I tossed and turned all night. I asked myself all sorts of questions. Is it wise to leave yet? How long is the Bega? Which river does it spill into? What dangers will there be along the way? Should we fly? Should I swim behind the nest and will the rest of my team perch in it? Will the nest hold? Will it attract attention and be attacked?
At night I had this uneasy dream
That I was floating down a stream
Behind an odd and mismatched group
This incongruous most motley troupe
Two sparrows, an owl, and a crow
With corn, and rat carcasses in tow
In a nest that served as a boat
Non-swimmers to keep afloat
Then I realized that in all reality
This flouted the laws of buoyancy
With Four birds, corn, and dead rats that nest
Wouldn’t be a boat, but a submarine at best
An open one at that what a mess!
This plan we’d have to reassess!
In the morning, I told Cawlin I needed another day to make plans. Cawlin took a long look at my sleepless face and said "Let's chat with Mother Cleverbrain!". She's a legend among birds. Nobody knows her age because she is older than all of us. Mother Cleverbrain is good with numbers and loves grapes. After some thorough search, we found her in a clearing near a grapewine that ripes early and thus has grapes that are already very sweet. She was surrounded by her team of goats. Cawlin jumped on a brown goat to be on the same level as the old, wise crow before wispering "she perches on the goats to eat the bugs off them. The goats have even taken to using her last name. Those two are her favourites: Edwina and Caprioara. Edwina Cleverbrain is the grey goat with touches of white and brown in her coat, while Caprioara is the shinny brown that looks just like a hornless deer."
From above a croaky voice says "Hello, Narcissus! I've been waiting for your call. No need to worry over your toes. We've perfected this routine a long time ago. Cawlin, your wispers are loud enough for my deaf ears." Behind her a white hen with twisted toes, who had clearly been stepped upon by a goat, pecks at left-over grapes. She is followed by a tiny chick. They seem happy enough.
Cawlin answers meekly "How are you Mother? are you still worried over the fate of mankind?"
"Narcissus, I am in no mood for more loud whispers behind my back. Yes, I am really his mother. He gets his smarts from me. Do you think I would have left him to come alone all the way from India? As for my worry over humans, they spend all their time staring at some shinny objects in their hand. They call them phones. Of course, I am worried. Look at the man in the yard behind me. He is supposed to be talking to his child, and teaching him things like we birds do when we have chicks. Instead, he stares at the shinny thing, and the child plays alone. Yet they are together. Other humans are worse. They give phones to their babies. Then the children don't play and often don't talk. They just stare at the thing. This one plays and talks. The goats and I do our best to teach him to behave."
"His first food was goat poop. By now he's figured out it's better to eat plums and nettles.", Edwina helpfully pipes in.
"And grain. He can immitate all sorts of sounds just like you, Mother Cleverbrain." adds Twistiedfingers.
"Well... just like Cawlin, he has a smart mother who tries to understand the world, and I don't just mean me. His human mother recognizes our uses and lets us help instead of poisoning us like the rest of humanfolk. But enough about that. I hear you want to go back to India?"
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