Chicken Feathers by Joy Cowley Read Free Book Online Page A

garden and imagined his mother’s face when he told her about that rotten old fox and the hole in the shed. She’d be so pleased. Not that she worried about things like foxes and missing eggs, but she sure worried about Tucker being worried.

    The long hospital corridor, smelling of antiseptic and dry linen, was lit with the last light of day. Another of Tarkah’s eggs about to disappear, thought Josh as he strode out ahead of his father. Lights were switched on in some of the rooms, but Elizabeth’s room was almost dark. Josh stopped with a feeling of dread. His mother was lying on her pillow, eyes closed, the tube in her arm.
    Tucker wasn’t prepared for this either. He went to the bed and put his hand on his wife’s forehead. She opened her eyes and smiled at him. Josh heard her say, “Bleeding again.”
    Bleeding? What did that mean? He pushed in beside his father and looked down at the needle in the back of her hand. It was the same as the day she came in here, a tube that went all the way up the bed to a bag of fluid on a metal stand. His throat went dry. “What’s gone wrong?”
    Her free hand went to the back of his head and pulled him down so that she could kiss him. “Nothing’s wrong. This is a way to take medicine that’s too bad to swallow.”
    He knew she was pretending. “Is it the baby?” he asked.
    Elizabeth glanced at Tucker, then she smoothed Josh’shair away from his forehead. “Honey, the baby’s okay. We had a little scare this afternoon, but now everything’s fine.”
    “You sure?” He put his head down on the pillow against hers. Her hair was as thick as Annalee’s, but it smelled of hospital. “I wish you’d come home, Mom. We’d look after you real good.”
    “I wish too, but this is the best place for me right now. Josh, if I were a chicken, no farmer would ever want me. I’m such a bad layer. Chickens have the sense to hold on to their eggs until they’re ready to be laid. My body doesn’t want to wait. You know what happens to a baby if it’s born too soon?”
    He nodded.
    “This is one busy little baby. I think she’s going to be a ballet dancer. But she’s small. We have to give her as much time as we can, and that’s the reason for the medication.” She eased herself up in the bed and took a deep breath. “All right, my two guys. How are things back at the ranch?”
    She was interested in all of it, the hole in the shed, Semolina, the quilt, Grandma, the big red fox, but her smile disappearedwhen Tucker said that Pete Binochette and his farmhands had a hunting party in the woods. “No!” she said. “Why kill it? The fox is just being a fox.”
    “Mom, he’s been stealing our eggs!” said Josh.
    “They’re the chickens’ eggs,” she reminded him. “We steal them too, only we think we have that right. So does Mr. Fox. Tucker, darling, can’t they set a snare trap and catch it alive?”
    “What then?” said Tucker.
    “There must be wilderness sanctuaries for foxes. It’s not a good thing to take a life if you don’t have to. Talk to Pete! Please! Don’t let him shoot it.”
    Tucker nodded and scratched the back of his neck. “Well, yeah, I guess.”
    She folded her hands on her round stomach and turned to Josh. “Tell me about your boat,” she said.

Chapter Six
    T HE DAYS WENT BY AS SLOW AS molasses in January, and still that big red fox wasn’t caught. Farmers talked of sightings. Two of the ducks from the Binochettes’ pond disappeared, and Mrs. Waters lost a loaf of bread she’d left to cool on a window ledge, although that might have been a hungry dog. Still, the fox managed to dodge every trap and snare and hunting party. Tucker wasn’t worried. He’d hammeredthe board across the hole with four-inch nails. His egg count was way up again and all his chicken houses were as safe as Fort Knox.
    It was Semolina who was fretting. Rumors were running through the chicken barns, and none of them gave the old hen much comfort. “Fox knows I