Clara the Baby Ostrich

Clara, the baby ostrich, lived at the zoo with her mother. Every day lots and lots of people came to see her but she was lonely because she had no one to play with. Clara didn’t understand why her mom liked living at the zoo because she had never been chased by the dangerous animals in a faraway place called Africa like her mom.

One day Clara was playing by herself and running around the field as fast as she could. She had almost reached farthest corner of the field when she tripped on a rock and went flying. She hit the rotten wooden fence so hard that she crashed right through it. Clara picked herself up off the ground and shook her head.

“I bet I can find a playmate on this side of the fence,” she said aloud. She was just about to go looking for a playmate when a voice told her, “I wouldn’t go in there if I were you, little ostrich.”

“Who’s there?” Clara asked. “Who’s talking to me?”

“I am,” said a little bird sitting on the fence.

“I want to find a playmate,” Clara told the bird. “Why can’t I go looking for one on this side of the fence?”

“Because this is where the yellow-spotted dragons live and they would love to have a baby ostrich for lunch,” explained little bird.

“Oh,” Clara replied. “My mom didn’t tell me about yellow-spotted dragons. How about you? Will you be my friend?”

“I can’t,” the bird told her and flew off the fence. “I’m late getting home. I only stopped to see if you were okay.”

Clara watched the little bird fly away and then turned to look at the field. “Maybe the little bird doesn’t know what it’s talking about,” she muttered and headed into the field.  She hadn’t gone two steps when she saw something in the grass and walked over to see what it was.

“What is that?” She got really excited when she discovered what she had found. “It’s a big green egg! I’m going to take it home and ask Mom to hatch it and then I’ll have a playmate!”

Clara grabbed the egg in her beak, carried it through the fence and ran all the way home. She found her mom and put the egg at her feet.

“Mom! Mom, look what I found! Can you hatch it so I’ll have a playmate?”

“I can’t hatch that weird-looking egg,” her mom told her. “Ostrich eggs aren’t green.”

“I can make a nest for it,” Clara told her. “Please, mom. Please.”

“How can you make a nest?” her mom asked.

“I can get hay from the elephants next door,” Clara begged. “Please, Mom. Please.”

Now it’s always difficult for a mother to say no to her child so Momma Ostrich told Clara, “Okay. If you’ll make a nest, I’ll hatch the egg. But you’ll have to take care of it after it hatches. And don’t be disappointed when this weird green egg hatches and it isn’t a baby ostrich.”

“I don’t care,” Clara cried and ran off. “I just want someone to play with. I’m going to see Mrs. Elephant right now!”

When Clara told Mrs. Elephant that she needed hay to build a nest, Mrs. Elephant let her take what she wanted. Clara made three trips until she got enough hay to build her mother a nest beneath the biggest tree she could find. She didn’t know how long it would take the egg to hatch and she didn’t want her mother to sit in the sun all day.

Clara visited her mother every day so she would be there when her new playmate arrived. One day her mother told her, “The egg moved today. I think your new playmate will be here tomorrow.”

“Can I see it? Can I see it?” Clara cried, excitedly hopping around.

“You can see it tomorrow,” her mother told her.

Clara was beside herself with joy. Early the next morning she ran to her mother. “Can I see it? Can I see it?”  

“Your new playmate broke out of the shell last night but I don’t know what it is,” her mother told her when she got off the nest. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Clara looked down at a wiggly green creature with yellow spots, four legs, big black eyes and a long tail. She cried in delight. “I don’t care what it is. I think it’s cute. I’m going to get it some bugs.” Clara picked up her new playmate and ran off toward the rotten log where she always went to catch her favorite bugs.

One of her mother’s friends saw her with her new playmate and approached Clara’s mother.

“And what is Clara going to do with that spotted green dragon you just hatched?” she asked.

“Oh, my. Oh, my. Oh, my,” said Clara’s mother when she realized she would have to tell Clara that she couldn’t keep her new playmate.

“Don’t worry,” said her friend. “Clara will be happy to give up the spotted green dragon when I tell you the latest news. I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone but Judy laid an egg yesterday. Clara will have a real playmate soon.”

Copyright 2020, Katharine Giles

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