Chapter 4

Onwards and Upwards

Kevin heard a sad little chirp, as if a tiny little chick was crying. And there was. Kevin followed the sound and soon he came across a little chick that must have fallen out of a tree. "Oh dear" said Kevin, "I'm Kevin the chicken, I'm going to help you." 

The little chick stopped crying and looked up at Kevin sadly said "really?" "Yes of course" Kevin said smilingly. "It looks like we need to get you back up to your nest up there?" said Kevin as he pointed up to the top of a mighty oak tree. "It looks so far" said the chick.  "Everywhere looks so far away until you get there, and then when you look back it doesn't ever look as far as it was. It looks too far for me to fly you up there. I think we need to build you a ladder." Kevin explained what a ladder was and that it was just like building a very long nest, as that is the only thing that birds built. After warming the chick up under his wing, Kevin began collecting sticks, twigs, and anything that could be used. Kevin loved playing with building bricks back home, and making towers and buildings and spaceships and cars, and imagined himself being an architect or an engineer. If only he had some of those bricks now, but he didn't. He had to use whatever was at hand. Kevin worked and worked and worked. As he foraged for materials he came across a hedgehog. "Hello, what are you doing?" asked the hedgehog? "I'm collecting things to make a ladder" said Kevin. After explaining what a ladder was and what it was used for the hedgehog said he would help. Kevin was very pleased, and soon lots of different animals were volunteering and helping out - just because they wanted to. Kevin was amazed.  By nighttime the ladder was really coming together. As the sun set, Kevin and the chick settled down under a small bush for the night. "Will I ever see my home again?" said the chick. "Of course you will!" said Kevin. "I hope so" said the chick and then asked if Kevin would tell him a story. Kevin couldn't remember most of the stories he'd heard over the years, but he had a good imagination and lots of recent experience in life. So Kevin began to tell the story:

Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess who lived in a magnificent kingdom. It sounds beautiful, but there was one problem, she was all alone. Everywhere she went there was nobody there. She played alone, sat alone, ate alone, lived alone, there was nobody there, not even birds or animals. One day she was feeling especially lonely so decided to try and travel as far as she could to find someone else. She walked for miles and miles and came to a lake and found a boat moored. She didn't know how to sail, but it couldn't be that hard, plus she was desperate. Off she went sailing over the lake. Hours and hours went by and she could see the shore. She became very excited and climbed out onto the land, only to realised that it was the same place she left from. She couldn't believe it. Back on the boat she went again, and deciding that she would put a lot more effort into steering this time, even though she had done before. Hours went by and she saw land again. Again it was the same land that she left from. She decided to go home and the next day decided to try something different. Off she went in the opposite direction. She travelled for hours and hours only to come to the foot of huge cliffs. She walked for hours and hours trying to find a gap in the cliffs, but to no avail. She went back home and fell asleep. The next day she decided to go to the library in the castle where she lived to look for some maps or some information about how to get out of the kingdom. She went to the library and rummaged through lots of books until she came to a very old and special looking book. The book was a description of what happened to her and her fathers kingdom. People in the kingdom were very friendly people, but an evil witch put a magic spell on the kingdom that made people start to fear and not like each other. This got worse and worse until people started to disappear. The curse made them still live in the same place, but not to see anyone else. It was like each one of them had separated into their own separate world where they were all alone, and yet everyone else was in the same world, but they just couldn't see each other. This made the princess think, how can we bring everyone together again? She had an idea - to build something that would bring everyone together; she wanted to build a magnificent tower that would stand for all time to remind people that it was good to love each other and that could shake off all evil spells. The next day she began digging  the foundation for the tower. Then day after day she kept working on the tower. It was a hard and lonely task until one day the tower had seemed to have been bigger than it was when she left it the day before? The other people in the kingdom began to see the tower being built and started helping add to it. As they did this they all became aware that there was other people around but they just couldn't see them. One day, soon after, a person appeared in plain sight of the princess. She was overjoyed. As each day passed more and more people appeared and the tower grew bigger and bigger until one day the tower was built and every person who had disappeared had returned. The last person to appear was the King. The evil witch had realised she had failed and saw the magnificence of the tower so left the kingdom to somewhere nobody knew. The people in the kingdom lived happily ever after.

On the last word the chick had fallen into a deep relaxing sleep. Kevin made sure the chick was safe and warm under his little wing. 

The next day Kevin and the other animals continued to work on the ladder until it soared up in the air, finally reaching the nest. Now was time to take the chick back home to his mother. The chick clung on to Kevin's shoulder. Kevin was hoisted up onto the back of a rabbit, who in turn was on the back of a badger to get a perfect lift for the long climb up. 

Kevin climbed and climbed until they reached the top of the ladder. Kevin stood as tall as he could, and leaned over so the chick could climb off into the nest. With a tiny leap the chicken made it home, and at the same time Kevin leaped off and glided in a spiral all the way down to the floor of the woods. The tiny chick leaned over and waved at Kevin and the animals and let out a happily high pitched chirp. All the animals were pleased with what they had a achieved and would long continue to describe what a ladder was to unbelieving animals. Kevin made a lot of friends and found a nice place to live, but he understood the importance of finishing things that he started, so off he went continuing his adventure.