CRACKED: An Anthology of Eggsellent Chicken Stories

by J. F. Posthumus

  These six, though: Bill had them all under his wing, figuratively, and when she brought in other classes to see the chicks, it seemed Bill thought it the reverse—that she had brought humans for him to study. Him or her—that couldn’t be determined yet.

  She’d asked the seller what breeds he’d sent—and finally asked why he hadn’t removed the broken egg. He said he’d never send a broken egg (he’d packed her box himself) but did provide a list of breeds in the assortment. The list didn’t seem to match the eggs, and she still couldn’t identify Bill. Again, not something she was used to after sixteen years.

  This morning, finding all six out of the brooder box—that was another unusual development. The chicks had gathered on the carpet as if for circle time, standing over a pile of open books. She wasn’t good at reading bird expressions, but it seemed her arrival surprised them.

  “Sorry, guys.” She hung her jacket on a hook, making sure the door was shut so they wouldn’t escape. “I didn’t realize I needed to mention I was coming in early.”

  Bill led the chicks to the side of the brooder box, which was considerate. Ruthann must be cracking up: Bill wasn’t actually considering her feelings, and the chicks hadn’t actually been studying the phonics books—the phonics books that had been on the shelf yesterday. Ruthann scooped the waiting chicks into the box one at a time. Last into the box was Bill. “I wish I could keep as good control of the kindergarteners as you do.” She laughed, but then Bill inclined his head toward her in agreement.

  During circle time, one of the students asked, “When do the chicks go home?”

  Ruthann said, “When they’re four weeks old, we’ll send them to a farm.”

  “Do you do that every year?” said a little boy. When Ruthann nodded, he asked, “Can we visit?”

  Ruthann glanced at the “Chickens on the Farm” book the kids had been poring over this whole week, wondering how many new vegetarians she could create if she answered honestly: “Maybe you’ll see them in the cafeteria.” No, no, not a thing to say out loud. Most of the local chicken-keepers wanted hens for the eggs. Meanwhile, the chicks left the classroom before they could be sexed. Ruthann never asked what happened to the roosters.

  One of the girls giggled. “That’s funny. Bill is watching us.”

  Hair standing on end, Ruthann turned. It wasn’t just Bill. It was all of them. Staring. Studying.

  “Well, then,” she said brightly to get the class’s attention back on her. “Let’s sing the Itsy Bitsy Spider!” and she launched into a rousing chorus.

  Bill watched for the rest of the day. When she turned off the classroom lights at four o’clock, Bill was still watching, and all the books were tucked into the shelf.

  When Ruthann returned the next morning, “Chickens on the Farm” was off the shelf, and six chicks were regarding her with disappointment.

  Ruthann didn’t return them to the box. Nothing made sense, and for someone who spent entire days working with a population who seldom made sense, that said something. Although, children did make sense once you looked at the world the way they did.

  The question was, could Ruthann look at the world like a chicken?

  With half an hour before the students arrived, she sat against the wall, cross-legged. “Bill, all of you—let’s talk.”

  The chicks approached, the other five clustered behind Bill.

  After teaching kindergarten for a decade and a half, Ruthann thought she’d done every ridiculous thing there was to do. This was more ridiculous than all of them. “I don’t know how much you understand, but if you used the phonics books to learn to read, then now you’re reading about your future. Yes, you are domesticated animals. Yes, humans domesticated you. That means we protect you, and in exchange for protecting you, we take your eggs. At the end, we expect to take your feathers and take your meat. That’s been the arrangement for eight thousand years.”

  Bill cocked his head to the side. He had never made such an arrangement with anyone.

  Ruthann folded her hands. “I can see this upsets you. I have no idea what to do.”

  Still, they expected her to do something. Ruthann pulled out her phone to call the farm where she sent the chicks, and she switched to her teacher voice, upbeat. “Lucy! I wanted to talk to you about this year’s chick-hatching lesson.”

  Lucy sounded happy. “Are all six doing well? Do you want me to pick them up?”

