Yoohoo!  Umm…excuse me!  Yes – you – up there.  Hello.  Will you or a grown up please read this story to me, so I can fall asleep?  I love having stories read to me and this is my favourite.  It is a story of a boy named Daniel and his best friend, Doc the Hawk.  Doc is the bravest, fastest, and smartest hawk in the whole wide world, but he was not always that way.  When Daniel first met him, he could not fly and he had no idea how to even catch a worm.  Then one day when they were camping with his parents – everything changed.

      Daniel and his Dad were out walking across the widest part of Scruff Meadow one spring morning.  The sky was a brilliant blue and the mountains looked just like a picture in an oil painting.

     The sun had been up now for a few hours, but drops of water from the cool night air trickled down the thick green grass and newly sprouting blossoms.

     Daniel loved this time of day and he ran ahead of his father toward the rugged rock face of Talon Bluff.

     “Dee,” his father shouted.  “Don’t you get too far ahead!” he warned.

     His parents had called him Dee for as long as he could remember.  Although his given name was Daniel, they rarely used it unless he was up to mischief, or in some sort of trouble.

     “I won’t Pa,” he replied.  Daniel frowned in disappointment, but he knew his Dad was only watching out for his safety.

     They continued up to the rock face when suddenly Daniel shouted in excitement, “Hey Pa, Pa, hurry, over here!”

     Daniel rarely got this excited.  The last time his father had seen him like this, the boy had a bumblebee stuck in his shorts.

     This time he was not yelling out of fear, but something very different. 

     “Hurry Pa!  He’s hurt!” the young boy screamed.

     His father had been running and was almost within reach.  “What is it son?” he panted.

     Mr. Davis was not in very good shape after the extra long winter that had just passed.

     The little voice answered.  “I don’t know for sure.  It looks like a skinny buzzard or something.”

     As his father neared the spot where Daniel was pointing, a smile formed on his rugged face.  “That’s not a buzzard, Dee,” he laughed.  “It is a baby hawk!  A mighty scraggly looking one, but it is definitely a
hawk.”

^©Paul MJ Legault - May 2002