An original fictional story from Willowgleam Books. The people, conversation, and backyard visit are imagined.
Grandpa had one rule about the garden: anyone could sit anywhere, provided nobody sat in his chair.
It was the wooden one beneath the tree. One arm was slightly crooked. It made a long, thoughtful creak whenever he settled into it. Grandma had suggested replacing it for six years.
“It still works,” he always said.
On Saturday morning, it was working for someone else.
A small disagreement
Grandpa stopped at the back door with his tea.
A little bluebird sat on the chair’s back, above the spot where he usually rested his head.
His granddaughter, Ellie, came up beside him.
“You’ll have to ask,” she whispered.
“Ask what?”
“If you can sit there.”
Grandpa looked at his chair. Then at the bird. Then at the damp flowerpot beside the step, which was the only other seat nearby.
“I’ve been coming here longer.”
“He got here first.”
That was difficult to argue with. Grandpa used the same reasoning about the last biscuit.
The waiting room
They sat on the back step instead. Grandpa put his cup beside him. Ellie tucked her knees under her chin.
From there, the garden looked different. The washing line crossed the sky. A patch of sunlight reached underneath the chair. Ellie noticed that one of Grandpa’s shoes had come untied.
“We can fix that when our guest leaves,” he said.
“Maybe he’s waiting for you to leave.”
Grandpa considered this possibility.
“We could be here all morning.”
Ellie looked pleased.
The bird turned its head. Neither of them spoke for a while.
Something Grandpa remembered
“My grandfather had a chair like that,” he said at last. “Green paint. It used to leave little green marks on the back of my shorts.”
“Did a bird take his chair?”
“I don’t remember. I took it often enough.”
“Did you ask?”
Grandpa smiled into his tea.
“Probably not.”
The bluebird flew away. One moment it was above the chair, and the next there was only the garden beyond it.
“You can have it now,” Ellie said.
But Grandpa stayed on the step.
“Tell me something first. Which chair do you think you’ll remember when you’re my age?”
She looked at the crooked wooden arm, then at the place beside him.
“Maybe this step.”
A revised garden rule
They eventually went inside for pencils. Ellie drew the chair, the tree, and a blue bird much larger than the chair.
Grandpa said the scale seemed fair. It had certainly been an important bird.
At the top of the page, she wrote a new rule: Ask the birds first.
Grandma put the picture on the refrigerator. She did not mention replacing the chair that day.
Grandpa’s tea was cold. He finished it anyway.
The companion image is an actual coloring-book page, not a photograph of this imagined visit. Meet the real bird in the Cornell Lab’s Eastern Bluebird guide.