How Birds Got Their Wings

This is a guest post from my niece, Ava. Ava is currently a sixth-grader and throws a football better than any young woman I know. She also likes to play the ukulele and has a beautiful, soulful singing voice. When she grows up, she would like to work for NASA inventing things and sending them into space. She hopes you enjoy this fable she wrote as an extra credit assignment.

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Once a long time ago when birds had no wings a bird named Feather went to go see the God of Creation. “Oh God of Creation, I feel so incomplete. Is there anything I can do?” Feather asked.

“Well, there is one thing you can do,” he said. “There is a troublemaker that is causing fault to my creation. If you can catch this troublemaker, I will give you exactly what you want.”

So off Feather went. It took him days until he finally came across the troublemaker. “Do not be scared of me!” he yelled. “For I am just a small little bird. I have come for the good of creation!” Then out of the sky a big animal came crashing down with wings so big it looked like it could fly the whole world in a second.

“The God of Creation sent you, a tiny little bird, to defeat me, the strongest, most powerful cat in the world?!” the cat said.

“Yes, because if I found you he would complete me!” Feather said.

“Well, if he’s so powerful, then why wouldn’t he do it instead of making you do his dirty work?” the cat asked.

“You ask these questions to try to get in my head, but it will not work!” Feather yelled in triumph. In one swing of the sharpest thorn Feather cut off the cat’s wings. The cat yelled in pain then after a few seconds he fell to the ground unconscious.

Another few days past. Then out of nowhere the God of Creation came and said, “Feather, you have done it! You have stopped the troublemaker from destroying this world! Now as the reward I promised I will give you and every other bird that will ever live a pair of wings so that you can fly and soar just like the cats once did!” With a quick movement of his hand Feather had majestic wings just like the cat. “As punishment for all cats they will no longer have wings or be as beautiful as you birds,” he said.

And now because of what happened between the cats and birds, cats hunt for birds day after day hoping to get revenge, while the birds laugh and mock them from the sky.