PROLOGUE

There was once a bird named Joe. He was living with his parents. He was just a little baby and was looking up at his mother. He was crying.

“There, there, there,” said his mom. “Your father is going to come home, and then you’re going to have some worms.”

“Yay!”

“That’s your first word! Yippee!”

“Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay!”

“Okay, you can stop saying it now.”

“Yay!”

“Oh look, here he comes!” said his mom, trying to change the subject.

“Yay!”

“Oh dear.”

Soon, Joe’s dad came flying in.

“I brought you some worms.”

“Yay!”

“That’s his first word, honey!” said Joe’s dad.

“But he won’t stop saying it,” said his mom.

“This worm’s name is Wormy,” said his dad.

“How can you tell?” asked his mom.

“Well, he has a name tag saying Wormy. Here you go, honey.”

But Joe wouldn’t eat it. He thought that it was special.

“If you won’t eat it, then I will,” said his dad. “I’ll teach you how to eat a worm.”

“No! No! Please, no!” said Wormy. “I’ll do anything! Don’t feed me to you!”

“Okay, me and Suali were considering enlisting in the bird army. We’re fighting against those horrid humans in Germany that are trying to make birds extinct. Could you take care of our dear Joe?”

“Yes.”

“Yay!” yelled Joe. “Best worm!”

“His first three words,” said his mom. “Yay, best, and worm!”

“I have tons of friends, Joe,” said Wormy.

“Are they worms?” asked his mom.

“Yes.”

“Well then, teach him not to eat worms and just to eat fruits. If I had to choose, I would choose berries.”

Part I

Joe was happy, but he wanted something very badly. He wanted the crown of the king of England. One day, he tried to sneak into England, but was stopped by his caretaker, Wormy. Wormy blocked the entrance, and when Joe tried to fly over him, Wormy’s friends came over and piled on top of him until they were so high that Joe could not fly over them.

“You’re not going to get past us, Joe.” said Wormy and his friends in unison.

Joe stalked back to his tree angrily.

“Why can’t they see that it’s just going to be a short trip? It’s just there and back, just stopping once to grab/steal the crown.”

“I heard that!” yelled Wormy.

Feeling hungry, Joe flew up to his nest. He ate some strawberries (since his caretaker was a worm, he couldn’t eat them) and started to feel better.

“I’ll come up with a plan, sooner or later.”

It turned out to be sooner.That night, when Wormy’s friend, Gill, was taking the night shift, Joe put his plan into action. First he ate some of his strawberries that he had been saving and threw up over the side of the nest.

“Joe is throwing up!” Gill yelled. “Wake up, Wormy!”

Wormy leaped out of his microscopic bed and ran to the scene.

“Ha ha ha! Now you can’t go to England! Na na na boo boo!”

Then Gill said, “I think I’m gonna go inside with Wormy cause you’re too sick, you can’t leave for England.”

Then Gill accompanied Wormy inside the house. As soon as they were out of his sight, Joe ate anti-throw up medicine and grabbed a couple of strawberries. Then he flew off towards England.

In England, Joe had a hard time finding his way around. Pretty soon, he came to the exhibit where they were showing the king and queen’s castle. Then, when no one was looking, he found a place where there was a rope across it, and it said “Restricted.” When no one was looking, he flew inside.

Once he was inside, a bunch of guards came. But his blue feathers blended in perfectly with the wall.

One of the guards said, “This must be someone’s idea of a cruel joke. Let’s go back.”

Then when the coast was clear, Joe flew in. And there it was. The crown.

There was a blind man who said, “It is I, the keeper of the crown. You will not get past me.”

But he was looking in the wrong direction since he was blind. Joe was on the left, flying towards the crown, and the man was shaking his cane at air on the right. Joe grabbed the crown and tried to lift it, but he couldn’t.

So he called out for his friends.

“Tweet tweet tweet!”

Soon, fifty more birds came, and they lifted the crown and flew off towards Joe’s house. It was a long journey, and Joe only had one strawberry left. They all split it, but it was hardly anything. Luckily, one of his friends, whose name was Grace, had blueberries. They all devoured them.

Soon they got home. It was nighttime. The trip had only taken him a few hours. When he got back, he flew inside his nest and ate some strawberries. Then he went to Wormy.

“I got the crown! You kept thinking it was impossible! But it wasn’t! I got it!” Wormy looked really scared. “What’s wrong?”

“You should have never brought the crown.”
“Why?”

“Now they will be sending guards after us. They will capture you, and me, and all my friends, and all your friends, and steal the crown back. We need to go. Now.”

