Humor Me; Pretend You're Five

Once upon a time there was a bird named Felix who lived on the most beautiful island in the world. There were no people on this island, but there were hundreds of kinds of birds: birds as big as elephants with wings like the sails of boats, birds as tiny as marbles who flew as fast as shooting stars, birds with feathers that shimmered in the sunlight like a perfect pearl.

There were other animals on this island, too. There were crabs of all colors who lived in the tidal pools between the dunes and the rocky strip where the waves crashed onto the shore. There were grey wolves who lived on the island's one mountain and howled into the black sky when the moon was full. And there were giraffes who ate the leaves from the tops of the tallest trees and peered into the nests that dotted each and every one.

Felix loved his island, loved swooping down and scattering the nervous crabs along the shoreline, loved napping in the crook of a pomegranate tree, loved to gaze up at the patterns the stars made in the sky as he fell asleep every night in his own soft nest. But most of all, Felix loved the music.

On an island populated almost, although not quite entirely by birds, there is music around the clock, music so varied, and earth-shatteringly lovely, and exciting and soothing and miraculous, that Felix knew he could never explain it to anyone who didn't live there. From morning to night, the sounds of birdsong filled the air. Sometimes, when one bird caught wind of another bird's pleasing melody, he would pick it up and harmonize, until another bird joined in, and another, and the wolves froze on the mountainside to listen, and even the crabs stopped rattling in their shells to hear the symphony.

Of all the birds who lived on the island, Felix was perhaps the most in love with the constant sounds of singing. He would beg his friends to sing for him. Sometimes he would organize them in groups so the solid, low-to-the-ground Dodo with the booming voice could sing doo-wop bass as the proud Phoenix belted out a jazzy accompaniment. Felix would lie on a flat rock with his wings behind his head and just listen, eyes closed, as happy as a bird could be.

But although every single other bird on the island had an unlimited repertoire of songs, Felix never sang. He had tried, as an eager hatchling, tried to jump in when the other birds started riffing and trilling, but as soon as he heard his own voice he would stop. You see, Felix knew--he always knew somehow--what the music was supposed to sound like, what it could sound like when all the stars were aligned and all the birds fat full of pomegranate juice and ready to sing, sing, sing their hearts out. When he sang along, even in a muted whisper, it ruined the sound. It made him sad, sadder than a bird on such a joyful island should ever have to be, but Felix could not sing.

The only other creature on the island who knew how sad Felix really felt was his best friend, a giraffe named Boo. Whenever Felix felt really down about his voice, Boo would try to comfort him. "You don't need to be able to sing, Felix," Boo would say. "You can fly!" Felix appreciated Boo's efforts to cheer him up, but they both knew that birds were supposed to fly and sing, not just one or the other.

Sometimes Boo would try a different strategy. "Felix," she would say, "I'm a giraffe, and I can't even...." This never worked because, well, giraffes can't really do very much at all, and everything they were supposed to be able to do--chomp leaves, scope out goings-on thanks to their long necks--Boo could do. What she couldn't do was make Felix feel better about his voice. Even pointing out how much joy he got from listening to all the birds sing didn't help. Felix wanted to make music too. He simply couldn't get over it.

One day Boo was eating some leaves from a particularly lush tree near the base of the mountain when she saw something amazing. "Felix!" she called. "Come quickly!" Felix, who'd been listening to a couple of morning doves whistling a little ditty from nest to nest nearby, oblingly flew on over.

"What is it?" he said glumly. Boo craned her long, long neck and looked out at the sea again. It was still there, bobbing in the waves and getting closer and closer to the shore.

"Follow me," she said, and bounded off through the trees, her head just slightly taller than the treetops. Felix flew beside her. By the time they reached the beach, it had washed up on the shore. It was a giant trunk, belted with two bands of gold. It looked watertight, but it was locked, and there was no key. Felix hopped along the rocks for a few minutes until he found a long thin piece of shell. He carried it back to Boo in his beak. When he placed it in the keyhole and turned, the top of the trunk flew open. Boo and Felix, shaking with anticipation, peered inside.

After a few minutes of staring in silence, Boo began removing the objects with her mouth and placing them gently on the sand. Felix wove in and out among them, stopping to peck one, brush a wingtip over another. Finally, Boo had emptied the trunk, and Felix stopped examining. "Felix?" Boo said, sounding a little embarassed. "Um, do you know what these are?"

"No," said Felix in wonderment. He had never seen objects like this before on the island, and each was more pleasing to him than the next. Some were long and thin and silver, like the leg of a heron. Others were curvy and made of gleaming wood. One was the size of an ostrich egg and made of brass, another round and covered with what looked like a thin thin sheet of bark. Felix picked up the long, thin, silver object in his wings. It was cool and smooth. It had little holes along its length, what looked like a flat beak at one end.

Without stopping to think about what he was doing, Felix held the object to his beak and blew. Boo jumped, then sank to a sitting position in the sand so she could listen. For the first time since she had known him, Felix was making beautiful music, the most beautiful music she had ever heard. When he was finished, other birds and crabs and wolves had gathered around, and they all clapped and whistled and sang in approval. The music was like nothing they had ever heard, and on an island like this, populated almost entirely by birds, they'd heard almost every kind of birdsong that there was.

Felix looked at the crowd, at the amazed faces, and picked up the curvy glossy object and the long curved bow. He held the object in one wing and the bow in the other and drew it across the strings. The growing audience gasped. For the rest of the afternoon, Felix made music for his friends. Each object was different and seemingly more beautiful than the next. By the time the sun had set, he had mastered every one. He was a natural. And making music, as Felix had always suspected, was just as glorious as listening to it.

As the moon rose in the sky, Felix and Boo sat on the beach surrounded by the miraculous objects that had washed to shore in the trunk. "It's a full moon," observed Boo. Suddenly the sound of the wolves on the mountain filled the night. From one end of the island to the other, birds could be heard joining in, singing along, creating melodies to accompany the rich full howls. Felix smiled in the darkness. He had never really noticed it before, but the wolves were singing too. There was, he had finally learned, more than one way to make music, more than one way to be an absolutely perfect bird.