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How Even the Best-Laid Plans of Chickens and People Often Go Awry
“Some sprouted Rye seeds sure would be tasty!” said the chickens
This is our second email newsletter using the Medium platform. We wanted to continue giving it a try because we have so many great friends here on Medium! (But we do like the new Substack “Notes” which is a lot like Twitter.)
If there is one thing that both chickens and people need to learn it’s this:
There is nothing wrong with failure. Every hero begins by failing, and along the way, they learn something that helps them to be a true hero and succeed.
Pearl had planned out her comedy show in great detail. She did everything to give her audience a memorable performance, one that would hopefully change their minds about her. But even so, it did appear to have been a failure. Even Amelia who had befriended her and helped her, turned out not to be as big a fan as Pearl had expected.
Lexiconographer’s Note: It is not always easy working with chickens when selecting letters of the alphabet to spell their words. Chickens like it when words look like or somehow resemble what they mean. This is particularly true of “Qh<äp-Qh<äp!” If you look very carefully you will see one bird following another made by the letters <äp! (There is a beak, a head with two open eyes, a wing, and tail feathers.) There was quite a discussion about whether to use <äb! instead. It was finally agreed that p looks more like a wing than b next to the other letters and characters.
But there is also a mystery from the night of Pearl’s show that carried over into the days afterwards. The reason behind the mystery would prove important later on, and you will read about Pearl’s failure and the unsolved mystery in this next chapter before reading about Pearl’s great success in the following chapter.
The next morning, Pearl was the first down the chicken ladder for breakfast salad. She thought being first was just the sort of thing a beloved celebrity, or BröcK-Köö-BröcK, should do.
“Qh<äp-Qh<äp!” said Pearl.
Amelia seemed annoyed. She always went her own way without following anyone else, and she was usually first because she greets each new day as an adventure. But she remembered the fun from the night before and how she had helped Pearl create the miraculous stunt of flying without flapping her wings, so she decided to hold her normal habit of making a protest.
The flying trick was accomplished by attaching practically invisible fishing line from the sequined jacket in just the right places to a bar far above the stage. All Amelia had to do was roll the bar with its own attached small wheels along the cross beams high above the stage the way Gracie and I had planned to use them for chicken-sized dancing puppets in her ballet shows. Pearl had simply turned herself into a living puppet with Amelia as her puppeteer.
Amelia did not peck Pearl’s head for going down first, but she did give her a look as if to say, “I will give you this one free pass, but do not expect this to be a regular thing.”
It was the only courtesy, the only special treatment, and the only nice gesture to happen the whole day. Pearl had not become a celebrity. She was still just plain Pearl — plain, not-so-good, not-so-normal Pearl.
The show had gone the way Pearl had planned, perhaps even better, but there were no lasting accolades or rewards. It didn’t matter though. At breakfast, she grabbed a perfect piece of lettuce that Blanche had been eyeing and chittered happily. Yes, she thought, there will always be Blanche to love me.
If I had taken time that morning, I might have noticed how some of the bulbs in the strings of white lights around Pearl’s Comedy Coop stage had been replaced with colored ones. But Gracie noticed, and she told me about them that evening as we sat together, just the two of us.
“What should we do?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. I only know what we should not do. We should not worry. Not yet.”
“Whoever did it was very quiet. I would have heard them. It’s my job at night to guard everyone.”
“I know.”
“I do not miss anything. I am a very light sleeper. But somehow I missed this mystery.”
“I know, Gracie. I have never doubted your ability to guard the flock. Do you think it might have been The Air Shadows or The Absence Of Love?”
“From what the songbirds of The Living Library have told me, they do not have hands like people, but they can influence animals and people who do have hands. Maybe they are behind it.”
“I also heard a laugh last night.”
“I heard it too,” said Gracie. “But the songbirds think that my hearing is somehow different like the way only I can hear The Music Of The New Day.”
“Gracie, if you hear or sense anything, even if it seems insignificant at the time, let me know. Do we have a deal?”
