Scarlet Macaw in The Beehive

The lights of the lighthouse were flashing. The boat knew exactly where to go, but Nature had different plans. The captain was not able to fight against the strength of the enormous waves. The boat was fairly big, yet thrown around as if it was a nutshell, so light and tiny. All the people on board tried to hide under deck, since it was becoming far too dangerous to be on deck, everybody feared they would fall into the water.

Luca, a 12-year-old boy, and his father Jose were on board and scared as well. They were on their way to Canada, where they would start a new life, after his mother died in the fire, which burnt their house down to the grounds. Luckily for Luca and his father they weren't home, but they lost everything they owned. After a while Jose decided to leave Brazil and move to Canada. Luca was very excited, he had never been to any other country before.

The captain, Luca’s uncle, remained pretty calm through all of this and tried his best to keep the boat above the water and towards the lighthouse, but then a lightning bolt set the mast on fire and the whole crew rushed to get the tiny little rescue boats ready, knowing they would not be able to make it to shore.

But then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, this gigantic oil tanker showed up right next to them and helped the crew to get on their vessel. Luckily, they didn’t have much load with them, just some barrels, they helped to get them out. Luca didn’t understand why they were so important, he didn’t even know they were on the boat.

There was a community hall right next to the lighthouse where they took the crew in, gave them blankets to dry and rest after this exhausting experience.

‘We made it! We are in Canada!’, were Luca's only thoughts.

When the boy woke up the next morning, the crew had all left, he was alone in the big building. As he stepped outside the sun was shining right in his light brown face, the sky was incredibly blue, the storm and fears of the night before seemed so long ago and far away now.

Luca found his uncle and his friends loading the barrels onto a pickup truck. But they were upset about something, he couldn’t understand the issue, they were too far away. As soon as they saw the boy approaching them, they turned silent and left. He asked his uncle what was wrong, and he wanted to know what was inside the barrels, but he said he had to leave and that he would be back later that night. Then he left.

Luca and his father would live in an apartment, in the middle of this nice little village. It had everything you would need: a grocery store, a café, a restaurant, post office, police office and the school. Luca was a little bit nervous thinking about his first day there.

‘You’ll have new friends in no time!’ his father said.

--

Only two days later and was the big day. Luca would be starting in his new class.

The English teacher, Miss Ferguson, introduced him:

‘This is Luca, your new classmate. He is new to Canada, coming all the way from Brazil! Please, welcome him, and treat him well. Turning to Luca she added: ‘You can sit on the free chair over there. If you are a bit of a quiet person maybe you could give some of that to Mr. Loudmouth over there.’

‘Hi, I’m Simon’, “Mr Loudmouth” introduced himself. He started asking Luca questions about his whereabouts, his hobbies, his family, siblings and friends and life back in Brazil. Luca was just new, so tried not to talk too much as the teacher was trying to lecture to not interrupt the lesson, but Simon was so curious it was hard to avoid the questions, so Luca simply asked some questions back.

Simon told him about the other kids in class, about soccer after school and that was the point when Miss Ferguson stopped her lecture looking at the two boys.

‘Simon here seems extremely interested in this topic, so tomorrow he will present a paper on the endangered birds in Brazil. With your interest and maybe a little help from your friend it shouldn’t be too hard, what do you think?’

- ‘I’m sorry...’ Simon apologized to Luca after class, while he was showing him around in the school, just everything you need to know, when you just started at a new school.

- ‘That’s ok. We’ll do it together, so really it cannot be that hard.’

- ‘Really?? Are you going to help me with it?!’

- ‘Well, ya! We are friends, aren’t we?’

Both of the boys smiled, very happy.

‘There is just one more thing I need to show you.’ Simon started running.

They ran just outside the village, crossed a big vineyard into a small patch of forest. A narrow Dirt Road led them right through the woods up to a little clearing in the forest.

Right there, stood an old dutch windmill.

Gasping for air the boys admired this ancient looking building.

