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- Herausgeber: Little Tiger Press
- Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016
This delightful collection of animal tales is perfect for sharing at bedtime. As the days grow longer and the flowers blossom, a group of woodland friends go in search of the sun, a young rabbit explores above ground for the first time, and a chick hatches in the wrong nest… A beautiful addition to our hugely successful range of anthologies, with delightful illustrations from Alison Edgson and featuring brand-new stories from much-loved authors Holly Webb, Michael Broad, Malachy Doyle, Narinder Dhami, Penny Dolan, Karen Wallace, Caroline Pitcher, Elizabeth Baguley, Caroline Juskus, and Lucy Courtenay.
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Seitenzahl: 91
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CONTENTS
SLEEPY BROWN
Michael Broad
Daffodil Wood was waking after a long, cold winter. Hungry hedgehogs crept out of hibernation hollows, squirrels chased butterflies through budding branches of trees, and bees hummed busily, gathering sweet nectar. Beside a newly thawed pond, a mother duck pushed back the reeds so that the sunlight illuminated her nest full of eggs.
“Spring has sprung my lovelies!” she quacked cheerfully, stroking her eight eggs with the tip of her wing. “The wood is bursting into life and you don’t want to miss another moment!”
As if responding to her voice, the eggs slowly began to rock back and forth, knocking against each other until thin cracks zigzagged across their shells. Then little beaks pecked tiny holes and one by one, fluffy yellow ducklings broke free and tumbled on to the straw.
“Welcome to the world, my darlings!” quacked the proud new mother, inspecting them all thoroughly before giving each one a cuddle. Then she noticed a single unhatched egg still sitting in the nest.
“Come along, sleepyhead!” quacked the duck, as her ducklings crowded round the latecomer, flapping their fluffy wings. “If you sleep too long you will miss the spectacle!”
The egg shifted a fraction and a small crack appeared, but this was followed by the sound of snoring as the baby bird inside fell fast asleep again. The mother duck smiled and tapped on the shell with her beak.
“Wakey-wakey! Eggy-breaky!” she sang, to the delight of the others.
With all the commotion the egg shifted again, and after the sound of a long sleepy yawn there came a lazy tapping from inside the shell. The mother duck and her bright yellow ducklings all waited patiently, quacking encouragement whenever the tapping stopped and the snoring started up again, until eventually the egg cracked open.
“Oh, my goodness!” gasped the mother duck.
“Mama?” said the tatty brown chick, gazing up with large sleepy eyes.
“I’m afraid I’m not your mama,” the duck said kindly. “I can’t imagine where you came from, Sleepy Brown. But you must stay with us until we find your real mama.”
“My real mama?” he yawned, trying to make sense of everything.
“Oh yes, she will be terribly worried…” said the duck, hurrying off to round up her ducklings, who had lost interest in the newcomer and were waddling away in every direction. “Come back here, my dears!”
Sleepy Brown blinked, hopped from the nest and gazed up at the sloping hill of Daffodil Wood. Then he studied the pieces of broken shell at his feet and decided that he could solve the mystery for himself.
“Don’t worry, I can find my mama,” he mumbled sleepily, seeing that the mother duck had enough to take care of already with her seven curious ducklings. Then he hopped away into the wood before she could stop him.
Sleepy Brown began his quest by making his way uphill – because he knew his egg could only have rolled downhill. He searched the undergrowth for broken eggshell because this would lead him to all of the nests with newly hatched chicks. The morning sun was warm as he hopped through the crocuses and it wasn’t long before he found his first clue.
Sleepy Brown rubbed his eyes, then poked the fallen eggshell with his wing and gazed up into the canopy where a nest full of blackbirds was tucked snugly amid the distant branches.
“Sorry to trouble you,” he yawned, shielding his eyes against the sun. “I have hatched in the wrong nest and I’m trying to find my mama. Do I belong to you?”
The mother blackbird flew down and perched in front of the little bird, eyeing him uncertainly. Female blackbirds are mostly brown and so are their chicks, so it was difficult to tell if he had fallen from her nest.
“Can you sing, my dear?” she asked. “Blackbirds are the best singers in Daffodil Wood, and if you are one of us you will know how to sing beautifully.”
The mother blackbird began to sing a joyful tune and was joined by her chicks in the nest, chorusing in perfect harmony. Then she swished her wing for Sleepy Brown to join in, so he puffed out his chest and gave it his best effort.
“Squarrkk!” he screeched.
“Oh, no, no, no!” sang the blackbird, flapping her wings to silence the noisy chick. “I’m afraid you’re not one of us, but I do wish you the best of luck in your search.”
Sleepy Brown thanked the blackbird and continued on his way, bobbing through bluebells in the mild midday sun. The little chick was disappointed to discover that he was not a song bird, but he felt one step closer to finding his real mama. Eventually he came upon some more pieces of eggshell on the bank of a small lake. He waddled to the water’s edge and found a mother swan with her cygnets.
