'Owle, Chicken, Bear, Sparrow, and Stanley.'
by
Ian Hutton
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SMASHWORDS EDITION
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'Owle, Chicken, Bear, Sparrow and Stanley.'
Copyright © 2012, Ian Hutton.
All Rights Reserved.
Illustrations by P. Faminow
.
Smas
hwords
Edition, License Notes:
This ebook is DRM-FREE.
It is licensed for your personal enjoyment.
It is not meant to be sold, nor given away to family and friends.
Please recommend my stories by showing people
where to get their own copies or, you can gift them.
Thank you.
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This is a story to read to a friend.
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"Excuse me Ian, but I hope it's not about Stanley
because he's not here yet."
"Oh, I see. Let's save him a chair."
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Chapter One
The story begins early, early one morning.
Chicken is up and out his door,
early out in the morning air
where he is fresh in the wind
and wet with his feet in the morning dew.
The wind is howling through the treetops,
shaking the bushes
and scattering leaves;
wild with anticipation
of an extra-ordinary day.
"YES! This is a very not ordinary day!"
shouts Chicken,
hopping up and down.
Like a snake without a leash,
he marches in every direction.
Up the little hill, down the little hill,
He jumps across the brook
and jumps back again.
Chicken is preparing.
•
You see,
Chicken had worked all week long,
carrying pails of nails
and wooden rails
and lanterns through the night.
Through shadows, he had crept,
with ladders dragging
and buckets banging,
and he did not cry for help.
There were secrets in his eyes,
but not a word, for anyone.
Certainly, his friends had heard
his noises in the night.
They had heard his hammer
tilting nails into wood
and more than that,
but none came close
nor even guessed,
what he was at.
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And today is the Surprise Event
and he must deliver the Invitations
to his friends.
He puffs while bending
and un-puffs himself again.
Chicken is preparing for the
very precarious ride
through The Ring Round Woods
to Owle's house.
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The sun bursts its heat hot on his head
as he hops smartly about, ordering his feet:
"Left. Right. Left. Right. You there, keep in step!"
commands Chicken, as he marches them out
to where the last of night,
had not yet left,
and there he stops.
A bird above him is pleasantly humming:
"My, oh my, what a bird-fectly fine day."
"Hmmph!" spits Chicken, looking Day
straight in the eye:
"It's never day in The Ring Round Woods.
It's blacker than a night should be.
And it holds the hearts, of the darkest arts,
and today, they wait for me."
Chicken's feet begin to back up,
but he stops them with a shout:
"Stop!"
"They won't be wise, whatever they be,
if they try to interrupt our speed.
They certainly shouldn't, they'd better not,
or else, instead of catching,
they, will be caught!"
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KICK!
A blade of grass, topples to the ground
as he marches to his horse (bicycle)
which is tethered near his door.
He checks the ground for tracks
and for prints upon his mount,
but no, none; nothing touched.
Sometimes when riding,
Chicken wears a clown suit
so his friends won't think he's
a serious cyclist.
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But today, he is circling round
and round himself, to be certain,
that he is not being followed.
He tucks the Invitations
into the secret slot
in the left earflap of his cap,
and pulls the straps, just to,
under his chin.
He snaps his goggles into place,
takes a hopping good leap, onto
his horse, and saddles away
across the meadow.
Waves of yellow, and tufted green,
spill like salt from his sides,
as he rides smoothly,
swiftly, in the morning light.
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"What was that?"
It was a flash of light.
"There's another one!" cries Chicken.
"Maybe it's just lightning in the Woods.
Or maybe…
it's a secretly coded message.
Yes, that's it; that's it!
They're trying to track me!"
Chicken rips his bike from the path
and throws himself ruthlessly, to the ground.
The bumps cause lumps in his throat
but he does not draw a breath.
Silence.
Chicken lies in wait, and waits.
But nothing moves except the
shadows of trees around him.
He challenges them to box
( he often does to keep in shape )
but they wisely, say nothing.
Chicken dusts himself while rising.
His laughing buttons clean themselves
as he remounts and continues his ride
to Owle's house.
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The heat from the meadow
turns cold on his back,
as he reaches the edge,
and begins to descend,
the steep and sticky trail
which leads him into
The Ring Round Woods.
Into cold; pale; stale air,
which sucks the breath,
from his throat.
"They say, the Moon, when it goes out,
it's lost in here."
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He pushes deeper into the darkness.
Into the twisted limbs
of the black-eyed trees
with their thorny spines
scratching at his knees.
The mist is thick,
and he almost screams
as spidery branches
web close to his face.
And the voices,
so many voices,
are calling out his name:
Chicken…Chicken…come here Chicken!
His heart is thumping wildly inside him
as the voices, crawling round him,
remind him, they surround him,
in The Ring Round Woods.
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