About two million years ago, when all living beings could talk, there lived a parrot in the Kingdom of the Talking Parrots. He was blue all over and was covered with red spots. He was the prince of Parratota, but he didn’t act like a prince at all. He was very lazy and didn’t take his responsibilities as a prince seriously.  This made his parents worry a lot.

One day, when the prince had gone out, his parents sat together and discussed about him. “What can we do about our son? His behavior is getting worse day by day! He cannot rule the kingdom with that kind out attitude,” said the queen, anxiously. The king looked at her worried face. “Don’t worry. Let us think for some time. I’m sure we will find a solution” the king said, confidently. Both of them thought and thought, but couldn’t get any ideas.

Ding dong! Ding dong! The clock struck eleven. “I’ve got it!, exclaimed the king. Let us give him a task to find the Silver Feather of the talking Parrots. We’ll give him a map and tell him not to enter the castle until he finds the feather.”  “That is a great idea!, said the queen, happily. But what is the Silver Feather of the Talking Parrots?”

The king smiled at her. “It is something we’ll hide far away from the castle for him to find. By this we can come to know if he can live independently”  “Oh, I understand” said the queen. The king and queen went to find their son, who had returned from his fly. When the prince heard this, he just nodded his head without any interest.

The next day, the prince started his journey. He flew for days and days until he finally found the Silver Feather hidden in a cave. He grabbed the feather from its place and back the way he had come from. On his way back, he heard a voice shouting. “Help! Help me!” it said. This startled the prince, and he dropped the feather in surprise.

As he realized what happened, he screamed in rage and flew down to get the feather. Lucky for him, it had not fallen far and the prince caught it before it flew with the wind. Holding the feather tightly, the prince flew back up to see who had shouted. There was a pond near him and as he flew closer to it, he saw a small flower stuck in a spider web. It was very beautiful and appeared to be a tulip, only with big golden petals. It had small, blue eyes and a mouth like a sleeping moon.

“Oh noble Prince of Parratota, help me! Release me before this monster eats me!” said the tulip, in a voice as sweet as sugar. The prince glared at her and said, “I do not have time to help such a useless flower like you. And because of you, I could have lost this precious feather!”. After giving the tulip once last scowl, the prince flew away from the pond.

Two days later, the prince was resting under a tree, when a flower appeared. Strangely, it looked like the tulip that had been stuck in the spider web. But this flower wasn’t exactly like the tulip he had seen before. It was bigger and its eyes were dark blue in colour. When the prince saw the flower, he screamed and flew as fast as he could. But the tulip was faster than him. One of its golden petals caught hold of him and it pulled him towards itself.   “I am the Queen of Flowers. How dare you leave my daughter in trouble! You will be punished!” it said in an angry tone. A bright golden light hit the prince and turned his feathers into a shade of light green. “From now on, you will live with the colour of plants!” the queen roared.

When the prince tried to speak, all he could manage to say was ‘squawk’. The prince flew back home. To his dismay, all the other parrots were green and they greeted him with angry squawks. The prince realized his mistake and started behaving better. From that day onward, parrots were only green in colour and could only say squawk.