Once upon a time there was a little bird named Robin. This is the story of how Robin came to be the best listener ever.
You see, robins are a type of bird that hop around on the ground, tilt their head sideways, and listen for worms crawling around. Then they quickly grab that worm with their beak and gobble it up for breakfast!
Robin was especially good at listening for worms. Every meal of every day, her mom would take her out of her birdhouse down to the grassy lawn below and teach her to listen for worms. When she would hear one squiggling around, she would jab her beak into the dirt and yank up a nice juicy worm!
But this was normal for a bird. The real reason why Robin was so good at listening was because she had a friend named Zeke. Every afternoon, Zeke would bring a tremendous pile of books up into his treehouse and read to Robin. She could hear him telling his wonderful stories of monsters and puppies, pancakes and animal teeth.
Her favorite story was when he read about a Little Red Hen. Robin’s birdhouse was so close to Zeke’s treehouse that they shared the same tree. When Zeke opened that book, Robin would lean over the railing to look at the pictures of the Little Red Hen.
One sunny afternoon, Robin said to Zeke, “Thank you for reading to me!” Zeke knew that Robin liked his stories, but he never knew a bird could talk. He jumped up in surprise. “You can talk?!” he yipped. “Of course I can, I’ve been listening to you read books ever since I was a little blue egg.” she said with a tweet. Zeke grinned back, “Well then you’re very welcome.”
After that day, Robin and Zeke spent a lot of time talking about different things, like worms and animal teeth, pancakes and bird houses. Robin learned that Zeke had built her house with his own hands. He used a saw and hammer, nails and wood to make a cozy house that was just the right size, and put it in the tree next to his treehouse so they could be neighbors.
“We make a great team!” Robin shouted. Zeke looked puzzled, so Robin added, “You can build houses for us to live in, and I can catch worms for us to eat!” Zeke laughed, knowing that he would never eat a worm. “Silly Robin,” he said, “Boys don’t eat worms.”
“Well then,” Robin said. “How about this: you can read books, and I can listen!” “That sounds much better”, Zeke agreed. And they started on another stack of books.
And that’s the story of how Robin became the best listener ever.
