by Anna Wilson
For Tom and his amazing Pekin, Titch, who stayed out all night and outwitted the fox!
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
‘Wilfie, can you hurry up and finish your breakfast?’ Mum called over her shoulder. ‘We have to go in fifteen minutes.’
‘Hmm,’ said Wilf.
Wilf Peasbody was staring into space and thinking about the heron he had seen on the way home yesterday. It had been sitting on the riverbank, peering patiently into the water, watching and waiting. It had been so still that Wilf had thought at first that it might actually be a statue, like the ones people put by ponds to stop real herons stealing the goldfish. But this one had immediately proved it wasn’t a statue by taking off, diving dramatically into the water and coming out with a wriggling silver fish in its beak. Wilf had held his breath, as he hadn’t wanted the heron to drop the fish. Then the bird had made a flicking motion with its head, flipped the fish fully into its beak and swallowed hard: the whole fish had gone down its throat in one swift movement! The heron’s neck had been fat with its freshly caught meal and had wriggled slightly as though the fish was struggling to get out.
Wilf shuddered as he thought about what it would be like to swallow a whole, live, slithery fish. Then he looked at the bread roll in front of him and wondered if he could fit that into his mouth in one go. It might be a good experiment.
He glanced up to check that Mum was not watching and shifted his gaze to the left to make sure that his little sister Meena was not about to kick him or pinch him as she usually did, as that would definitely make him choke. Luckily she was busy emptying out the contents of Mum’s handbag into the dog’s water bowl.
Wilf opened his mouth as wide as it would go, quickly popped the whole roll in and snapped his lips tight shut.
DRIIING!
‘Oh, Wilfie, could you get that?’ Mum said. ‘I’ve got my hands full.’
‘Yeah, Wilfie,’ said Meena, her dark blue eyes flashing as she dropped Mum’s expensive lipstick into the water with a satisfying splash. ‘You go. Unless you’ve got your MOUTH full . . .’
Wilf narrowed his eyes at his sister and wished he could tell Mum what Meena was doing, but his cheeks were bulging with bread. He pushed his chair back and ran to the door before Mum could see his face.
DRIIIIING! The bell rang more insistently, and Wilf hurled himself at the door, opening it just in time to see a van drive away at breakneck speed, screeching round the corner, doing one of those handbrake turns that gangsters do in car chases on the telly.
‘Eh?’ he said. Except he couldn’t actually say anything, as his cheeks were still bunged full with bread roll, which was now getting a bit mushy and quite difficult to handle. (Herons must need that extra-long neck to be able to deal with this sort of thing, he realized, a bit too late.) He looked down and saw a medium-sized cardboard box on the doorstep with an address label on it that was clearly marked ‘Mrs B. Peasbody, 12 Clematis Drive’.
Ringo the dog appeared by his side, looking up at him expectantly just as he was wondering what he was going to do with the breakfast that he could not swallow.
Wilf checked that Mum had not followed him to the door, then he scooped the soggy mush out of his mouth and gave it to Ringo, who gobbled it up gratefully.
‘Thanks, Ringo,’ he said, turning his attention to the box.
Ringo licked his chops as if to say, ‘The pleasure’s all mine.’
Wilf gazed at the box and wondered exactly what sort of online order his mother had placed this time.
‘I hope it’s not something that we have to get involved with,’ he said with feeling. ‘Do you remember that time she got a juicer and she made us drink spinach juice for breakfast to make sure we got enough Vitamin C and iron?’
Ringo flattened his ears, put his tail between his legs and whimpered. Even he had drawn the line at puréed spinach first thing in the morning.
Or any other time, come to that.
‘Wilf?’ his mother called from the kitchen. ‘Who was that at the door? Have you finished your breakfast yet? And have you cleaned your teeth? And . . .’
‘What’s in the box?’ Meena had crept up behind him and snatched the parcel from under his nose. She immediately began shaking it.
Ringo saw that a game was about to begin and he was not going to be left out, so he started jumping up and barking his excited, happy bark.
