The bird on a string

One windy autumn day Charlie went for a walk with his Daddy.

Charlie loved walks with his Daddy because his Daddy told him interesting things. When Charlie asked a question, his Daddy gave him an answer. Charlie remembered everything his Daddy told him. At home he told his Mummy  what Daddy had explained. They played a game called “Guess what I saw today!”

In the autumn, the leaves on the trees turn red and gold and wind blows them off the branches. They float down until they reach the ground. Then they huddle together in a pile and walkers in the woods can listen to the rustling as their footsteps swish through the piles of fallen leaves.

When the wind is very strong it howls and the tall trees sway to and fro. It’s a good idea to hold on to your hat if your wearing one because if the wind takes it off your head you may not be able to run fast enough to catch it.

Today Charlie and his Daddy decided to go to the park. In the park there was a steep hill In the winter when snow lay on the ground; children could slide down on toboggans, but I’ll tell you that story another time.

The wind was howling through the trees as Charlie and his Daddy got to the park. It was hard work climbing the hill, but half way up Charlie saw something beautiful: they saw a beautiful bird swaying and tossing itself high up in the sky. It was coloured with nearly every colour in the world and it had a long tail.

“What’s that, Daddy?” said Charlie. It didn’t look like the hens in the coop or the ducks in the water, or even like the little birds who fly in an out of the wooden bird houses in people’s gardens.

Daddy looked up at the bird.

“It’s tied on a string,” said Charlie “but it wants to fly away.”

The coloured bird on a string flew higher and higher, but it could not fly away. Charlie saw that it was being held prisoner by a little boy. The boy was quite a bit bigger and quite a lot older than Charlie, but Charlie ran ahead up the hill and said to the boy holding the string tightly: “Let go! Can’t you see that the beautiful bird wants to be free?”

 “Don’t be silly,” said the boy. “It’s mine. If I let go of the string, it will fly away.”

“But it’s a bird,” said Charile. “Birds always fly.”

“Don’t be silly,” said the boy again. “It isn’t a bird, it’s a kite.”

Charly turned to his Daddy.

“What’s a kite, Daddy?” asked Charlie.

“It’s a toy made of painted paper and pieces of wood,” said Daddy.” Sometimes it lookis like a bird.”

“Like this one?”

 “Yes,” said Daddy. “but it can also look like a dragon or a clown.”

“Do you have one, Daddy?”

“No, but we could make one.”

“Let’s go home and make one now,” said Charlie.

Charlie and his Daddy hurried to the shop in town where you could buy the wooden pieces and paper to make a kite. Then they hurried home to make it. Charlie decded to make a fish, so Daddy cut the paper carefully and Charlie coloured it with his crayons. Then Daddy fixed the fish onto the wood, and they found a ball of string in the kitchen cupboard, so they used that to make string to stop the fish from flying away.

“Where’s its tail?” Charlie wanted to know.

Charlie coloured a large piece of paper while Daddy had a cup of coffee. Then Daddy cut the long piece of paper into long strips and glued them onto the tail end of the fish so that they wriggled and wiggled.

“That’s nice,” said Charlie.

“Now we’ll go back to the top of the hill in the park and see if our fish can fly like a bird,” said Daddy, and they hurried back before the wind died down.

Charlie held on to the string, in which Daddy had made a loop so that it could slip over Charlie’s hand and keep a tight hold on the fish kite. Then he helped Charlie’s colourful fish to get off the ground by running fast and holding it above his head. At first it dived and Charlie was worried.

“I don’t think my fish wants to fly,” he said.

“Yes, it does,” said Daddy.

Sure enough, all at once the fish kite made a decision. Instead of diving back onto the ground, it started to climb into the sky. Daddy put Charlie’s hand through the loop at the end of the string and the watched the fish climbing higher and higher until the string was stretched as far as it would go. The fish’s tail fluttered in the wind and the fish would have liked to go on flying, but Charlie was holding on to the string.

“If I don’t let go, I will soon be flying, too,” said Charlie.

But fortunately, the wind was not quite strong enough to lift Charlie from the ground.

The little boy with the bird that was not really a bird was still holding on to his bird kite. The kite bird was still swooping and climbing. The boy came to Charlie and said

“I like your fish kite. It can fly even higher than mine.”

Charlie was very happy.

“Can we come here tomorrow?” he asked his Daddy.

“Yes, if the wind is strong enough, Charlie.”

“We can bring Mummy, then she can see how high a fish can fly,” said Charlie.

“That’s a good idea, but you must pull the fish in because we are going home now,” said Daddy.

Then Charlie pulled at the fish and Daddy wound the string together into a ball as the fish came nearer and nearer. When the fish kite was back on the ground, Charlie took the string loop off his wrist and they wound it onto the ball of string.

Then they went home to tea.