  “It’s not about that. The kids were asking what happens to the chicks when they grow up. I wondered what I should tell them.”

  “We’ve gotten some beautiful layers from you in the past.” Lucy chuckled. “Some of them, not so much.”

  Ruthann said, “Do some of them get eaten?”

  “Some of them.” Lucy wasn’t bothered by this, but she didn’t have Bill at her ankles, awaiting his fate. “Were you thinking of a field trip? It might be fun to have your class deliver the chicks and see the coops. Maybe they could watch me shear a sheep or milk a cow.”

  When Ruthann got off the phone, Bill returned to the book, studying a picture of hens getting fed cornmeal while a woman collected their eggs.

  Zynna extended her wings to Sekkiel. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you?”

  He flexed his feathers as her wingtips touched his. “I’m sure. Just pray it goes well.”

  Sekkiel flashed across the divide to the earth, to Raviniel where he stayed with his charge—or rather, on the roof of his charge’s house. Beneath the full moon, the house cast a shadow across the hill, and in the distance, trees stood like armed sentinels. Casting no shadow, Raviniel leaned against the chimney and prayed. Sekkiel sat on the ridgepole and settled into a prayer of his own. It was sweet of Zynna to offer her presence, but in reality, the one whose strength he needed was God’s.

  Raviniel spoke in a low voice, as if unwilling to awaken the woman in the bedroom beneath. She couldn’t hear him. That was part of the problem. “Thanks for visiting.”

  Sekkiel asked about his charge. Raviniel still seemed exhausted by his charge’s joyless existence. “I wish I could enliven Ruthann. It’s such a beautiful world.” Then Raviniel grew concerned. “You’re sad, too. What’s wrong?”

  “I have a confession to make.” With his wings tight to his back and his eyes downcast, Sekkiel confessed about the missing egg, about his attempts to track it down, and finally, about his failure.

  When he raised his eyes, Sekkiel found his companion wrapped in thought. Raviniel breathed, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I let you down. I promised to take care of your sanctuary.”

  “Did you think I’d be angry?”

  “Do you forgive me?”

  “I’ll always forgive you, but you did nothing wrong.” Raviniel extended a wing. “Come. There’s something I want you to see.”

  Raviniel flashed them into an airy room, windows along one entire wall, colorful posters decorating the other three. At the center was a colorful carpet, and on the carpet stood a cluster of six chicks. Raviniel crouched with wings up and hand outstretched, and the largest chick toddled right for him.

  Sekkiel’s wings raised. “Is that your egg?”

  Stroking the chick’s head, Raviniel chuckled. “I didn’t know it was my egg! It arrived with a half-dozen others for the kindergarteners’ hatching experiment, but one of the six was broken. My egg took its place. Bill has been unusual from the start.”

  “The egg came to you.” Sekkiel crouched on the carpet alongside the chicks. “The egg went where it wanted, and you were what it wanted.”

  “I don’t think so.” Raviniel looked into Sekkiel’s eyes. “I think it wanted Ruthann. Or rather, it wanted to give joy, and it went to the one for whom it could.” Raviniel reached for Sekkiel’s hand. “God gave us all a great gift in this little egg, but just in case you’re still feeling guilty…?” Raviniel’s eyes glittered with mischief. “Can you help me maximize the gift?”

  Ruthann entered the classroom armed with glossy magazine
s, a blueprint, and a huge smile. “Good morning, Bill!” Bill fluffed his feathers and regarded her with his head cocked, but he herded the other chicks back into their box. She cleaned up ahead of the kids coming in, then settled them down right away. “I have an exciting announcement. We’re going to have a guest!” Now she had the kids’ attention. “Do you remember Miss Lucy, from the farm where we send our chicks? In twenty minutes, she’s coming to talk to us.”

  A girl shot up her hand. “Are we sending the chicks home?”

  “We are sending them home, and she’s going to talk to us about it.”

  Bill was right up against the edge of the box, watching everything. The girl pointed to him. “He wants to know, too!”

