Chapter 6: The Men See Us

Chapter 6: The Men See Us

I’m standing at the back of the truck. The bigger man gets out of the truck. He is talking on his mobile phone again. He is angry.

‘No, we can’t wait,’ he says. ‘You must come and get us now.’

Suddenly he sees me.

‘I know who you are!’ I scream at him. ‘You’re a bird smuggler. You have sea eagles in your truck. I’m going to get the police!’ I start running away from the truck.

‘Hey!’ He puts his mobile phone away. ‘You! Stop!’ He shouts to the other smuggler, ‘Mac! Come here, quickly. I’ve found a boy. He knows about the birds.’

I hear the truck door opening. Mac shouts, ‘Stop!’ too. They both run after me. I look back at them. The bigger man is holding his knife! I am very scared.

I jump over some ropes on the road.

‘Now, Tim, now!’ I shout.

Tim is standing on the other side of the road. He is holding onto the ropes. He pulls them. Suddenly there are nets and ropes in front of the smugglers. Both men run into the nets. The bigger man drops his knife. He puts his hands up to try to get out of the nets. Tim pulls the ropes. I help him. The men are shouting. Tim and I are screaming. We sit on the smugglers but the men are very strong and very angry. We can’t hold them for very long. Will they get out of the nets?

‘Help! Help!’ I shout.

‘Get off me!’ shouts the bigger man.

A car drives up and stops.

‘Is that you, Sam?’ It’s the police officer, Constable Carter. He is getting out of his car.

‘Sam? Are you okay? I had a phone call from the people down the road. They said they heard a lot of people shouting. Who are these men?’

‘Oh, Constable Carter - it’s so good to see you. These men are bird smugglers! They put the sea eagles in the back of their truck.’

The men try to get away from us. But Constable Carter soon has them in the back of the police car. He calls on his radio for more police. He sees the knife on the ground.

‘Sam! These men had knives!’

‘I know. Tim and I had to help the sea eagles, Constable Carter,’ I say quietly. ‘Can we look in the truck now? I need to know the birds are okay.’

I look into the boxes. The birds are not hurt. Best of all, the eggs are in one of the boxes.

Constable Carter looks at the birds and the eggs. ‘Well done, boys!’

‘What will Mum say?’ says Tim.

We both smile.