White Bars

by David Dagley

  Above the pet shop, there was a faint scratching sound on a pipe. The three birds followed the noise with their ears. All went quiet.

  Two long nailed hands reached in through Fife’s bars and grabbed him firmly by the beak. Fife tried to pull away but couldn’t break the pack rat’s grip. The pack rat put his feet against Fife’s white bars and pulled on Fife’s beak, holding it closed.

  “So, you want to escape?” whispered the pack rat as he pulled Fife’s head closer, face to face. “Say, you look familiar. A crow, perhaps. But, of course, you are not a crow.” The pack rat twisted Fife’s head side to side, and eyed the orange streak behind the myna’s eyes. “Have you ever met a bird named Reo?” The pack rat paused in amazement, and then continued, “No, I don’t suppose you know what I’m talking about.” The pack rat looked at Fife very carefully, and was confused by Fife’s markings. The pack rat changed the subject. “Anyway, I heard there were two of you that wanted out?” The pack rat smiled and loosened his grip slightly, as he stood on the counter again. In the moonlight a gold tooth sparkled in the pack rat’s mouth, a human tooth.

  Fife pointed at Soren with his wing. The pack rat put a finger to his lips, “Shhh.” He released Fife and walked around Fife’s cage towards Soren’s cage.

  Soren backed up to the middle of his cage.

  The pack rat eyed and sniffed at Soren as he walked passed to the edge of the table. He jumped silently to the shelf supporting Juliet’s cage and greeted her. “It’s been a long time, Juliet. How are you?” The pack rat bowed.

  “Yes, it has been a long time. I’m managing. I like the new addition to your smile. It’s definitely you,” welcomed Juliet.

  “You like it? I found it when I was living under the dentists’ office over on Camino Alto, then I lost it. Did you ever meet my father, Juliet? No matter; he told us, his children—eight of us, five boys and three girls—that the ocean used to be much higher. He advised me to move because the ocean was going to come back some day. I found the tooth again when I was packing to move. It fits now, or I should say, I now have room for it.” The pack rat smiled, showing off his tooth. Then he frowned and said, “I am truly sorry that I will not be hearing any more of your sweet love songs from the roof, now that Romeo has gone. I used to sit near one of the vents on the roof, watch for shooting stars and learn about love through your songs.”

  “No, I don’t suppose you will be hearing anymore songs out of me,” Juliet agreed, and changed the subject gracefully, “I’ve been told that when a pack rat, or I should say, when a trade rat, finds something of interest to take, they leave something else in its place. When you found the tooth, what did you trade in its place?”

  “Oh, I left a nice flint spring from a classic Zippo lighter,” the pack rat said proudly.

  “Very nice. You haven’t lost your touch,” responded Juliet. “You’ll have to excuse me for cutting this social event short, but some of the other animals might wake up and see you or hear us. It could make business arrangements awkward.”

  “How true. Yes, back to business. I spoke with your messenger; he said something about a profit motive.” The pack rat jumped back to the display table and the two myna birds in their cages. Scratching his chin with one claw, and then pacing between the cages the pack rat came up with a plan, “Tomorrow night, I’ll be back to open your cages, if you’ve accumulated enough seeds. I’ll open your cage doors and that will be it. You will not follow me out. Getting out of the building is your own problem. I want fifty sunflower seeds per cage door.”

  Soren gasped in disbelief.

  The pack rat chuckled at the unrealistic number of seeds and said, “Here’s all the information you will ever need.” The pack rat split a sunflower seed in half and bit down on each half with his gold tooth. He spit one half of the shell at Fife, who caught it in his wing and looked at it. The other half of the shell sailed into Soren’s cage, bounced off his head and fell to the floor. Soren looked at his half shell. Stamped inside the shell read the pack rat’s address:

  El Paseo Ivy

  2nd Floor, 3rd Vine

  M.V. Ca.

  (Nights Only)

  Fife placed the shell deep in his breast feathers.

  “Juliet, have you ever thought of singing the blues?” The pack rat hissed through his teeth and smiled with cruel intent. “Saw this guy on television once and, I quote,” the pack rat did his best impersonation and sang softly and deeply, “Since my baby left me, I found a new place to dwell. It’s down at the end of Lonely Street at Heartbreak Hotel. ‘Cause ya see I’m so lonely. I’m so lonely, I could die.” The pack rat bowed.

