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CHAPTER 5
Nearby, a creature blasted across a field of grass and into the cover of a grove of trees. Three dogs chased it at top speed. The prey dodged and ran, avoiding the traps that someone had set for it. It was a large, colorful bird. It couldn’t fly, but it could run fast. Feathers flew as the bird burst from a grove. It came to a stop in front of a wall of rock. The bird was trapped! The dogs closed in…
But in a flash, the bird leaped over the rock and escaped!
The dogs were about to follow, but a shrill whine passed nearby. It was Carl’s hearing aid. The noise hurt the dogs’ sensitive ears. They ran away, whimpering in pain.
“Darn thing,” Carl groused as he and Russell walked through the jungle. Carl adjusted his hearing aid again. But now it wasn’t the hearing aid that was whining. It was Russell.
“C’mon, Russell!” Carl called. “Would you hurry it up?”
“I’m tired and my knee hurts,” Russell griped.
“Which knee?”
Russell ignored the question. “My elbow hurts and I have to go to the bathroom.”
“I asked you about that five minutes ago!”
Russell dragged his feet. “Well, I didn’t have to go then! I don’t want to walk anymore.” He lay face-down in the dirt.
With every step Carl took, Russell was dragged a little on the ground.
“Can we stop?” asked Russell.
Carl was getting impatient. “Russell! If you don’t hurry up, the tigers will eat you.”
“There’s no tigers in South America.” Russell rolled over onto his back and pointed to a badge with a paw print on it. “Zoology,” he said, and then rolled back over onto his face.
“Oh, for the love of Pete.” Carl waved at the shrubbery. “Go on into the bushes and do your business.”
“Okay! Here, hold my stuff.” Russell handed his backpack to Carl and hurried toward the bushes. He was carrying a small shovel and a handful of leaves. “I’ve always wanted to try this!”
Try this? Carl thought. Are you telling me the boy doesn’t know how to go to the bathroom?
“Mr. Fredricksen?” Russell asked after a moment. “Am I supposed to dig the hole before or after?”
“Ugh. None of my concern!”
“Oh. It’s before!” Russell called.
Carl shook his head.
Russell was just about to head back toward the house when he spotted some weird tracks in the dirt. They looked almost like bird tracks. Only they were huge. Russell could fit three of his own feet in one footprint. “Huh? Tracks? Snipe!” Remembering what Carl had told him, Russell clapped three times. “Here, snipe. Come on out, snipe. Sniiiiipe!”
Suddenly, the trail disappeared.
“Huh?” Russell stopped to think for a moment. He pulled a chocolate bar out of his pocket.
Something rustled in the bushes nearby.
Russell turned to look. He caught a flash of a big orange beak out of the corner of his eye—as something took a nibble of chocolate! “Gotcha!” he cried as the creature disappeared into the shrub. “Don’t be afraid, little snipe. I am a Wilderness Explorer, so I am a friend to all of nature. Want some more?” Russell held out his chocolate bar.
The bird poked its beak out of the leaves and nibbled at the chocolate.
“Hi, boy.” Russell’s heart fluttered. He had never been this close to a wild bird before! “Don’t eat it all. Come on out.” The bird poked its blue-plumed head out of the shrubbery and glanced nervously at Russell. “Come on. Don’t be afraid, little snipe,” Russell urged. A long leg reached out of the bushes, followed by a pink and purple wing. “Nice snipe. Good little snipe.” Another leg followed the first one, and the bird stood up.
Russell’s eyes bugged. The bird was enormous— more than twice his height. “Nice … giant snipe!”
Russell couldn’t wait to show Mr. Fredricksen! He took the bird gently by the wing and walked to where Carl was fiddling with the garden hose. He had his back to Russell.
“I found a snipe!” Russell announced.
“Oh, did you?” Carl didn’t turn around.
“Are they tall?” Russell asked, looking up at the colorful bird.
Carl decided to humor the kid. “Oh, yes, they’re very tall.”
“Do they have a lot of colors?”
“They do indeed.”
“Do they like chocolate?”
“Oh, yes… chocolate?” Wait a minute… Carl froze. Slowly, he turned around and saw Russell—standing next to an enormous bird. Carl let out a shout. “What is that thing?”
