Menagerie by Bradford Morrow & Benjamin Hale

Author:Bradford Morrow & Benjamin Hale [Morrow, Bradford]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4804-6385-1
Publisher: Conjunctions
Published: 2013-12-16T21:14:00+00:00

The little girl was so excited! She was five years old.

This was the summer the little girl was allowed to help the Grandmother collect eggs from the hens’ nests in the chicken coop (where the chicken droppings were so smelly you had to hold your breath especially after a rain) and soon the little girl was allowed to feed the chickens by herself, twice a day, their special chicken feed. Like tiny pebbles the chicken feed seemed to the little girl, seized in handfuls to toss to the chickens; to get the seed you lowered a tin pie pan deep into the feed sack, itself contained inside a larger canvas sack to keep out rats and mice.

So exciting! The little girl almost wet her panties with anticipation.

And when she began to call to the chickens in her high, quavering voice as the Grandmother had taught her—CHICK!-chick-chick-chick-chick-CHI-ICK!—chickens came rushing in her direction at once, and made the little girl feel very special—very powerful. It was not ever the case that the little girl felt powerful—nor could the little girl have defined the sensation, at the time—but calling CHICK!-chick-chick-chick-chick-CHI-ICK provoked such a feeling in her, set her heart to pumping and a warm, rich sensation coursing through her veins; the little girl felt very special, and very proud.

Oh, she could see—for she was a quick-witted, smart little girl—that the chickens were oblivious of her, in their greed to devour seed they took not the slightest interest in her or in their surroundings; yet still it seemed to the little girl that the chickens must like her, and knew who she was, for they came so quickly to her, colliding with one another, scolding and fretting, pecking one another in a frenzy to get to the seed the little girl tossed in a wide, wavering circle.

The Grandmother had instructed the little girl to distribute the seed as evenly as she could. You did not want all the chickens rushing together in a tight, compressed spot and injuring themselves. The little girl understood that she had to be fair to all the chickens, not just a few. But the largest and most aggressive chickens rushed and pecked and beat away the others no matter how hard the girl tried.

Of course, Joyce Carol always fed me, specially. In a safe, confined area, by the side of the house. This was Happy Chicken’s special meal, which was served ahead of the general feeding. If other chickens noticed, and ran clucking to this meal, the little girl stamped her feet and shooed them away.

Though he might have been prowling out in the orchard soon there came Mr. Rooster running on his long, sinewy legs. Mr. Rooster could hear the Chick-chick-chick! call from a considerable distance. He pushed through the throng of clucking chickens, knocking the silly hens aside, and gobbled up as much seed as he could from the ground. Sometimes then pausing, looking up with a squint in his yellow eyes, and making a decision—who knows why?—to rush at the little girl and jab her bare knee with his beak.

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