There were pictures and writings taped to the inside wall, telling of its origin. It was a reconstruction of the windmill called ‘De bijenkorf’, which means ÈThe Beehive" in English, in the little village Bakel in The Netherlands. Hundreds of years ago every village in the Netherlands had its own windmill. Most of them were destroyed during the second World War, but all of them rebuilt. Why this one is standing here in the most rural area of Canada, the boys didn’t know, but they knew, this would be their new headquarters. Their first mission was to find out about endangered species in Brazil.

Luca felt very happy, not even three whole days in the country and he already got a new friend.

Simon turned on the computer and they started their research about endangered species in South America, the list seemed endless! They read names of animals they never knew even existed! Like the golden Lion Tamarin, which is a monkey with golden silky hair or the so-called Maned Wolf, which looks on the picture like a fox on stilts, incredibly long legs. Lots of different bats and rats and monkeys.

‘But…these are all mammals. Didn’t she say the presentation had to be about endangered birds?’ Luca remembered.

‘Ya right! Oh man…we did all this research for nothing?!’ Simon sighed heavily.

‘Well, at least we got to know some weird species’, Luca answered dryly.

While the boys were reading different articles in the computer they noticed noises in the attic, they thought it was the wind. But when the noises grew louder the boys became scared. There was obviously something or somebody up there!

‘Don’t be stupid!’ Simon said. ‘No human will fit up there.’

‘Are you sure? Have you ever been up there?’ Luca replied.

‘Well, yes of course! I know every corner of this building.’ Simon explained. Saying this he regained some of his strength, so he stood up: ‘I’ll go look’, he announced.

He opened the little trapdoor, climbed the little rope ladder up and then disappeared from Luca's view. Next thing he heard was Simon laughing.

‘What?!’, Luca yelled upstairs.

‘Come here, you gotta see this!’

Luca hurried up onto the ladder, almost fell, because his foot got tangled in the ropes, as he was standing next to Simon he saw the gigantic red, yellow and blue parrot sitting in the corner, pecking happily on some old ropes and eating the flies off it.

‘What? But…’ Luca started: ‘How did it get here? It is SO colourful! Also…it looks like one of those parrots we just saw on the internet, the Macraw or something… Does it not?’

‘Do you think we can catch it?’ Luca added, now whispering.

‘I don’t know’, Simon muttered back.

Moving very slowly, trying not to scare the bird, Simon walked over to the only window in the attic to close it.

Then the boys went downstairs to discuss their next steps. Should they try to catch the bird and then what? Hold it in captivity, without telling anybody? That would be very cruel to the bird.

‘In the internet it says that macaws are like most of the other parrot species,who live in flocks but live in a monogamous pair bond, which usually lasts for life. This is from a rescue ranch in Central America. They say they have rescued dozens of Scarlet Macaws, mainly due to the illegal pet trade, habitat fragmentation and deforestation.

Do you think this one here is illegal and just escaped its kidnappers?’

Simon just shook his head. ‘I don’t know. This is a lot right now… Where is this rescue farm?’

‘This is called “toucan rescue ranch”, located in Belize.’

‘Hm. That's too far away... Maybe we should hang up posters saying we found it??’

‘Ya, but if it was kidnapped, then the gangsters are getting it back!’

‘Ya, but maybe we can trap them then! That way we can capture them in action! Bam!’

Simon was all excited with his plan, but Luca was still sceptical: ‘We still don’t know if it actually IS kidnapped… Maybe the owners have its papers and stuff, see, you can rescue it and pay only 100$ for it.’

While the boys were discussing what and how to act the bird started screeching loudly.

‘Maybe we should get some food for it?’ Luca suggested slowly.

‘Yeah, but I don’t know how to lock this windmill! I don’t want to come back and the bird is gone’, Simon replied.

‘Ok’, Luca said: ‘I’ll go to the store and you stay here and take care of the bird. Try to find more information about illegal pet trades around here, ok?’

‘Oh, and don’t forget about your presentation tomorrow!’ Luca added stepping outside.

‘That will be easy now!’ Simon hollered, but Luca was already gone.

People love parrots as pets, but they are very noisy and especially the macaws, the tallest of all parrots, need a lot of space and exercise everyday. In order to prevent them from flying out of the window, people trim their primary wing feathers. They have very strong beaks to break open all kinds of nuts and love fresh fruit and vegetables.