‘Rrroooooowww!’ he yelped.
‘Down, boy,’ Wilf commanded. Then he lunged at his sister. ‘Gimme that. I’m the one who answered the door.’
‘And I’m the one who picked up the box,’ Meena retaliated.
‘Mine.’
‘Mine.’
‘Raooowfff!’ barked Ringo.
Mum came running. ‘What on earth is this racket about? And who has been feeding Ringo bread again? You know it disagrees with him.’ She inspected the nasty mess that Ringo, in his excitement, had deposited on the hall carpet.
Mum stepped over the sticky nastiness, stood between her squabbling children and lifted the box neatly from their grasping hands. ‘Wilf, go and get some cloths and some disinfectant. Meena, go back to the kitchen and finish your breakfast. Ringo – basket!’
Ringo immediately stopped barking and slunk away, tail between his legs.
‘Hssssss,’ said Ned the cat, who was watching the scene from a safe distance.
Ringo shot Ned a sorrowful look and trudged slowly to his basket in the kitchen.
‘OK, Mum,’ said Wilf, ‘but open the parcel now!’
‘Yes, Mummy. Please open it,’ said Meena. She had put on her most wide-eyed and innocent look, which she always reserved for grown-ups. That, together with her golden locks and dark blue eyes, seemed to make all adults convinced that she was an angel (that’s how stupid grown-ups can be).
‘Come on, sweetie,’ Mum said to her little daughter, her expression melting. ‘Let’s take it into the kitchen. You can open it while Wilf helps me clear the table. I have no idea what it can be,’ she added, frowning. ‘I haven’t ordered anything recently.’
Wilf rolled his eyes. His mother could never remember when she had ordered something or what she had ordered. He only hoped it was not something that would make his life a misery.
Meena waited until Mum had turned her back to walk towards the kitchen, then stuck her tongue out, pinched Wilf and ran off before he could pinch her back.
‘Hey—!’ began Wilf, but he was interrupted.
By the box.
‘Beeuuuuuurrrckk!’ said the box.
‘Wilf,’ said Mum, wheeling round. ‘There’s no need to be rude.’
‘But I didn’t say anything,’ Wilf protested.
‘Buuuuueeeeeeeuuuurrccck!’ said the box again. This time it was really loud.
Mum jumped. Wilf dropped the box, and Meena rushed to open it. Wilf rushed too and banged his head against Meena’s. Then he stepped back and trod in Ringo’s bread-sick, and then Ringo came running back again and began jumping and barking even more than before.
‘STOP!’ Mum screamed.
Everybody st
opped in the middle of what they were doing: Ringo stopped in mid-air, which meant he came crashing down to earth rather suddenly and hurt his bottom. He whined and sloped back off to his basket again without being told.
The box was rocking from side to side now and letting out weird chirruping noises.
‘Oh dear,’ said Mum. ‘I’m not sure I like the sound of this.’
‘I do!’ said Wilf, who thought he might have guessed what it was already.
‘I do,’ mimicked Meena, but softly so that Mum did not catch her doing it.
Mum was, in fact, already concentrating on gently lifting the box on to the kitchen table. She then went to fetch a pair of scissors and carefully slit the tape on the top, pulled the flaps apart and peered cautiously in.
‘OH!’ she cried, taking a step back. ‘OH, MY GOODNESS.’
‘Beeurrrucck!’ said the box. And a small, pale grey head appeared through the open flaps and fixed Wilf with a beady-eyed look, which plainly said, ‘How on earth did I get here?’
‘How on earth did that – that thing get here?’
Mum said.
The chicken – for that is what it was – squawked in a most offended tone, leaving the box with a flutter of her wings to land on the kitchen table.
‘I don’t think she likes being called a “thing”,’ said Wilf. He had spotted an envelope in the box and was now carefully reading the contents. ‘I think she’s a rather special kind of hen, actually,’ he added.
