Skit In a dense forest , up above in the canopy of the trees, was the home of a little bird called Skit. “Good Morning little one” Mama bird wished and fed a juicy meal, a nice round worm, rich in proteins, to Skit. Skit eagerly snacked on his meal and looked at Mama with hungry affectionate eyes. “You want more” asked Mama. Skit nodded.
“That’s my baby, growing up young and strong” saying this she flew away in search of another meal.
Mama bird had to look far and wide in search of worms for Skit, as there were no shopping malls in the forest. Fed on this protein rich diet, Skit grew up into a young beautiful bird.
But as he grew up, he also became very playful and quite mischievous too. “Look what I do to the worms.” Skit said to his neighbour, a little bird just like him. Skit took a worm in his beak and shook his head in a rhythm, wiggle-wiggle.
“Ha! Ha! wasn’t it fun to look at the worm making shapes in the air?” asked Skit. Not on all days was Skit this bad, some days he would go jiggle-jiggle. And on some other days , if he felt like it, he did, wiggle-jiggle-wiggle-jiggle and other such combinations too. All his fun activity had an unintended consequence, as some time the worm would slip from his beak and disappear into the forest below. All of Mama’s efforts went in vain. “Stop playing with your food” Mama admonished. But Skit stuck to his ways of having fun.
Mama tried to bribe Skit with rewards, when stick and punishment could not do it in the first place.
There was one more unintended consequence to his actions, the fun activity spread like a virus to all the young ones. The whole forest went wiggle-wiggle-jiggle-jiggle. Oh! what a sight. But much to the dismay of the adults; And much to the delight of the worms. “Your young one is a very bad influence” complained one,
“Yes, he is teaching our kids bad things” said another to Mama bird.
Mama bird was very angry at Skit and was severely warned about his behaviour. An Owl was observing all this, “Do you want to change the behaviour of your child?” “Yes” replied Mama to the Owl.
“Then do as I say” and murmured something into Mama’s ear. “Ok, I will do it tomorrow” she smiled.
Next day Mama gave Skit five differently coloured marbles for him to play with. And she said,
“If you again play with your food, then I will take one marble and drop it in the deep hole in that old tree trunk”. And pointed to Skit in that direction.
“Thank you and I will behave well” Skit promised. But it was not long, before the day came, when Skit forgot his promise and went wiggle-wiggle-jiggle-jiggle with his food. When Mama saw the happy worm scrambling into a hole in the forest below, she took a marble and did what she said, she would do. “Sorry Mama” said Skit. “Don’t be, next time it is going to be two marbles.” Skit shuddered to think how it would feel to loose two more.
That day ,again, was not too long. And it was not his doing at all, one of his friends challenged him,
“Hey, Skit, can you do better than this” saying which he threw a worm and caught it in mid air and swallowed it in one clean move. “Easy-peasy” replied Skit. “I can make the worm do a wiggle dance in the air before I catch it” “Oh Yeah!, it could moon walk” laughed his friends, "maybe sing a jingle too". Skit was determined to show them who was the (bad) poster boy of the neighbourhood.
He caught hold of his food, shook his head, jiggle-wiggle-jiggle-wiggle, made the worm do a squiggly dance and threw it in the air.
The whole crowd kept their eyes fixed on the worm, as it went high up in the air and then watched it go all the way down to the forest floor below.
Their laughter was cut short when they say a smiling Mama standing behind Skit. “Which is your favourite marble?”
“The orange one, Mama,” replied Skit, “because it looks like the setting Sun when I hold it up to the sky.” Mama took it and... and... Poor Skit.
But he had no one to blame, but himself for his sad state. And from that day on his behaviour changed for good.
The End