While Simon was reading all this information and also some general information about human predators and poachers trapping and killing the birds, some indigenous peoples sacrifice certain animals for rituals, or pluck their feathers for their ceremony costumes, the bird came closer to him, studying the boy intensely, while also making a lot of noise.

When finally the door opened the Macaw screeched loudly, a girl screamed, startled by the sudden noise. Simon rushed to the entrance: ‘What the…?! What did you bring girls for?’

‘Well, Olivia might actually be able to help…’, Luca answered apologizing, pointing at the older girl, who also goes into the same class as the boys, before he was interrupted by Simon:

‘But we said no girls in our headquarter!’ and he kicked the wooden box that served as their garbage can. It fell over, and the garbage was scattered everywhere around it. Upset and mumbling he started picking up the garbage, while Luca told him what happened: ‘I went to the pet store, I thought they might have some information about people keeping parrots as pets around here and Olivia was there, since her parents own the store, which of course, I didn’t know before…'

The parrot started pecking on the garbage, before Simon told him to let go off it, then it flew back on the boys shoulder.

Luca was stunned, whisteling through his teeth, then continuing:

'Anyway, while I was trying not to be too specific about it, she sensed something was wrong and was going to tattle on us (!) if she couldn’t come too. Well, her little sister heard everything and just followed her.’

‘Exactly.’ Olivia finished his explanation. ‘This is such a beautiful bird! Also, he already seems a little attached to you. There is no breeder in Nova Scotia, so I cannot know if he is here legally. If he belongs to somebody, the owner might have bought him in Ontario, I don’t know. The feathers on his neck are gone though, so are some on other parts of his body. They usually only do that if they are very bored, which usually happens when they do not have enough room to spread their wings and fly…’

‘Yes, I read all that on the internet too. How is that helpful?’ Simon rolled his eyes.

‘Can he talk?’ The little girl interrupted the discussion and walked towards the bird. ‘Say something!’, she ordered.

‘This is Layla, by the way’, Olivia introduced her younger sister.

‘This is Layla!’ The bird echoed in a screeching high-pitched voice. The four kids stared at the bird and bursted out laughing. The Macaw obviously enjoyed the attention. It started flying around, repeating his new sentence over and over, until Olivia interrupted him: ‘Say something different!’

Then the bird screeched like a steamboat just leaving the harbour; ‘All hands on deck!’ it hollered.

The children laughed again.

‘It seemed to have been on a boat already!’, Olivia was thinking out loud.

'We need to give him a name!', Layla interrupted her, 'We cannot just keep calling him “it”!'

‘That’s true…’ the boys agreed.

‘But we don’t know if we can keep him anyways’, Olivia said.

‘It still needs to have a name…’, her little sister replied stubbornly.

‘How about Scarlet?’ Olivia suggested.

‘That’s the name of his breed! How about we call you "girl"?’ Layla hit back.

The boys laughed.

‘No, how about……’, Layla was thinking. ‘Storm!’

‘Huh? Why would you call him that?!’

‘Well, he came from a boat!’ the little girl explained happily. ‘Maybe there was a storm or something that scared him and that’s why he took off.’

‘You’re weird’, Olivia replied.

‘YOU’re weird!’ Layla yelled back.

Luca jumped in between the sisters. ‘Please, don’t fight in here…’, he exclaimed.

‘So, he would never ‘take off’ by itself, because if he was owned by someone, he would not be on the loose…’

‘So, how do you explain him being here then?!’ Layla interrupted him.

‘Well, I’m sure there is a plausible explanation for…’ Luca stopped dead. The others stared at him eagerly. ‘What happened?’ Simon asked after a while.

Luca hesitated, then he said: ‘Nothing. It’s…nothing.’

‘Tell us!’, Olivia asked him.

‘Well’, the boy began slowly, ‘we came here by boat a few days ago, just before we arrived here this storm hit us, luckily we got rescued by a big tanker, but then my uncle and them hauled the barrels out form the chamber inside our boat. The boat was almost sinking, but it was very important to them to get those barrels. When I woke up in the morning, they were just loading the barrels onto a truck. My uncle wouldn’t tell me what was inside them…’

‘You think they smuggled more of them?’

