Stick or Snake

It was a warm evening on January nine 2009 around 7- 7:30.1

The Mahoney family were sitting around the table eating a much anticipated dinner, which consisted of a thin steak, great tasting sausages (better then what you get from a supermarket) boiled vegetables and rice of a funny sort.2

See, I believe it may have had curry powder in it for it was yellow; there were also chunks of vegetables and sultana mixed through out the interesting looking concoction.3

We hadn’t been long sitting down when suddenly dad spoke loudly.4

“Is that a snake?!”5

Like lightening everyone was up from the table and rushing to the window anxiously searching for the snake.6

“Snake!?”7

“Where!?”8

“Look! There! In the bird cage!” some one called.9

To everyone’s amusement the entire family (five siblings, mum, dad and cousin) scrambled out through the front door to view the four foot long snake that was making its way along the middle rail in the rectangular aviary and up the far left corner toward the top rail and roof.10

“I was looking out there and thought ‘wait... is that’s not a stick! It’s swaying!’” dad’s astonished voice came from beside mum in front of the bird cage.11

The three Zebra Finches and eight Budgies fluttered on the opposite half of the cage, putting as much space as possible between them and the long, deadly reptile.12

You see, this snake was not a python or other equally relatively harmless snake, it was a far more sinister and dangerous visitor.13

It was a King Brown, a snake that ranked right up the top with the Inland Taipan. One of the most venomously, deadly snakes in Australia.14

Its olive brown scales and pale tan underbelly revealed its identity with shocking ease.15

Now, after a few minutes of admiring our newest house guest, we went inside to resume eating dinner, though most were watching the snake from their seats at the dinning table.16

Mum and dad were contemplating how to get rid of it.17

“Do you wanna just leave it to get out by its self?” asked dad (At this point we had no idea how long or even how it had gotten into the cage) mum shock her head vehemently.18

“No! It has to go! You don’t seriously want that thing around the house?!” she half shouted “We have to kill it” she said.19

“Dad sat and watched the snake through the window pondering how to kill the snake in the avairy as he ate his meal.20

“It’s moving” I warned as I finished a mouthful of food.21

“It’s going up!” shouted my brother Craig excitedly and sure enough it was. Those of us whom had finished our meal leapt from our chairs and hurried to the window to watch the snake make its way up the small centimetre square bird wire of the avairy wall and treated pine frame.22

“It’s going to fall!” my brother, again voiced his thoughts very loudly, a laugh hidden in the words.23

I don’t think so, mate” I said “it knows what its doing.”24

My gaze studied the snake with fascination as it made its way up, up onto the top rail and began making its smooth way across the wood toward the birds.25

Everyone was outside by that stage, watching the snake warily, keeping slightly back from the cage, wary of the snakes diamond shaped head and deadly venom. My brother stepped closer and pushed his face closer to the wire watching it from the opposite side of the cage.26

“Get back dumb ass!” I laughed; he pulled back, confusion apparent.27

“Why?” he asked.28

“It might bite you on the nose” I pointed out with a laugh.29

“It’s on the other side of the cage” he scorned with a sneer.30

“Not anymore” I indicated the snake as it made its way elegantly across the cross beam in the roof of the cage toward the veranda where we stood and the budgies nest boxes, its black tongue flickering in and out as it made its way across.31

It was a beautiful creature to watch as it made its way across the thin piece of wood to wide atop to small wooden boxes.32

“You sort of feel sorry for it don’t yah?” I asked my mum as we made our way back inside after dad had sent Craig to go and get a spade from the work shed.33

“Yeah” said mum absently as she contained my two young sisters in the house by standing in the door way.34

“Go eat your dinner!” she told them as we attempted to drag them back into the dinning room.35

“But we wanna watch the snake!” cried Annabelle, the youngest at only three years old. I sighed and picked up her squirming body and carried her to the dinning table, where I pulled a chair up and placed it under the window, watch from here” I told her leaning over her and pointing out the window, stroking her golden brown angel locks.36

Dad now had pushed the snake off the top of the nesting boxes with a peg from an old rabbit trap we’d found one day out in the paddock on a previous station, causing the snake to fall from its perch and land half tangled in the bits of dry bush mum had put in the right hand side of the cage and half on the wire and wood bottom of the avairy.37

Dad side the pin from its placing holding the door closed and opened it slightly as he raised the spade and started sliding it into the cage.38

“Its going up the wall!” we called and Craig lightly bashed the bottom of the cage with his spade, drawing the snake’s attention away from the door.39

Dad began trying to slide the spade back in but the snake quickly swung back around to the spade, raising its head to strike quickly at the metal thing that was hungry for its head.40

“It’s facing you again” we yelled and he drew back again. This went on for long enough that mum and I were battling to keep the two girls inside and Joshua, my youngest brother, and Ryan, my cousin, to climb on top of the trailer.41

Mum, Rosemary, Annabelle and I watched with fascination as the sake tried a new tactic and went fro the right cage wall and started climbing up the wire through the bushes.42

It reached the middle rail and started moving along this, and the birds started scattering to various higher (or lower) points of the cage.43

Dad and Craig successfully pushed the snake from its perch and back into the dead sticks, were the struggled for a few minutes to bring the snake back to the bottom of the cage.44

At this point us girls could see nothing, but kept watch, every now and then going to the front door to try and get a better angle and ask if it was ‘dead yet’.45

Dad finally managed t trap the snakes head beneath the blunt edge of the spade and began the gruelling task of trying to separate the snakes head from its long slender body.46

It took a while, but finally we all agreed that the snake was dead.47

The funny thing with snakes is, you can’t really be sure… unless you’ve cut the head completely off, or blown it to pieces with a shot gun.48

So for a while, the head seemed to still be alive its mouth opening and closing in slow succession as if trying to breath and its body twitching every once in a while.49

“Its last breath” commented my cousin Ryan, which produced an amused chuckle from most.50

“Certainly the most… interesting dinner we’ve ever had” said my mum with a grin.51

As we wondered back inside, the snakes body still on the cage floor.52

“Well you nearly had your pet snake Pat” said mum, referring to the time he’d found a baby Death Adder in Western Australia and wanted to take it home and put it in the empty aquarium, “it was caged and all” she laughed.53

“I know” said dad ruefully “but you wanted the snake dead” he said.54