‘Ooooh, “rather special”,’ whispered Meena, jabbing her brother in the ribs.
‘OOooW!’ shouted Wilf.
‘Give me that,’ Mum said, snatching the letter. ‘And stop fighting with your sister, Wilf.’
‘But—!’
‘Ah, this will be the returns label,’ Mum said with relief.
‘Is that the piece of paper you always use to stick on the parcels you send back, Mummy?’ asked Meena, who was wearing her sweetness-and-light expression again.
‘Yes, dear,’ said Mum. ‘We can put the hen back in the box now and . . .’
Mum tailed off. Her face had gone very pale and she was shaking her head and muttering, ‘No, no, this can’t be right.’
‘What’s the matter, Mummy?’ asked Meena.
‘It’s not a returns label,’ said Mum.
‘No, but there is an Instructions for Care letter instead,’ said Wilf importantly. He stood on tiptoes to see the letter Mum was still holding shakily and read out loud what it said.
‘They sound great!’ Wilf added, beaming with delight. ‘Excellent pets!’ he repeated with emphasis. ‘How lucky is that?’
‘Don’t you mean, “How clucky”?’ Meena sniggered.
‘That’s as may be,’ said Mum. ‘But you know my view on pets, Wilfred.’
Sadly, Wilf did know Mum’s views on pets, only too well. And it did not coincide with his view on pets, which was simply that pets were what made life interesting. He was about to say as much, but Mum was already shaking her head.
‘We have enough animals to look after as it is,’ she said.
‘But, Mu-um!’ Wilf began.
‘Listen, dear, it’s not that I don’t like the pets we have. It’s just that we cannot possibly have any more. We have talked about this before . . .’ She tailed off and peered suspiciously at her son. ‘Did YOU order this hen over the internet?’
‘No, I did not!’ Wilf protested. He was very indignant that Mum should suggest such a thing. If Mum really hadn’t done it in one of her absent-minded online shopping splurges, it was much more likely to have been Meena than him. She was always getting up to no good. (Like now, for instance, she was taking advantage of the confusion to climb on to the kitchen work surface and post grapes out of the kitchen window one at a time on to the bird table.)
‘Beeeuuuurrck?’ said the hen. She had fluffed up her feathers, Wilf noticed, and seemed to be trying to make herself look as appealing as possible. It was certainly working, as far as Wilf was concerned.
‘Hmmm,’ said Mum. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if your grandmother was behind this . . .’
Wilf’s grandma was an animal-lover, just as Wilf was. In fact, she was the only grown-up person he knew who seemed genuinely to like animals more than people.
‘If Grandma ordered the hen, it would be rude to send it back without asking her first, wouldn’t it?’ said Wilf.
Mum opened her mouth to say she thought it was rather rude to buy such a stupid thing without asking her first when there was a loud hissing noise, a blur of black fur and a screech from the Pekin.
Ned the cat had somehow found his way on to the table without anyone noticing, which only goes to show how distracted everyone was by the hen, as Ned was so fat he was not usually so easily missed. He was making his presence felt now, however, by circling the hen with a look of evil intent written all over his face.
‘NO!’ shouted Wilf.
‘Miaaaooooow!’ shrieked Ned.
‘Cluuuuuckk-uck-ccccukk!’ cried the hen, opening her wings wide and flying into the cat’s face.
‘Wuffff! Wuff!’ shouted Ringo, his paws on the table.
‘How did the cat get up there? Get him off!’ exclaimed Mum.
Wilf dived on to Ned and held him, while Mum flapped her arms and ran round in circles, trying to get Ringo out of the room. (Looking rather like a chicken herself, Wilf thought.) As Wilf wrestled with Ned, he caught a glimpse of Meena slinking away with a devious look on her face.
‘Hey! Meena—’ Wilf began. In that split second he knew that his sister had been solely responsible for the chaotic scene (although, if asked, he would not have been able to explain exactly how she had achieved it).
