When we got to my house, Stubs seemed upset that he couldn't go up, but didn't admit it. I opened up the book and looked at the first page. It had How to Tell the Age of your Phoenix written on the top.
I looked over at Mapel and then back at the book. I saw pictures of phoenixes when they were hatching for the first time, when they were just out of need of their mother's care, when they were teens, when they were old enough to mate, when they were too old to do very much, and when they shriveled up and were born out of their ashes again.
I looked at Mapel again and then at the pictures. She seemed like she was a teen, and wondered how many lives she had lived already.
Then I looked out my window and called to Stubs that I found out how old she is.
"That's great! Come down and tell me!"
I climbed down and got on Stubs's back.
"To the animal clearing!" Stubs called.
"Shhhhh! Someone might hear you!"
"Sorry," he whispered this time. "How old is Mapel?"
"She's a teen, I think, when do animals usually start talking?"
"Well, I started when I was about two human years old." Stubs told me.
"What is one animal year compared to a human year?"
"Well, it's the same with dogs almost, so seven animal years in a human year."
"So Mapel is about two human years old, like you were when you first started talking!"
We arrived at the animal clearing and took Mapel over to Scarlet to teach her to fly more. Me and Stubs went to sit under the widest redwood tree and talked about Mapel learning to talk.
YOU ARE READING
•The Baby Bird•
Adventure"It fit in the palm of my hand . . . " Rosie has no idea what she just found, but she has a feeling it's important. Follow Rosie on her quest to find out why she was the one chosen and why they thought she would be better to do it than any other o...