  Fife calmly announced, “Boo. Don’t give up your day job.”

  Juliet didn’t answer.

  The pack rat shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll see you tomorrow night. Good luck.” The pack rat dropped off the table silently. He waddled down a row of cages, stopping at the cage of his cousins, the rats. The mischief-making rat, Grease, was sprawled out near the door of the cage. The pack rat slammed his tail against the bars, waking the rats, then spun around swiftly, bared his teeth and growled fiercely at the rats. The rats shrieked and jumped to the far side of their cage, crawling all over each other trying to get away. The pack rat vanished. The rats continued to cry in terror.

  The pet shop came alive with shrieks of alarm sounding danger. After a few unsettled minutes, everything calmed down and the animals began to go back to sleep.

  Fife couldn’t help himself. He had to whisper excitedly, “How do you know a pack rat on the outside, especially that one!?”

  “Don’t get your feathers all ruffled. I told you, he’s totally independent of what you do. He has no affiliation with any other company inside or out. He’s a bit of a maverick and very smart. In your case, he’s a bit of an adventure capitalist we could say,” Juliet cooed. “He’s a real trade rat – excommunicated from the syndicated triads long ago. In order for my associate to regain capital for trading, he released all the snakes in a pet shop not far from here.”

  Soren watched a shadow crawl against the wall. He looked around his cage uneasily.

  Juliet continued, “When the snakes had eaten and left, the pack rat came in before the pet shop opened and collected all the seeds in the cages. Romeo and I were there. We were spared, but I don’t know why for sure. I’d say Romeo had something to do with it. When we were transferred to this pet shop, we realized that the pack rat had made the entire seed market unstable in the whole region. Now the pack rat unloads large amounts of seeds, moving goods and prices at will. Obviously, he doesn’t trade from the floor anymore; he has hired many different animals as brokers for him. Even Dram pays him a commission.” Juliet yawned and ruffled her feathers. “I think we should get some sleep, and maybe pick up this conversation in the morning. And maybe you can explain to me how a pack rat, especially that one, might have recognized you. He did recognize you.”

  “Juliet, I can explain everything.”

  “Tomorrow,” Juliet refused. “Tell me about it tomorrow. Good night.”

  “Until tomorrow then, Juliet,” said Soren.

  Fife said nothing. He sat in the quiet of the night trying to put all of the pieces of his present puzzle together. Fife looked at Soren, who had dropped his head between his shoulders for the night. Fife wanted to tell Soren right then about where they were from, but didn’t speak. Fife knew that he and Soren were becoming rare birds, and felt compelled to go home and tell the others, teach them how to avoid traps, and stay away from the humans and their big machines which were taking down the trees the mynas nested in. Fife recognized a positive side as well, amazed at his luck so far; he had gotten into the pet shop with no problems, and to see another Hill Myna bird was lucky indeed. The pack rat’s tooth sparkled in the back of Fife’s mind. He looked around the pet shop; all was quiet. He continued to think about the pack rat, remembering a time when the pack rat and his henchmen tried to catch him in a trap by laying seeds under a ledge and pushing a burlap
bag over the edge to close him in. Fife could see it all over again. The burlap bag fell behind him and landed on his tail. He could see light around his tail, so he turned and stuck his beak under the bag and lunged for the day light. He opened his wings too early, catching part of the burlap bag, pulling two smaller pack rats off the ledge above. Fife took flight and saw the pack rat’s tooth sparkle as he yelled at his helpers. Fife remembered climbing high into the sky, and landed near Carleton’s cabin in the Redwoods. That was the beginning of their friendship. Fife drifted off to sleep.

  IV

  THE NEXT MORNING, as every morning, Ms. Roberts opened the front door and was met with a chorus of greetings.

  “Good morning, Ms. Roberts. I hope you s-s-slept well-l-l,” grinned a snake from under a hot rock.

  “How do you do?” whistled a cockatoo.

  “Turn off those blasted lights!” barked an angry hamster standing chest-deep in cedar shavings. His eyes were puffy with sleep. Another hamster’s arm rose out of the shavings, grabbed the mad hamster by the cheek and gave it a pull. The standing hamster tried to wrestle free by turning his head left and right, back and forth. The hamster under the cedar shavings released the mad hamster’s cheek, which snapped back, knocking him backwards into the cedar shavings where they disappeared.

