Tico and the Rain That Wouldn't Let Him Fly

Tico was a little bird with sky-blue feathers, an orange chest, and a little crest of golden feathers on his head. He lived in a nest on the highest branch of the big tree in the forest, and he loved to fly every morning before anyone else.

But that morning the sky turned grey and a heavy rain began to fall. Tico, the little bird with sky-blue feathers and an orange chest, spread his wings to fly… and his wet feathers were too heavy. He couldn't take off.

Sadly, Tico hopped down from branch to branch until he reached the ground, where he found Dora, a tortoise with a dark green shell covered in little yellow spots. "I can't fly in the rain," Tico told her. Dora smiled slowly: "Sometimes waiting is doing something important too."

While they waited together under a big leaf, Tico saw Nuez, a squirrel with reddish-brown fur and a fluffy grey tail, carrying seeds back and forth. "Can I help?" asked Tico, and he used his beak to carry the smallest seeds.

A little further on, Tico found a line of little black ants running scared: the rainwater was filling up their anthill. Tico carefully plucked a wide leaf and placed it like a roof over the entrance to the anthill to protect them.

The rain kept falling, so Tico sat down under the same leaf and, instead of staying sad, he practiced stretching his wings slowly, again and again, feeling how they were drying little by little.

When the rain finally stopped, a ray of sunshine peeked through the clouds. Tico shook his now-dry wings and this time he did manage to rise into the air, higher and more confidently than ever before.

From the sky, Tico saw Dora the tortoise, Nuez the squirrel, and the little ants waving to him from below, all dry and safe. Tico flew in happy circles over the forest, thinking that waiting patiently and helping others had been the best flight of all.