Free Where Cuckoos Call by Des Hunt

right! Whatever! You just keep on dreaming, Mansfield. Those bikers will have you for breakfast.’

Chapter 10
    With the cuckoos and godwits gone, and Tiny-M free, I found myself with little to do except schoolwork. I was working on a social studies assignment one afternoon when there was the chime of an email landing in my inbox. It was a welcome distraction.
From: [email protected]
    To: [email protected]
    Subject:
    Give the name of a bird that might know this email address and I will send a message.
    With rising excitement, I sent ‘shining cuckoo’ and waited. And waited, and waited. Nothing came until the following day, when I got:
Hi.
    Here it is called the Shining Bronze-Cuckoo, but I guess it’s the same bird.
    I am on an island called Lopevi in Vanuatu and I have one of those cuckoos begging food from my table. It has your email address on its leg. Would you care to elucidate?
    I got out of my chair and danced around the room, laughing with joy. I was so thrilled. Bigmouth had made it and already she’d found someone to feed her! I went out and told Mum and Dad. Mum was almost as excited as I was. Even Dad showed enough interest to drag out an atlas to locate the island. It took some finding: a tiny speck, south of the equator, and just to theleft of a straight line north of New Zealand. Whatever methods Bigmouth had used to get there, she’d got it right. A little more to one side and she would’ve still been flying.
    Before I replied to [email protected], I had to look up ‘elucidate’: it means ‘to make clear’, so that’s what I did. I decided to start by giving my name, where we lived and my age. I always inflate my age on the Internet so that I’m not treated as a kid. This time, I gave my age as fifteen. Finally, I gave all the details about Bigmouth: where I found her, how she got her name, what I fed her, and the date she had left Mansfield Bay.
    Again there was no immediate reply. While I waited I researched Lopevi Island, and what a place it proved to be. The island is an active volcano, only seven kilometres in diameter, yet it reaches a height of fifteen hundred metres. It is always active, but some times more so than others. When it’s in full eruption the lava flows all the way to the sea. The photos I downloaded showed parts of the island totally without plants and looking like a burnt-out moonscape. Back in the 1970s, it was considered so dangerous that the islanders were shifted away.
    So why was [email protected] there? And why had Bigmouth chosen Lopevi? There were plenty of other islands nearby. Many of them had active volcanoes, too, but at least people lived on them.
    The following morning I got some of the answers.
From: [email protected]
    To: [email protected]
    Subject: Bigmouth
    What an appropriate name. Wow can she eat.
    I first saw her here three days after she left your place. At first she was shy and hid in the bushes. Slowly she got used to us and now demands a feedalmost every day. I didn’t know what to feed her at first. She didn’t like Mom’s cooking!!!! I eventually found some worms that live on the wild taro and she loves them.
    I have discussed with Mom whether I should give you any personal details and she decided that it was probably safe. She hadn’t heard of any paedophiles who used migrating cuckoos to make contacts and it’s not like we can just go out and meet somewhere, is it? So I’m assuming you are who you say you are.
    My name is Sarah-Lee Petersen, aged 14, of New London, Connecticut, USA. My Mom and Dad are archaeologists doing a dig here on Lopevi looking for evidence of Lapita people. I’m on summer vacation from school.
    If you send me some photos of your place, you and Bigmouth, I’ll do the same.
    I won’t be able to reply immediately because we use a satellite phone for our Internet connection and it costs zillions of dollars. I’m only allowed on once a day so it will be 24 hours before you get a reply.
    See ya,
    Sarah-Lee
    I thought about the photos a lot before