“We have a deal.”
“For now, don’t say anything to the others about the different light bulbs. No one will likely notice. You only did because you are such a good protector.”
“It wasn’t a chicken or any other animal that changed those bulbs. It had to be a person,” she pointed out.
“I know.”
“I may not be a good protector against people.”
“I know that too. We will know what to do when the time comes. We may not need to do anything at all.”
We looked at each other, feeling the weight of our shared responsibility.
“Gracie, why don’t you close your eyes and take a little nap? It may help you to be extra vigilant tonight.”
Gracie closed her eyes, and her breathing slowed. Every now and then she would move her beak as if she was warning off a predator or telling the others to stand back.
I was concerned, but I did not want Gracie or the others to know.
Nothing happened that night or for quite a few nights after. Some mornings when I checked, it looked as if some of the colored lights were in different places than before, but that may have just been my imagination.
Then one morning, all of the lights were back to being white. It was as if nothing had happened at all. No one had noticed anything different — but Gracie and I knew.
“I don’t think I ever had a chance to ask you, Gracie. What did you think of Pearl’s show?”
“It was quite delightful.”
“And?”
“And everyone enjoyed it tremendously.”
“But?”
“But silliness never saved a chicken’s life, and it never will. I won’t believe it until I see it for myself.”
Gracie was very firm about this, and I knew not to ask any more questions. She knew chicken ways far better than me. I was supposed to know people ways far better than her, but I wasn’t so sure.
The lightbulbs continued to bother me, but Gracie’s statement about silliness never saving any chicken’s life bothered me even more.
This next chapter is one of my absolute favorites because it shows Pearl at her very best and it also shows her proving that Gracie and the other chickens were wrong about her.
If you have not read last week’s newsletter, you may want to do so now to provide background for Pearl’s actions in this week’s newsletter and the next chapter:
This next chapter comes at the end of Act Two. It is a way of pointing out this important lesson:
Every failure is a sign that success is right around the corner.
Their day was nearly over. Everyone except for Pearl was scratching and pecking around for a bedtime snack before going up to roost for the night. Pearl was pacing back and forth along the run fencing. She was looking far out into the garden shadows, hoping to find some answers to her life, but there were none there. She turned to the others.
“What am I doing wrong?” she demanded. “Why don’t you just tell me what you want me to do?”
No one looked up at her.
“If we tell you, we will never know if you’re doing it because you are trying to fool us as a joke or because it is coming from your heart,” someone said.
“Why do I have to keep guessing when I keep guessing wrong?”
“Blanche has told you what you need to do. Blanche has shown you what you need to do,” someone else said.
Blanche moved closer to Pearl to offer her shelter.
“If you won’t listen to her — the one who has loved you from the beginning — why would you listen to us?” they said together and went back to scratching and pecking for bedtime snacks.
“What if you are really the ones who are different and wrong?” demanded Pearl. “What if all the other chickens everywhere else in the world are like me, not like you? Then you would be the ones who need to be good and normal.”
The others acted as if they had not heard her. Only Blanche looked up for a moment and then quickly looked back down.
Pearl paced back and forth again. she didn’t care about bedtime snacks. She only wanted the way she was feeling inside to change. If whatever she did would never make any difference, why even bother?
“Even when I do what’s right, it’s still wrong,” she mumbled to herself.
One by one, Gracie, Bessie, Emily and Amelia went up for the night. They found their favorite roosting spots and waited for Nate, The Gardener, to come outside and secure the doors to their coop and run.
Blanche was still scratching around for a few tidbits before turning in for the night. She had delayed going up earlier because she was having difficulty standing. She didn’t want the others to see her stumble, particularly on the chicken ladder when she went up for the night.
Just as Pearl went over to ask Blanche if she was ready to go up and roost for the night, they heard a sound behind them, a soft scraping on the wire mesh fencing of the door to the run. When they turned, they saw an opossum showing all of its teeth.