  Ruthann grinned. “Of course he does, and I don’t blame him. But he’ll just have to wait.”

  Lucy arrived right on time, lugging a full canvas bag. “Let’s talk about houses for chickens!” she exclaimed, and she spread out all her pictures and even produced a scale model of a wooden chicken coop. The kids ran over to Bill and the chicks with pictures and the model to show them what a future home might look like.

  Ruthann grinned because Bill did seem interested.

  “Chicks, and later chickens, need a safe place. They need space to live—two to three square feet per chicken inside their coop, and eight square feet per chicken outside.” Lucy showed how she secured her coops against coyotes and hawks. The kids were enthralled. Bill seemed pleased. Ruthann kept wringing her hands and fighting the excited feeling inside.

  Lucy said, “Usually I take the chicks home, but this year, we’re going to do something special. Guess who’s going to take them?”

  Ruthann couldn’t wait any longer. “I am!”

  The kids cheered, so she spoke louder. “But I need some help! I can’t decide what kind of coop to build the chickens.”

  The room was chaos. The children designed a chicken Versailles for Ruthann’s yard, then kept going over to the chicks’ box to shout their ideas and interpret the chicks’ responses. In the end, Ruthann carried Bill over to the table where the kids had an assortment of catalogs and sample photos. “What about you? You’re going to be living in it, so how about you choose?”

  Bill strutted among the choices like a first-time homebuyer assessing curb appeal. He studied the miniature model. He didn’t like the square pens; he liked the ones with stairs and multiple levels. Finally, he stood before the ad for a stand-up chicken coop with a rounded top and three levels for roosting, plus access to an external run, and he pecked it.

  Lucy gave a thumbs-up. “He’s got good taste. I can set that up for you in one week.”

  Beaming, Ruthann said, “Just in time for them to come home with me.”

  Lucy started packing her bag, and Ruthann noticed her necklace—feathers. “That’s a gorgeous pendant. Are you a bird enthusiast?”

  “Actually, that’s an angel feather.” Lucy flipped over the pendant to show the other side engraved with a winged human-like figure. “Working with birds is just a side effect of loving things with wings.”

  Ruthann glanced at Bill, who had settled back in the box with the other chicks. “I’ve always loved things with feathers.”

  Lucy said, “Now you know. They love you too.”

  Ruthann prayed, God, if there are any angels around helping us, please tell them thank you. And thank you too for my new chickens, as well as all the fun they’re going to be.

  Sekkiel prayed while taking care of the bird sanctuary. Raviniel was spending a midnight hour away from Ruthann, playing with his hummingbirds. He looked brighter. “When Ruthann gets here, she’s going to be amazed. I may change the coop here to look more like the one she has for Bill.” Raviniel summoned a flower to his fingers, and one of the hummingbirds dove over to feed from it, its wings moving almost too fast for an angel’s eyes to track.

  Thank you for working this out, Sekkiel prayed. He’s so happy now.

  Raviniel touched the hovering bird, and it darted away. “I’ve started whispering to her that she should learn about other birds too, but so far she hasn’t done more than remember the Common Birds of North America book in her classroom. She got a stained glass window hanger in the shape of an angel because it had beautiful wings, though, so maybe someday.” Raviniel stretched. “She doesn’t realize yet, but Bill is a hen. All six are hens, actually, so that makes it easier. God was very good to us.”

  You were, Sekkiel prayed. You were better to me than I deserved.

  The Holy Spirit replied, Why didn’t you trust me?

  Sekkiel shivered as he closed the chicken coop. It was myself I didn’t trust.

  Then why not trust that I could fix whatever you broke? The Holy Spirit warmed his heart. I want you to come to me with broken dreams and lost loves. A warm wind ruffled over Sekkiel’s wings, and the Holy Spirit added, You weren’t the only one reaching out for a distant creature hiding in its shell.

  The End

  About the Author

  Jane Lebak writes books and knits socks.

