Kids & Fables

by Ninong Francis · 2 min read · 0 views

Jeyvee was eight years old and had exactly one rule for his life: if it had fur, feathers, fins, or even just six little legs, he was going to love it. Dogs, cats, lizards, spiders that made his Lola scream, ducks at the park, even the grumpy neighborhood cat that hissed at everybody else — Jeyvee loved them all, and most days, they seemed to know it. One morning he woke up and something strange had happened. He understood animals — not just their barks and meows, but actual words. The first to speak to him was Buttons, the stray dog who slept under the mango tree, who said, tail wagging nervously, "Jeyvee, I lost my puppy. Can you help me find her?" Jeyvee didn't even stop for breakfast. He and Buttons searched the whole neighborhood — under the barangay basketball court, behind Aling Nena's sari-sari store, through the tall grass by the creek — until they heard a tiny whimper coming from an old drainage pipe. The puppy was stuck, scared, and much too small to climb out on her own. Jeyvee reached in carefully, the way he always did with animals, slow and gentle, and pulled her free. By the end of the day he'd helped a bird with a hurt wing find its way back to its nest, told a shy kitten that the loud rooster next door wasn't actually as scary as he sounded, and even talked the grumpy cat into letting one, just one, little kid scratch behind her ears. Every animal thanked him the same way — not with fancy words, but with the kind of trust that takes a while to earn. That night, the strange gift faded as quietly as it had arrived. Jeyvee woke up the next morning and Buttons was just barking again, not talking, and the kitten only meowed. He was a little sad about it, until he realized something: he'd helped every single one of those animals without needing to understand a single word of what they were saying. He'd just paid attention. He'd been patient. He'd been kind. "Turns out," he told his Ninong that evening, scratching Buttons behind the ears, "you don't actually need to speak animal to love them right. You just have to really try." Buttons wagged his tail like he agreed completely, which, Jeyvee figured, he probably did.