I don't know, Mum . . . I'm not sure I can do it.' Pel curved his neck deep into his shoulders, his hesitant eyes wandering over the man in front of them.
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The man was wearing a checked flannel shirt, and his fishing rod was up in the sky. He hadn't noticed any of them yet-or pretended he hadn't. He was looking at the ocean, thoughtful. Pel could wonder for all the time in the world about the nature of his thoughts, but the smell of the fish in the man's bucket was driving him crazy. It made his tummy rumble like a thunderstorm.
"Of course, you can do it, darling," Lika said, looking at him from all the height of her most dignified posture. "Remember what I told you? Use your magic words."
Pel glanced at the man's hunched back. He must be exhausted to have stayed there half the night for that one fish. Why on earth would he want to share?
"What if he doesn't understand me?" Pel asked. "Of course, he will, darling!" Lika objected ardently. "He is a human! Humans are clever."
"What if he doesn't want to share,' Pel whined, and his tummy whined one tone higher.
"Why don't we just catch the fish ourselves?"
Lika shifted from one foot to the other as if it helped her to conserve her last bits of patience.
"The fish is already there," she said. "You don't have to dive and search for it. And most people share. They always do."
The tidal mud, messed up by the recent rain, felt unpleasant under Pel's webbed feet. The water must be freezing. The pungent smell of seaweed reminded him of the urgency of his hunger. It was time to act. But he couldn't. Begging was wrong, so wrong.
"Goodness gracious, how much longer?" Ann's voice questioned grumpily from behind.
Busy with talking to his Mum, Pel had forgotten all about the grandparents. Double pressure. Or quintuple pressure if you counted Ann's husband and Pel's dad's parents, but those didn't talk just yet.
"Just pinch it from him and fly away," Ann said. "Like in the good old days."
"No one did that in the good old days," Khan argued. He was Pel's grouchy grandad, his dad's dad. Ann's husband was the silent one - she always did the talking for both of them.
"Oh yes, they did," Ann said.
"No, they didn't," Khan repeated and stressed proudly.
"Pelicans are beggars, not robbers."
Pel rolled his eyes and sighed, presenting an argument. Why did pelicans have to be either of those, anyway? Why couldn't they leave these poor humans alone?
"Just take another step, and then one more," Li, his other grandmother, said in a sweet encouraging voice. "And then take it quietly when he is not looking." "Why do you teach my son bad manners?" Lika said resentfully. "We live in the era of communication. You form relationships. You socialise."
"Don't be ridiculous!" all the grandparents, except for the silent grandad, squawked in a hoarse choir. Pel wished he could disappear. He now seriously considered diving into the freezing water. He didn't care much if it gave him a terrible chill. Frostbite was better than the biting words of two generations arguing over 'the good old days' and 'kids these days'. 'Kids these days do nothing but communicate,' Ann echoed his thoughts, and the dirty plumes on her head stood up, forming a furious hairdo.
"Look at these humans - I see them on the beaches all the time. They do nothing all day long but stare at their screens: iPhones, iPads, iWatches, iMacs . . . All with a small i because the capital I is gone."
'Mum, please don't start," Lika moaned.
But Ann went on.
"Kids these days are too lazy to do anything but chatter away. When I was little . . ." Everybody seemed to have forgotten about Pel, except for the silent grandad, who probably already knew by heart all the stories about Ann's childhood. Pel could feel his gaze, and his back was getting warm from his grandad's burning compassion.
All the rest of the family bowed their heads, listening to Ann in shared respect for the stories of the past.
The cloudy sky above them started clearing, revealing the distant horizon of the foamy dark water. The sun of a new day was not far off. And there was still only one fish in the fisherman's bucket, so small that he would probably let it go. But even so, Pel couldn't go forward. Ann must be right. He was just a hopeless kid, part of his wretched generation: bad at begging, bad at stealing. Good for nothing.
Suddenly, Pel heard a whisper so muffled that he could mistake it for the gentle rustle of the waves.
"Go for it, Pelly."
He turned his head and saw his usually silent grandad moving his long beak. Pel doubted he had ever heard any sounds coming from this thin sabre-like mouth.
"Do what your heart tells you," Grandad's beak moved again, the words sounding more clearly this time.
Pel looked at the murmuring waves invading the land, listened to the squawking noises behind his back.
He glanced at the man's shorts and his legs covered with goosebumps, and then Pel listened to his heart. And he suddenly heard that his heart was full of admiration and deep sympathy-for this warm advice and for the man who lived his own life. This was what made you a human.
Pel stretched his neck and flapped his stiff wings, slowly at first, as if making sure they were still able to move. Then a gust of wind picked up his body, and he felt his feet detaching from the muddy surface of the shore. In just seconds, he flew up over the flat sheet of the ocean, leaving behind his groaning flock, off to his own adventure.
Off to his own hunt.
***
Olga Korlevic, the author of this piece, is a finalist in the 2022 Newcastle Herald Short Story Competition. Read the full list of finalists in this year's Herald Short Story Competition by visiting the Newcastle Herald website.
