by B.A. Savage
Chapter Eight
Exhausted and sprawled out on his bed, Archan is awakened by an unfamiliar voice, “Get up sleepy head.”
A second unrecognizable voice says, “Yeah, we’ve been waiting all day to talk to you.”
Startled, Archan sits up immediately to find himself alone. “Man, I must be tripping.”
Referring to his rough and long day of mental training the day before at the park, “Ugh...I’m so tired.”
“Squawk. Stupid. Squawk, they were talking to you. Squawk.”
As he gets out of his bed, Archan thinks, “I never taught him that.”
Once he enters his front room a flood of voices hit him from every direction. Sounding like several people are trying to talk to him at the same time, he covers his ears and yells, “Enough! One at a time please!” He looks around the room and finds himself alone.
“Squawk. You don’t have to be so rude. Squawk.”
“Who the heck has been teaching you this?”
“Squawk. Not you, Sherlock. Squawk.”
The two voices from earlier, one man and one woman, can be heard laughing under their breath.
Archan looks around the house suspiciously, “Okay, who’s there? Where you hiding at?”
The man’s voice says, “Should we tell him or mess with him a little longer?”
The lady replies, “I don’t know. It is kinda fun.”
Then they both start laughing.
Archan turns suddenly and looks at Lady Jane’s cage. “Oh sheez!” said the lady’s voice.
“Ah ha! Caught you....Wait, you can talk too?” Archan has a very puzzled look.
“Always could. You just couldn’t hear me.”
“Squawk. Yes, not until now, beast master. Squawk.”
The man and lady laugh again. Archan turns toward Petey’s cage, “And you too?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So, all three of you can talk?”
“Squawk. Give the man a prize. Squawk.”
Archan snaps at Snickers, “And I thought I had taught you to be such a smart ass.”
“Squawk. You thought wrong. Squawk.”
Petey and Lady Jane can’t contain their laughter. Petey says, “He’s been cracking us up since the first day we got here.”
In his best Elvis impersonation, Snickers says, “Squawk. Thank you. Thank you very much. Squawk.”
Archan asks, “If you can say more words then I thought you could and can talk like a human. Why do you still ‘Squawk’?”
“I guess it’s just a habit.”
“You didn’t just then.”
“Squawk. NSS. Squawk.”
“What? NSS?”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
All the birds get a good chuckle out of that one. Lady Jane says, “We would’ve said hi yesterday, but Cana told us not to.”
Petey adds, “And who wouldn’t listen to a creature that size?”
Archan asks, “So, you could see him too?”
“Yes, we could but Snickers couldn’t. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we are near extinction and he’s not.”
“Squawk. At first I thought you had laced their feed. Squawk.”
Archan shakes his head as he heads into the kitchen to make something for breakfast, “I’m starting to wonder if someone laced something I ate. This is just too weird.”
“So, what does the big griffin want you to do?” Petey asked.
“Break into the Katsuya building. The same one-hundred story building that I was tossed off of. But this time in broad daylight to save some endangered species.”
“You’re so brave.” Lady Jane said in a charmed way. Archan notices her tone and raises one eyebrow.
Petey says, “Oh knock it off, Lady J.”
“Squawk. Somebody knocking the boots. Squawk.”
She fires back, “You two can really be jerks sometimes.”
Archan can’t believe that his world has been turned upside down. “I have a daytime talk show in my living room.”
Petey asks, “Oh yeah, speaking of that. Can you start leaving the TV on when you leave. It gets kinda of boring sometimes. There’s not a lot for us to do.”
“Yes, please. Pretty please.”
“I guess I could but which channel, since you’ll be stuck watching one channel all day.”
“Not if you leave the remote in my cage.”
Again raising his eyebrows, Archan asks “You can change the channel? With the remote?”
Doing his best James Brown imitation, Petey says, “Watch me!”
Archan shakes his head again in disbelief. “That’s what I get for leaving the radio on at night.”
“Squawk. Just watch him poop on it. Squawk. Just like his food dish. Squawk.”
“Hey you stinking green-go! That was one time!”
Archan yells, “Stop it! You guys are acting like little kids.”
Lady Jane says, “Well, none of us are over five years old. What did you expect?” All the birds laugh.
Archan doesn’t reply. He continues making his bowl of cereal. Once he’s done, he sits down at the table with his Dink-o’s cereal.
“Squawk. So tell us what’s going on tonight, big guy. Squawk.”
Lady Jane adds, “Yeah, we wanna know.”
Sitting down and still kinda not to knowing what to make of all this, he admits, “I can’t believe I’m about to explain my day to my birds. And they are going to comment back.”
Petey says, “Well, get used to it. Snickers talks all day long.”
“Well, Squawk you too!”
Archan even laughs with the birds this time.
“Okay. This is what’s supposed to happen.”