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Mr Mowbray’s Magical Menagerie
“Well, Mr Mowbray, the invisible parrot has escaped from its
cage again.” Jaz announced as she walked into his office.
Mr Mowbray sighed as he put his pen down and looked up from
his desk. He was finalising a feed order
so that when his Menagerie opened in an hour, he could focus on entertaining
the public. Although it was not truly
invisible, as in see through, this particular of species of bird had chameleon
like abilities when it came to camouflage.
“How did he get out this time?” Mr Mowbray asked his most
senior zoo keeper.
“Don’t know, but I suspect it must have been when Alfred
checked the water last night. No one
else has been in the aviary and the door wasn’t unlocked. If you want him back in his cage before any
visitors get here, you’ll have to come and help look for him. You know he only shows his colours for you,
Mr Mowbray.”
Mr Mowbray did indeed know this. The invisible parrot knew who was boss and
who wasn’t, and would only respond to absolute authority. Wondering where the parrot might be this
time, as it was not a creature of habit, Mr Mowbray picked up his whistle and followed
Jaz out of the office and into the heart of his menagerie.
Andulf Mowbray was the proud owner of the Britain’s only
magical menagerie. It was situated on an
almost mythical island just off the east coast of southern Scotland, on the
edge of the North Sea. The menagerie, or
zoo, covered most of the Island because Mr Mowbray believed in giving the animals
as much space as possible and the island had long been denuded of any resources
or natural habitat due to an excess of magical experimentation in the days
before Mr Mowbray’s family took ownership of the island. Most of the animals had been rescued from
once magical places that had been overcome by mundanity. The remainder of the animal population had
been bred in the zoo. As well as fauna,
there was a healthy selection of mystical plants acquired from all corners of
the world. A ferry service brought
patrons across from the mainland each day.
Managing the menagerie was quite a challenge as the animals
were all extraordinary creatures with unusual behaviours. Mr Mowbray, Jaz and the rest of his team had
to do a lot of obscure research as well as carefully monitoring the animals to
ensure that they were healthy and happy.
In the case of the invisible parrot, Mr Mowbray suspected that it
enjoyed the challenge and attention that went with being an escapee. When he got close enough to the parrot it, he
knew that it would start screeching with excitement and then happily allow him
to take it back to its sizable enclosure, with its fellow birds, where small
children took great joy in trying to spot him.
Liking the attention, the parrot would revert from camouflage to its
base colours of purple and orange when enough children were squealing.
“Let’s go clockwise.
He went the other way, last time.” Mr Mowbray decided.
The zoo’s enclosures were arranged in a
round, with an inner and outer ring split by a path. The administrative behind the scenes buildings
were in the centre, hidden from public view.
“He seems to visit a different enclosure each time. Doesn’t he?
Where hasn’t he been yet?” Jaz
pondered the parrot’s behaviour, hoping against all evidence that it would be
predictable.
“Unfortunately, there are some he has visited a couple of
times over the years and others he seems to avoid.”
Before they set off, Albert came running up.
“The invisible parrot…” he panted, trying to catch his
breath as he spoke.
“Yes. We’re just
setting out to look for him.” Mr Mowbray
narrowed his eyes at the probably guilty party.
“You can help by checking the food stores. There is always a chance he will be hungry
after whatever he got up to overnight.”
Albert looked suitably guilty as he nodded in agreement.
The first enclosure Mr Mowbray and Jaz came to contained a
small lake and was the home of several lesser yellow elephant penguins; the
only penguins found in the Northern Hemisphere.
The birds were actually natives of the island, the only ones, and this
lake had been their home before Mr Mowbray arrived and they had not objected to
a fence being built around their territory.
These penguins were about a metre tall when fully grown, so a rather
large species. Where a regular penguin
would be coloured black, these were bright canary yellow. The other odd thing about these birds was
their impressively long and slightly flexible bill that at a glance resembled
an elephant’s trunk. On seeing Mr
Mowbray and Jaz, they waddled over to see if there might be any fish available. Jaz didn’t have any fish but she threw a
handful of peanuts, which seemed to please the penguins.
“No parrot here.” Jaz
pronounced after a few minutes of peering intently at the trees behind the
lake.
Next was a somewhat larger enclosure designed to look like
the side of a mountain. Sitting about
halfway up the slope was a large black and white banded dragon. It gave Jaz and Mr Mowbray a lazy glance and
then turned its attention back to a long stick of sugar cane. At the bottom of the hill, a second dragon
lay on its back snoring, feet sticking up into the air like a dog.
“Ping is lively today.” Mr Mowbray commented on seeing that
Ping, the male panda dragon, was awake at this time in the morning; quite a
rarity.
“I can go give Pixie a poke to wake her up before the
visitors arrive.” Jaz suggested, the female dragon looked to be sound asleep
and unlikely to wake up anytime soon.
Mr Mowbray gave a slight nod to the suggestion. After being poked, there was a good change
that Pixie the panda dragon would soon nod off again.
