by Anne Fine
‘Can’t be too bad, can it?’ she’d say tartly. ‘Or it would have been stopped already.’
I’d wrap my wings round my chest, and lean urgently towards the camera.
‘That’s a very interesting point,’ I’d say. ‘Try and look at it this way. Suppose one of you frillions of viewers out there kept one of these poor pink people as a pet at home. Suppose you stuffed them in a tiny cage and never let them out. What would happen?’
I’d pause while they thought about it.
‘That’s right!’ I’d say, after a moment. ‘Everyone would say it was cruel. Your neighbours would be disgusted. Your family would quarrel with you. And if you did nothing about it, then they would. They’d unlock the cage door, or phone the RSPCPP.’
I’d flap my wings in my excitement.
‘But if lots of people do it, just to make sure you get bigger and cheaper helpings on your plate of something you don’t even need to eat, then what happens?’
I’d turn to the little green interviewer.
‘Frillions as sensitive and intelligent as you just go along with it. Stick up for the whole idea, even! It’s just amazing! And it’s time things changed.’
She’d shift in her chair. She was getting quite irritable now.
‘Talking of time,’ she’d say. ‘The minutes are ticking by. After the break, we’re going to meet the entire crew of the next space flight down to Chicken’s home planet. But, right now, watch carefully, Viewers. Some of you may have seen this before, and not been able to believe your eyes. This chicken doesn’t glow in the dark!’
Cue for the lights to dim, the drums to roll.
I’d slip off the sofa and spread my wings.
The cameras would focus carefully. The lights would snap off.
And, for me, yet another show would be over.
17
Out it came
Gemma was looking at Andrew. Well, looking wasn’t exactly the right word. She was staring in his direction, but she was obviously miles away.
Finally, out it came.
‘Don’t eat so many, don’t eat so much,
Then they won’t be kept as cramped as ten rabbits in a hutch.’
It didn’t take him long to come back at her.
‘Unlock the cage and open up the door,
If you really want to eat it, you must pay a little more.’
With honours now even, they could get back to their reading.
18
Surprises, surprises!
Behind me, as I crept away, I heard the crew of the spaceship chatting.
‘Doesn’t glow in the dark!’
‘Must be some sort of trick.’
‘Can’t see it any more, anyway.’
‘Where did it go?’
Where indeed? Where would you go if you’d done your very best – pleaded and persuaded, argued and explained – and you’d got nowhere?
You’d go home.
And that was my plan. I might have failed in my Mission of Mercy. I might not have managed to get my Message across to everyone on the planet, but I still had one thing going for me.
I didn’t glow in the dark.
The spaceship was waiting, empty. Hadn’t my little green interviewer boasted that she was talking to the entire crew? I would creep over, climb in and stow away for the long journey home.
Home! Oh, how I longed to be back again! It would be good to change green skies for blue, and not be pointed out in the street, or hear whispering everywhere I went. (‘I’ve watched it five times now, and, do you know, I still can’t work out how it’s done!’ ‘You can see the whole thing again tonight, you know. At six o’clock. On Planet People.’)
To be a private chicken again! Oh, I confess I was feeling quite weepy with relief as I dragged a few green weeds and stuff with me into the spaceship, and made a bit of a nest in the dark at the back of the radio cupboard.
Daft place to pick! The little green space crew switched on the radio the moment they came in, and kept it on day and night.
I nearly went mad. I was about to burst out of the cupboard, clucking hysterically, when suddenly I heard something that rooted me even further down in my makeshift nest.
‘And now!’ the radio voice said. ‘The results of our phone-in! This week the subject was: How We Treat People Before We Get Round To Roasting Them! The phone lines have been busy, busy, busy! And this is what you think!’
Was I dreaming?
No, I wasn’t.
The radio voice took up the story.
‘Surprises, surprises! Almost all of you think we ought to treat them better. Most of you said you were very shocked indeed by some of the things the chicken told you. Over half of you would be prepared to pay a little more for your people-burgers if you thought they’d be happier before they fetched up on your little green plates. And quite a few of you said you were definitely going to try and eat less people and more breads and seeds and grains and bleh, bleh, bleh!’
He let out a huge, dramatic groan that echoed through the cupboard.
‘Boring!’
Then he cheered up again.
‘But the most astonishing surprise of all – chew on this, folks! A full ten per cent of you (yes, that’s one in ten!) now truly believe that it wasn’t a trick, and the chicken didn’t glow in the dark.’
He whistled down the radio, almost deafening me.
‘Can you believe that? What sort of nuts do we have listening to Planet Phone-In? Are one in ten of you crazy? Have a good look at the people beside you as we listen to the next record, ‘Rooster Rag’ by Billy Bantam and the Rednecks. And, after that, folks, we’ll have the results of the poetry competition!’
