Run turkey, run...

This story takes place almost one year ago today.

It all began one fine morning about 6.30 or so on a vacation care day. I was doing the early morning rounds making sure the gates and other such things were unlocked, etc. when I came across a scrub turkey running back and forth in front of two glass doors.

At this particular time we always had a year seven boy who got to school really early - sometimes even earlier than me. Now this boy had a couple of difficulties he was dealing with including ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and Asperger's Syndrome. I won't go into either of these disorders/syndromes, but suffice to say that this child was very challenging.

Anyway I thought - without thinking (if you get my drift!) - that this kid might enjoy seeing a scrub turkey as we don't get many running around the suburbs. So I called down to this young lad to come up and have a peek at the poor bird.

Enthusiastically he came bounding up to where I was standing and took one look at the bird and said, "It's trapped. How can we let it out?".

There is no way we were going to catch that thing and let it out of the school, I thought to myself.

"It will find a way out," I said (not very convincingly).
"Karn Jimbo," he pleaded. (Yes, "Karn" does translate to "come on".)
"We don't have enough time. I'll call the RSPCA when we get into the room," I said.
"They won't come out for an old turkey. Please Jimbo, please," he said.

Needless to say, a scrub turkey chase was about to be undertaken. Allow me to set the scene using the following three diagrams:

A. Me - the fairly overweight, unfit guy, who couldn't catch a cooked duck in a greasy cage.

B. The kid - hyped up on the creampuff and tarts he'd scoffed down for breakfast just before I got there.

C. The turkey - fuelled by pure survival instinct and its percieved threat of being eaten.

After a minute or two of pleading, I gave in and decided we would try to herd the turkey like a sheep towards the bushy side of the school. We worked out a plan and took our places. I moved in closer and the turkey took off like the bloody road runner. It was at this point I knew how fucken pointless this whole excercise was going to be but wanted to put in some effort to keep the kid happy.

After about twenty minutes of chasing this damn turkey and the kid and covering about 90% of the school, the stupid turkey decided to run towards the area we wanted it to go to so we took off with renewed enthusiasm. I'm sure we looked hilarious - a little turkey scurrying around this way and that closely followed by a hyped up kid yelling and cooeeing and further back in the field a rather large fellow sucking back on the ventolin yelling out, "This way, no that way, no not that way, arrggh!". No doubt the fright-filled turkey was running for its life thinking that the kid and I wanted to eat it!

(You should now be studying Diagram D.)

Just before the turkey entered the safe haven of bush area something very peculiar happened. The turkey took a hard left. I often ponder why it did this. As it picked up speed, it ran out the front gate, across a main road and under a Brisbane City Council bus. Both the kid and I were stunned with disbelief as we watched the turkey pop out the other side and run like buggery down the road.

(Refer to Diagram E of the bus and the turkey - showing just what an extremely lucky duck it was!)

The turkey only just survived the bus. I had only just survived the run around the school. And the kid only just survived me. He was lucky another leader showed up just at this very moment. Another event occured though to top off this story - and it happened only minutes after we walked inside. We heard a car slam on its breaks and thump into a pole a little further down the street. I convinced myself the driver was not swerving to miss a lucky duck!