The bird chirped at Carl as if it were saying hello.
“It’s a snipe!” Russell said.
“There’s no such thing as a snipe!” Carl barked.
“But you said snipes eat your azaleas!” said Russell.
Carl grabbed Russell and pulled him away from Birdzilla. The bird hissed at Carl. It grabbed Russell, holding him in its wings like a baby.
“Hey!” Carl shouted as Russell giggled. “Go on, get out of here.” Carl shooed the bird. “Go on!”
The bird hissed again. Then it climbed a nearby tree. It tossed Russell into the air and caught him again.
Russell laughed. “Whoa!”
“Careful, Russell!” Carl shouted—as if Russell were in charge of the situation.
“Hey, look, Mr. Fredricksen,” Russell called. “It likes me!” The bird held him upside down, and his cap fell off. “Whoa!” The bird pecked lightly at Russell’s hair.
“No, stop!” Russell begged. “That tickles!”
Carl poked at the bird with his cane. “Get out of here. Go on, git!”
The bird set Russell down gently at the base of the tree. Then it hissed at Carl.
“Uh-oh!” Russell hurried to Carl’s side. “No, no, no, Kevin,” he told the bird, “it’s okay. Mr. Fredricksen is nice!” He patted Carl on the head to demonstrate.
“Kevin?” Carl asked.
“Yeah. That’s his name I just gave him.”
The bird patted Carl on the head with its beak. “Beat it! Vamoose! Scram!” Carl waved his cane at the bird, but the creature ate it. Carl watched a cane-shaped bulge slide down the bird’s slim neck.
“Hey!” he griped. “That’s mine.”
The bird coughed up the cane. It landed at Carl’s feet.
Carl let out a frustrated sigh. “Shoo, shoo!” He waved at the bird. The bird waved back. Carl couldn’t believe it—the bird was mimicking him! “Get out of here,” Carl said. “Go on, beat it.”
But the bird didn’t go anywhere.
Carl threw his hands in the air. He untied the garden hose from a nearby tree and put his harness back on.
“Can we keep him?” Russell begged. Using the bird’s legs as stilts, Russell walked the creature over to Carl. “Please? I’ll get the food for him, I’ll walk him, I’ll change his newspapers.”
“No!” Carl snapped.
But Russell wouldn’t give up. “An Explorer is a friend to all, be it plants or fish or tiny mole,” he said, reciting the Wilderness Explorers motto.
“That doesn’t even rhyme,” said Carl.
“Yeah, it does,” Russell insisted. He pointed to the roof of Carl’s house. “Hey, look—Kevin!”
Sure enough, the giant bird had hopped on top of the house.
“What? Get down! You’re not allowed up there!” Carl yelled.
Kevin pecked at the balloons, then swallowed one. A giant egg shape went down the bird’s slender throat. Pop! The shape disappeared. Kevin coughed up a deflated balloon.
“You come down here right now!” Carl insisted.
Kevin slid down the hose and hid behind Russell.
“Sheesh!” Carl grumbled. “Can you believe this, Ellie?”
Suddenly, Russell had an idea. Why was Carl the only one who could talk to Ellie? “Ellie?” Russell said to the house. “Uh, hey, Ellie, could I keep the bird? Uh-huh? Uh-huh?” He looked at Carl. “She said for you to let me.”
Carl looked up at the house. “But I told him no—” Suddenly, he caught himself. “I told you no!” he scolded Russell. “N-O.”
Kevin let out a harsh hiss.
Muttering to himself, Carl started walking. Pulling the house behind him was hard work, even with Russell’s help. And Russell wasn’t much help at the moment. He was distracted.
“I see you back there,” said Carl.
Russell was walking slowly behind Carl, dropping pieces of chocolate. Kevin was following the chocolate trail—snatching up the pieces.
Carl turned back and yelled at the bird. “Go on, get out of here. Shoo! Go annoy someone else for a while.”
“Hey, are you okay over there?” asked a voice.
With a squawk, the bird dashed away.
“Uh, hello?” Carl peered into the mist. Dimly, he could make out a human-shaped figure. It was standing above them, on a rock. “Oh, hello, sir. Thank goodness. It’s nice to know someone else is up here.”
