Sil

by Jill Harris

  “We have to warn everyone,” said Mem.

  “We can make a start now,” said Pip. “Jeb should be the first to hear and we can let everyone else know at the singing-in tomorrow. Who’ll go on nest guard while Mem and I visit Jeb and some others?”

  “I don’t want to leave this tree,” said Bel in a small voice, “but I don’t want to stay on my own either.”

  “I’ll stay with you,” offered Sil.

  “We should keep our eyes peeled and fly high,” Pip advised Mem and Beck, “so we’re not taken by surprise — although we tuis are pretty effective fighters, too. It’s the small birds I’m worried about.”

  He took off with Bek and Mem to spread the news.

  “Thank you for sticking around,” said Bel.

  Sil felt uncomfortable. “To be honest, Bel, I probably feel as scared as you do. If the man hadn’t come out to rescue the puppy, I wouldn’t have been brave enough to take on the magpies. I keep wondering how the puppy is.”

  “I don’t want to fly anywhere on my own now,” said Bel.

  “That might have been a one-off attack,” said Sil.

  Bel looked doubtful. “Maybe.”

  “We’ll set Bron on to them,” said Sil cheerfully. “That’ll send them packing.”

  He changed the subject. “I saw Old Sil today. I told him my ideas for my original composition. Your ideas, actually.”

  Bel brightened up. “What did he say?”

  Sil told her. “I tried to explain that the sounds would have to add something important to the song.”

  “You mean it would have to sound better with it than without it?” asked Bel.

  “Yes, but more than that. A song’s not just a collection of nice sounds. It’s supposed to make you think and feel more deeply. It’s a bit hard to put it into words.”

  “I do know what you mean,” said Bel slowly. “Your song last year had a part in it which made me feel afraid, as though the song kept on sounding in the darkness, but with nobody to hear it. It was creepy.”

  Sil stared at her. “Gosh, Bel. That’s just what I was trying to make it say. But this year I didn’t know what I wanted my song to say. Everything I thought of seemed boring. But you came along with your wonderful idea, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.”

  Bel laughed. “Next time I’ll charge,” she said.

  Sil’s mind was churning. Would those copied sounds add anything or would they just be a clever trick? Did he have the right to set aside the usual song conventions? Would he offend the song-judges if he did? Why exactly did he want to try it?

  Because he felt excited about it! Because already new ideas were flooding in so fast he couldn’t keep up with them. He knew in his bones that he was on to something important. His irritating sister had done him a big favour, he thought ruefully.

  There were already lots of sounds he could mimic; he could copy pretty well anything he might hear. Animals, other birds, humans’ sounds, wind, sea, the conversations of trees — the possibilities were endless. Did he want beautiful sounds or ugly ones? No sounds were ugly, he decided, though they might be frightening, and they always told you something. The magpies’ shrieks, for example. They were menacing and blood-chilling, but there was something else in them, something forlorn, which made him think of the sea in winter.

  By the next morning Sil was sure what he wanted to do. He wanted to make up a song which recognised that humans could sing, too, and produce what Old Sil had called music. He wanted to say that the song mattered more than the singer. He knew humans used music tools as well as their voices — he’d seen them. He would have to listen to as many of these tools as he could find in the valley. He would have to find ways of getting close enough to the houses to hear them.

  He needed to get started at once.

  7.

  More Trouble with Tor

  NEWS of the attack on the puppy spread around the valley. Birds old enough to remember the last magpie invasion were alarmed. Old Sil even took time out of his teaching schedule to visit Jeb to talk it over. Pip said he couldn’t remember any other occasion when he had done that.

  But the general feeling was that dogs asked for any trouble that came their way. No birds had been attacked so, although everyone kept alert for several days and didn’t fly anywhere alone if they could help it, gradually the threat faded.

  Bel, however, could not shake off the memory. She woke with nightmares, and refused to leave the tree, or stay in it alone.