  Both are warm, but you can’t have the socks.

  janelebak.com

  Stray Thoughts

  John M. Olsen

  Stray Thoughts

  John M. Olsen

  The penthouse apartment and its rooftop garden had been the find of a lifetime.

  The balcony looked out across the distant Pacific Ocean, and most days, Delores enjoyed a gentle breeze kissed with the scent of trees from the adjacent park. In all her years, she could never afford such a place before everything fell apart, but now she had everything she wanted, so long as she didn’t want much.

  “I think I’d better get a set of batteries for the solar cells. What do you think, Khan? There are plenty of cars out there that still have batteries in them, at least if they’re any good after sitting on the streets for a year. Just think, I could cook at night instead of just when it’s sunny. I might even hook up lights in the bathroom.”

  An array of black solar cells perched on one corner of the roof while her vegetable garden occupied the rest, except for a small outdoor kitchen located for easy access to the power.

  Khan, her Rhode Island Red rooster, pecked his way between rows of carrots in the garden plot, searching for bugs. He expressed his agreement with her by clucking in her direction.

  The earthy smell of the garden always pleased Delores with its rich undertones and promise of another harvest. With the moderate winters of the coast, she grew food nearly year-round.

  “If it weren’t for those thugs downtown, I’d go pick up all I need from that old hardware store on Green Street like I used to. Now, I’ll have to get out the tools and pull more wire from the basement. I hate having to climb up that rickety old ladder.”

  Khan’s head swiveled for a better view as his two girlfriends appeared at the far end of the garden. They were both Buff Orpingtons. Jabber ran randomly through the garden, leading Wocky on a merry chase as they argued over a mouse Jabber had caught.

  “Oh, aren’t you just precious? You’d better eat that quick before Khan takes it from you.” The birds gave Delores a great breakfast each day and kept the pests down in the garden. She’d found them on one of her early trips into the nearby hills. A family had kept them in their back yard, and she’d been lucky to discover them before the abandoned strays starved inside their coop.

  Of course, she had to keep wire around some of her tender garden plants to keep the birds from eating them. A batch of recently hatched chicks huddled in the makeshift henhouse. It wouldn’t do at all to eat every egg, then discover later that the birds were done laying. It had been hard enough to round them up and carry them home in the first place.

  Delores fetched today’s eggs and brought them to her outdoor kitchen.

  She turned on her hotplate and waited for it to warm up, filling the time with conversation. “You remember last year? Things were different. I had that run-down basement apartment. I was arguing with the landlord over rent when the news c
ame on about a new strain of flu spreading real fast-like. A few hours later, the city went dark. Landlord Bob didn’t last much longer, God rest his miserable soul. Turns out it wasn’t the flu, but nobody lasted long enough to name it.” She shook her head at the memories.

  The birds always enjoyed her stories, even when she told the same ones every day. She waved a hand over the hotplate and frowned, then prodded it with a bare finger. The coiled element was cold. She wiggled the plug and the wiring, and still got no power. Shrugging, she toddled over to the power inverter that ran her tiny kitchen. The lights on it were dead.

  She traced the cabling back to the solar cells, but she found no obvious problems. It was time to break out her tools. She’d collected quite a toolbox, both mechanical and electrical. Each tool had been found as she ran across yet another challenge over the past several months.

  Delores rummaged through her box of electrical gadgets and pulled out a voltmeter. With a few deft checks of the panel junction box, she let out a sigh of relief. Output from the solar cells still looked good. She moved along the chain, testing each connection until she reached the inverter. Power went into the box, but nothing came back out.

  “I guess they don’t make ‘em like they used to. Of course, they’re all dead now and can’t make anything anymore.” She laughed at her own morbid joke. “I’ll just have a nice garden salad while you three fight over that mouse. What do you say I go out to find a new inverter instead of looking for car batteries tomorrow?” There were enough solar installations around town that it wouldn’t be hard to find a spare, so long as she could match up voltages.

  Jabber heeded the advice and gulped down the mouse.