Anna

‘Chirp chirp’ went the little birds.
And every flower in the field turned its head in disgust. The flowers didn’t like birds at all. They were not just useless, they were also messy and forever squawking about one thing or the other. And they were not even pretty to look at it. Ugly grayish brown things that darted about the sky. The flowers themselves were beautiful and so were the hundreds of beautiful butterflies and bees that visited them each day. It was a perfect world. Except for the ugly birds and the dreadful noises they made.

One day, there came screams from the edge of the field. The flowers in the middle craned their heads to see who was screaming. It was Letitia, the beautiful bougainvillea stalk screeching in pain as something, they couldn’t see what - was cruelly plucking out each flowered stem. Then Hermanthus, the hibiscus started yelling when one by one, each of the pretty red shoe flowers were cut away. Then the sunflowers started screeching even before they were plucked up. It looked like they were being attacked by the evil Stalk Cutter twins.

All the noise woke up the sleeping baby birds who started squawking and shrieking. The birds’ screeches and shrieks were the loudest of them all. As the mother and father birds rushed towards the line of nests at the edge of the field, the flapping, rushing and squawking seemed to scare the Stalk Cutter twins away!

That’s why, the flowers love the ugly birds just as much as the beautiful insects. In fact, they are so fond of them that the flowers even lent the birds some of their beautiful colours. Ever since that day whenever the Stalk Cutters attacked, the flowers join the birds in screeching and squawking and they all have a lovely time shrieking away!



On a tree or a park – anywhere near flowers