“Sorry to bother you,” he yawned, his feet sinking into the mud. “I seem to have hatched in the wrong nest and I’m trying to find my mama. Do I belong to you?”
The mother swan looked the tatty chick up and down and frowned.
“Swans are the most beautiful birds in Daffodil Wood,” she said. “My cygnets may be grey and fluffy now, but they will soon grow white and sleek, with long graceful necks and powerful wings.”
Sleepy Brown attempted to crane his neck, which was very short, and tried to flatten the unruly feathers on his head. But no matter what he did, he still looked small and tatty.
“No,” hissed the swan. “You are far too ugly to be one of us!”
Sleepy Brown thanked the swan and headed back to the wood. He was very weary after wading through the mud, but also relieved that he was not a beautiful swan because he would not like to be so rude.
Among the trees the afternoon sun had grown dim and a cool breeze blew through the snowdrops, but the determined little chick simply rubbed his feathers for warmth and continued on his journey. Eventually he found some more pieces of eggshell and heard a tap, tap, tapping from above.
When Sleepy Brown looked up he was showered with sawdust, so he quickly hopped aside and saw a woodpecker tapping on a tree branch to entertain her chicks.
“Sorry to interrupt you,” he yawned, shaking the sawdust off his head and flapping it off his wings. “I seem to have hatched in the wrong nest and I’m trying to find my mama. Do I belong to you?”
The mother woodpecker swooped down from her nest and scratched her red-feathered head.
“You don’t look like a w-w-woodpecker,” she stammered. “How are you with w-w-wood?”
“I don’t know,” Sleepy Brown replied honestly.
“W-w-woodpeckers are the most talented carpenters in Daffodil W-w-wood,” she stated proudly, and hopped up to the nearest tree. “If you’re one of us, you’ll kn-kn-know how to do this.”
The woodpecker hammered the tree trunk with her beak until a neat round hole appeared, then she hopped aside to let Sleepy Brown have a go. He approached the tree doubtfully, shrugged, and hammered it once.
“OUCH!” he said, rubbing his beak.
“N-n-no,” stammered the woodpecker. “I’m very sorry, but you’re n-n-not one of us.”
Sleepy Brown thanked the woodpecker and continued on his way, but the evening light had almost gone and he could find no more broken eggshells on the ground – which meant no more nests to investigate. The little chick felt terribly alone in the darkening wood. He was cold and hungry and had very little energy left. It had been a long day.
Believing that he did not belong anywhere because he had no special gifts – not singing, nor beauty, nor carpentry – sad Sleepy Brown made his way up a steep hill to a large tree with a hole in its trunk. With no nest to call home he needed a warm place to sleep, so he hopped on to the lowest branch and continued to climb until he reached the hollow.
It was pitch-black inside the tree, but Sleepy Brown’s large eyes could suddenly see perfectly well, and he quickly discovered he was not alone. Under his feet was a nest filled with unhatched eggs, and above him two enormous eyes opened wide.
“I’m sorry to wake you,” yawned Sleepy Brown, who was so tired that he swayed from side to side. “I hatched in the wrong nest and I’ve been trying to find—”
“My darling boy!” gasped the owl, hopping over to her small brown chick and hugging him tight. “When your egg rolled from the nest I searched for you everywhere, but the daylight was too bright to see and I had to return to the hollow. However did you find your way home, you clever little thing?”
But Sleepy Brown had fallen fast asleep.
Later that night, the little brown chick awoke to find the full moon illuminating Daffodil Wood in tones of midnight-blue and silver, and his large dark eyes could see the whole forest in brilliant detail. He could see the carpenter woodpeckers, the beautiful swans, the musical blackbirds, and all the way down to the bottom of the hill where the kind mother duck was snuggled up with her ducklings. All of them slept peacefully, while the little owl told his mama about his daytime adventure and the amazing birds he had met along the way.
“And that’s how I knew I didn’t belong to any of the other families,” he sighed as the sun crept over the horizon. “Because I was the only bird in the whole of Daffodil Wood who didn’t have a special gift.”
“Everyone has a gift,” said his mama, stroking his head with the tip of her wing. “And only an owl could have found his way home the way you did, because what makes us special is our intelligence and wisdom.”
“I don’t think I’m wise at all,” said Sleepy Brown, remembering a puzzle that had baffled him throughout his long journey. “I can’t even work out why the wood is called Daffodil Wood. Today I’ve seen crocuses and bluebells and snowdrops, but I haven’t seen any daffodils at all.”
“That’s because you hatched before the spectacle,” she whispered.
“What spectacle, Mama?” he asked.
“Look.” She smiled and gestured towards the horizon.
Sleepy Brown followed his mama’s gaze and watched the sunrise.
As the sun crept above the horizon it shone through the trees, flooding the woodland with warm shafts of light, and in their wake the ground began to shimmer.
Then came the spectacle.
