The sugar bird

Original fiction extract.

The sweet stall sold little birds made of coloured sugar. I chose a red one and asked my brother to photograph it before I ate it. The sugar was brittle. When I tried to turn the bird, its tail snapped off cleanly between my fingers. I looked at the two pieces, then held them together for the photograph. My brother refused to pretend it was whole. We took a picture of the broken bird instead and shared the pieces. The tail tasted exactly like the wings, which made the damage seem less important.

Use your own words to explain what the word “brittle” means in this extract.