Rinku & the Silver Wings
Chapter 1
The wind was a wild, wondrous animate thing.
On a little island upon the Pacific Ocean, miles away from any continent, a little cobalt blue bird with splotches of orange feathers sat upon a daintily dancing tree-branch, and watched the wildness of the wind.
Oh, how the wind danced! And dove, and sailed, and soared. Of course, the little blue-orange bird couldn’t see the wind, as the swooping air was as invisible as a ghost, but it could see the waves of the sea sway to sea-breezes, shimmering so brightly they shone like flames of blue fire.
This gloriously liberated wind suddenly shook the little bird so much it nearly fell. It gasped, and held onto its branch tightly with its two small feet.
The little bird sighed deeply. It was still young, and hadn’t had much experience in hanging onto tree-branches in cascading streams of racing air. But it knew it had to learn quickly, so it wouldn’t let the other birds down.
For this little bird had been invited to attend the global Avian Nations conference. Not every bird was invited; in an act of pure serendipity, an Avian Nations scout—a black kite, a kind of sharp-eyed hawk—had spotted this little fiery blue creature, and had dropped an invitation to the conference into its parents’ nest in India. Its parents were hesitant at first, but for their little chick to be invited was too great an honor to pass up.
So, here upon this island in the Pacific the tiny bird sat, watching, one after the other, birds of a dazzling spectrum of species from all over the world land upon hills too richly green to be true.
Lightly black fairy-bluebirds flew in, followed by grass-green fiery-throated fruit-eaters, emerald blue-throated barbets, violet and saffron hummingbirds. The little bird gasped; it felt as if it were seeing a rainbow come to life! And with the birds gliding in on ribbons of wind, it felt like the colors themselves were alive, not simply the birds.
But there were dull-colored birds as well; strange-looking tarnished silver frogmouths, dirty black-and-white nightjars. Soot-shaded chimney swifts. The little bird sighed once more. So many different kinds of birds in the world! Well, it took all kinds to create the Avian Nations conference.
Our little bird was a kingfisher, and its name was Rinku. Kingfishers were small birds as colorful as rubies and emeralds, sapphires and topaz. They lived in the warm jungles of India, coastal mangroves of Australia. Many of them, including Rinku, had belly-shaped bodies, and elegant, elongated beaks.
This was the first time Rinku had been selected to attend the conference. But this was only the second conference; it had first been held five years ago, before Rinku had been born, and could not be held more often, for it took much careful thought by the Planning Committee to select a site for the meeting, and to decide upon how different birds would be invited—for you couldn’t have every single bird in the world attend, there wouldn’t be an island large enough!
They also had to decide upon a most pressing problem: how to transport flightless birds, such as the emu and ostrich, and most importantly, those pesky well-dressed penguins who lived so far away, to the selected site of the conference. For the first conference, they tried as asking passing whales or dolphins to give the wingless creatures a ride (sea-turtles were far too slow), or suggesting to the unfortunate birds that they stow away upon ships people sailed. But each solution had different pros and cons; friendly whales & dolphins made sure to surface often enough for the birds to breathe, but their not-so-sensitive brethren weren’t so careful. And it was the same for people on ships; sometimes people would notice the ostriches or emus, and let them be, but other times they’d shoo them away.
So, this year, the Planning Committee had come up with a completely different idea.
Rinku grasped the branch tightly. The wind simply wouldn’t let up. It was as if the wind itself was thrilled beyond all understanding to have so many birds of the world in the same spot.
And the birds kept coming, candy-colored feathered creatures of a thousand sorts. The starlings were perhaps the loveliest to watch, as they announced their arrival in a dance so precisely choreographed Rinku caught her breath; how did they know when to dip, suspend, dive, ascend? No one seemed to lead them.
On the other hand, the Canada geese were the noisiest to arrive. They flew in patterns of giant V’s (why not Z? And T? And X and S, Rinku wondered.), but theirs was more of a scientific, military kind of formation, rather than a ballet.
Suddenly Rinku caught her breath.
An insistent kind of chirping seemed to take over the island. Almost as if dozens of birds were blowing whistles. If Rinku had hands she’d close her ears, the sound was so loud. What could that be?
A nightblack rook—a princely type of crow– suddenly appeared at her side. It seemed to have a stick in its mouth, which, however, didn’t prevent it from speaking. Rinku trembled—at home, in India, she’d never liked crows.
“Hello, little kingfisher,” the rook said in a kindly tone, “What is your name?”
“Rinku,” the little kingfisher announced, nervously.
The crow sensed its anxiety. “Is this your first Avian Nations Conference?” it asked gently.
Rinku nodded, fluttered its feathers.
“You’re alone, aren’t you?” the rook asked.
Rinku nodded, grasping onto the branch with all her might. Despite its gentle tone, this big crow really scared her.