  Grease was whimpering in his cage, looking at Ms. Roberts thankfully. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here, Ms. Roberts. You don’t know what kind of night I’ve had. I haven’t slept. A pack rat tried to kill me and then eat me alive! It had a gold fang. It was awful.” Grease rested with his arms hanging out between the bars of the cage. Watching Ms. Roberts, Grease yelled for attention. “Ms. Roberts? Hey! Ms. Roberts, I’m serious. Get over here, lady.” Grease quickly broke from his angry rant and began to whine, “Please, help me!” Grease nervously pulled his hair back over his head with both hands. He spun around and muttered to himself, “That’s it, it’s all over. I’m in rat soup.” He fell headlong to the floor and began to sob, one eye on Ms. Roberts.

  Ms. Roberts went about her business, checking drinking water, adjusting hot rocks, turning on aquarium lights, and brewing a fresh pot of tea. She sat down in her creaky swayback chair, opened the newspaper and began to read.

  “Well, Soren, what next?” asked Fife.

  “What do you mean?” replied Soren.

  “We can’t just sit here and wait to trade,” explained Fife. “We must gain an advantage, an edge, an ace in the hole, so to speak.”

  Soren twisted his head to one side in confusion and looked at Fife.

  Fife continued to explain. “You know it’s going to be difficult to trade up to that many sunflower seeds. I’m interested in getting out. We must continue to think of ways to either escape or gain more sunflower seeds before trading starts this evening. Do you understand?”

  Soren nodded and said, “Yes, I understand, but I don’t know what to do about it.”

  “Okay, we already know that we can’t get out on our own. We need help. Ms. Roberts might be of some help,” said Fife, thinking out loud.

  Soren laughed at Fife and teased, “Oh. Yes. That’s it; we’ll ask her to unlatch our cage doors for us. She’ll do that for you so we can fly out of the pet shop and be on our way.”

  “Ha. Very funny, Soren. Work with me here, will you? Does Ms. Roberts have any kind of system?” asked Fife.

  Soren thought for a moment, “No, not really.”

  “What does she do for the rest of the day? I need some information, Soren.”

  Soren shrugged his shoulders and sighed. “She’ll probably finish looking at the newspaper and then realign all the bird cages with it, or shred it up and throw it in various cages, the rats, the hamsters, the rabbits, and the guinea pigs. She may wipe down the bars of the cages, straighten shelves, refill feeders, price items, tend to customer needs, flip through catalogs, and phone in orders for supplies and more animals.”

  Fife paused in thought, “So when does she open cage doors, when she changes newspapers?”

  “No. They’re under your cage, not in it,” replied Soren.

  “So, when?”

  Soren replied slowly, “Not so often, changing water dishes, refilling feeders, and …”

  “And transferring or sentencing an animal to solitary confinement in some cold, dark, drafty house with cats!”

  Soren watched a thick reptile tail retreat between two new aquariums and screamed instinctively and began hopping around his cage, flapping his wings in a panic and yelling, “Cats! Where?” Some loosened feathers drifted out of his cage. Ms. Roberts looked up at the young myna bird thrashing about in his cage.

  A parrot cackled, “Crazy bird, crazy bird.”

  The other animals in the pet shop laughed.

  While Soren calmed down, Fife was eyeing his feeder and asked, “What if I was to empty my feeder on the floor of my cage?”

  “Ms. Roberts would clean your cage for sure, and refill your feeder. She’s going to clean your cage anyway. Look at it: the bell is torn out, the beak board is split in two, there are feathers in your water dish, your perch pole is on the floor, seeds are under your cage and your newspapers are soaked,” Soren pointed out.

  “Yeah, yeah, that’s enough,” responded Fife. “Let’s just stick to the question.”

  Soren thought for a moment. “Wait, I get what you’re saying. If we empty our feeders on the floors of our cages, pick out the sunflower seeds and hide them someplace, Ms. Roberts can clean our cages and refill our feeders. We could almost double the amount of sunflower seeds we have right now!”

  “That’s thinking, Soren. I suggest we hide the sunflower seeds under our wings.”

