4. The Bullying Blackbird

TALES OF DINGDONG FOREST Part 4

Peter Smith was a boy who loved walking into DingDong Forest. He liked picking raspberries from the wild raspberry canes as he walked past them, and eating them.

But it was the forest he really loved. It wasn’t as quiet where the trees grew densely together as it might have been, and he knew most of the small voices that filled the air with its background of little sounds

Like Billy the Blackbird.

Billy could raise his voice in beautiful songs when he wanted to, and Peter liked listening to him. But Billy had a dark side. A very dark side, because he loved bullying as many small creatures as he could. And he loved jeering at them and calling them names, when he wasn’t singing his beautiful songs.

One of the forest creatures he most liked bullying was Sammy the Sparrow. When he’d been a baby bird Sammy had fallen out of his nest and banged his head rather hard on the ground. His mummy had left it rather late in the year to lay her eggs and hatch them, and the ground was icy and hard and cold when Sammy fell and banged his head on it.

He wasn’t quite right after that. He walked with his head on one side and instead of opening his beak to talk, he blinked. And he kept falling over when he walked along, but worst of all he could barely fly. And when he did fly he bumped into things, which meant he didn’t like flying at all.

These were the reasons why Billy Blackbird bullied him and called him the most dreadful names, some of them even rather rude, like ‘blinky bumhole’, which made poor little Sammy burst into tears and run away, probably straight into something hard and painful, which made him feel even worse.

And Peter Smith saw this one fine Spring day when the sun was waking up after a cold winter and there were the first green leaves growing on the trees of the forest.

He watched the blackbird and heard it stop singing and start squawking, and he saw Sammy Sparrow cowering behind a crinkled up old leaf that was too small for him to properly hide behind.

Sammy Sparrow was shaking and shivering.

In fact, he was shaking and shivering so violently that the boy Peter thought he might be shaking himself to death.

Billy Blackbird saw Peter staring at the little shivering sparrow and he stopped taunting him because he knew two things. He knew that bullying creatures smaller than himself was not very nice and he knew that if the human boy took the sparrow’s side in a fight he himself wouldn’t stand a chance.

Peter bent down and looked with a kindly face as the poor little sparrow.

“You need help,” he said, “and if you like I will help you.”

It probably wasn’t the words that made Sammy Sparrow do what he did, but the way that Peter spoke them, because he had a kindly voice and he smelt a little bit of Raspberries when he spoke. As I mentioned, there were some raspberry canes down the path that led to the human houses and it was all right for Peter to pick them and eat them because they were growing wild. So his breath had the slightest smell of raspberries when he spoke, and it was nice.

So Sammy Sparrow stood up as straight as he could, which wasn’t very straight really, and hopped from behind his leaf right up to where Peter was bending towards him.

Then he did the bravest thing he’d ever done since he’d hatched out of the egg last winter.

He hopped onto Peter’s lowered hand and looked up at the boy.

“I know,” whispered Peter, “I’ll take you to Mr Dobson, the vet. He’ll know how to help you.”

Simon Sparrow tried to chirrup thank-you, but he blinked instead.

“Come on, then,” said Peter, and he carefully cradled Simon Sparrow in his hands and carried him away from his trees and home, and down the path to the houses where the humans lived.

Mr Dobson lived in the end house, so it wasn’t very far, and Peter was in luck because there was nobody in his waiting room with a sick animal.

He knew Peter. More than once Peter had taken creatures from the wild for him to help, and he didn’t mind at all.

“Now what little fellow have you got there, Peter?” he asked.

“It’s a sparrow,” said Peter, “and I think there’s something wrong with him.”

Mr Dobson took Simon Sparrow carefully in his own hands and looked at him carefully.

“He’s had a bad time,” he said sadly, “but there’s one thing I can do for him. I must be careful, though, because he isn’t the strongest of birds.”

Then Mr Dobson, with very gentle fingers and a smile on his face, did something to Simon Sparrow. He tweaked something gently and Simon gave a little squawk, and opened his eyes.

“Take him back to where you found him,” said Mr Dobson, “I think he may be a little better now. He had a nerve that was trapped, and I’ve released it. There’s no charge, Peter, I don’t think the sparrow has much money in his piggy bank!”

“Thanks so much, Mr Dobson,” said Peter, and he left the vet’s waiting room and made his way back, past the raspberry canes, to where he’d found Simon Sparrow.

Then, very carefully, he put him back exactly where he’d found him.

Then Simon did something extraordinary for him. He flapped his wings and actually managed to fly in a straight line without crashing into anything, and when he was high enough he landed on a branch on an oak tree, and proudly ruffled his feathers.

“He’s better now,” said Peter to Billy Blackbird, who was watching from another tree. “And he’d better stay better,” he added, “or I’ll want to know why, and I’m bigger than you!”

© Peter Rogerson, 18.11.20