Right now your stomach is probably tight. There's the fear of getting in trouble, but underneath it something worse: the feeling of being looked at and choosing to hide. A small voice is saying if I just stay quiet, this disappears. It won't, quite — it'll sit in you instead. Your mum is feeling something too. The bird mattered because of who it came from, and losing it stings. But what would sting more, later, is learning that you watched her wonder and said nothing. Your little brother, caught in a quiet he doesn't understand, might even worry he's about to be blamed for something he didn't do.

The honest move is the plain one: "It was me. My arm knocked it and it broke. I'm really sorry — I should have told you straight away." No long story, no blaming the shelf. Owning the accident and owning the hiding is what rebuilds trust. If saying it in front of everyone feels like too much, you can ask to speak to your mum on her own, or even write it on a note and hand it to her. If nothing changes: the pieces stay in the cupboard, and so does the secret. Every time your mum mentions the bird, you'll feel it. And the day she finds out — because these things usually surface — the broken bird won't be the part that hurts her most. It'll be the silence.