Mr Mowbray was very lucky to have two panda dragons in his
collection. They were exceedingly rare
but surprisingly easy to look after; they just needed lots of sugar to eat and
some shade for the rare occasions when it was sunny. In spite of having a male and female pair, it
was almost impossible to convince the panda dragons to breed. These beautiful black and white creatures
were primarily interested in food and had little interest in other animals,
either their own species or others. They
were obsessed with sugar cane (and sleeping), although they would eat bamboo or
other giant grasses, if deprived of their favourite food. Mr Mowbray had not given up hope even thought
this pair had produced no offspring in the five years since he had found them. He had rescued the panda dragons from a
corner of Chinese wilderness that was about to become a mine. Again, there was no screeching after a few
minutes wait, so Jaz and Mr Mowbray moved on.
 |
| A panda dragon with a close up head shot. Drawings by Simeon Mateev Like this story, the drawings came into existence one night in a pub. |
After the panda dragons, came the black leopard. There wasn’t actually anything special about
the black leopard other than that it was Mr Mowbray’s favourite non-magical
creature. They didn’t look for the
invisible parrot there. The parrot
wasn’t stupid enough to risk its life by going near the leopard who was a
supreme hunter. He was currently sitting
in a tree, carefully watching another keeper who was preparing the leopard’s
breakfast, his tail slowly twitching from side to side. The keeper paused to wave at Mr Mowbray and
Jaz as they walked past. The leopard
growled with displeasure at any delay to his meal.
“He seems to be settling in OK.” commented Jaz as they
walked passed.
The leopard was a recent acquisition, found in farmland just
east of London, where it had become known as the Beast of Essex. Mr Mowbray rescued the animal after seeing
stories in the news about hunters looking for it.
As they approached the flying pigs’ aviary, Mr Mowbray stopped
to listen.
“That doesn’t sound right.”
He paused and looked at Jaz and cocked his head. The flying pigs should have sounded just like
normal pigs, except slightly higher pitched because they were quite small.
“Can you hear the whistling?” Mr Mowbray nodded in the
direction of two winged pigs wallowing in a mud puddle, which they enjoyed
doing, even though it soiled their wing feathers and stopped them flying until
the mud dried and crumbled off. Flying pigs
didn’t actually fly very often but they had the option for the rare occasions when
they really wanted it. There were
rumours that in extreme circumstances, they had even been seen flying
backwards.
Jaz froze for a moment with her head cocked. “I think over there by the shed?”
Mr Mowbray nodded slowly in agreement. He took his whistle out of his pocket and
gave a soft blow. The resulting tweet was answered by a loud screech. A shimmer flew from the shed roof to Mr
Mowbray’s shoulder. A slight lag in
colour change indicated the invisible parrot’s path. It was easier to spot him when he was in
flight than when he was perched somewhere.
Feeling the weight of the parrot’s presence, Mr Mowbray
walked slowly and carefully towards the large bird aviary to return the parrot
to its home. All would have been well,
if it hadn’t been for Albert, who once again ran up panting.
“I am nearly almost completely sure that he wasn’t
there.” He said as he reached for Mr
Mowbray’s parrot inhabited shoulder.
The parrot screeched and flew off. Mr Mowbray turned to Albert with an
exasperated glare. Albert stepped back
and dropped his arm to his side.
“Sorry, sorry! I didn’t see him. I will help you find him. He went that way.”
Albert pointed back the
way Mr Mowbray and Jaz had come.
“That’s the panda dragons and the leopard.” Jaz observed.
“Let’s go see if that blasted parrot has woken up young
Pixie.” Mr Mowbray didn’t actually know if Pixie was young, he just assumed
that she was because she had the sleeping habits of a teenager. However, Panda dragons were long lived but
little studied animals, so it was difficult to be certain of anything other
than that they were very lazy.
The three zoo keepers walked slowly and quietly back to the
panda dragon enclosure, keeping an eye out for the shimmer of the invisible
parrot as they went. They did not see
any sign of the parrot.
Pixie was still snoring but had rolled onto her side,
looking awkward with one white wing twisted at an odd angle underneath
her. None of the zoo keepers were
concerned, as this was normal behaviour.
There was even a sign explaining this on the viewing platform to reduced
the number of concerned members of the public reporting an apparent broken wing
or dead panda dragon to any member of staff they could find.
Ping, having finished his sugar cane, was looking around in
a puzzled fashion for more. He emitted a
high-pitched bark of frustration* as he looked all the way down the hill to the
pile of canes next to Pixie. He barked again and then struggled to his feet, black
wings flapping wildly as he tried to keep upright. While panda dragon wings were vestigial, they
did seem to help with otherwise poor balance and the dragons needed all the
help they could get. They were a
genetically clumsy animal.
Jaz, Albert and Mr Mowbray watch as Ping staggered down the
hill like a drunkard and stumbled into a tree stump that doubled as a
scratching post. A shimmer of light shot
up from the stump.
“There he is!” Albert pointed with excitement.
Mr Mowbray quickly blew his whistle and was pleased that the
shimmer answered with a screech. The
parrot circled around before flying over to settle back on his shoulder.
“I’ll take him back to the enclosure. You two can get back to your normal duties,
thanks. I’ll talk to you later, Albert.” He raised a stern eyebrow. “Only 10
minutes until opening time so let’s get ready.”
He carefully took the invisible parrot back to its home.
Jaz and Albert both nodded as they watched Ping trip into
the pile of sugar cane, scattering it across the hillside. Ping gave a contended squeak followed by a
burp and a small spurt of flame that seared a stick of sugar cane, which he
then proceeded to eat.
Pixie, apparently disturbed by the noise and being hit by a
pile of sugar cane, stopped snoring and rolled over with flutter of her
wings. She accidentally stepped on a
stick of sugar cane, looked at it in surprise, before picking it up. A burp and flame followed. She then sat back, gnawing at the stick.
“Well, they look content today.” Albert observed.
“They always look content.” sighed Jaz as she rushed off to
make final preparations for the daily opening of Mr Mowbray’s Magical Menagerie.
*If you want to know what real pandas sound like:
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