Sooty Footprints

One dark, windy night, Mr and Mrs Noah were fast asleep in bed, dreaming happy thoughts, when their faithful hound, Mango, let out a little warning bark. Mr Noah shot up in bed instantly, alert to all possible dangers, poised and ready to deal swiftly if need be, alongside his favourite hound.

Mrs Noah carried on dreaming her happy thoughts!

However, no matter how hard Mr Noah listened, he couldn't hear anything amiss. Even his hound was silent now, so he put it down to ‘doggy dreams’, and carried on with his dreams too…

Next morning was a beautiful, sunny one, and Mr Noah was up and about quite early getting ready to make Mrs Noah breakfast in bed (after all, he had to keep his skills up for the time he next had guests to feed). As he opened the curtains in the lounge, he noticed on the floor were…

… footprints!

“Oh, my,” he thought, “We did have an unwanted guest in here last night.” He was just about to thank his hound for scaring the guest away when he noticed that whenever he walked anywhere new footprints appeared on the floor. “That’s strange,” he thought, “they’re my footprints…and what’s more …there’s soot everywhere!”

There was soot all over the fireplace, the floor, the ornaments and the nearby rug. Mr Noah called Mrs Noah, “Come and look at this! We appear to have had a fall of soot in the night and it’s EVERYWHERE!”

Mrs Noah, dressed by now having heard all the commotion, came and had a look at the mess saying, “How can that be? We have a ‘flappy thing’ in the chimney to stop the soot falling down.”

“Yes, we do Mrs Noah. You are right. Look, it’s just here at the bottom of the chimney and it’s still closed." Mr Noah said, “I’ll check its working properly.” He started to open it…

“CAREFUL,” barked Mango, who had been watching and listening. Too late! Mr Noah had opened the flap and exploding into the lounge came a very black and annoyed starling, along with several years’ worth of soot!

Mr Noah jumped back in surprise!

Mrs Noah screamed with shock!

Mango said, “I did try and tell you last night it had fallen down there, but did you listen to me!”

The picture is not of the actual sooty starling as it didn't hang around long enough for us to take a photo, but it is one of a similar starling!