It arched its back and began to hiss and spit at them. Just as The Absence Of Love had sent The Tuxedo Cat to attack the chickens, they had sent one of the most fearless nighttime predators to do the same.
Blanche stood her tallest and stretched out her wings. She ruffled her feathers to make herself even larger and more threatening. The Scruffy Opossum arched his back even more and every hair on his body stood erect. He was not backing down.
Just as Blanche prepared to lunge forward and attack, her left leg gave way, and she stumbled. Her body hit the ground. Her wings sprawled out awkwardly as if broken. Then without thinking, Pearl jumped between The Opossum and Blanche, but she did not lunge forward to attack. Pearl simply stood her ground, looking straight into the opossum’s eyes. She knew Blanche had displayed herself as a large and formidable foe, but The Opossum had not backed down.
Being much smaller, Pearl only knew one thing to do. She started hopping around on one foot while shaking the other foot upward in the opossum’s face.
“Trick or treat! Smell my feet! Do-dah! Do-dah!”
The opossum looked stunned. He had never seen any animal do this.
“Trick or treat! Smell my feet! Do the Dipsy Doodle with me!”
Pearl continued her silly hopping and chattering. This unexpected behavior confused the opossum, even if only for a moment. Pearl did not know what would happen next, but at least she had gained a few more minutes of life for Blanche and herself.
“Trick or treat! Do-dah! Do-dah!”
The Scruffy Opossum gave one last disgruntled hiss and turned to climb back up the wire mesh towards the gap in the loose tarp where he had squeezed through earlier.
Blanche had recovered herself and stood up beside Pearl, and then the two of them took turns pecking at the opossum’s naked rear end until he was well out of reach. The Scruffy Opossum looked back at them one last time from the safety of the secret gap above the door, shook his head, jumped down, and scrambled off towards the brambles.
It’s a shame the others did not see what you did,” whispered Blanche. “They probably heard but thought you were just being silly again.”
“I know, but if they had seen what happened, they would have also seen you stumble, and that would not have been good at all. As long as you saw what I did, Blanche, that is all that really matters to me.”
Pearl wanted to say something to the others about what had happened. Then the others would know she was brave and a good defender. They would know she was not just a silly little white hen.
But Blanche had said not to trust them. Maybe they would not believe her. Maybe they would think she was telling a joke to make them look silly for believing her.
More than anything, if the other chickens knew Blanch had stumbled, they would know she was sick. They would test her. Maybe they would hurt her. Pearl knew she had to keep quiet this time. Maybe she would have to keep quiet for all time.
It should not be so difficult to fit in.
After their hearts stopped racing, Blanche and Pearl went up the ladder for the night. It was almost completely dark by then.
They heard Gracie adjusting her feathers for more comfortable sleeping. Then she nudged the others to make room for Blanche and Pearl. “Rest well,” she told them.
This was not the regular routine. Chickens love their regular routines. Most nights, Blanche and Pearl had to squeeze onto the roost the best they could. No one ever had good wishes for them at bedtime except for Nate.
Pearl wondered if maybe Gracie had seen what had happened. If Gracie had seen and would tell the others about her bravery, then Pearl would at last be accepted. She had proven without really intending to that silliness can save a chicken’s life.
Pearl decided to ask Gracie in private the next day when she had a chance. That was what she decided to do. But that chance never came.
At this point, Amelia and Pearl have both received and accepted their call to action. Amelia will prepare to go off into the wild world, knowing that because she is extraordinary, she is now a target for The Absence of Love and Professor Accipiter. Pearl will stay within the safety of the garden world and will protect Blanche and nurse her back to health and strength. She will keep the secret of Blanche’s stumbling to herself. Amelia and Pearl have both embraced their roles as heroes. Next week, we will begin Act Three in which the stakes are raised because the The Absence of Love and Professor Accipiter are working to get Amelia and Pearl to join the Blue Moon Bird Circus and Sideshow Extravaganza.
Until Next Time
Thank you for reading!
John, Gracie, Bessie, Blanche, Pearl, Emily, and Amelia
