Two Ways Of Viewing The Ultimate Sacrifice

Mango is about to take off from Boorowa.

She takes a last look at the roadside painting.

Superb Parrots are greedy, says Mango. This one is thin, so you get the wrong impression.

Wah? asks baby B-B.

I'll tell you a story, says Mango. Before we take off. Know why I'm going to tell you?

Eh! Wah? says baby B-B.

So this THIN parrot hears it, says Mango.

Even baby B-B knows the painted parrot won't hear it. But he would like to hear it.

Once, says Mango, I think it was 2008, there was a grain spill on the road in Boorowa. And the Superb Parrots came down from the trees and stuffed themselves silly. They were so full they couldn't fly up when a truck or a car came. Result. They all got run over. Ha ha.

The Superb Parrot remains superbly indifferent to this story.

It's just an old story.

Baby B-B hears a truck coming. He hopes Mango takes off pretty soon.

Mango takes off, with scarcely a wink at the thin painted parrot.

Goodbye Boorowa.

Flap...flap...flap.

As baby B-B rocks in the air in his leather contraption, he reviews what he has learned so far.

1. He can now do two impressions ( a camera, a cash register)
2: He knows what a PUN is ( it's a dangerous predator)
3: He knows what a church is for (sheep)
4; He knows how easily you can choke on a marshmallow
5: He knows how Superb Parrots die

He practises ( under his breath ) his mobile phone impression ( bliiiing! no, that's not right....)

The afternoon sun is warm. The wheat fields below them send up heady wheat-perfumed projections.

Let us leave them flying west for a while.......

Let's arrive at their destination, several days before they do.

Let's see what has happened to Arthur and Pablo and Dries.

Have they resolved their dilemma?

Yeah, says Sweezus. It was easy. It was basic logic.

Is that right? says Belle. I don't follow. Explain it to me again.

Dries paid Arthur four hundred euro for the bicycle, says Sweezus.

It wasn't Arthur's bicycle, says Belle.

I know, says Sweezus. That's why Dries didn't have to pay him real money. Arthur gets to keep the four hundred euro that he got from the Twenty Persons Committee, in lieu.

Something's wrong with that, says Belle. But if Dries is happy.....

He's stoked, says Sweezus. He gets to ride in the Tour Down Under.

He's not that good a rider, says Belle.

Yeah well, I'm kind of doing this for Arthur, says Sweezus. Because he left that baby Bristlebird to die in the coffee cup for my sake.

Heartless, says Belle, frowning. That poor little baby.

No way heartless! says Sweezus. He did it for ME. I was blown away!