But Wilf’s little sister had already made good her escape, and now Mum was glaring at him. He hurriedly removed the scratching, spitting Ned, who was not at all amused at having his Hen Hunt interrupted. Wilf carried him out to the garden, stroking him and making soothing cooing noises all the while to calm him down.
‘What about the chicken, Wilfred?’ Mum had worked herself up into a frenzy and was shouting at him through the French windows. Her face had gone a curious shade of raspberry. ‘You can’t leave that on the table too! And how did all my make-up and money get into Ringo’s bowl? And why have you eaten all the grapes? I only bought them yesterday and . . .’
Wilf turned his back on Mum and dropped Ned on to the patio. But Ringo had chosen that moment to race out of the house, so that Ned landed on him instead of the flagstones. Ringo immediately ran back into the house, round and round in circles, to show off his fat and furry headgear. Although he did stop pretty sharpish once Ned decided to dig his claws in.
‘Yoooowlll!’
‘Miaaaaoooow!’
‘BeeeurrrRRRRRCKKKK!’ The little hen had clearly had enough of her new home already and was flying around the room in a blind panic, bashing her head against the ceiling and smacking against the door and windows in a desperate attempt to escape. She seemed not to have noticed the open French windows, which Wilf thought was rather stupid of her.
‘Get the dog out! Get the cat out!’ Mum cried, coming back inside. ‘Ooooh! I thought chickens couldn’t fly! This is a disaster!’
‘Of course chickens can fly,’ said Wilf disdainfully. ‘They have wings, don’t they?’
Glaring at Wilf by way of reply, Mum grabbed Ringo as he went whizzing past, with Ned still clinging to him, and shooed them both out of the house. Wilf managed to catch the hen and held on to her, whispering to her to calm her down. Mum slammed the French windows shut and peace was restored.
‘Right,’ Mum panted. ‘You had better put that hen straight back in the box. You are going to be late for school and I am going to be late for work. And where is Meena? Oh dear, she was probably frightened by all the kerfuffle.’
‘But we can’t leave the hen shut in a box all day!’ Wilf protested. ‘She’ll starve!’
‘FINE!’ Mum shouted. ‘Give her some water and something to eat. But s
he will have to stay in the box until tea. We haven’t got time for this!’
‘I’ll look after you,’ Wilf told the little Pekin. He put a small pot of cornflakes into the box along with some water. ‘Don’t you worry. Grandma is coming to visit. She will help me to convince Mum that you can stay.’
The Pekin put her head on one side and stared at him coolly. Wilf had a sinking feeling that, after the way the hen had been welcomed, staying at the Peasbodys’ was not proving to be a very attractive idea at all.
At last the house was quiet. Ringo had been let back in, but was now snoozing in his basket, evidently exhausted by the morning’s drama; Ned was nowhere to be seen. When the Peasbodys had finally left the house for school and work, the Pekin fluffed her feathers and scratched mournfully at the floor of the cardboard box. This had not been part of her plan.
‘When I left the chicken run, I thought I would be going to a better life. I thought I would be exploring the world, seeing the sights, stretching my wings!’ she twittered sadly. ‘I did not bank on such an unfriendly reception.’
‘Oh, do stop moaning,’ said a low voice from outside the box. ‘At least you are safe in there.’
The Pekin jumped and hit her head for the second time that morning. ‘Who’s that?’
‘It’s me, the one you had a go at just now,’ said the voice.
‘Me? Had a go at? What?’ squawked the hen.
There was the sound of violent scratching on the outside of the box. The terrified chicken backed herself into a corner. She looked up at where the noise was coming from and saw that something was opening the top of the box. A moment later, a black face appeared in the opening.
‘Get away from me!’ shrieked the hen. ‘I’m warning you! I’ll scratch your eyes out!’
‘Yes, yes, I’m sure you will,’ said Ned carelessly. He thrust one sharpened claw through the opening and bared his teeth. ‘But, just so you know, I can give every bit as good as I get in a fight. And I am certainly not frightened of you.’