for them?" asked a young gull with bright orange rings round his eyes.

"Because they admire us!" said Gull, "They have pictures of us in their houses, and they paint our shapes on their clothing, shops, and food. We, along with some other birds, are the ones who taught them to fly!"

"Yes it was us! It was us! It was us!" shouted all the gulls together.

"Quiet!" shouted Gull.

All the gulls were silent again.

"There is something we can do, to bring the food!"

"What's that? What's that?" cried all the gulls.

"Pray!" said Gull, "I've seen the humans do it, so it must be a good thing to do. We will pray too. We will call out to whoever it is the humans call out to, and we will have our food!"

"Where? Where? Where?" asked all the gulls.

"Right here!" said Gull, "Right here! Right here!"

All the gulls shut their eyes, as they had seen the humans do, and Gull prayed, and when he was finished, all the gulls said "Amen" and opened their eyes again.

But there was no food on the grass.

"It didn't work! It didn't work!" called the gulls.

A human was coming towards them, with loaves of bread. It was a man, and he wore old, patched cloth on his body, and he had a large pack on his back, bursting with bread. In his hands, hanging from their tops, were six more loaves. He came to the seat beside the beach and opened a bag.

"Here you arc gulls," he said "This is leftover weekend bread. It cost me nothing, so I thought you might as well have a feed!"

The gulls gathered round. They eyed the bread with their cold, yellow eyes, their greedy orange eyes, and waited for the first pieces of bread to come falling to them like chunks of snow.

The man threw plenty. Slice after slice came whirling and flying. The gulls gathered round each piece and gulped as much as they could. They walked on the bread and on each other. They fought over crusts. They forced the bread down, though it made their crops bulge. They