A Caged Bird

• Aleena Lamba, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2021

A thin crack spread across my chamber, running across to the floor, my eyes opened, and they met with another, a pair of gentle eyes, tilted right, immediately I knew i had a connection with them , my eyes traced down, a long curved beak, and feathers like gold, it was majestic, was it my mother? It looked like it.
My stomach grumbled, immediately, my mother opened her beak wide, and I stuffed my face in it, the grumbling went away!

Was this life?
Eating and sleeping, and doing it again, I didn't want that to be MY life, i wanted to explore the seas, and touch the sun, I wanted to roam the skies, I was so engrossed in my thoughts, that I fell out of my nest, onto the ground.
SUDDENLY, a weird net surrounded me, and dragged me away from my nest,
My mother’s shrieking calls
Cried for me to come back, I tried, I tried so hard to break from the net, but I just couldn’t,
What was going on?
I was shoved into a truck, and taken to a big park,
Tens of thousands of cages filled the park, each with birds in them, birds like me,
Birds who should be flying around, birds who should be crossing the seas, birds who should be
FREE!!

They dropped my cage on top of a stack of cages, and walked away….
Where was I?

I looked around, there were birds everywhere, birds of all shapes and sizes, I might as well just fit in, maybe make some friends,
“Chirp, Chirp”
No one replied, ok, lets try again..
“CHIRP, CHIRP!”
No one replied!!
WHY WASN’T ANYONE REPLYING??
They weren’t quite the friendliest,
But I didn’t really care, I needed to get these birds out of those cages!
Maybe I could use my feather to break out of the cage, then fly over to all the cages, everytime I free a bird, I’ll have someone to help me unlock some more cages!!
I used my beak to pluck out a feather, and poked it in the lock………
It clicked open, I flew over to a cage, and opened it, the bird looked at me with quizzical eyes,
Did you just open my cage?
It seemed to say, it plucked out a feather out of its wing, and we started opening cages after cages…finally, we opened all the cages there were, and all the birds flew away, i was going to be free, i pushed off the ground, but something pierced my wing…
A tranquilliser dart!!!!
My eyes closed..
Slowly I blinked to consciousness, I was inside a cage again..
“You are the bird who ruined my business, a bird freed all the birds in my shop…
You are one smart bird, I guess, hmmm..I will just let you go”
I didn't understand what he said, but I was overwhelmed with happiness when the man opened my cage and let me fly away, i attentively looked around for tranquilliser darts,
All clear
I was free!!
I flew over to my nest, and looked at my mum, she was busy…
Another bird!!
I was an elder brother!!