Just the other day a little birdie told me that while he was enjoying a light breakfast of seeds with some friends, a little boy silently snuck up behind him, grabbed him directly by the tail feathers -
which scared Little Bird, forcing him to fly away - and didn't let go. Boy was he shocked, that Little Bird, he was! So shocked in fact that he left his feathers behind - a whole clump of them, in fact - in the hand of the little lightfooted boy with quick hands.
With a clump of feathers pinched between thumb and forefinger, the boy shrieked in delight and ran toward mother, Ninjami. In horror she shrieked, Ninjampa, the grandfather, grinned from ear to ear with astonished pride at the boy's cunning and fast as lightning grab, and Ninjimi, the Mimi of the little boy recounted this rather remarkable tale to her friends who shook their heads with near disbelief as they stood tending the outskirts of woods in Memorial Park.
The wounded pride of Old Little Bird healed, as did the new pink little patch. Word spread of the boy with hands faster than lightning, things were said such as, "...just a boy..." and "with his hands" and "had I not seen it - I would not have believed it myself!" and the word of the little boy with a soft step and quick hands was spread.
Little Bird and the Story of Ninjaia is how this incident came to be known.
As the mother of the little bird catching boy I must say, no birds were hurt in the telling of this story - one may have been bruised - on his behind. I AM happy to say that Chirpy flew away - less a few tail feathers - with a mighty fine tale to tell his grand chirpies. And this is how it began, "Long ago little ones, a boy who we all know now as Ninjaia..."
