EOI Carabanchel Writing Awards: " The Tale of the Parrot and the Canary"

Please welcome dearest student Hector Nicolás Gómez, third award for NI. Enjoy your reading and feel free to post your coments here!

"The tale of the parrot and the canary "


The pet shop is dark and quiet; there is only a soft buzz from the fluorescent light over them. However everything is going to change within a few minutes. The sunlight will get into the shop and everyone will be woken up by one of the most amazing shows they have ever seen.

In fact, some of them are already wide awake, Mrs Hen and her little chickens are always in the row, of course, and they would not miss it for all the tea in China!

Little by little the sun is rising and near the shop window there is an amazing, large, yellow steel cage. From there, the most graceful, coloured feather parrot is starting to sing. Mr and Mrs Rabbit are waking their kids up so that they enjoy this wonderful performance. Everyone is listening to him really excited. When the show finishes all of the animals in the pet shop clap with enthusiasm and the young parrot always says: “Thank you so much, I am really grateful and I hope you want to listen to me again tomorrow morning”. After clapping over and over they start their daily routine happier than ever expecting next morning to listen to the parrot chanting other beautiful song. Yes, everyone is looking forward to listening to the young parrot but one, who lives in the opposite corner. Actually, he is always looking down on everyone in the shop, it seems as if he was the only one who is able to sing properly, “the best singer in the world” he usually says, how proud of himself and self-centred he is. It is true he studied and practised long hours before singing for the first time, his vocal technique is almost perfect and his chant is surprisingly melodious. However, despite the fact that he knows a lot of theory he was only able to sing just one song! Believe or not it is the truth.

Next morning, after imitating the chant of the cocks the young parrot was asked if he knew how to write what he had just sung. The young parrot, of course, did not know how to do it. How on earth he was going to know, he was too young for it otherwise he would be a very experience parrot, and he was not so far. In fact, everything he knew he had learnt it by ear, just listening and imitating and as far as he knew it was the best way to become a very good singer. He had never thought about it and the canary question shocked him. Anyway he tried to write it down, but he was not able to do it.

From now on the young parrot stopped singing and he was determined to find out what he was supposed to know before singing. First of all he made some strange drawings, but naturally it did not make sense, secondly he bought some books, music and theory for beginners, but he did not understand a thing. That was a sort of obsession for him. As a result no one in the shop could enjoy his extraordinary voice.

Time went by, and the rest of the animals were really sad, the atmosphere had change dramatically. A few weeks ago everything was happiness, all of them waiting excited the daily performance, but now what they heard is the same song, nice but boring at the same time, or what would you think if someone close to you say the same phrase all the time? No variety, perfect pronunciation, no grammar mistakes, interesting vocabulary about the subject…but unable to speak without a paper or an outline.
Everyone wished everything was different. However, one peaceful night as all of the animals were asleep the young parrot started to sing. Surprisingly he was asleep too, so he was not realizing what he was doing. Mr. Hamster woke his wife up, Mrs. Dog called her puppies and little by little all of them were listening astonished how well the young parrot was chanting. As soon as the song was over, the whole shop burst out clapping, shouting and laughing again. –At last the young parrot has come back to sing! Suddenly the parrot woke up and saw all his friends cheering him up and clapping delighted.

– What happens? He asked.
– Do not know you have just sung, my fellow? Oh, kid, it was fantastic!

The canary was also amazed, he could not believe it, nevertheless it was true, this was the most beautiful melody he had ever listened, and it was just an improvisation!

This remarkable event changed everything in the shop. Since then the canary realised how important it is to listen and imitate when you are learning something new. Having resources in your mind and knowing how to use it, as a result you will be able to express what you feel, what you think and everyone will understand what you want you say. Reading and writing are skills you will need in the future but first of all what you really do in your life is learning the oral and audition skills.
That was what our young parrot did. And while he was growing up the canary was in charge of teaching him how to write and eventually how to read.