Billywise
‘Who are you?’ murmured moth
you wouldn’t make anyone afraid!’
‘Hush! Just eat and rest!’
‘You will grow, you will prowl,
‘Who are you?’ squeaked squirrel,
peering from a branch nearby.
and it doesn’t look as if you’ll ever fly!’
huddling in his nest.
‘Hush!Just eat and rest!’
‘You will grow, you will prowl,
Before long there were three
in the oldest oak:
Billywise, Jennyhowlett and Pudge.
And they grew.
Billywise cried, ‘Please,
why are those two there?
Do I have to share?
This really is a squash and a squeeze!’
They pushed and wriggled,
they squeezed and wiggled
until, at last, they slept.
They slept all day,
then watched their mother fly away
as the sunlight stole from the wood…
And they grew!
They grew and they GREW,
and soon Billywise
dreamt of space.
He longed to swoop,
loop-the-loop,
to slide though the air,
as silently as moonlight
to glide through the midnight air.
But…
did he dare?
One night,
when the moon was high overhead,
Billywise stepped up to the edge of the nest,
with searching eyes and wings outspread.
And his mother said,
‘If you tried,
you could glide!
Spread your wings to the side,
fix your ears on the night,
let the stars light your flight
and aim for the moon!’
‘You’re an OWL, Billywise!
You can dive, you can prowl,
you can slide through the air;
you can swoop, loop-the-loop,
you can stare, you can glare!’
‘JUMP, Billywise!
As silent as moonlight,
glide through that midnight air!’
Billywise breathed deeply
spread his wings to the watching wood
and cried,
‘I’m an owl,
I dare, I dare!’
Judith Nicholls; Jason Cockcroft
London, Bloomsbury Children Books, 2002
