The Bird

The children were standing in a circle, discussing how they could help the injured bird in the middle of the circle. Hideo was quiet, staring at the bird.

"What is going on here?" asked Yamakawa sensei. When he saw the helpless bird, he looked deeply saddened. He used a tissue to pick it up, and quickly carried it to the back of the school. None of the children were brave enough to follow him.

When Yamakawa sensei returned, he demanded to know what had happened and who was responsible for injuring the bird. Hideo looked at the ground and stepped forward. "I'm sorry. I threw a rock at it. I didn't think it would hit it. I'm sorry."

___________

Hideo's punishment was to clean all the blackboards in the school for a week, during lunch hour and after school each day. It was not such a hard job, but when he looked outside and saw the other kids playing, he felt quite lonely. But he kept cleaning the blackboards.

___________

On Friday, the last day of his punishment, and on the last blackboard he had to clean, he noticed there were animals drawn all over the board. There were a horse, three dogs, a lion, two rabbits, a dolphin, a cat and a bird. A bird. He cleaned them all off, leaving the bird for last. But he couldn't wipe off the bird.

He wrote his name, "Hideo," on the board with a piece of chalk, then erased it carefully. He didn't feel any worse. Nor any better. Leaving the drawing of the bird on the blackboard, Hideo left the room and went home.