  “You didn’t see their eyes, you didn’t hear the puppy,” she said to anyone who tried to jolly her out of it. She got particularly annoyed with Bron, who seemed to think it would be a great adventure to drive a horde of magpies out of the valley.

  “You’re stupid,” she said with uncharacteristic bluntness. “I hope you never find out just how stupid.”

  Sil felt embarrassed but Bron laughed. “She’s entitled to say what she thinks. I always do.” Bron never seemed to mind when birds were rude or nasty to her. She paid them back cheerfully if they asked for it, and was ready to go on being friends.

  Pip and Jeb didn’t dismiss the threat quite so readily. Sil caught them several times talking quietly and seriously together. He thought Mem was probably still worried, too, but she played it down and tried to distract Bel. He, himself, had such a lot to do preparing for the competitions that he had no choice but to be out and about. That didn’t mean he wasn’t constantly on the alert. He also couldn’t get the sound of the puppy’s cries out of his mind, and wondered how he was.

  Sil’s main job was to find out more about the human music tools. It wasn’t easy. It involved perching in trees and hedges or on fences in the gardens of the houses where he thought he had heard them. He found that the parts of the houses which looked like shiny air (except that you couldn’t fly through them — he’d seen a fantail stun herself trying) were the best places to see and listen.

  A major problem was that most of the trees and hedges belonged to other birds, and Sil had to make it very clear he wasn’t after their food. They didn’t always believe him. One day he was in a bottlebrush tree just coming into flower. He wasn’t sure whose it was, but he soon found out. With a whirr of wings, two tuis burst through the branches towards him. To his dismay he saw it was Tor and Sep.

  “Caught you, you little flea!” hissed Sep. “You’re a rotten little thief and we’re going to teach you a lesson. You’re going to get the beak-bashing of your life.”

  “Not his face,” said Tor. “He’s got to look pretty for the competitions — we don’t want trouble from the older birds. Aim for the neck down.”

  The two birds hopped closer, squeezing Sil back against the trunk. Their curved beaks glistened brown-black.

  “Wait!” said Sil. “I’m not after nectar.”

  Tor hesitated. “So what are you doing in our tree?”

  Tor was the last bird Sil wanted to know about what he was doing. He thought quickly. “I just like listening to the humans on their music tools. At this house you can hear several in the morning.”

  “We don’t need an excuse to teach you a lesson,” sneered Sep. “You’ve been too uppity by half since that competition. You shouldn’t be anywhere near this tree and you know it perfectly well.” He lunged at Sil, stabbing him in the breast.

  Sil gasped with the pain. His eyes watered. He fell back against the trunk and shook his head to clear his sight. Trapped by the dense network of twigs and leaves, he had no escape.

  “Hold on, Sep,” said Tor. “I don’t like the little runt any more than you do, but two on to one’s not fair.”

  “Fine, fine,” said Sep. “I don’t need your help anyway. You can have fun watching.” He cocked his head on one side and strutted back along the branch to give himself more run-up.

  Sil saw his chance. He cowered back against the trunk, head drooping as though he had no fight in him. Beneath him was a slender branch. Sep lunged again. At the last possible second, as the cruel beak flash
ed towards him, Sil dropped like a stone to the branch below. There was a thud from above and a cry of pain. Sil dropped lower in the tree till he found a passage to the outside. He fell to the ground and staggered along, too dizzy to even think about cats.

  His heart was thumping and his chest stung. The two birds were bound to chase him, with the advantage of launching from higher up. He had to gain height, and quickly. His wings beat frantically but, as in those terrible dreams, hardly seemed to lift him. He was far from any of his family’s trees or the hideout. Where could he take refuge?

  “This way, this way,” sang a sweet voice from the crab-apple tree at the edge of the garden. Sil summoned up the energy to fly across to join the singer, a bellbird.

  “You tuis are so quarrelsome,” she said. “Where did you get that nasty wound? Were you actually attacked? We would never do that to one another.”

  Sil sat panting until his heart slowed down. He watched anxiously for the tuis to emerge from the tree.