  Soren and Fife began emptying their feeders and separating sunflowers from the rest of the seeds.

  The front door burst open. A breeze cooled by coastal fog pushed into the pet shop, accompanying a young girl with snarled red hair. Fife could smell the salt from the sea. Through thick glasses, blue eyes fell upon the two myna birds emptying their feeders.

  The two myna birds looked at the young girl and together said, “Hello.”

  The girl smiled, with her two front teeth missing and she asked, “Polly want a cracker?”

  Soren looked at Fife.

  Fife looked at the girl and responded mimicking, “Who is Polly?”

  The girl’s eyes got bigger and answered with a shrug, “I don’t know.” She turned and walked to the rodent section of the pet shop. Her freckled face smiled at the sleeping hamsters. “Can I hold one of the hamsters, Ms. Roberts?”

  “Hi, Leslie. Sure you can. Help yourself.”

  Leslie opened the cage door and carefully cupped her hands around a sleeping teddy bear hamster. She pulled the hamster out of the cage and held it very close to her face, just brushing the hamster’s soft fur against her cheek. Leslie watched the hamster wake up.

  The hamster gave out a big stretching yawn before opening its eyes. The hamster looked up through Leslie’s glasses into her enormous blue eyes the size of grapefruit.

  “Rreeeiiiii!” The hamster screamed in fright and tried to protect himself by covering his face with his arms.

  “Good morning, little hamster.” Leslie held the hamster close to its cage door in her hands.

  Sprayed with Leslie’s speech, the hamsters’ hair was blasted into damp spikes. The hamster took a deep breath and tried to regain self control. Bitterly the hamster protested, “Gah, Leslie, that’s twice this week!” He crouched down and angrily barked, “I’m not a morning animal!” Looking at his arms, the hamster commented, “Oh gosh, I’m getting a rash.” The hamster saw Leslie’s shirt move languidly. “Uh, I gotta go.” The frightened hamster perched on the end of Leslie’s thumb. “Please put me down. Put me down.” The hamster looked at his cage door, too far away to jump.

  Leslie put the hamster down at the entrance and he scurried away, paddling through the cedar shavings and watching Leslie over his shoulder. The hamster burrowed deep into the shavings, and everything
went still.

  Leslie shut the hamster cage door and made her way to the rat cage. Grease was holding off his companions and looking as sharp as he could. Leslie peered in.

  “I promise I’ll be a good rat, Leslie. Do you mind if I call you Leslie? Leslie, I carry no contagious diseases. My family is based in Chicago, ugh, South Side,” said Grease, throwing a thumb over his shoulder with half a glance. Thinking fast, Grease moved towards the wheel and exclaimed, “I’m fit. Watch, I’ll run on the wheel.”

  Leslie watched the rat run the wheel round and round.

  “Check it out, loop the loop!” Grease grabbed the mesh of the wheel, went around once and shot off into a nearby food tray. Pellets and seeds flew in every direction.

  Leslie laughed and exclaimed, “Ms. Roberts, I want this rat!”

  “Okay,” said Ms. Roberts. She folded her newspaper and walked over to the rodent section to Leslie’s side.

  Leslie pointed to the rat. “That one. I want the black one.”

  Ms. Roberts smiled at Leslie and grabbed the rat easily. “Okay then, that’s the rat you’ll get, by golly.” Ms. Roberts placed the rat in a small gray rectangular cardboard box with three air holes at each end, and walked towards the cash register.

  Grease was excited. “Hey! I always wanted a mobile home but we’ve got to work on some decorations. This place is bleak. Though I’m not complaining. Gee, sure is keen to be alive, in a box. Leslie, just when I began to feel those fangs of the pack rat closing in around my neck, you scoop me out of harm’s way and save the day. I’m getting out of here! Yes!” squealed the rat while dancing a little jig.

  Ms. Roberts punched some numbers, added the tax and said, “That’ll be two dollars.”

  Grease heard Ms. Roberts and said, disgusted, “Oh, Ms. Roberts, you’re getting robbed. I’m worth more than that. Did you know that in some parts of the world, we’re sold by the pound! Give her more, Leslie,” exclaimed Grease, as he stuck an eyeball out one of the air holes to watch the transaction.