excerpt

Excerpt from The Dodo Saga Vol. 1: "The Great Discovery"
translated by Christopher Humphries

(Page 10)
This hill was really quite a beautiful little piece of land, where one could live quite well. The dodos had distributed their nests over the spacious hill. Here, some had built their nests closer together. There, some wanted a bit more space between themselves and their neighbors. It all depended on what pleased each family. There was plenty of space on the dodo hill. Time and again, a family would want to move and would seek a new place to call home. Such a relocation could be quite exhausting if the whole family was involved in choosing new place. The parents could expect a whole load of work, especially if the children wanted to make a game out of things. As captains of a great ship giving orders to control the move, for example. It ruffed the dodo daddy’s beard feathers a bit when he had to bear the weight of the nest as well as maintain his balance just because the little ones were playing a pirate game inside and found that the rocking of the ship -um, of course, I mean the rocking of the poor father with the heavy home on his back – w s a most welcome bit of fun. “Rough seas! Pirates off starboard bow!” came ﬂying out of the nest and the passing neighbour had to wonder if he was the one intended by this extremely friendly greeting.

One drifted from day to day in a life that was just as beautiful as it should be in paradise. One could enjoy the super weather almost the entire year – except, of course, with the one worry that it could get worse tomorrow. Sometimes, a couple of ﬂuffy white clouds on the horizon over the ocean could disturb the whole colony of dodos for the rest of the day. There simply wouldn’t be any other topic of discussion. Somewhat on the edge of the hill was a giant, ancient banana plant. At ﬁrst glance, one took it for a stately, overhanging tree until one looked more carefully at the large stalks with glowing yellow fruit and recognized what type of “tree” it was. Underneath the might banana tree, the Puschel family had made themselves comfortable. Mom and dad Puschel had two kids. The older was named Dodo, the younger Gigi. Whenever there were problems in the Puschel family, you could be sure that Dodo and Gigi were behind it, sometimes leading to loud protests in the entire colony. Recently, both of them had enraged the whole hill while testing out their Brazil nut catapult from the top of the banana tree. Even today, many reach for various body parts, especially their heads, when they hear just a piece of this story. I don’t want to remember how loud the protests of the entire dodo colony were over that particular episode. That was something all right! That was a catastrophe! My goodness, the good-natured dodo colony was furious. They drowned out even the ocean.

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(Page 52)
Barely had he ﬁnished his sentence when Dodo stopped and began to giggle. Her little wings ﬂapped suddenly and she began a wild tap dance from one leg to the other. “Quit it right now!” she giggled and snorted, “I’m dyyyiiinnngg.” Schmonzel clung on for dear life and thought that the altitude had ﬁnally gotten to her. “She better stop her shenanigans immediately, otherwise, I’m going to get really sick”, considered Schmonzel. His feelers and eyes ﬁdgeted back and forth, which wasn’t good at all for him. The corners of his mouth drooped ominously. “Stop tickling, right now...!” cried Dodo, scratching herself like crazy on the ground and laughing with an open beak as if possessed. Now Schmonzel ﬁnally understood that it was his hands and feet that were tickling Dodo to death. He quickly tried to get some down underneath him so he wouldn’t fall off from the delirious dance. Finally, Dodo could get some air. Like lighting, the smile fell from her face and a severe look replaced it. “Are you crazy? You know that I’m so ticklish. Why’d you do that?” In that moment, they heard a soft chuckle. They both paused. “Was that you?” they asked one another simultaneously. They looked at each other and knew there was no need to answer. “Hmm, I could have sworn that I just heard one or two in there snickering,” whispered Dodo. She looked hard into the dark cave. “IS ANYBODY THHHEEERRREEEE?” bellowed Schmonzel as loud as he could into the cave. Dodo jumped straight up in the air and cried out: “Have you gone bananas?” she clamored. “I’m ringing down to my tailfeathers! How can just let loose like that right in my ear?” “Well, if we’re going to go into such a cave, the least we can do is ask if someone’s already in there...” Schmonzel tried to change the subject, “it’s like we’re knocking on the door...” “But not on my brain! I know that I’m here! Do I have a doorbell for an ear?” Schmonzel crept backwards further under her feathers and accidentally tickled her again with his feet.
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