By Ayesha Alam

I WAS really excited as it was my birthday. My dad always gave me something special on my birthday, so every year I eagerly waited for my birthday.

The day started with having a creamy cake, a delicious custard pie but I was surprised to see two birds in a cage.

“Daddy, who bought these birds?” I asked.

Dad smiled and said, “I bought these for your birthday present.”

I was delighted to have the finches and took care of them a lot. I used to feed them and play with them, but one day, they were making so much noise that I shouted, “Hey, don’t make noise! Can’t you see I’m studying?”

From that day, I kept them in our dusty attic. Although my father and everyone asked me not to put the finches there, I always replied, “They are okay, and they are too annoying, so I am keeping them in the attic!”

One cloudy day, when I was studying, I heard the cat’s growling coming from the attic; I was sure something bad had happened to the little finches. I ran to the attic and as I opened the door, I was shocked to see the sight — one of the birds was missing from the cage and there was a cat with something in its mouth. I yelled at it, the cat ran but I was too late, the cat had already eaten the bird and there were only some feathers lying on the attic floor.

I was really upset. I knew the bird died because of my careless attitude of putting them in the attic which was totally unfair. I took the one left in the cage back to my room. This lonely bird also seemed very sad and horrified.

Days passed. There was almost no noise from the cage now, this worried me.

One day, I with my parents went for shopping. There we saw a bird seller and an idea flashed in my mind! I looked towards my dad and he smiled and instantly bought me one more finch. When we put the one we bought with the one in the cage, it was sight to see! Both chirped and seemed so happy!

I turned to dad, and apologised for what had happened. My dad then politely told me that if we have pets then it is our duty to keep them healthy and safe as they depend on us, however, if we can’t do that then we should set them free. I understood and learnt my lesson well, from that day onwards I fed and cared for my finches more than before.