Winter dawn. A great big camel came to the fair-ground, sacks of sugar-candy and pots of sweets on his back. Everyone was busy — nobody even looked his way. In a corner he chewed his straw. Alone.
Plop! A little songbird landed on his hump. "Oh my! Why is this mountain moving?" "I'm no mountain, little one — I'm a camel!" And then — tew-tew-tiriri! Never had the camel heard such a song.
From that day on the two were always together. The songbird sang, the camel walked — thup, thup, thup. The bird spread his wings to shade the camel's eyes; the camel bent the branches down for him. "With you beside me, even the road feels short!"
The tired camel fell fast asleep. Along came a jackal with a cartful of cages — he heard the song and his eyes lit up. He scattered a trail of sweets and set his trap… click! "Brother camel!" But the camel slept on.
In the morning the camel woke to find the hump empty. The songbird was gone. That day he didn't touch his straw. Nor the next. He only stared up at the birds in the sky.
That night the old owl came — the wisest bird at the fair. No fever, no wound. "What have you lost, dear?" One tear rolled down those long lashes. "My songbird." "No medicine cures this. Only a friend can."
At dawn they found him — a cage hanging in the jackal's shop. However much the jackal begged, "Sing! Oh, sing!" — the little bird wouldn't give one whistle. The owl said, "Cage a song and it dies." The jackal opened the door himself.
Tew-tew-tiriri! The songbird flew back to his own familiar hump — and song filled the whole fair. The jackal kept the empty cage in a corner of his shop, so he'd remember. Do you have a friend like that?