The chickens and I

The grief of losing the love of your life, or in this case mine, is probably not something you want to contemplate at the moment, so I'll talk about my daughter's chickens instead. I'm looking after them while she and her family are on holiday. Mike, Helen's husband, set up the coop and its run in our garden, my garden, while my granddaughter and I looked at some family photographs taken soon after the war. There I was, aged four, beating off a small flock of hens who didn't know the first thing about sharing or taking turns, as I offered them handfuls of grain. Not a pleasant memory.
A day later my daughter arrived and installed Margo (the posh one) Mavis, the small brown one, and Dolly, the naughty one. Danny my grandson, did some kind of foot-twirling with a football, before we ate Magnums and sweltered in the heat.

The chickens and I have now been together for six days, and what a lot I have learnt in that time, not only about the persuasive powers of a dish of treats, ranging from grapes to porridge oats to corn, but also but also about creating believable characters. 

On the first day with me I thought I'd blocked off every hole, every crevice, every single exit from our garden to the properties surrounding ours, well, mine. I was not expecting gratitude when I let the chickens out of their small run, but at least some sort of respect for the territory. I left them to roam, and an hour later went out to see how they were getting on. There was no sign of them, and none of the gentle conversational  noises that chickens make. I searched. I rang the ninety-eight year old lady next door, I went round to her house, and we searched her garden, while she asked me questions about when I'd let them out, what they looked like, etc.. I covered up my panic and answered civilly, then I came back home and searched again. In the end I spotted one, two, and yes, three chickens who had adventured through a thick privet hedge, passed under two sets of fine-gauge wire fencing, and were now investigating the delights of a garden backing onto ours, which they had all to themselves. The house was silent, the windows closed. I called, 'Chickie, chickie, chickie. Lovely snacks here, Margo. Look Mavis, delicious sultanas. Dolly, Dolly, come on Dolly.' 

Did this have any effect? Well, Margo and Mavis did make an attempt to find their way back, but it was obvious the way home was far too complicated, and they couldn't begin to remember the place they'd emerged from. They pranced about a bit, heads jutting this way and that. Isaiah's verse 'All we like sheep have gone astray' became  'All we like chickens...' in my mind, and meanwhile it was plain that Dolly had no intention of giving up her freedom. 

Dolly is made of the stuff of heroes and heroines. She has a strong sense of independence, willing to act on her own, never mind the rest of the crowd. Like one of those character you start writing a story about, and then you find they're taking off on their own, and your fingers on the keyboard can barely keep up. Dolly is always the last to be persuaded to come back to the run and into the safety of the coop for the night. I still love her though, as I love Margo and Mavis as well. I realise what a great thing it is that we are all so different, and that whichever denomination suits us best, whatever our different approaches to life and its challenges, we are all loved by God, and we can never stray far enough that He will give up calling us back to the path that suits us best.

Veronica Bright is a prize-winning author of short fiction and drama. She writes book reviews for Transforming Ministry. She is the ACW short story adviser, and runs the ACW Writing for Children group, whose members meet up on Zoom. For more details look on the Writing for Children Facebook page. PS. She's good at day-dreaming and gardening, and is extremely patient with naughty chickens.