  “Just hop a little higher where the flowers are thicker,” said the bellbird. “You won’t be so easy to see. You tuis do rather stand out with all those black feathers — no good at all for camouflage.”

  There was no sign of Tor and Sep. Sil was suspicious. Probably waiting to ambush him, he thought. He became aware of the bellbird’s stare. “Thanks for your help,” he said. “I was in a bit of a spot there. It’s their tree, though I wasn’t after their food.”

  “You’re Sil, the singer, aren’t you? I’ve heard you practising. You’re pretty good for a tui. I’ve always thought if I couldn’t be a bellbird, I wouldn’t mind being a tui. Except that you’re all so pushy. But your singing is really quite good.”

  “I’m not pushy enough,” said Sil gloomily, “otherwise I wouldn’t be hiding here. I’ll have to hang around until it’s safe to fly home.”

  “I’ll scout for you. Sometimes I can get away with landing in the bottlebrush. By the way, you should get something for that wound — it’s quite nasty. Ask a kereru to mash up some manuka bark for you. They’re very obliging.”

  The bellbird flew over to the bottlebrush and made her way into the centre of the tree. Shortly afterwards she flew off and disappeared. What’s she up to? Sil wondered. I’m wasting time skulking in here. I could have visited at least two other houses by now. Nevertheless, he didn’t underestimate how lucky he’d been that she’d invited him into her tree. She could have been asking for trouble from Tor and Sep. So she thinks we’re pushy, he thought. What else had she said? Quarrelsome. The wrong colour for camouflage. Can’t sing as well as bellbirds. Well, that was just nonsense. Everyone knew that tuis were the finest in the forest for flying and singing. And our feathers aren’t just black, he thought. They’re green and blue and violet and bronze in the sun.

  The bellbird glided back into the tree. “All clear,” she said. “My friends told me the tuis flew back to their home tree. Quite slowly. The big one looked very unhappy, they said.” She looked at Sil sharply. “Did you do something to him?”

  “No!” said Sil. “He jolly well did it to himself!”

  “Why did you visit their tree?” asked the bellbird.

  Sil told her about listening to the music tools. “I’m visiting houses. Most of the birds I explain that to don’t mind me using their trees, as long as I leave their food alone. Tor and Sep decided to make trouble for me.”

  “Well, I’ll pass the word around. I believe in birds helping each other whenever they can.”

  “You’re very kind,” said Sil. “I don’t think we’ve met before.”

  “Oh, how rude of me. I’m Sing-a-High-Note because of my extra low voice.” She laughed at Sil’s puzzled expression. “Our names are always jokes. I live in that big, old kowhai along the road. My family has lived there for a long time — we’ve seen several human families come and go in that garden. You come from the other side of the valley, don’t you? I know Bel a little. Such a sweet bird — not at all your usual tui. Oh, I am sorry. I’m not doing very well today, am I?” She looked flustered.

  Sil’s chest was hurting a lot by now so he thanked the bellbird again for all her help and flew home, keeping a sharp eye out. Mem and Pip were concerned and annoyed when he explained how he’d been hurt, and Pip decided to fly over to talk to Mip.

  “You’d better call in on the kereru on the way,” said Mem, “and ask her to fix a poultice for the wound.”

  “You were asking for trouble going to that tree,” said Pip before he left. “You must have known it belonged to other birds.”

  Sil didn’t want to explain why he’d gone there so he just kept quiet.

  . . .

  Another problem Sil faced was cats and dogs. Closer to home he knew where they lived and how to avoid them. In unfamiliar territory, especially as he had to concentrate so hard on what he was hearing, it was risky. Sometimes Bron went with him and kept watch, sometimes Bel, once she’d overcome her fear. They knew what he was up to and were keen to help.

  No one else knew, however, and Sil wanted to keep it that way. Not even Mem and Pip knew. He practised for the new song in the big berry tree. He flew there every couple of days to try out new sounds. Sometimes he was pleased with how he mimicked them, sometimes he had to go back to listen more carefully. For every half-dozen sounds he heard, only one was right to use.

