Theo, Coco and the Upside-Down Nest

At the edge of the jungle, where the tall trees stopped and the grass began, lay a wide green meadow. The grass there grew soft as a blanket, and the wind walked through it all day long, bending it in slow silver waves. That morning the meadow smelled of warm leaves and wild honey. And somewhere above it — very high, very small — something was crying.

Coco the monkey swung down through the branches to listen. Hand over hand, tail curling, she followed the little sound all the way to the top of an old fig tree. And there she stopped. A nest was hanging upside-down. The wind had spun it right over in the night, and it clung to the branch by three brave twigs… no more.

"Hello?" Coco whispered into the tipped-over nest. "Is anybody in there?" Three little heads peeped out at her. Three round beaks. Three sets of eyes as shiny as raindrops. "We are," said the smallest chick, in a voice like a pin dropping. "We're upside-down. Mama isn't home yet… and the sky keeps moving about."

Coco looked at them, and her heart went thump. They were so tiny. Their feathers were still soft grey fluff, like dandelion seeds waiting to fly, and their little claws gripped the woven grass. Every time the wind pushed the branch, the whole nest swayed — and the three chicks pressed close together and held very, very still.

Down in the grass, a small golden shape lifted its head. It was Theo the lion cub, with a burr caught in his fluffy mane and dew still shining on his paws. "Coco?" he called up through the leaves. "What's the matter?" "Everything!" Coco called back down. "There's a nest, and it's the wrong way round, and I have to fix it FAST!"

Theo climbed up to the low branch, one careful paw after another. He did not hurry, not even a little. He looked at the nest for a long moment — at the three twigs holding it, at the small birds inside, at the long, long way down to the grass. "All right," he said. "Let's look before we leap."