Rule The Roost
MODERN LIFE SHORT STORY BY AUDREY MARY BROOKS
Astrid was getting used to these home comforts…
There were five hens to start with, living happily together.
Becs and John had rehomed them.
As happens to all hens from a commercial farm, they’d had to make way for hens who would produce more eggs.
Becs and John had a large safe hen house in which the hens lived at night.
During the day, they had the run of the large cottage garden.
Boudicca and Babushka were the first to pass away, then Summer.
That just left Astrid and Dorothy.
They noticed a difference each time one of them passed. You could see them pining for the others.
Finally, it was just Astrid.
Becs and John weren’t expecting Astrid to live much longer. Hens were flock birds, needing the company of other hens.
“Astrid is definitely lonely. You can tell. She’s not herself,” Becs said.
Each morning, John would let Astrid out of the hen house into the run.
When Becs came outside, she’d open the run door and Astrid would have a proper run of the whole garden.
It was a very large garden, which Becs took great pride in tending to. There were plenty of places for Astrid to snuggle down.
She loved a dust bath, too, and had cultivated some excellent well-hidden spots for just that.
Becs and John usually spent the whole day in the garden if it wasn’t raining.
There was so much to do: weeding, planting, growing vegetables and talking to passing walkers who used the footpath.
There was no mowing, because Becs wasn’t one for grass. The whole garden was given over to trees, bushes and cottage flowers.
Becs overheard a walker once calling the garden wild, but wild was good as far as Becs was concerned.
She knew that if Astrid could talk, she would say wild was wonderful.
Next to the back door was a dog kennel. It had been given as a gift to Becs and John some years earlier by a local farmer.
They thought their dog, Toby, could use it, but that had never happened.
In all the time he’d lived, Toby hadn’t so much as put a paw in there.
Astrid had started laying eggs in the kennel just a few days after she arrived.
The other hens were happy with the nest boxes in the hen house, but not Astrid.
After a while, it was accepted that this was the place where Becs and John would find Astrid’s eggs.
At first, Astrid would lay larger eggs than she would have at the farm, even though there weren’t quite as many.
Eventually she stopped laying eggs altogether, but she still liked to use the kennel.
The kennel was where she seemed to have decided she would prefer to be living.
Each evening, when the sun began to set, Becs would call the hens together and they would return to the hen house and settle down for the night.
Becs would shut the door to the run and John would fasten up the house, making sure that the foxes who lived in the wood next to the garden couldn’t get in.
So it had been since the hens had arrived.
The week after Dorothy passed away and Astrid was alone, everything changed.
“Astrid,” Becs called, “time for bed now.”
Becs stood holding the door open for Astrid to walk through.
Astrid walked up to the door, then turned and trotted to the dog kennel.
She settled down inside it, right at the back.
Becs hurried after her.
“Astrid? Come on. You have to go to bed.”
Astrid didn’t move.
She was still inside the dog kennel, snuggled into the straw John had put in there for her.
Becs peered in at the small opening.
“John, I think Astrid wants to sleep in the kennel from now on,” she called to him.
“Does she? We’d better let her then. She’s obviously lonely, being far away from us over in the hen house.
“Anyway, there’s a door that slides down on the kennel that we can fasten. It might be a bit stiff as it’s never been used before.”
John walked over and managed to drop the little door down. He made sure it would move easily up and down, too.
Astrid was keeping very still and seemed to be watching as John sorted the door out.
From that moment on, Astrid lived in the kennel.
Well, for a while, anyway.
As the days became warmer, Becs and John started to leave the back door open.
Astrid was now able to explore the kitchen.
The hens had always been allowed to wander into the kitchen if they wished to, but Boudicca and Dorothy had never done this because they didn’t like the cats, Gus and Mac.
Cats didn’t seem to bother Astrid at all.
Gus could get a little shirty occasionally.
Becs watched when, one day, Astrid got in Gus’s way and he tried to hit her with his paw.
She immediately lashed out with a good hard peck.
Gus always gave Astrid a wide berth after that.
As time progressed, Astrid seemed to have decided that she would like to spend more time in the kitchen.
As soon as John came out to open her kennel in the morning, she would nip in through the back door.
She’d developed a taste for cat food and have a peck at that.
It didn’t take Gus and Mac long to work this out, though.
They ate their breakfast as fast as they could after that.
Next, Astrid began to explore more of the house.
One morning, the sitting-room door was open, so she walked slowly into there.
She seemed to think that sofas and chairs made amazing perches – probably because they were soft, comfortable and wide.
Later that morning, when Becs and John came in to sit on the sofa and drink tea, Astrid perched on the back.
“Come on, Astrid. It’s time we were planting,” Becs called to her as she got up.
