How the Whale Became by Ted Hughes Page B

made his voice sound very brave, as he said:
    ‘As we are here for good, let us make the best of it.’
    And he led them down to the stackyard for the night’s feeding.
    So it went on, for almost a year.
    At last the birds decided they had had enough. They were too unhappy to go on living.
    ‘This is no life whatsoever,’ they said to each other.
    ‘Let us all die bravely, and at once,’ said Robin, ‘rather than go on dying slowly in this miserable way.’
    ‘We will do that!’ cried the storm-cocks. ‘Let us all die bravely together, rather than live like this.’
    ‘But how?’ said Little Gold-Crested Wren. ‘How can we die?’
    ‘Let us open our eyes,’ said Robin, ‘to the deadly darkness. Owl said that will kill us all.’
    The unhappy birds went out with Owl that night for the last time. He led them to the stackyard as usual, and took up his post. But instead of trying to find food, the birds all sat down together in a big close group in the middle of the yard. They had decided what to do. But Owl knew nothing of it. Hestared down. Softly, the birds began to sing their old songs.
    ‘What’s the matter with you?’ cried Owl. ‘You’ll starve if you don’t eat!’
    But the birds took no notice of him. They went on singing, in their thin, hungry voices. It was a long time since they had sung. Now they sang very low, and very sadly.
    It was a bright night, with a full moon, but Owl couldn’t catch a single one of those birds. They were pressed far too closely one against another. He couldn’t even pick one from the edge of the group. And they sang all night long.
    By dawn Owl was furious.
    ‘Dusk!’ he cried. ‘Back to the copse! Here comes the deadly dark.’
    He was very hungry. But he knew what he would do. He would sneak down on them by broad day, when they were standing under the brambles with their eyes tight shut. Then he would eat his fill. He would have a song-thrush, a yellow-hammer, a greenfinch, and five bluetits –
    ‘Where are you going?’ he cried.
    Instead of following him back to the copse, the birds had turned up the hill. Following the rising ground, they came at last to the very top. All around them lay the dark landscape. They gathered under the three elm trees there and faced the first grey line that was showing in the East. Then, once more, they began to sing their old songs.
    Soon the deadly darkness would begin to spread through the sky. Or so they thought. They staredinto the brightening dawn and sang, holding their eyes as wide as they could to catch the first rays of deadly darkness.
    Oh, they were so tired of their lives.
    To die like this was better than to live as they had been doing, going nowhere but where Owl led them, always in darkness, scraping their feet raw for a few grains.
    They sang, and stared into the dawn. Every moment they expected the first killing ray of black to shoot out of the bright east.
    At the edge of the field Owl was beating his head with his wings. He knew what the result would be. In a few minutes the sun would rise, and the birds would recognize the landscape round them.
    ‘Come home!’ he cried. ‘You sillies! You’ll all be killed dead as stones. Come home and close your eyes!’
    But the birds had no more interest in anything that Owl said. They only wanted to die.
    *
    Slowly the sun put its burning red edge into the sky.
    Lark gave a shriek. He sprang up into the air.
    ‘It’s the sun!’ he cried. ‘It’s real day!’
    Slowly the sun rose.
    As it rose, the birds flew up into the branches of the elms, dancing on the twigs, and singing till their heads rang.
    ‘It’s the sun!’ they sang. ‘It’s real day!’
    From under a blackthorn bush at the field’s edge, Owl stared in rage. Then he ducked his head, andflew away down the hedge, low over the ground. Even so, the birds saw him.
    ‘He tricked us!’ they cried. ‘And there he goes! There goes the trickster!’
    In a shouting mob, all the birds flocked after Owl.