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

side, but too late. Nothing human was left of him. The boy had melted into the air, leaving nothing behind him but a cloud of tiny moths. No one ever saw him again. But sometimes, the old librarian would think of him and shake his head, and tell himself:

“The boy was right. That woman wasn’t his mother.”

7

T

HE

P

ARROTS AND THE

N

IGHTINGALE

An emperor of the Southern Isles kept a nightingale in a cage. A visiting prince had brought it with him, many, many years ago, and its song was so sweet that visitors came from afar to hear it.

Now the king of a neighbouring country heard the song of the nightingale and was consumed with envy. He went to the keeper of the royal aviaries to discover how he could obtain a bird of his own.

The keeper of the aviaries shook his head regretfully. “These birds are very rare,” he said. “They live only in the deepest part of a dangerous forest. They cannot be bred in captivity, and catching them takes tremendous skill. I know of only one man who can do it.”

“Then summon him,” demanded the King. “Whatever his price, I’ll pay it.”

The keeper of the aviaries bowed his head respectfully and promised to deliver the bird as soon as he was able. The King went back to his own country and waited. He waited three months, after which the keeper of the aviaries arrived, looking thin and exhausted and carrying a bamboo cage in which sat a small brown bird.

“Here is your nightingale,” he said. “It took me three months to trap it and to bring it to Your Majesty. Now for my fee.” And he named a sum that made the King draw breath very sharply.

Three long months had already passed since the King had heard the nightingale’s song. His desire to compete with the emperor; his envy; his sense of wonderment; all these things had faded with time, to be replaced by a deep resentment of the price to which he had agreed. He looked at the little brown bird in its cage.

“How do I even know it sings?”

The keeper of the aviaries whistled a few notes of a tune. Immediately, the nightingale started to sing; a melody that made the tears stand in the eyes of anyone who heard it—anyone but the King, that is, who set his teeth and scowled, and said:

“What kind of fool do you take me for? This isn’t even the same kind of bird.”

The keeper of the aviaries assured him that it was.

But the King refused to believe him. “Even if it were,” he said, “the woods are filled with birds like this. Their singing is free for everyone. Why should I pay you anything for something that should be free?”

The keeper of the aviaries shrugged his shoulders. “So be it. Let it be free,” he said, and he opened the door of the bamboo cage, releasing the little bird into the air. As it flew, the nightingale opened its beak and sang a fragment of song so sublime that the King’s heart was close to breaking, and he knew that he had made an error of judgement. But pride forbade him to say so.

He called for his servants and told them, “In my woods, there are parrots with colourful plumage and rousing song. Let them be brought to my palace at once, in cages of gold and silver. Let them be placed in every room, and let their song delight us.”

And so the King’s servants obeyed his command. Soon every room in the palace was filled with parrots in gold and silver cages. Their cries were loud and raucous, but the King, having praised them so highly, was now unable to have them removed. He suffered terrible headaches, as did the members of his court, but no one dared say what everyone thought. Instead they praised the King’s judgement and pretended to admire his birds. They made such a good job of doing this that word spread to the Emperor’s court that the king of the neighbouring country had birds superior to his own. Soon, everyone was whispering. The Emperor felt ridiculous, with his single little brown bird.

One morning he went in secret to the keeper of his aviaries. “One nightingale is no longer enough,” he said. “I must have parrots. Parrots, like that foreign king’s, but in far greater number.”

The keeper of the aviaries wisely kept his thoughts to himself and promised the Emperor that he would have as many parrots as he wanted. The parrots were brought into his palace, and everyone admired them. People came from far and wide to see the collection of colourful birds, and no one dared point out the fact that not a single one could sing. The nightingale in its golden cage was forgotten in the excitement, and eventually, the keeper of the aviaries took it into the imperial gardens and quietly set it free.

The King of the neighbouring country heard about the Emperor’s collection of parrots and was most put out at having been upstaged.

But the Emperor took to spending time outside in his gardens whenever he could, where, at dusk, the song of the nightingale could still be heard from far away.

8

T

HE

L

ACEWING

K

ING AND THE

H

ARLEQUIN

Word of how the Lacewing King had stolen the crown of the Spider Queen travelled fast through the Nine Worlds. Though he was still very young, the tale had earned him the respect of his people, and one by one, the rulers of the many tribes of the Silken Folk paid him homage and bowed their heads, acknowledging his leadership.

Only one tribe remained hostile. The Sightless Folk call them ladybirds and view them with affection, but to the Silken Folk they are among the fiercest of predators. Even the wasps and the fire-ants feared their insatiable appetites, which ran not only to aphids, but also to the eggs and