  One particular sound was a real challenge. He heard it in several houses, but the brown house was the safest for him to return to. It was close to home and there was a thick hedge of roses and several karaka trees outside where the sound came from. Also, the brown puppy — he was nearly a dog now — chased cats out of the garden but didn’t seem to mind birds.

  Sil went back several times to watch and listen to the woman using the music tool. Unlike most he’d seen, it was too big for her to hold so she sat in front of it. The sounds which floated out of the house reminded him of water running and splashing or thunder muttering in the sky. Sil was determined to use them in his song. They were the hardest of all to mimic and he spent many hours getting them right.

  It was just as well the days were getting longer. He had so much to fit into them. There was his ordinary practice at first light, there were visits to houses all around the valley, there were his secret practice sessions, his lessons with Old Sil, and he had to take his turn at guarding the family tree. Luckily the rata was beginning to flower up in the bush near the big berry tree, as he didn’t have much time for foraging.

  “When are we going to play floop again?” Bron kept asking. “Surely you don’t have to practise all the time.”

  “Can I come and listen to you practising the song?” Bel asked frequently.

  “Are you keeping up your flying practice?” Bek inquired.

  “Where do you go all day?” said Pip.

  “How’s your original composition coming along?” asked Mem.

  Sil felt hassled. It was ages since he’d visited the hideout in the macrocarpa tree to catch up with himself. He’d missed out on the spicy, end-of-season kowhai nectar, though he’d noticed a lot of tuis being plain silly and careless in kowhai trees all over the valley as he flew back and forth. He was pleased to see Tor making a fool of himself cackling and falling about — he even hoped he’d fall right out of the tree. Although the wound on Sil’s chest had healed, it hurt when he flew a lot without a rest, and he still felt angry and frightened of Tor and Sep. He was sure they’d try to get even with him one day soon. He could take on either of them, no trouble, but two at once was a different matter. He clenched his claws angrily at the thought.

  Sil had a final session at the brown house and didn’t think he’d need to return. The blackbirds who visited the hedge regularly had politely let him perch in the karaka trees, though they’d made it clear he wouldn’t be so welcome once the rosehips appeared. He’d got to know them quite well, and they often told him stories about the humans and the dog in the brown house. The dog never bothered them when they were looking for worms in the garden,
they said, but it had chased away a large black and white bird who had dived on them one day and tried to snatch their worms.

  “We wondered if it was one of those magpies we heard about,” said one. “Very nasty bird, no manners at all.”

  “It was terrifying,” said the other.

  So the magpies were still around. “Have you seen them often?” Sil asked.

  “Just the once,” said the smaller bird.

  “It sounds like a magpie,” Sil told them. “Do you know where he lives?”

  “I don’t,” said the bigger bird. “I’ve only ever seen him in the garden.”

  “You should ask the dog about the time he was attacked. I saw it happen. It was horrible. They’re violent birds. You should be careful — don’t challenge them.”

  The bigger blackbird looked thoughtful. “I wondered why the dog was so worked up. He absolutely leapt at the magpie.”

  “Where’s the dog now?” asked Sil.

  “He’s asleep in his kennel.”

  “You say he never attacks you?”

  “Oh, no, he’s quite a friendly chap.”

  “I might just have a word with him,” said Sil. “I’ve been wondering how he was after the attack.”

  He flew on to the roof of the brown house and looked around. He couldn’t see the kennel so he flew across to the flowering cherry. Ah, yes, there it was and in the doorway he could see the dog’s black nose resting on his brown paws.

  He felt the old, dizzy feeling coming on so hung his head till it passed. He was perfectly safe where he was and the blackbirds said the dog was friendly. But he hadn’t been this close to a dog since the attack and he couldn’t help trembling. He gripped the branch firmly and sang a polite greeting. The dog opened his eyes and lifted his head.

  “Good afternoon,” called Sil. “We haven’t actually met before. My name’s Sil.”

  The dog came out of his house. He stared at Sil curiously.