‘I don’t know…’ he shrugged his shoulders, ‘but they were very upset about something, and when I asked he wouldn’t tell me’, Luca continued.

‘What does your uncle do for work? How would he have the connections to get those animals?’ Olivia asked.

‘And why would he do that?’ Layla added.

‘Well’, Simon said, ‘you can sell the Scarlet Macaw for about 4000 Dollars!’

Layla was shocked.

‘He is captain, but also a nature photographer’, Luca explained. ‘He can get to every animal he wants to with this cover…’

‘Where is he now?’ Simon asked.

Luca shrugged his shoulders. He was very sad with the idea of his uncle being an animal smuggler, dealing with them illegally.

‘Can you find out where he is?’ Simon asked again.

Olivia gave him a look, put her hand on Luca’s shoulder and began:

‘I know it must be hard to think like this about your uncle. When we try to find him now, maybe we will only find out that he is totally innocent!’

‘But what if not?’ Luca was almost crying.

The children were silent for a moment, before Luca pulled himself together and announced, that he will go ask his father about his uncle’s whereabouts.

Just when he was about to open the door of the windmill Simon cried out: ‘Wait! Look!’

He pointed at the laptop, where a window had just popped up, that said: ‘Missing parrot!’

Simon read the ad out loud:

‘Last Saturday when we came home from our visit with my mother at the hospital, our beloved pet parrot was gone. His name is Red, and he has beautiful blue and red feathers, with some yellow in between. We miss him dearly. If you have seen or heard of him (he is pretty noisy, not hard to miss) please let us know immediately!’

‘The contact number is right there, under the name John!’ Olivia said happily. ‘Let’s just call them and see what happens!’

‘Red.’ Layla snorted, ‘what a ridiculous name.’

‘We should go to the police first.’ Olivia suggested.

‘What will they say? We have no evidence of anything. They will laugh at us and not believe a single word.’ Simon said.

‘We should still have the police involved when we are going to meet those people.’ Olivia insisted.

‘My dad is a policeman’, Luca said quietly.

‘I will tell him everything, and then we can call this number here and tell them we found the parrot and he will be in the background and when we have the evidence we need, they will arrest them.’

‘It sounds too easy…’, Layla thought. ‘Maybe we should just tell them we seen it. Like, right here, in this windmill! And then they come here to trap it and then we will trap them!’

‘That sounds like a really good plan!’ Simon said, clapping his hands. ‘Let’s do it this way.’

‘How do you want to keep the kidnappers in here? This is too easy to escape. Also, we need them to confess first.' Olivia stated.

'So we need them to have the parrot first and then follow them and see what they are doing.’

The children were thinking about many more possibilities, and just couldn’t get anywhere.

‘We have to make a decision soon’, Simon said. ‘I think we just have to call ... John, and then we'll see...'

Layla jumped up in excitement and offered to be the caller.

But Simon quickly shut her down, telling her, she was too young to take part in this action. It was too dangerous for her.

She wanted to say something, but Olivia jumped in; ‘We need somebody to watch Flash!’

‘Flash? That is actually an awesome name! Because every time he flaps his wings there is flashes of colour!’ Layla shouted. Simon and Luca nodded in agreement, seeming quite impressed with the choice of name.

‘Anyway’, Olivia continued, ‘as I was trying to say before; Layla, we need you to make sure Flash doesn’t get out and nobody gets in!’

Layla was ok with this plan.

The kids headed out, Layla stayed behind while making herself comfortable and continued researching about Macaws.

--

Meanwhile, Simon, Luca and Olivia arrived at the nearest bus stop and found a phonebooth.

Simon went to go dial and pulled some change out of his back pocket. He counted two dimes. Olivia rolled her eyes: ‘Did you rob a bank? I’d be terrified to walk around with that much money on me’, she said sarcastically. Then she took three quarters out of her own pocket and put them in the coin slot.

‘What was that number again?’

Luca found the tiny piece of paper he had scribbled the number on and handed it to Olivia, who started dialing it.

A harsh man’s voice answered the call: ‘Hello?!’

‘Hi, is this John?’

