Cuckoo the Rooster

Cuckoo the rooster loved being in the centre of attention. One time, he painted his feathers in all sorts of colours then went around telling everyone that he was a descendant of the royal Sisserou parrot. Of course, no one believed him but Cuckoo didn't care. He was the most talked about rooster that entire day.

One day, some roosters including Cuckoo were busy pecking at some grains on the ground, when to their surprise they noticed a human walking towards them. The roosters immediately got nervous and began moving away except for Cuckoo who was not nervous and decided to stay.

"I shall do a dance for dis human," he thought and started flapping his wings and turning around in small circles.

Suddenly, just as Cuckoo was about to do his big finish, the human grabbed him by his neck then turned around and walked away with him. Cuckoo flapped his wings and squawked as loud as he could but the human did not let him go. Never had he been more scared in his entire life.

A few minutes later, Cuckoo was locked inside a small cage with a monstrous looking dog standing as guard. He looked around the tiny cage for a way to escape but couldn't find any.

"I goin an die," he sobbed bitterly. If only he had listened to his aunty's warning about being an attention seeker then he would certainly not be in that situation.

Suddenly, an idea came to Cuckoo's mind. He knew exactly what he should do in order to escape. So patiently, he waited until he heard the human approaching then lay down in the cage and pretended to be dead. As expected, the human opened the cage and took him out holding him by his belly. At that moment, Cuckoo flapped his wings as hard as he could then jumped high into the air landing on top of a tree nearby. Wasting no time, he jumped down on the other side of the tree and half run, half jumped all the way home. From this day forward Cuckoo learnt a valuable lesson on the dangers of being an attention seeker.