Soon, Wormy was ready, so Joe called “tweet tweet tweet” again to bring his friends. Now fifty more birds came, so in total, there were one hundred and one birds, including Joe. All of them picked up two worms and flew off. Soon it was just Wormy, Retcher, Gill, and Joe left. Wormy, Retcher, and Gill hopped on Joe’s back and flew just as one of the king’s guards was about to grab Joe’s tail feather. They flew all the way until they got to Greece, but it turned out word had got out there that the king’s crown was stolen, and they had to move to Spain.
Soon they made a new house, and Wormy, Joe, and all their friends lived happily ever after.

Part II

Joe was very adventurous. He had already gone to England, stolen the king’s crown, went to Greece, was chased to Spain, and was now living there. He had already learned about 75% of Spanish, but he usually used English at his house. Right now, he was lying in his bed/nest, and he was bugging Wormy so much.

He was saying, “Why can’t I go on another adventure? Why can’t I go on another adventure?”

“You can’t. It’s too dangerous,” Wormy said.

“I’ve already been to England! I’ve already been to Greece! I’ve already been in America, and right now I’m in Spain! Why can’t I go on another adventure? It’s not dangerous. Well, even if it is dangerous, I’m not gonna get hurt!”

“You nearly broke your tail feather last time you went on an adventure!”

“But they grow back!”

“No they don’t!”

“Okay, maybe they don’t, but I won’t break my tail feather!”

“Fine, you can go on another adventure, but I get to choose where you go.”

“Yippee!”

“You get to go to… drumroll please, Gill.”

“Where?”

“To… India!”

“Where in India?”

“I did not say India, I said Indiana,”

“Sorry, I could have sworn I heard India.”

“Well, when you’re in Indiana, you get to go and… another drumroll please, Gill.”

“Just tell me where already!”

“You get to go to… Times Square!”

“I don’t think there is a Times Square in Indiana. Yeah, that’s in New York.”

“No, you know where I mean! I mean, you get to go to the middle of Indiana! That’s the best place!”

“Wormy, you know what I’ve been telling you. If you say Times Square, everyone’s gonna think you mean Times Square in New York.”

“Okay, okay, I get it, Joe. I’m an old worm, you can’t blame me.”

“Wormy, you’re twenty years old.”

“You know what I mean!”

“What did I say about literal translations?” As soon as Joe said those words, Wormy walked/wriggled away. Then, feeling rather hungry, Joe picked some strawberries and ate them. He then picked a few blueberries and saved them for dinner. After that, he flew down from his nest, and said “hi” to Gill and then said “tweet tweet tweet” which was his way of saying, “I want you, friends.” Then twenty of his friends came, and they all played tag until dinner. Then all the birds went home, and Joe ate his blueberries that he had been saving. When Wormy climbed up the tree and told him that he should rest up for his trip tomorrow, he fell asleep.

In the morning, Joe brushed his feathers, and then he flew off outside his house and left a present on someone’s head. Then he grabbed a stick that was perfectly round that he kept as a toothbrush and put some mint on it, and then he brushed his teeth. After that, he ate some blackberries, packed some raspberries for lunch, some strawberries for snack, and blueberries for dinner and then he practiced flying, and then he said bye to Gill, Wormy, and the rest of the worms, and then flew off towards America. He had to stop for lunch in Germany, which he did not like. It was too busy, and everyone was so demanding. He stopped in the tree, but he didn’t have time to make a nest, so he just put a few twigs down. And then he sat down and had lunch, which was raspberries. As soon as he finished lunch and took a half an hour nap, he practiced flying for ten minutes, and then he went for America. It was a very long flight, so he had to stop for a snack in New Jersey. He went to a place where his old owners were, and they still liked him, so they let him stay and fed him the strawberries. Then he napped for ten minutes, practiced flying for two minutes, and left for Indiana.

When he got to Indiana, he was recognized by many people because they had all heard that he knew the people who lived in New Jersey. They were very rich. He was welcomed with open arms. Then, he went to the middle of Indiana where he was expected by the Sawyer family. They took him to their house, which was very nice, and fed him full with blueberries and even got him some water. Then they went around their place, showing him all of the nice things where they lived, and then Mr. Sawyer promised to take him on a sightseeing trip in the morning. Then, Joe went to bed.

In the morning, just like he had promised, Mr. Sawyer took him around Indiana on a sightseeing trip. They had seen all the nice places in Indiana and were in a church when Mr. Sawyer got a call on his phone from Wormy. Wormy had been asking when he was going to get home and said that all the worms had missed him.

