He Always Spoke Urdu

(post-titled by John)

He always spoke Urdu whenever he came across a flock of mobster seagulls. Often seagulls that tried to eat him, cook his brains or do other quite unpleasant things to him.

Like now, when James Marvel found himself strapped to a table in a dim basement, a seagull perched on the most hideous device he'd ever seen. It had blades dripping with oily liquid and the seagull looked at him.

"Brawk," the seagull said. "Brawk, brawk, brawk brawk brawk."

"I'm sorry, I don't speak seagull. I speak Evdu. Or Erdu. Or maybe Evdo. I can't tell; the person-who-wrote-this's handwriting is reeeaaally bad."

The seagull was soon joined by several other gulls, three terns, and an albatross. The albatross did speak English, but with a Boston accent. He said, "The only way to solve his pooping problem is to designate a shit pile. This will allow the accumulation of valuable fertilizer." Strutting across James' chest, his head bobbing back and forth with great dignity, "And I suggest we 'convince' Mr Marvel to run the tests, as he has those opposable thumb things."

The seagulls swooped in from the blue sea. And Jones knew that this was a job for Haley! The incredible rogue/thief/petty thief/assassin/low-level mage/vampire/demi-god/cat. This was something only she could do.

How to reach her? "Does anyone have a magic pipe we can use to signal her?"

"Brawk!" exclaimed the first seagull.

"Yeah," said the albatross. "This bum will be useless, but what else can we do? We have this oily device to use on his brain and he's the only one here with thumbs to turn the starter key."

Jones let out a breath he did not know he was holding and then let 'em have.

"Five birds with one stone," he laughed evilly. "Now my boys the eagles are taking over this turf."