“Don’t be scared. You will learn a lot at this conference, and meet birds of a thousand different kinds here. And now that I know your name, I will mark you off on our checklist. Come now, the cardinals are calling us to attention.”
‘Is that what that noise is?” asked Rinku. “It sounded as if someone was blowing a whistle.”
The crow nodded. “Cardinals are beautiful birds as red as tomatoes. And their calls are insistent—that’s why we use them like…shepherds. To herd our birds along!” The crow laughed at his own image, and continued. “They are from North America, a land so far away I know you’ve never been there.”
Rinku shook her head. She’d never been here either. Or anywhere else outside of her little coastal home of Udupi, on the western coast of India.
The crow continued. “I think all the birds must have arrived. Let’s fly off now, and go to our meeting-place—the valley, across the river there. Five minutes as the crow flies!” The large black bird laughed, a strange sort of cawing guffaw. Rinku relaxed, slightly. “Come on!”
The crow flew off.
But even though the rook had tried to reassure her, Rinku wanted to cry.
For suddenly she felt so terribly scared, to be the only one of her family, her community, here.
Actually, she did cry. A tear slipped from her right eye, and would’ve fallen to the ground, but the wind caught it, and dried it so quickly it disappeared.
The little lonely kingfisher sighed. If she didn’t follow the crow, her long journey here would be a complete waste.
And she’d disappoint her parents so.
So, she summoned all her courage, and even though she could fly, asked the wind to please welcome her, and not let her fall as she flew into its bracing embrace.
Rinku relaxed the grip of her talons on her twig,
and leapt.
—-
The little kingfisher gasped.
Vultures.
Grotesque hunched creatures, with bills still smeared with blood from their last meals, huddled together in a group at her side. Some had bodies of rancid gold, others of sickly green. All had soiled white heads.
Even the two younger vultures in the group looked angry and old.
The little kingfisher quivered. What was she doing here?
She’d followed the crow, and after exactly five minutes (the crow was right!), had landed in a glade of tropical trees—banyan, breadfruit, jackfruit–nestled deep in a valley of high breeze-caressed hills. In the distance a waterfall thundered; Rinku gasped in wonder, for it was so tall its water evaporated into a silver mist before it struck the earth.
At first she had no idea where to land, for there were birds everywhere. Sober bald eagles with a wingspan spun for endless wind. Tiny Jamaican Todys, as leaf-green as a dream of spring. Orange-bellied leafbirds whose bellies were as sunnily orange as well, an orange. What seemed like hundreds of flying tomatoes—those must be the cardinals. Rinku gasped. They were beautiful. Crafted only, of unafraid red.
She hadn’t known where to perch herself, so she just chose a branch with a free spot big enough for a small bird, and then, to her dismay, noticed a grimy group of vultures at her side.
They not simply looked terrifying, they smelled hideous.
Rinku got scared. She had to get away…
At that moment another crow appeared at her side, stick in mouth, and said, “You, little kingfisher, go perch on the third lowest branch on the left side of the hibiscus wrapped in the yellow-pink flowering vine. That’s where all the kingfishers and related birds are going.”
Rinku nodded in relief. She’d be far away from the vultures. She found the third lowest branch on the left side of the hibiscus draped in flowers simply dripping with radiant mustard and magenta. A handful of other kingfishers greeted her with a nod, but no speech.
Truth be told, everyone seemed a little lost.
Rinku thought about nothing for what seemed a long while. She simply listened to her own heart beat quickly, amidst a cacophony of chirping, whoops, koo-koos.
Finally, a slowly growing chorus of “Hoo-Hoo,” “Hoo-Hoo-hoo hoo!” spread over the crowd of birds.
Rinku looked up, along with all the other birds alongside her.
A huge cloud, profoundly white, scalloped with black shadows here, dark brown shadows there, seemed to descend from the skies.
Was it going to rain? Rinku was confused. The wind was still strong—maybe it was bringing in clouds from the ocean. Maybe the “Hoo-Hoo” was the strong song of the wind.
A second later, however, she realized how mistaken she was.
She wasn’t watching a cloud fall from the skies.
A snowy owl was swooping down, from the top of an ylang-ylang tree. It was the largest owl she’d seen in her young life; and definitely the whitest. It shone simply, brightly, amongst the vivid variety of avian life around her. Like what Rinku imagined a snowflake would look like in a bouquet of roses, crocuses, and lotus-flowers. (For, living in South India, she’d never seen snowflakes).
It was surrounded by a crowd of owls, of different types. Sullen heart-shaped ashy-faced owls. Glaring gray screech owls. Creamy-golden crafty-looking desert eagle-owls.
All the owls landed within the hollow of an ancient banyan tree worn out by the world.
And then, silence. The only sound in the green glade was the lifting and shifting of a thousand leaves in the ever-dancing wind.
All the birds, even the honking geese and hard-headed cardinals, seemed to have fallen still.
Rinku hardly breathed.
What was going to happen next?
