Sunday morning arrives quietly. A few fluffy brown feathers, tinged orange in the low morning sunlight, drift like tumbleweed across the still alleyways of Chickenland – silent reminders of the previous night’s violent encounter.
Simon opens the door to the Little Hen House and sprinkles grain around the pen, in the time-honoured fashion of our regular, early-morning chicken routine. The Famous Four bumble out of their house, down the dew-slippy ramp and go casually about their daily business, as if last night’s events were but a distant memory of a faded dream.
Then Simon moves to the door of the Big House. He jerks open the enormous, rusted bolts that hold the two sections of the decrepit barn-door securely shut against intruders, the clanging grinding of rough metal piercing the morning peace with a screech. He drags open the door, against the tide of loose soil and old straw that has collected up against it over time. As his eyes slowly grow accustomed to the gloom, he becomes aware of the unmoving shape of Lonely, perched high in front of him, directly opposite the entrance. She twitches her head sideways and fixes him with a beady stare.
Simon casts a handful of grain into the darkness, and retreats. A few minutes pass, to the over-loud soundtrack of the nightingale warming up his vocal chords in the big oak tree behind the pen.
And then, with an almighty flutter-flap-crash, Lonely plummets from her bed-time perch to the floor of the Big House. The Famous Four stop in their bimbling tracks and look anxiously toward the origin of the ominous sound.
Lonely sidles out into the daylight. She surveys her morning kingdom, scratches behind one ear with a crooked-toed foot, lifts her pointy beak into the waiting air and clucks, raucously proclaiming her pre-eminence among the Poultry of Blanchetière.
To the untrained eye, the rest of the day would seem to pass in uneventful insignificance. But to anyone au fait with the subtle intricacies of poultry politics, it is clear that important goings-on are afoot.
Dirt is scratched, grass is pecked, bowls of left-over pasta are devoured, insects are chased, eggs are laid. But all this apparent normality carries on against a backdrop of social tension, as the Famous Four try to come to terms with their new situation. The pecking order is all awry. Positions are up for grabs. Opportunities exist. The management has changed and no-one knows what this means for them. Is this a chance for Pretty to show that she is more than a pretty face? Can Other emerge from the grey wastes of obscurity to make her mark. Will Big and Naughty fight it out for the Assistant Manager post?
By the end of the day, something strange has happened. The odd peck here, a little bustle there, a hoot here, a cackle there, and gradually the balance of power shifts. Pretty surprises everybody by standing her ground next to Lonely, and adopting a pose of passive but dogged resistance. Other emerges as everybody’s friend, happy to sit down and chat and eat with whoever happens to turn up at the table. Naughty keeps a watchful distance, neither challenging the new authority nor acceding to it. But Big…….
Big Chicken, erstwhile Leader of the Flock, Top Chicken and Oppressor of the Weak is more than a little ruffled. Lonely has evidently determined that Big presents the greatest challenge to her new authority, and has opted for a policy of zero tolerance. Big cannot so much as breathe near her, without Lonely interpreting the gesture as an insolent insubordination, to be mercilessly crushed without hesitation.
Oh, how the Mighty have fallen. Poor, big-bully, blustering Big. All that posturing and feather-fluffing counts for nothing. Nobody is impressed. Her Glory Days are well and truly over, and she is left, rather pathetically, pecking at the scraps that are left around the edge of the bowl when all the other chickens have had their fill. What will become of her?
Over the next week or so, Big Chicken spends a lot of time on her own, pondering her destiny. Maybe if she had been less of a tyrant, she might have benefited from a little loyalty from the flock. Maybe if she had not been so damn hen-sure of herself, she would have developed a more subtle range of social skills, and perhaps even a friendship. Who was she now? How did she fit in?
And to top it all, her Identity Crisis begins to screw with her hormones. Big Chicken – previously the Best Layer of the Biggest Eggs – slides into oviduct abjection. Her eggs get smaller, and fewer, and further between.
And at the end of each day, when Lonely has retired for another solitary night in the Big House, and the other fickle hens are safely installed in their customary sleeping positions in the Little House, Big can be seen wandering Chickenland alone in the deepening dusk – her head down, her wings in her pockets, aimlessly kicking at loose stones, lost in reminiscences of glorious times past, and perhaps hopeful dreams of a better future.
