themselves against the buildings. After a short time, puddles
of rain began to form all around. Passing cars splashed
water on the sidewalks and people fled from the curb to avoid get-
ting wet. Anwar thought how nice it was to be in the house and that
he should thank Allah more for giving him food and a warm house
to live in. Right at that moment, a sparrow landed on the window sill.
Anwar thought that the poor bird must be looking for shelter from
the rain and he immediately opened the window.
"Hi, my name is Anwar," he said. "You can come in if you want."
"Thank you, Anwar," said the little bird. "I would like to wait in-
side until the rain stops."
"You must be very cold outside," Anwar sympathized. "I've never
seen a bird up this close before. Look how thin your legs are! How
can they hold your body up?"
"You are right, Anwar," the sparrow agreed. "We birds have thin
legs compared to our bodies. But, in spite of that, they can hold our
bodies up quite easily. There are many muscles, veins and nerves in-
side them. If our legs were any thinner or thicker it would be harder
for us to fly."
"Flying must be a wonderful feeling," mused Anwar. "Your wings
are thin, too, but you can still fly with them. So, how is it that you can
fly such long distances without getting tired?"
"When we first take flight we use a lot of energy because we have
to support the weight of our whole body on our thin wings," began
the sparrow. "But once we are in the air, we relax by letting our-
selves be carried along by the wind. So, because we expend less en-
ergy this way, we don't get tired. When the wind dies down, we start
to flap our wings again. Because of this advantage that Allah has
created for us, we can fly very long distances."
Anwar then asked, "How can you see around you when you are
flying?"
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