Birdy’s Lost and Found

Birdy is a crow who has befriended a boy called Jake. He can talk and is hundreds of years old. In this episode he proves himself useful to the family and puzzles Jake’s Dad.

Birdy’s Lost and Found

Hello, this is Richard, and I’m here with another story in our series about a crow called Birdy and a boy called Jake. As you may know by now, Birdy and Jake have some long and lively conversations, but not everyone knows that Birdy can talk.

Jake stopped chucking up in time for the weekend. He still looked a little pale, but he was more or less fine. Mum said that they should go to the park to get some fresh air. They took a ball and kicked it around. Jake’s sister, Elle, scored a goal against Dad. Then Jake scored two more. The fourth time that Jake came in for a shot, Dad was determined to save the ball. He took a dive towards the coat that they were using as a goal post and landed with a heavy thud.

Ummmmph!

Dad had bruised and winded himself and had enough of football for one weekend. But they had only been out for half an hour and Mum had told them to take a big walk because Jake had been in his room for most of the week.

“Let’s get a boat! Can we please?” asked Jake.

It was only a tiny lake but it was fun to hire rowing boats and pretend to be pirates. Dad rowed and Jake shouted: “Get ready to be boarded,” at Elle who was in her own boat.

At last they went back to the car park. But Dad could not find his car keys. This was not entirely unexpected – usually after searching all his pockets three or four times he found them. Not this time though. They were definitely not on him.

“Bother! They must have fallen out when I dived for the ball,” he said.

They went back and searched the grass for the keys. But no luck.

Then they returned to the boat house and asked if anyone had handed in any keys. No luck.

“Oh double bother!” said Dad. “They must have fallen out when you were rocking the boat, Jake.”

So Dad called Mum to say that they were going to be late. He half hoped that she would offer to bring the spare keys, but she didn’t. So they walked home.

Over lunch Mum said how typical it was that Dad had lost the keys. Dad felt it was unfair to say it was ‘typical’ of him because he normally just mislaid them – and it wasn’t his fault that Jake had been rocking the boat so much.

“Who’s in charge, you or Jake?” asked Mum.

“Jake,” said Jake, and they all laughed.

Afterwards Jake went into the garden to see if Birdy was around. As it happened, Birdy was somewhere else, but just as Jake was going back into the house, he flew down and landed on the garden table.

“Is your dad planning on digging up any nice worms?” he asked.

“No, he’s in a bad mood because he lost his car keys,” said Jake. “He’s got to go back to the park with the spare ones so he can fetch the car.”

But the trouble was, Dad could not find the spare keys for a very good reason. Mum had lost the car keys two weeks ago when she went to the gym. She had forgotten to tell anyone that she had to take a taxi home to fetch the spare ones and then return to the gym.

So Dad had not lost the first set of keys. He had lost the spare ones.

And now both keys to the car were lost.

And if they left the car in the park overnight, it might get towed away.

And they’d have to pay a big fine.

Jake could hear Mum and Dad having a row about this. They were in the bedroom, but their voices were loud enough to hear out in the garden.

“Sounds like they’re blaming each other,” said the crow.

“It’s the usual thing,” said Jake.

“Well let’s see if I can help,” said the crow. And he flew off.

Jake went to his room to draw pirate ships. After a little while he heard a tapping at the window. He got up and saw Birdy. He was holding something in his beak.

“Are those the car keys?” asked Jake.

Birdy dropped the keys through the window onto the floor by the bed. He said, “Well they’re keys to somebody’s Ford. I found them in a puddle near the boating shed.”

“They’re probably ours. I’ll tell Dad. Oh by the way, thanks. You’re an amazing bird.”

“I know,” said Birdy.

Jake knocked on the bathroom door.
Dad was inside having a bath, which was what he usually did when he wanted to soothe his nerves.

“What is it?” he said from within.

“Birdy found the car keys for us,” said Jake.

“Is that so?” said Dad. “It’s very kind of him, but unless he’s brought them here, it’s not much use to us.”

“He has,” said Jake. “He’s just given them to me and I’ve got them here.”

Jake heard watery noises as Dad got out of his bath and found a towel to wrap around himself. He opened the door.

“Here,” said Jake.

Dad looked at the keys.

“That’s amazing,” he said. And then he thought, “Hey, you didn’t have them all along did you?”

“No, how could I have got them?” said Jake.

“Yes how?” said Dad scratching his head.

“It’s true,” said Jake. “Birdy found them. Why don’t you come and say thank you?”

They went into the bedroom. Birdy was sitting on the sill. Dad, still wrapped in just a bath towel, looked at him for a while.

“Well say thankyou to Birdy for finding the car keys,” said Jake.

“Thankyou Birdy for finding the car keys,” said Dad.

“Cawwwwww!” said Birdy.

And Dad looked as mystified as ever.

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