Why could the family not use the air-conditioner for eighteen days?

In April, two pigeons began to build a nest on the air-conditioner outside the Mehtas' kitchen window. Mr Mehta wanted to clear it away at once. "They make a mess," he said, "and the noise starts at five in the morning."

But his younger daughter, Riya, who was nine, begged him to wait. She had already given the pigeons names: Laddoo and Jalebi.

Mr Mehta gave in, grumbling. Within a week there were two white eggs in the untidy nest of twigs. Riya checked them every morning before school. She made a chart and stuck it on the fridge: "Day 1", "Day 2", "Day 3".

Then came a problem. The summer was very hot, and the family could not run the air-conditioner without blowing hot air straight onto the nest. For eighteen days, the Mehtas slept with the windows open and the ceiling fan on high, and complained about the heat at breakfast.

On the eighteenth day Riya screamed so loudly that her father dropped his tea. Two small, ugly, yellow-feathered chicks had hatched. Two weeks later they were flapping their wings on the edge of the air-conditioner, and one morning they were gone.

Mr Mehta turned the air-conditioner on that night and said it was a great relief. But the next morning, Riya found him at the kitchen window, looking at the empty nest, and he did not clear it away.