Looking for the vulters' Eggs

There was one piece of information which Opu had not passed on to anybody ,not even to his sister .

One day ,at about noon, he had opened a wooden chest, which belonged to their father. The chest was crammed with books. He opened

the books one by one and turned over the pages to see whatever there were any pictures to look at or perhaps a good story. It was in one of them that he had a title on the cover, An Anthology of Ancient Philosophical Works. He had not the slightest notion of what the title meant, but the cover was faded and mottled like marble; and as he turned it back, a swarm of silverfish darted out and disappeared as fast as they could. Opu raised the book to his nose. It had a peculiar old smell. The pages were thick and dust-coloured, and he loved their smell. There was something about it which made him think of his father. It was the book in the damaged board cover which attracted him the most, so he hid it under his pillow. He read it when he was alone and one day he came across an amazing statement. If somebody had told him about it, he would have been astonised, but this was not hearsay, it was in cold print. The writer was describing the properties of mercury. If you put some mercury in a vulture's egg, leave it out in the sun for a few days, and then hold it in your mouth, you can fly high up in the sky.

Opu could not believe his eyes. He read the passage again and again. He hid the book in his own broken box and went outside to think.

He asked his sister, 'Didi, do you know where vultures build their nests?'She did not know. One of boys in the village said, 'They build at the top of big trees in the open country'. His mother was cross with him. 'Where have you been wandering in this heat?' He moved into his room and pretended to lie down. He opened the book. There it was! Astonishing! It was so easy to fly and yet nobody knew about it. Perhaps nobody had a copy of this book execpt his father. Or it might be that all this time nobody's eye had fallen on this particular place in the book. He thrust his nose into the book again and smelt it. That same old smell! It never occurred to him to question the truth of what was written in such a book. There was no problem about mercury. He knew that mercury was used on the back of mirrors. There was a broken mirror in the house and he would be able to get some from there. The problem was where to get vultures' eggs from. The cow herd boys used to tie their cattle to Hiru the barber's jackfruit tree, and go into the village to get oil and tobacco. Opu knew one of them. 'You go all over the countryside. Have you ever seen a vulture's nest? If you can get me some vulture's eggs, I'll give you two pice,' he told him. A few days later, the cowherd boy turned up at the house. He produced two small black eggs from a bag in his waistband. 'Look at what I've brought for you, Sir,' he said. Opu stretched put an eager hand to take them. He turned them this way and that, and murmured, 'Vulters.' Then he said to the boy, 'They are real, aren't they?' 'I got them from the top branch of a very high tree and a very risky job it was. But I can't let you have them for less than two annas.'