Love Letters From Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [19]
Cici saw the excitement building in Bridget’s face and she struggled to catch her eye. “We’ll certainly have to talk about it,” Cici said, deliberately pleasant. “It sounds like a big project.”
Bridget took the check and stared at it for a moment. She looked at Cici, her eyes big and her smile bright. “Not really,” she said. She passed it to Lindsay, who looked at it, struggling to keep her expression neutral, and passed it on to Cici. Cici drew a breath to reply to Bridget, glanced down at the check, and stopped.
She smiled, folded the check into her pocket, and lifted her glass of iced tea. “Of course,” she said, her smile growing expansive, “we love big projects.”
And Lindsay added, “I might know someone who can help you with the flowers.”
Suddenly the balmy afternoon quiet was shattered by the raucous screech of a rooster, followed almost immediately by the shrill scream of a human and the clatter and squawk of two dozen chickens. Bridget’s face lost color.
“Rodrigo!” she gasped.
Catherine cast an alarmed look over her shoulder. “Traci?”
The rooster brayed furiously. The girl screamed. Catherine cried, “Traci!”
The three women knew immediately what had happened and shared a horrified look. They lurched from the table and raced down the steps, crying “Stay there!” when Catherine and Paul tried to follow. Cici, with her long legs and no-nonsense sneakers, quickly took the lead. She rounded the corner in time to see a terrified Traci stumbling away from the open door of the chicken yard, pursued by an enraged red rooster by the name of Rodrigo. His wings were spread, his feathers puffed, his chest thrust forward, and his beak parted to issue forth the most blood-chilling sound it was possible for a rooster to make. Traci, gasping out cries, ran backward, tripping in her high sandals, her hand extended behind her for balance. Every few steps Rodrigo would launch himself into the air with a triumphant crow, and Traci would scream and cover her face with her arms. Hens spilled out from the chicken yard and over the lawn. Catherine, leaning over the porch rail, shrieked, “Oh, my God, Traci, Traci!”
“Motherrrr!”
Bridget launched herself toward the escaping hens, trying to shoo them back with her hands, calling, “Chick-chick-chick-chick!” Traci fell backward against the barn door with Rodrigo flapping and flying and screaming at her only three feet away. Traci fumbled with the latch. Lindsay and Cici skidded to a stop, transfixed with horror.
“Traci!” Cici called. “Don’t open—”
“The door!” screamed Lindsay.
Traci opened the door.
A black and white globe of fury launched himself through the air, snarling and barking. He flew over Traci’s head as she collapsed into a ball on the ground. Rebel ignored her, bent on his real target, Rodrigo the rooster. Rodrigo immediately lost all his bravado when he saw the dog coming toward him. Tail whirling, nimble feet cutting and banking, Rebel chased the rooster back into the chicken yard, then circled back for the chickens. Feathers flew in a cacophony of squawking, but before Cici and Lindsay could pull Traci to her feet, Bridget was swinging closed the gate on the chicken yard—with all chickens and one indignant rooster safely enclosed—and Rebel was sailing over the fence toward the sheep meadow.
“Are you okay?” Bridget inquired of Traci as she jogged toward them. “I’m so sorry! Rodrigo is very protective of his hens.”
Lindsay tried to brush the grass stains off of Traci’s walking shorts, and Cici retrieved her sunglasses and her cell phone from the ground. “This is a working farm,” Lindsay explained apologetically. “The animals are real.”
Cici tried bravely to smile as she handed over the sunglasses and the phone. “I guess your mom will want her check back.”
They walked back to the porch, where Catherine and Paul were waiting anxiously at the rail. But as soon as they mounted the steps Paul smiled, stepped back gracefully, and gestured them all back to the table with a welcoming sweep of his arm. “Well, then,” he said, “is there any dessert?”