'Look at the bird.'
It was perched on a branch by a fork in the tree, next to what looked like a
birdhouse, and nibbling at a piece of roughly round wood it held in one claw.
'Must be an old nest they're repairing,' said Lu-Tze. 'Can't have got that
advanced this early in the season.'
'Looks like some kind of old box to me,' said Lobsang. He squinted to see
better. 'Is it an old. . . clock?' he added.
'Look at what the bird is nibbling,' suggested Lu-Tze.
'Well, it looks like... a crude gearwheel? But why–'
'Well spotted. That, lad, is a clock cuckoo. A young one, by the look of it, trying to build a nest that'll attract a mate. Not much chance of that... See? It's got the numerals all wrong and it's stuck the hands on crooked.'
'A bird that builds clocks? I thought a cuckoo clock was a clock with a mechanical cuckoo that came out when–'
'And where do you think people got such a strange idea from?'
'But that's some kind of miracle!'
'Why?' said Lu-Tze. 'They barely go for more than half an hour, they keep lousy time and the poor dumb males go frantic trying to keep them wound.'