Astrid hopped off the sofa and followed her outside.
They spent a happy day pottering round the garden.
Becs planted and Astrid pecked and bathed.
“What are you doing?” John asked one afternoon.
He was sitting on the sofa watching football on the TV, with a tray on his knee.
Some of his food had just gone missing.
“You need to keep a closer eye on your food and spend less time watching football, John,” Becs advised. “Astrid’s taken a liking to chips.”
Astrid seemed to be learning a lot about the way the house worked now.
One of the places she found the most interesting in the kitchen was, unsurprisingly, the fridge.
John opened the fridge door, turned away for just a second, and when he turned back again, there was Astrid, eating the grapes.
Soon they discovered that Astrid had a taste for raspberries, strawberries and blueberries, too.
Whenever they opened the fridge, there was Astrid.
“Time for bed, Astrid,” Becs called from outside.
Astrid was settled on the sofa next to Mac and it looked as though she wasn’t intending to move.
Becs returned to the sitting-room.
“Astrid, you can’t stay there all night. You have to go to bed.”
Astrid just looked at her. She still didn’t move.
“It looks like she wants to live in the house,” John said. “Perhaps we could buy a crate for her, like dogs have.”
“Seriously? Do you think we should have a hen living in the house full time?” Becs asked. “Is that a thing, then?”
“I’ve read about house hens. Perhaps Astrid could become one. Let’s buy a crate tomorrow.”
John crouched down and looked Astrid in the eye.
“Now, Astrid, I can see what your plan is here, and this is what we’ll do. If you go into your kennel tonight, I’ll buy you a crate so that you can go to bed in the house. Does that sound OK to you?”
That must have been what she wanted, because Astrid flew down and trotted outside to the kennel.
Becs and Astrid were waiting patiently in the garden for John to return with her new crate.
Becs was pruning the roses.
She heard the car pull up, then saw John carrying the crate up the path.
She approved of the colour – it was bright pink.
Astrid followed Becs and John as they went into the house and put the crate in the corner of the kitchen.
But it seemed that Astrid wasn’t planning on sleeping in the kitchen.
When bedtime came around, Astrid, who had been sitting on the back of the sofa with Mac, ignored Becs as she called her into the kitchen.
“Try opening the fridge,” John suggested.
Becs tried this, but still Astrid didn’t move.
“I’ll move it towards the door,” Becs said, pushing the crate.
Astrid stood up and looked at the crate.
Becs, seeing that they were getting somewhere, put a couple of grapes into the crate.
“Look, Astrid, there are grapes in your new crate. Come along. It’s bedtime.”
Astrid edged closer, but she didn’t leave the sofa.
Becs pushed the crate further into the sitting-room.
By now it was next to the sofa.
Astrid flew off the sofa and sat on the floor by the log-burner in the fireplace.
“I can see what’s happening here,” John said. “She wants to sleep by the fire because it’s warmer. Bring it to the other side of the sofa and see if I’m right.”
He was right. As soon as Becs put the cage by the fireplace, up got Astrid and she walked straight into the cage.
“Don’t worry, Astrid, we’ve got the message,” John said.
It was eight o’clock in the morning. The cuckoo clock had just called out.
At this time each morning, John would come downstairs and make Becs a cup of tea, regular as clockwork. But this morning he didn’t, because he’d overslept.
However, it seemed that Astrid could now tell the time.
She clucked loudly – very loudly.
Eventually, a sleepy John came into the sitting-room, where Astrid’s cage was at the side of the sofa closest to the fire.
“Sorry, Astrid. I overslept,” John said, yawning. “I had a late night last night watching a film. I’ll try to be more like you in the future.
“You’re always in that cage by eight o’clock in the evening, and I can see now that you like to be up at eight in the morning.”
Astrid clucked her approval.
After another hard day in the garden, Astrid, Becs, John, Gus and Mac settled down to a relaxing evening watching TV.
“Well, I think we can definitely say that Astrid has a wonderful new life now,” Becs remarked. “Here she is with her family. She has achieved her ambition to become a house hen.
“She can communicate with everyone very well now, both cats and humans, and she can even tell the time.
“She can help herself to food whenever she wants it,” she continued, “from the fridge or the cat’s dishes and occasionally her own dish.
“Sometimes, if she’s lucky, like this evening, she can even steal a tasty morsel from your plate, John.”
Becs watched Astrid stealing a lettuce leaf from John’s plate.
She stroked Astrid’s head.
“You are a very lucky hen, Astrid, and we are a very lucky couple to have you with us.
“Now it’s time to settle down.
“Look, your favourite TV programme is on,” she added with a smile. “It’s
‘All Creatures Great And Small’.”
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