The Secret of Colorie, the Hummingbird

By Bahige Saab and Zita Banyai

"The Secret of Colorie, the Hummingbird" is the first story of the "Colorie Series". It is a story that reflects the importance of honesty and friendship in our lives. Colorie is a beautiful colorful hummingbird that lives with his two friends Piccolo, the summer tanager, and Rico, the resplendent quetzal in the garden of the Mendez family in one of the towns of Hispanic America. The Mendez family consists of the grandmother Doña Alba and her two fourteen-year-old grandsons, Santiago and Sebastian.

One day, Doña Alba brings to the house a "Majestic Plant", a bush-like plant that consists of eight flowers of eight different colors. When Colorie drinks nectar from one of the flowers of the "Majestic Plant", he discovers a secret about himself that he did not know before.

On the other hand, Santiago is talented in painting. Two years ago, his parents died in a car accident. Since then, Santiago stopped painting because it reminded him of his late mother who taught him this art. One morning, when he wakes up, Santiago has a surprise: he discovers a painting in his bedroom! When his grandmother sees the painting, she feels extremely happy thinking that it was Santiago who painted it. Since he does not want to disappoint her, Santiago prefers not to tell his grandmother that he did not paint the painting.

After Santiago's discovery of the painting in his room and Colorie's discovery of his secret, the two friends together with Piccolo, Rico, and Sebastian will find themselves facing challenges that will not be easy to overcome!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bahige Saab
• Release date: Mar 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9781912022014

Book preview

Illustrator

I

The Spider’s Web

It was another pleasant sunny day of the month of July in one of the towns of Hispanic America. Santiago Mendez, a fourteen-year-old child, was helping the laborers in hand-picking coffee berries in the coffee fields of his grandmother Doña Alba Mendez. These coffee fields were the main revenue and source of wealth of the Mendez family. Coffee harvesting always coincided with Santiago’s school vacation which allowed him to participate actively in this fun filled task. Therefore, it was Santiago’s most favorite part of the year. He loved this activity as it allowed him to connect with God’s most beautiful and generous gift to human beings, nature. Luckily, Santiago’s town was surrounded from all sides by vast areas of coffee fields and plains cultivated with ornamental plants from different types. Altogether, the scenery looked like a mosaic of different colors.

Not far away from the coffee fields and on the suburbs of the town, there stood the villa where Santiago and his grandmother Doña Alba lived. The villa was an elegant two floor house with a roof covered by bricks. The ground floor consisted of a living room, a dining room, and a kitchen. It also included a work room used by Santiago’s twin brother, Sebastian. The upper floor consisted of the four bedrooms of the family members.

In the backyard of the villa, there was a large, beautiful, and colorful garden rich with flowers and plants of different shapes and colors: pink orchids, yellow and rose lilies, red and white gingers, red heliconias, flame and sky vines, yellow buttercups, to name a few among many others. Most of these flowers shared one quality: They all attracted hummingbirds. Hummingbirds have been a passion for the Mendez family. Accessories related to this small and exquisite bird were found throughout the garden: hummingbird feeders filled with sugary water to feed the hummingbirds, and hummingbird perches to allow these birds to rest on them when they felt tired. Therefore, many hummingbirds visited the garden continuously to sap nectar from its flowers and sugary water from the feeders.

The Mendez family was very fond of birds. For this reason, they had two birds as pets: The first one was the glamorous resplendent quetzal called Rico, a bird famous for its wonderful colorful plumage. The quetzal is the national bird of the Central American nation of Guatemala. Every day, Rico went with Santiago to the coffee fields to accompany him in the harvesting activity. The second pet bird they had was a summer tanager. They called him Piccolo. Summer tanagers are famous for their beautiful chirping. Since Piccolo was a male summer tanager, he was rosy red in color. Female summer tanagers are mustard yellow in color.

Despite the fact that many hummingbirds visited daily the Mendez’s garden, the family kept one of them as a pet. They called him Colorie. Colorie was an extremely exquisite hummingbird due to his colorful rainbow-like shiny feathers. He seemed a radiating comet as he flew throughout the garden among the flowers. Several years ago, Doña Alba found Colorie injured on the garden floor. The old woman took care of him until he recovered completely. After his recovery, he decided to stay at the Mendez’ garden. He had everything he needed to live happily: a garden full of juicy flowers, delicious feeders, and most important of all a loving family.

One day, Colorie was very joyful. He flew quickly from one flower to another, sapping nectar of different tastes. He also visited the hummingbird feeders in order to drink the sugary water that Doña Alba added every day in the feeders. He welcomed all the hummingbirds who visited the garden to have some nectar as it provided them with the energy needed to continue flying fast. He was very happy, flying blindly in the garden, moving from flower to flower, from feeder to feeder without looking around him and without paying attention to anything. He had no worries and felt no danger. Until… that day, he found himself in trouble: he got stuck in a spider’s web!

Many hummingbirds fall victims of spider webs. Spiders consider hummingbirds one of their favorite meals because they can feed on them for many days. Any spider that had a hummingbird caught in its web was no doubt extremely fortunate.

Colorie tried with all his might to save himself from the spider’s web. He shook his wings, jiggled his tail, attempted to cut threads of the web with his beak, with no luck. He could not do anything about it. Fear was building up. He started shouting with all his strength asking for help. Unfortunately, no one came. The visiting hummingbirds could not risk trying to help him because they were afraid of getting trapped in the spider’s web and ending up