No Pets Allowed!
My father was adamant. "Boats and pets don't mix", he would say. "Either the thing falls overboard, or you have to put it in quarantine at every other port". My father would not be swayed. We never had a cat or dog but I sneaked some strange pets aboard, hidden in a pocket or box.
On one of my explorations ashore, I came across two little birds beneath a flame tree. They were about two inches long, pink, and completely featherless. Mouths open, they shrieked indignantly. I scooped them up and carried them to one of my secret places. I settled them into a cardboard box. "Cheep, cheep!" they demanded, hungrily.
Back on the boat for lunch, I pocketed some bread and a little jar of milk. Of course, my tiny unfeathered friends had no idea how to eat. They looked at me expectantly and said, "Cheep, cheeeeep!" I soaked some bread in the milk, and held a little bird gently in my fist, with its head poking out. When it yelled I stuffed in a small piece of bread, closed its beak, and stroked its throat. I read that somewhere. It worked, the little bird yelled again and I repeated the process. With a little persuasion his brother's hunger was similarly satisfied.
I kept them in my secret place, visiting them at feeding time. They seemed quite content in the nest I made. Growing rapidly and sprouting feathers; I recognised them as Ground Doves. Before long I carried them around, perched side by side, on my forefinger. They learnt to fly little leaps and fluttered from one forefinger to the other. First one would fly to the other finger, then shuffle to one end, then the other would fly across to perch, in the gap so thoughtfully provided, by his brother. They shat everywhere, without due regard to anybody else. Soon they didn't need to be force fed, they ate eagerly. But only if they were allowed to poke their heads through the circle of my thumb and forefinger. They were convinced that all proper little birds ate like that.
As I was carrying my now feather friends around with me, it was not long before my family heard about them and I introduced them to my father. On the understanding that they were not allowed onboard. My father soon relented when he got to know them and in no time at all they were moved aboard. By this time they were flying well and would fly from perch around the cabin, never going far away.
Sadly, as I came down the saloon steps, backwards as is proper in marine circles, I stepped on one of my little birds, not fully but enough. He was perched on one of the rungs of the ladder. I tried everything to revive him but he was gone. In tears, I placed him in a weighted jar. I gave him a decent Christian burial at sea. I never had the heart to tell anyone I had stepped on him.
For days, his brother flew up and down the cabin. Cheeping frantically he looked in every corner. They were like twins.
At about this time we moved from our berth, at the old yacht club jetty, to a mooring we laid in the lagoon. My remaining bird had an island of his own. He slept in a cardboard box, covered only for darkness not for captivity. Each morning as I removed the cover, he would fly the length of the saloon, into my parents aft cabin, to perch on my fathers head as he sat up in bed drinking his morning coffee. Dad dropped his anti-pet law, until further notice. "Cheep, cheep!" With reference to his hypocrisy, we named our bird "Apex". The thin of the wedge, of father's resolve.
By this time, Apex ate anything. Even turning to cannibalism, as he ate scrambled eggs. I spent hours collecting and shelling tiny seed pods I had seen ground doves eating.
I would take Apex ashore and he would fly about, returning to my finger when I held it out. I came back to the boat after a trip ashore without Apex; mum's face was grave. She explained that Apex had been flying around the deck, a gust had blown across the bay, and he was blown away from the boat. I searched the shore for him, calling his name to every tree. But I never found him. Even my father cried.
Not long after Apex disappeared, I found another friend rolled up in an old carpet. I never exposed this one to my father at the time. I didn't dare. It was a baby fruit bat about two inches long. I moved him to a another secret place, the crawl space above the ceiling of the yacht club showers. A fine place as long as you remembered to step only on the rafters, not the flimsy plasterboard between. We used to go up there, later, boys being boys. To peek at the girls in the shower, though a hole bored in the ceiling. Until my friend put his foot in the wrong place, crashed through the ceiling, and wound in the shower on top of the girl of our attentions. I scarpered and left him to it. She wasn't happy. But that's another story.
But this was all in the future as I hung my bat in the rafters. He clamped on and was there when I returned at feeding time. I wasn't sure what to feed him so fed him milk, enriched with something my mother suggested, I forget what. To feed him I found a rubber bulb with a rubber nipple just the right size for a small bat. I offered it to him, he tasted the milk. And bit the end clean off the nipple. He had teeth like razor blades. Fastening on to what was left of the nipple, he drank his fill.
I took to carrying him about with me. My shorts had big pockets. Plenty of room for my bat to hang upside down in my pocket. People were horrified by my bat, with his pointy ears, wolf like features and sharp teeth.
Bats were a common sight as the sun went down. They filled the dusky sky swooping erratically. Mine was a fruitbat, a little larger than the usual bats which swooped after insects. As their name implies, fruit bats eat fruit. Leaving teeth marks in all the best fruit on a tree. Supposedly, bats can carry rabies. In their sharp teeth.
My father once met a fruit bat on his motor bike. Haring along, the bat's sonar must have been on the blink - it ran straight into dad, hitting him square in the chest. To be held there, spreadeagled by the wind. Dad frantically tried to brush him off, almost coming off the bike before he managed to rid himself of his unwelcome passenger. I didn't show dad my bat. He wouldn't have been impressed.
Lizards came in all sizes, every wall sported at least a few. We hunted them for sport, you had to be careful; if you grabbed them by the tail, it came off. The abandoned tail would writh in your hand as the owner darted away. The lizard would soon grow another. This was not considered fair sport you had to catch the tail, and the lizard. In one piece. We used the old noose trick. A trimmed spine of a single coconut leaf. Long and tapering to a fine tip, we tied a noose in the end, complete with slip knot. Thus equipped we would stalk our prey. Sneaking up behind the unsuspecting creature we would whip the noose over its head and pull it from the wall. Once caught, lizards are quite docile. I would carry one around as a pet, to be later released later. They had strange eyes that could move independantly. They seemed to be able to look in different directions with each eye, at the same time.
With a large cockroach population, lizards were the only pet that were not officially banned on Kim. Several ran wild, gorging themselves on our boat bound colony. To my dad's great satisfaction. On a sailing trip to Hog Island we saw an unfortaunate lizard crewmate plunge from the masthead as we heeled. They can swim very well. But not that far.
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