One breezy afternoon, while pecking about near the pond, Chi Chi spotted something glinting in the mud — round, smooth, and the most brilliant blue she had ever seen.
"OOOOH," she gasped, scooping it up with her beak. "A treasure!"
It was, in fact, just an old button. But to Chi Chi, it was the most magnificent thing in the whole wide forest, and from that moment on, she carried it absolutely everywhere — tucked under her wing at breakfast, balanced on a twig while she practiced flying, and hidden beneath a leaf every single night before bed.
"MINE," she would whisper to it. "All mine."
Now, Chi Chi had a friend named Pip, a fluffy yellow duckling who lived by the same pond and loved shiny things almost as much as Chi Chi did.
"Ooooh, Chi Chi, what IS that?" Pip asked one morning, waddling over with his eyes wide as saucers. "Can I hold it? Just for a teensy second?"
"NO!" Chi Chi squawked, snatching it away and hopping backward. "It's mine. You'll drop it. Or lose it. Or get pond-slime on it!"
"I won't! I promise!" Pip pleaded, hopping after her. "Pleeeease, Chi Chi. Just once!"
"NO means no, Pip!" Chi Chi shouted, and she stomped off with her button clutched tight, leaving poor Pip standing alone by the water, his little tail drooping.
The next day was exactly the same. And the day after that. Every time Pip so much as looked at the button, Chi Chi would whirl around, wings spread wide, and screech, "DON'T. EVEN. THINK. ABOUT. IT."
Eventually, Pip stopped asking altogether. He stopped waddling over at breakfast. He stopped waiting by the reeds in the afternoon. In fact, he stopped coming around at all.
Chi Chi didn't notice. Not really. She was much too busy polishing her button on a leaf, admiring her reflection in it, and murmuring, "Shiniest treasure in the whole forest," to absolutely no one.
Until one very quiet, very lonely afternoon, when she looked up from her button and realized... there was nobody there. No Pip splashing in the shallows. No Pip quacking silly jokes. No Pip at all.
"Huh," said Chi Chi, feeling strangely hollow. "It's awfully quiet around here."
She hopped down to the water's edge to show her button to her own reflection — and that's when disaster struck. Her foot slipped on a wet stone, she tumbled with a great flappy squawk, and — PLOP! — the shiny blue button flew straight out of her beak and sank into the deep, murky middle of the pond.
"NOOOOO!" Chi Chi shrieked, staring at the ripples where her treasure had vanished. She flew in frantic circles over the water, peering down, but the pond was much too deep and dark to see anything at all. "My button! My beautiful, shiny, ONLY button!"
She was still wailing when a small, soggy, very familiar face popped up out of the water.
"Chi Chi? Is that you crying?" It was Pip — dripping wet, holding something clenched carefully in his beak.
"PIP!" Chi Chi cried, half surprised, half embarrassed. "I — I dropped my button. It's gone forever."
Pip waddled closer and, with a proud little flourish, opened his beak. There, gleaming and dripping, was the shiny blue button.
"You — you found it?!" Chi Chi gasped. "But — I never even let you hold it. Not once. Why would you help me?"
Pip shrugged his soggy little shoulders. "Because that's what friends do, Chi Chi. Even when the other friend is being a bit..." he searched for a polite word, "...reluctant about sharing."
Chi Chi's cheeks went pink under her feathers. "I was more than a bit reluctant. I was awful. I'm so sorry, Pip. I was so scared of you losing it that I forgot the button doesn't matter half as much as you do."
"It IS very shiny, though," Pip admitted, tilting his head to admire it.
Chi Chi laughed — really laughed, for the first time in days — and held the button out flat on her wing. "Here. It's yours to hold. First. For as long as you want."
Pip's eyes went wide. "Really? Truly-really?"
"Truly-really," said Chi Chi. "And after that, we can take turns. Every single day. That's what I should have done from the very beginning."
Pip held the button up to the sunlight, turning it this way and that, absolutely delighted, and then passed it right back. "Your turn already! Sharing is much more fun than I expected — watching YOU be happy makes ME happy too!"
From that day on, the shiny blue button lived in a little nook by the reeds where both of them could reach it, and they took turns polishing it, hiding it, and finding it again in silly games that lasted until the sun went down.
That evening, as Chi Chi told her parents the whole story, Mama Bird smiled and pulled her in close.
"You know," she said, "a treasure that makes you lonely isn't really much of a treasure at all."
"I know that now," Chi Chi said, snuggling in. "A shiny button is nice. But a generous friend is nicer."