkshake and apple/vanilla cream frappe and here’s to us: “I have become a successful writer, you, Samson have truly come into your own as an artist, and Kookie, well… umm, you look pretty good for 128 years old.”

“I’ll be mortal long past 25 economic cycles,” Kookie said.

“This ‘kookie’ will never crumble,” Samson added in a gleeful mutter.

Louis scowled but then – as Kookie and Samson continued to chat about nothing sensible – suddenly smiled to himself. 

THE END