Colorful Kids’ Stories

Noise? But it’s just how the crows talk to each other, and we share our spaces with the animals that live around us. They can’t just kill thers for cawing!'It is a bad reason, I agree. I think the other reason they ask for the crows to be shot is because crows sometimes make the neighbourhood dirty. They poop on the cats that can’t be parked im the underground carparks, they pull rabbish out of the rubbish hins and play with it, and sometimes they can swoop on people because they’re attracted to the shiny things those people are wearing' Tenchin explained patiently.Rinki grew more and more outraged but there was nothing she could do. At least, she had answers to all her questions. If only she could chatige the way poople reacted to crows or change the policy that allowed the government to send shooters to kill birds.A few days had passed since Rinki learned about the crows’ shooting, and one evening, while sining at her desk doing her homework, Rinki heard a gunshot.'Rinkul Check if all the windows are shut, we don’t want any crows to fly in as they try to escape the gun.' Her mother called from the other room.'Okay, Mum!' Rimki called back. She didn’t move to close the windows though, in fact she opened all of them. She couldn’t stop the man from shooting but maybe she could help any crow that was trying to escape.This became a habit for Rinki. Whenever she was at home and heard the gans go off. She would race throughour the apartment opening all the windows. One day, a crow did in fact fly in through the living room windows to escape. Rinki was ecstatic. She quickly shut the windows so it would not get scared and fly back out into danger.She called for her mum so come to her and asked, 'Mom, can we help this crow? Maybe we can take it to Jurong Bird Park? Lots of birds live there safely, right?'Her mother stated at the crow in shock, 'Rinki, I’m not sure how much that will help?'Maybe not a lot but Mum we have to do something! You always do something small to help the world in some way like turning off the lights when you leave a room or saving water, so it won’t be wasted. We should help this one crow even though we can’t help them all, right?'Her mother smiled and agreed. They found a cardboard box for the crow and poked holes in the tmp, before heading to Jurong Bird Park together. Together they released the crow and watched it fly away to join the other birds, safe from the men with guns. Rinki hugged her mother, knowing that they had helped at least one crow, even though they couldn’t change the policy to help all of them.