I can’t say, in all honesty, that on any other occasion I would have enjoyed listening to ‘Rooster Rag’. But at that moment the efforts of Billy Bantam and the Rednecks sounded almost like music to my ears. What had the radio voice said? Almost all thought they ought to treat them better before they roasted them. Most were shocked by what they’d heard. Over half would pay more. Quite a few were going to try and eat more other things instead.
My Message to the planet had got through! I was overjoyed!
And in my ecstasy, I laid an egg.
Surprise, surprise!
Fool that I was to crow about it. The little green crew heard, and poked their heads into the cupboard.
‘It’s that chicken!’
‘You!’
The captain shook his head in amazement.
‘It’s dark enough in there,’ he said. ‘And it definitely isn’t glowing.’
‘Not one bit.’
‘Can’t be a trick, then.’
‘Weird!’
The row of little green heads peered at me curiously. Then one of them said:
‘Call me a madman if you will, but if it doesn’t glow in the dark, I’m not eating it.’
‘Me neither.’
‘Nor me.’
‘I’m not if you three aren’t.’
‘That’s it, then. No point in wringing its neck if we’re not going to eat it.’
‘None at all.’
‘Just make the spaceship go whiffy.’
I was pretty relieved, I can tell you.
‘Fancy a fresh egg?’ I offered in a rush of generosity.
‘No, thanks.’
‘Not just at this moment.’
‘Not if it’s one of yours.’
I think there might have been a moment or two of slight unpleasantness, if ‘Rooster Rag’ hadn’t suddenly drawn to a close, and the radio voice started up again.
‘Competition Time! And the subject for your poems this week, as you all know, was “Roast People”. So let’s look at our three winners. Interestingly, none of you wrote about the glorious aroma seeping from the oven, or the crisp taste of the first mouthful. Let’s see what you did write!’
A fanfare of trumpets sounded.
‘Third prize! To George Green, of 27
Greenhill Lane, for:
<
br /> Kind people always boast
That they chose a happy roast.
That’s very good, George!’
There was another fanfare.
‘Who’s next? In second place we have Gloria Greengage of Lower Greenfield, with:
Cruel farmers now must fear we all
Will switch to veg. and cereal.
Wonderful, Gloria! You’ve certainly earned your dinner tonight!’
The third fanfare was the longest of all.
‘And now! Our winner! Maria Greenacre of 41 The Green, and her winning poem:
If it doesn’t smile a lot
Then it won’t go in my pot.
Marvellous, Maria! Absolutely first-rate!’
Well may Maria Greenacre have felt proud. But I felt prouder. Three winning poems on the subject of ‘Roast People’, and each of them could have been written by myself: they were caring; they were sensitive; they were humane.
Three splendid poems.
All the way home I passed the time quoting them quietly in the cupboard. (I thought it wiser to stay out of sight.) Even when we landed, and the crew booted me unceremoniously off the spaceship –
‘Go home, Chicken!’
‘– absolutely sick of hearing it clucking away in that cupboard!’
‘– have to air the whole spaceship!’
‘– think itself lucky we didn’t eat it . . .’
– I was still repeating the winning poem.
‘If it doesn’t smile a lot
Then it won’t go in my pot.’
My Mission of Mercy was over. I was content.
19
The last few words
And there the book ended. The last few words strayed in their scratchy fashion across the page. The full stop was a tiny seed, pressed into the sacking. Underneath was a firm chicken’s footprint.
The bell rang for the end of school.
20
Close them all
He knew that she would have to chum him home. She couldn’t just stroll off her own way, not today, not after reading all that.
Together they went down the path beside the old farm. The sheds were obviously empty. The doors were banging in the wind.
There was no sign of the chicken. Every few yards they stopped to press their faces against the fence, and stare across.
Nothing.
Picking her way back to the path through the nettles, Gemma’s foot struck something hard. She reached down, and with Andrew’s help, prised a heavy old board out of the undergrowth.
HARROWING FARM
‘There are others,’ she told him. ‘All over the place there must still be other Harrowing Farms.’
‘Not for much longer,’ said Andrew. ‘Not if everyone we know can help it.’ He pointed through the fence. ‘If a chicken can close one, the rest of us can close them all.’
‘Open them, you mean.’
‘Yes. Open them up.’
He caught her hands in his, and spun her round, yelling:
‘Let your chickens run around!’
Quick as a flash, she yelled back:
‘Eggs are tastier if they can’t be found!’
They went off singing at the tops of their voices.
Behind, in the long grass, the chicken clucked with pride.
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