Joe said, “I’m coming back, Wormy, I just want to finish looking at this church. Then I promise I’ll fly back.”

Then he finished looking at the church, and they walked/flew back to Mr. Sawyer’s house. There, he had some raspberries, packed some blackberries, strawberries, and blueberries, then flew all the way to Canada. There, he had his lunch. After that, he flew to Germany and had strawberries as a snack. Then he napped for an hour, flew around the tree where he was three times, then flew all the way back to Spain. When he got there, he was greeted by worms singing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” even though it was the middle of spring, and Joe pointed out that it was spring so they should be singing “We Wish You a Merry Easter”, and so they sang “We Wish You a Merry Easter.”

Then Wormy said, “Where were you? We thought you were going to come at lunch time. Why are you coming so late?”

“Well, it’s not an easy flight from here to America, so I had to stop both ways two to three times.”

“Well, next time you go on an adventure, you come earlier.”

“I promise I will, Wormy. But most of the birds who go on adventures usually go for a few weeks, and then their parents and caretakers say that they go for too short a time.”

“Well, okay. But next time you can’t go any more than a week, okay?”

“Well, of course, when have I ever been known not to listen to you?” Wormy stared at him. “Okay, maybe I haven’t listened to you a few times.”

“And one of those times, you nearly got you, me, the rest of the birds, and the rest of the worms killed!”

“Okay.”

Part III

Joe had already been to England, stolen the crown, went to Greece, been chased to Spain, where he was right now, and went to New Jersey, Germany, Indiana, and Canada. He now lived in Spain. He used to live in New York. Right now, he was in his nest, planning for another trip. He had to go because all the worms were running out of food, and there was surprisingly no food growing. Joe himself had to live on apples, which he hated, because the bushes were not growing any berries. Apples for lunch, apples for dinner, apples for breakfast, and apples for snack. He was getting bored of it, and he had to eat it every day, which made it worse.

One day, he found a little blackberry on the tree and kindly shared it with all of the worms. It filled up the worms, but it didn’t fill him up. Gill came up to him.

He was too weak to climb the tree, so he stayed on the ground and called up to him, “If you want to get us food, you should go to Canada. There, me and Wormy’s friend, Bob, lives. When we were running from the guards, when you got the crown, his bird got injured so they had to take a pit stop in Canada, but that pit stop turned out to be where they lived. If you go to Bob, then you should ask for the berries so we can all have them. Here’s a pouch.” He then gave him the stick where he had tied a bunch of leaves together and then tied them to the stick so it created a pouch. “Put the berries in there and come back home. We’re all starving here. We have to live off that one little blackberry, and our mouths are so small that they can’t bite through apples.”

“I thought worms always bite through apples.”

“Well, most of us worms here are very old, so we can’t bite through.”

“But you’re only thirty-seven.”

“It’s still hard to. Those apples are really hard.”

That left Joe very puzzled, because when he looked at apples right outside their house/tree, he saw a lot of worms biting in apples with their heads sticking out of apples, and they all had many wrinkles on them and looked old.

Joe went to bed. In the morning, Joe packed a load of apples. He found another raspberry growing and gave it to his friends, the worms. Then, he flew towards Canada. He had to stop in Australia for lunch. He had two apples because he had skipped breakfast. He took a half an hour nap and flew around the tree where he was for ten minutes to practice. Then, he kept flying. Soon, he found himself in Germany. Surprisingly, he found his mom and dad!

“Oh, look at you! You’ve grown up so much,” said his mom, crying and hugging and covering him with kisses.

“Look at you! You’re practically as tall as your father,” said his dad.

They went through this for five minutes.

“Well, Mom and Dad, I have to go and get some food. Everyone at Wormy’s house is starving, and I’ve been put in charge of getting them food. Bye.”

“Bye,” said his mom and dad at the same time.

Then, Joe took a ten minute nap, flew around the tree for five minutes to practice, and

then went off again. He had to stop again, right on a shore next to the water. He flew on a coconut tree, drank some coconut water, ate some apples, took a five minute nap, practiced flying for two minutes, and went off again towards Bob’s house.

When he got to Bob’s house, he practically collapsed. Bob tried to push him, but couldn’t, so called his friend, Red the Bird, which was also Joe’s friend, to help him. They soon got him inside the birdhouse where they fed him some blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries. Then they gave him all the food, and he went back.

He flew the same course and stopped the same stops, and then went back to his house. Then he gave all the birds their berries and stored his berries inside the pouch that Gill had given him. Then, he took a wonderful dinner of apples.