Honeycomb by Joanne Harris (book series for 12 year olds .txt) 📕

the singing bird. The Captain brought her the man in chains: she demanded that he make the bird sing for her.

But the seller of birds just looked at her. “Lady,” he said. “I sold you the bird. The song was not mine to offer.”

The Queen was angry. She had the man flung into her deepest dungeon. But the man just shrugged and said to her:

“Lady, I have seen dungeons before. Rarely does anyone sing there.”

The Queen’s rage grew. She tore her hair. But no amount of pleading, or threats, would force the man to make the bird sing.

Months passed. Winter came. The prisoner grew even paler. His hair grew matted, and his clothes more ragged and filthy than ever. According to the Master of the Dungeons, he never spoke, never slept, and ate nothing but the cockroaches that ran up and down the dungeon walls. But still, the man gave no sign of defeat, and still the songbird did not sing.

Finally, the Queen gave up. The passing months had changed her, too: had made her less certain of herself. Alone in her tower of gleaming brass with its mosaics and its silken draperies, she seemed to hear the sound of the wind and the distant roar of the ocean; and the silent songbird in its cage seemed almost to taunt her.

And so she released the seller of birds and prepared to let him go. She dressed him in silks, fed him on dates, and scented his hair with sandalwood. Then she sent him on his way, the caged bird as silent as ever. But as the man vanished over the crest of a distant sand-dune, the Queen heard him singing to himself, a song she almost recognized:

“Long ago, and far away,

Far away and long ago.

The Worlds are honeycomb, we know;

The Worlds are—”

And hearing the song, in its gilded cage, the silent songbird started to sing. It sang a song of such sweetness that the Queen was moved to tears. It was a song of the wild wind; of the skies above the dunes; of rising moons and setting suns; of distant oceans that she had never seen. And so she opened the door of the cage and let the singing bird fly free. Its song unfurled into the air like a volley of rainbows.

It still sings in the Queen’s gardens, and when it does, she listens. But cages are no longer allowed in that land; and as for the seller of singing birds, he was never seen again.

38

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HE

S

INGING

F

ROG

In a certain forest, near a farmyard we know well, the animals were very excited. The song of a new, unidentified creature had been heard in the treetops. It was a song of surpassing beauty; infinite sadness; unspoken joys. It rang over the treetops at dusk, putting the nightingales to shame. The animals of forest and farm were filled with curiosity.

“What is this creature?” they asked themselves. “A song thrush? A skylark? A warbler?”

The thrushes, skylarks, and warblers assured them that it was not.

“Could it be some foreign bird, from distant lands over the Sea?”

But search as they might, the animals could not discover the source of the beautiful song that had moved them all so deeply.

“This creature must be very shy,” said the Squirrel, who was not, and who liked to know everyone’s business.

“Perhaps we should leave it alone, then,” suggested the Dormouse, who suffered from social anxiety.

“Ridiculous!” said the Owl, who was generally thought to be clever (mostly because he said so, very loudly and often). “We owe it to the community to reveal this creature’s identity,” said the Owl.

Meanwhile, the unnamed creature sang a song of such piercing clarity that the Rats (who were sentimental) wept, and even the Hens in the barnyard said that they had never been so moved. Such was the excitement surrounding the strange and lovely song that all the animals set themselves the task of finding the singer.

The songbirds searched the treetops; the beetles searched the forest floor. The pullets searched the henhouse (even though it was very unlikely that such a song could ever come from the throat of a pullet). The song was elusive; coming from all directions at once, it seemed, and at any time of day.

But the animals refused to give up the search, until finally the Squirrel tracked the song to a hollow tree by the pond. The tree was home to a small green frog, which had a remarkable vocal range. And after the rain, it would sing to itself, amplified by the hollow tree.

The animals were outraged.

“Frogs can’t sing!” said the Nightingale.

“Frogs are drab and ungainly!” protested the Skylark.

The Rat, who had been moved to tears by the song of the little Frog, said, “Frogs are the antithesis of the Sublime.”

In fact, all the animals agreed that a Frog, however talented, was a ridiculous person, and that its song was really quite dull. They quickly turned their attention to a talented Turkey who seemed to show some promise, and left the Frog to its hollow tree.

The Frog was secretly quite relieved, never having sought their attention in the first place. But the Dormouse took to sitting on the bank by the hollow tree, listening to the beautiful song. The other animals sneered at the Dormouse for its plebeian tastes, but the Dormouse—being a Dormouse—paid them no attention.

39

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HE

G

ARDENER

On the edge of a ruined city, in a disused, overgrown lot, a man decided to build a garden. For years he worked; finding the earth under the broken concrete; digging it; sifting it; building the paths and borders. For years he cared for his garden, until at last it was ready; a perfect acre of summertime in the blasted landscape.

There were flowers of all kinds: hollyhocks and wallflowers; roses and lavender and peonies. There was rosemary and bay; pear trees, scarlet poppies; golden honeysuckle; daisies; bitter rue; shaggy bronze chrysanthemums and purple