“I can smell you,” said the figure.
Carl stopped in his tracks. That was a peculiar thing to say. “What? You can smell us?”
“I can smell you.”
Carl took another step toward the figure. Just then, the fog lifted, and he saw that it wasn’t a person he had been talking to.
Russell giggled. “You were talking to a rock!”
It was true—Carl had mistaken a rock formation for the profile of a person.
Russell pointed at another distinctive-looking rock. “Hey. That one looks like a turtle!”
Carl frowned. Russell was right.
“Look at that one! That one looks like a dog!” Russell said.
Just then, the rock moved.
“It is a dog!” Russell shrieked.
It was, in fact, a rather sweet and goofy-looking golden retriever. And he was wearing a very high-tech collar.
“Uh, we’re not allowed to have dogs in my apartment,” Russell said a little tentatively.
The dog put his head under Russell’s hand, so Russell gave him a little pat. Then he patted the dog again. The dog wagged his tail.
“Hey, I like dogs!” exclaimed Russell.
“We have your dog,” Carl called. He figured the dog’s owner couldn’t be too far behind. After all, they’d just been talking to him.
Russell continued to scratch the dog under his chin, while the dog wiggled happily.
“I wonder who he belongs to,” Carl muttered.
“Sit, boy,” Russell said.
The dog sat.
“Hey, look! He’s trained! Shake!”
The dog held out a paw, and Russell shook it.
“Uh-huh.” Russell smiled. “Speak.”
“Hi there,” said the dog.
Carl’s jaw dropped. Russell gasped.
“Did that dog just say ‘hi there’?” Carl asked.
“Oh, yes,” said the dog.
Carl shrieked and jumped back, but the dog just wagged his tail enthusiastically. “My name is Dug,” the dog said. “I have just met you and I love you.” Dug jumped up on Carl.
“What?” Carl couldn’t believe it—he hoped that his hearing aid had gone haywire.
“My master made me this collar,” Dug explained. “He is a good and smart master and he made me this collar so that I may talk—squirrel!” Dug froze and focused on a nearby tree.
Nothing moved. False alarm. No squirrel. “My master is good and smart,” Dug repeated.
“It’s not possible,” Carl said.
“Oh, it is,” Dug replied, “because my master is smart.”
“Cool!” Russell leaned over to inspect Dug’s collar. “What do these do, boy?” He pushed a few of the buttons.
“Hey,” Dug said, suddenly switching to a foreign accent, “would you acuerdo contigo?”
What’s that? Carl wondered. Italian?
Now Dug was talking like a robot. “I use that collar to—” Russell pressed a button and Dug switched to another language. “—watashi wa hanashimasu to talk with—” Russell punched another switch, and Dug’s voice returned to normal. “I would be happy if you stopped.”
“Russell, don’t touch that!” Carl snapped. “It could be radioactive.”
“I am a great tracker,” Dug said. “My pack sent me on a special mission all by myself. Have you seen a bird? I want to find one and I have been on the scent. I’m a great tracker, did I mention that?”
Just then, Kevin leaped from the bushes and tackled Dug. The giant bird let out a dangerous hiss.
“Hey,” Dug said happily, “that is the bird! I have never seen one up close, but this is the bird.” He looked at Carl. “May I take your bird back to camp as my prisoner?”
To Carl, this seemed like a silly question, since the bird appeared to be holding Dug prisoner. Still—if Dug took the bird, two out of Carl’s three biggest problems would be solved. “Yes! Yes! Take it! And on the way, learn how to bark like a real dog.”
“Oh, I can bark.” Dug let out a couple of good barks. “And here’s howling.” He howled.
The bird hissed at Dug.
“Can I keep him?” asked Russell.
“No,” replied Carl.
Russell clasped his hands and fell to his knees, pleading.
“But it’s a talking dog!” he cried.
“It’s just a weird trick or something. Come on!” Carl pulled Russell away from Dug and Kevin.
The bird followed them, and Dug followed the bird.
“Please be my prisoner. Oh, please be my prisoner,” Dug said to Kevin.
Carl rolled his eyes. What’s going to follow us next? he wondered. A dancing hippopotamus?