Beautiful Gems

 

            Jay flew over his usual hunting ground. His friends said that he had enough food hidden away already, but Jay was always on the lookout for more. Who knew when the bird apocalypse would happen and all the food would disappear? You just never knew.

            Jay spread out his handsome blue wings and let out his scratchy call. As a proud blue jay, he showed off his colors as often as he could. Hold on, there was something interesting! He flew down closer to see what it was.

            There it was! It shone in the grass and sparkled as the sun’s rays hit it. Jay landed next to the shiny thing and pecked at it with his beak. It was hard and definitely not food. He wondered how it would look at home. It wasn’t very big and he could easily carry it. He stared at it, admiring its shiny green depths. It was so beautiful! Truly an amazing gem!

            Jay carefully held the emerald in his beak and flew back to his home with it. When he reached the shrub where he usually roosted, he gently set down his prize. Where should he put it? He tried several different places before finally deciding to wedge it in the crook of his favorite branch.

            Jay hopped back to admire its beauty and the way it gleamed when it caught the light. He felt deep satisfaction and turned to fly away again when something else glimmered in the grass. Was this another gem?

            It was! But this one was red and possibly even more lovely than the green one. Jay picked up the glowing ruby and set it next to the green emerald. After admiring how well the green and red looked together, he turned to leave, when – lo and behold – there was another gem! This one, however, was a blue sapphire. “Oh, good. Now I have a gem that’s the same color as me!” His excitement grew.

            Soon, a rainbow of gems glittered from his hiding place. The next time he went to place a gem (this one was a dazzling diamond), Jay realized that there was no more room. Where else could he put it? Aha! The places where he had food hidden would be perfect. He began taking the gems to his food caches and replacing the food with gems. Food wasn’t so important when you had a lot of it, right?

            “What are you doing? Why are you throwing away the food from your cache?” Barry asked Jay. Barry often followed Jay around, hoping for some easy food.

            “Isn’t it beautiful?” Jay asked, focused on the purple amethyst he had just placed in his cache. “I have to save it. You keep telling me that I have too much food anyway.”

            Barry glanced at the gem and said, “Hmm, it’s beautiful, but can I have your food?”

            “Yeah, sure,” Jay said easily. “I can always get more food, but no one else will have such an amazing collection of gems.”

            Barry ate Jay’s discarded food and then shrugged his wings at Jay’s odd behavior. “I sure hope you know what you’re doing.” He shook his head and went off in search of more food.

            Most of Jay’s friends saw him that day, slowly emptying his food caches. They were only too happy to take the food that Jay so carelessly threw out. Finally, at the end of the day, Jay couldn’t find any more gems. He sighed in relief and realized that he was hungry. He went to his nearest food cache and was surprised to discover only gems inside it. “Huh,” Jay said softly. He couldn’t believe that he’d thrown everything out. Surely, he had saved some food in another hiding place.

One by one, Jay flew to each of the places where he had previously hidden food. Each one was full of nothing but gems. He became panicked when he realized that he was totally out of food.

            Jay moaned to himself. It was now almost completely dark and it would be hard to hunt for more food. Jay went to sleep still hungry next to his shiny gems.

            In the morning, Jay woke up, ready to look for food. He gazed at his gem collection and was startled to see only dull rocks where he had carefully placed the gems the day before. “What happened to my gems?” he cried.

            Clay, another blue jay who roosted in the shrub next to Jay’s, heard him and said, “What gems? Those are the rocks that you placed there yesterday.”

            Dismayed, Jay flew off to check his caches. Each one was full of rocks. Bitterness and disappointment threatened to overwhelm him, but he flew off to find some food. At least he would do what he could to fill his belly. He visited the berry patch and ate as many raspberries as he possibly could. He saved a few to take back to his cache and was about to take off when something caught his eye. It was a dazzling blue sapphire. Jay looked at it, thinking. Finally, he shook his head and said, “Not this time.” He left with the raspberries in his beak. He wasn’t going to fall for that trick again.