‘Yes. Who is this?’

‘We – I mean, I found your number on the ad where you said you were missing your parrot.’

‘Oh’ he started, his voice completely changed now, ‘yes, the parrot. What about it? Have you seen it?’

Olivia got suspicious about the man’s quick change in attitude. She forgot about their plan, so didn’t know what to do next.

‘Hello? Are you still there?’ the man shouted impatiently.

‘Uhm…yes’ Olivia stuttered, ‘I have the parrot.’ She paused, trying to think quickly of what to say next. She darted her eyes between Luca and Simon and pointed her fingers at the phone, letting them know that something wasn’t right.

She asked: ‘Are you from here?’

Now it was the man’s turn to pause. ‘Uhm…why? I visit here every once in a while for...business.’

‘I was thinking, we could meet at the old windmill up the hill, that way the parrot wouldn’t be able to take off on me.’

The boys were shaking their heads, shocked at what she was doing.

Olivia continued. ‘Do you know how to find that? It’s on Old Mill Drive just outside of the village’

‘I guess’, he answered. ‘Can we meet there right now? Let’s say in 15 minutes?’

‘Perfect, see you then!’ Olivia quickly hung up the phone, gasping in exhaustion.

Luca looked at her shocked, but Simon just wondered: 'How does he get there that fast?'

‘I didn’t know what else to do!' Olivia apologized. 'So, we better get the police officers quickly and get to Layla before he does.’ the girl explained.

They decided to split up, the boys would go to the police station, explain the situation there and Olivia would go to the windmill.

As Olivia arrived, a flash of colours came bursting out through the door, screeching loudly. Before she knew what was happening, Layla came running out right after, followed by a strange man, who was covered in hay, which was sticking out from all angles, making him look like a wild scarecrow. ‘Layla!!!’ she yelled, running after them all.

And just when the guy went to grab Layla’s arms, a cop car pulled in with Simon and Luca yelling through the windows of the back seat.

The guy stopped dead in his tracks, his hay-covered face had turned pale as snow. By the time he regained himself the cops had already captured him, leading him to the car:

‘You are under arrest for the illegal handling of the exotic bird, the Scarlet Macaw. Anything you say or do will be held against you in the Court of Law.'

‘Is there any last words you wanna say?’ Layla blurted out with both hands on her hips.

‘I would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for you medalling kids!!!’

‘Well, it was YOU who chose medalling with ‘The Beehive’!’

That was where Simon chimed in: ‘You got stuuung!’

Luca and Olivia rolled their eyes, but still went along with it, nodding, their arms crossed.

'So, I see you got yourself some now friends', the taller police officer said to Luca, smiling, 'Good work, you all!'

Luca was obviously very proud, introduced his father and friends: 'This is Simon, Olivia and her little sister Layla. This is my dad.' Then he added: 'And this is Flash!' The beautiful bird came sailing through the air, landed smoothly on Simons shoulder and started nibbling on his ear.

'Ouch!' he cried out, which was immediately repeated by the Macaw. Everybody laughed.

The four children watched as the police car took off. Everyone turned to Layla now, looking at her, waiting for an explanation of what just had happened.

Layla was clearly very proud of herself: ‘So, while you guys where out leaving me all by myself I started talking to Flash, teaching him some new words and stuff. Then, he just started saying ‘John’ all the time and as I turned around, a guy was standing right there, right in front of the door.' She pointed dramatically at the entrance door of the windmill. 'I was screaming and ran to the haybales in the corner, throwing whatever hay I could grab at him, which gave me time to run away and then you guys all came, ya, and then you know what happened…’ She was gasping for air, exhausted after telling this whole story.

The other kids patted or on her shoulder, admiring her for her bravery.

--

A few days later, they found a picture of themselves on the front page of the local newspaper”

‘Thanks to a young detective group called ‘The Beehive’ an illegal group of animal smugglers has been stopped, saving one of the many endangered birds of South America, the Scarlet Macaw. Because of their help and brave actions Canada can now raise a better awareness, a wider range of support to help more endangered Creatures across the world.

‘I’m so glad, it wasn’t my uncle after all’, Luca sighed in relief.