He ran from the kitchen into the living room with some important news. His father was bored with the football, so he followed the little boy back into the kitchen and listened, as instructed, at the window. Sure enough, he could hear the sound of something trapped, and it sounded as if it was coming from behind the panelling under the window. The little boy was jumping up and down with excitement and pride; pride at having been the discoverer and saviour of the trapped animal. He heard it and he got help, so that counts. He thought that he might have given some credit to the cat, for if he hadn't noticed the cat sitting in the kitchen growling at the window, then he wouldn't have gone to see what it was growling at, and then he wouldn't have heard the trapped animal, and he wouldn't have got his dad to rescue it and it would have died. And anyway, the cat wouldn't have rescued it: the cat would have eaten it. So the cat didn't deserve to be rewarded; not like him. He watched his dad listening and agreed with him when he said that it must be a bird, and shook his head in wise agreement when his dad said he didn't know how it could have got itself stuck behind the panels under the kitchen window. The little boy's dad went to speak to his mum: the little boy followed - it was his adventure, afterall, so he had a right to be kept informed. His dad said that he would have to take the panelling off and rescue the animal; if he didn't then the animal would probably die and start to rot and then it would get very smelly. Mum reluctantly agreed, so the little boy ran to the shed and got the tools that his dad said he would need: a hammer and a screwdriver. The little boy also thought that it would be good to get a brush, because he was sure that there would be a mess what with feathers and dust. He watched his dad rip the panelling off from underneath the window: they could both hear the bird fluttering about. His dad tore all of the panels off, but there was no bird. They could still hear it, though. His dad stood staring at the mess whilst holding his hammer in his left hand and scratching his head with his right: the little boy stood staring at his dad whilst scratching his head with his left hand and holding a brush and pan with his right. They could still hear the bird, but they could not see it. That's very odd, they both said.