Chapter 05: Missions In The Dark

As soon as Dirty Tortoise had briefed Wingit and Sonky, the two co-conspirators headed off on their respective tasks – Wingit heading towards the Meat Market, while Sonky went back to the Fruits and Flowers Market. As for Dirty Tortoise, he had another tea (leaf), and steeling himself for the task ahead, he climbed out of his little drain, and trudged his way to the Spice Market. He knew he was slow, and so he needed a head start to get to Karikan’s curry powder stall just in time to meet his co-conspirators when they returned from their respective ‘assignments’.

Unlike in the day, the Wet Market is usually all quiet at night, with not a soul to be seen around the entire building. The sounds of Maniam the 24-hour locksmith cum mamak stall owner, locking up his stall (located just beside the entrance in front of the Fruits and Flowers section) and closing the big grey doors of the Wet Market could be heard in the distance.

As soon the doors slammed shut, Sonky (who had been hanging around in a rafter right above the doors, humming the theme to Shaft quietly to himself), quietly swung into action, quite literally. Swinging down from his perch up high, he landed on one of Maniam’s mamak stall plastic tables with nary a sound. (Funky monkeys are generally very light-footed and quiet creatures – it comes from all that dancing to Sly and the Family Stone tunes). With one smooth, swift motion, he picked up a fork from the plastic cutlery container on the table and leaped of the table towards the old wooden cupboard Maniam used to keep his belongings. Jabbing the fork into the keyhole of the second to last drawer, Sonky jimmied the utensil around like he had seen Maniam do a thousand times before, and heard the satisfying ‘click’ that indicated that the lock was successfully jimmied.

Opening the drawer, Sonky rummaged around the debris that Maniam kept in his ‘treasure’ drawer, stopping briefly to stare and snort in disgust at a Fall Out Boy CD, and finally, triumphantly emerging with the item he had been after – Maniam’s old lock pick kit, which he had discarded after he bought a spanking new electronic lock picker that didn’t so much pick locks than smash a hole right through them.

“Ah yes, this is what Dirty Tortoise wanted me to get,” thought Sonky to himself, allowing himself a little jig to celebrate before heading to his next destination - the management office of the Wet Market that overlooked the entire hall, where the Very Important Politician used to sit in when he was not yet a politician, but was still the Wet Market Administrator.

Meanwhile, over in the Meat Market, the cherry eagle was circling around the Beef Jerky Stall. Owned by a Texan immigrant who self-depreciatingly called himself The Texas Jerk who used to be a beef jerky connoisseur before the Great Obesity Plague (an outbreak of a virus that transformed human fat into liquid and turned you quite literally into a walking pile of wobbling jelly) hit America and forced the entire nation of fat obese people to turn into vegetarians. Unable to face the prospect of not ever eating beef jerky, he migrated to Temelo where he started his own beef jerky business in the Wet Market, and got rich by conning the locals into thinking that anything from the US of A was better than anything made in their own factories.

Texas Jerk was not very popular amongst the Wet Market denizens. Oh, they got a long with him fine, but they had to try very hard not to get on his bad side, because he could be a really asshole at times, especially to those who he thinks are trying to steal his business. He even tried to sue the dried bak kua seller once for ‘stealing’ his secret beef jerky recipe and making a ‘fake Chinese imitation’ out of chicken meat (the judge laughed it off and told Texas Jerk that he wasn’t bribing him enough to risk his reputation on a case as frivolous as that).

Anyway, because Texas Jerk sold dried meat products, he had to find a way to keep his products dry and away from his Meat Market peers who were always drenched in blood and water. So unlike the other stalls in the Meat Market, the Texas Jerk’s Beef Jerky Stall (which was situated right at the corner) actually had four walls and a roof. The door into the room was grill door with cracks that were just wide enough for a cherry eagle to fly through.

And so it was that it was towards Texas Jerk’s beef jerky stall that Wingit was swooping down on now. Going into a glide, Wingit swooped gracefully down towards the door, and just as it looked as if he was about to crash, he turned his body ninety degrees, and JUST managed to slip through a crack in the bars, with barely a millimetre to spare.

Landing on one of Texan Jerk’s many jars of beef jerky, Wingit proceeded to look for the one ingredient that Dirty Tortoise had told him to look for… Texan Jerk’s secret ingredient for turning a wet, piece of meat into a hard, piece of jerky in instantaneously.

Wingit knew the Texan Jerk hid that secret ingredient somewhere in plain sight amongst his wares. Dirty Tortoise had told Wingit to use his keen sense of smell to sniff out the one jar among the hundreds that had the strongest scent of Texan Jerk.

“I would have asked Meg the miniature chicken fox to help me with this task,” said Dirty Tortoise to Wingit at the briefing earlier. “But she would not have been able to fit through that crack in the gate. And besides, you, Wingit the MAGNIFICENT CHERRY EAGLE, are much suited for this mission, because you are the BEST flyer in the Wet Market, and you are also SO WELL-ADEPT with your claws and beak that stealing that jar of Texan Jerk’s secret ingredients wouldn’t be a problem for you!

“Now, here a little plastic bag for you to put the ingredient in after you’ve found it, and bring it to me after that, ok? I’m counting on you, oh magnificent cherry eagle!”

His pride sufficiently fed, Wingit had flown off immediately to Texan Jerk’s stall. But now, as he looked around the hundreds of jars in the stall, he knew this wasn’t going to be as easy as he thought.

Wingit searched through the jars futilely (even opened a couple of them to make sure the beef jerky inside was not fake) but to no avail. But just as he was about to give up and return forlornly to Dirty Tortoise to admit defeat, a small voice piped up, “It’s that small, transparent, lime-green jar on the top-most shelf – the one that says ‘Beer Jerk’ instead of ‘beef jerky’.”

Surprised, Wingit turned his head around, to see a tiny hamster look up at him from Texan Jerk’s cash register. It was not a very big hamster – only about one inch in size, small enough to hide behind a stack of 50 sen coins. IT was dark brown in colour, but it’s most distinctive feature was a white patch on its side that looked like the Nike swoosh logo.

“Why hello there, little fella! I don’t think I’ve met you before. I never knew Texan Jerk kept pets as well!” he said.

“He doesn’t know I’m here. I’m just squatting here until I can find a more permanent place to live in,” said the hamster. “The name’s Jasper, by the way. I’m really just a normal hamster, but my former master use to call me Jasper the Talking Hamster because the sounds I make sounded like I was speaking Hokkien to him.”

“Well, thank you for your help, Jasper my boy! I would love to stay and chat, but I have a mission to accomplish. But rest assured, upon my honour as a cherry eagle, I will not forget your help tonight!” said Wingit, before taking off for the top shelf.

Spotting the lime-green jar marked ‘Beer Jerk’ there; he swooped down and landed on the lid of the jar. Grasping the lid with his claws, he curled his beak around the other side of the lid and gave a strong TWIST, and POP! The jar lid came open.

Carefully, so as not to accidentally swallow some of the secret ingredient and get turned into a cherry eagle jerky, Wingit scooped a couple of beaks full of the powder into the little plastic bag, and when he had enough, he kicked the lid of the jar down to the floor of Texan Jerk’s stall (where it landed with a loud CLANG), and gripping the plastic bag with his claws, he took off from the ledge, soaring through the air towards the gate.

“Farewell, magnificent cherry eagle!” cried Jasper the Talking Hamster from his perch on the cash register.

“See you again soon, little hamster!” replied Wingit, as he swooped out of the gate and headed towards the Spice Market and his rendezvous with Dirty Tortoise.

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