The Hole in the Wall - Lisa Rowe Fraustino [28]
“Look, there!” I said. In the middle of the jagged half snowflake I’d spotted a dark hole just big enough for a chicken to squeeze through. Or a cat!
Barbie lifted the shelves off their brackets to clear the way. “Give me the umbrella, Seb,” she said with her hand out. She took it and started poking it through the hole. The metal tip clinked and clanked against something hard.
“Gee, I wonder what that is,” I said, being sarcastic of course. The coop was built right up against the sheer face of a rock. Over the years, tree roots and undergrowth had filled it in at the sides and over the top to join the mountainside to the roof. It looked pretty, actually, almost like pictures of thatched cottages in storybooks.
Barbie kept clanking around, making the hole bigger. “If you really cared about those chickens, you wouldn’t do that,” I said. “You’re going to Shish Kebarb them.” Heh heh heh.
“Chickens should be smart enough to get out of the way,” she said. “And besides, I’m just trying to find out if they’re really back there. Why aren’t they squawking and shuffling around?”
She was right. We both fell silent and listened. Rain. A car going by. The roof creaking. But not even a pathetic little cluck.
“Maybe they died,” she said, putting her face down to the hole. “It smells musty and—something else. Can’t put my finger on it. It’s not a foul odor, though.” Then she laughed. “God, I’m smart.”
“Huh?”
“F-O-U-L, F-O-W-L?”
“Ha ha. If you were really smart, you’d try this.” I handed her the flashlight. She blushed and said wittily, “I don’t see how the chickens could even get back there anyway, with the closet door always shut.”
I leaned closer as she aimed the light through the hole. A strange smell did come from there—sweet, almost. It reminded me of Ma’s cookies baking. Ouch, that made my stomach ache harder.
“Oh my my my,” Barbie said.
“Yup,” I said.
At the edge of the flashlight’s arc lay a pair of chicken feet, toes up in a pool of dark water.
I reached into the hidey-hole to pull on them. It hurt my stomach more the closer I got, but curiosity eased the pain. The chicken seemed kind of stuck. In fact, it seemed almost as if she was pulling on me! Mostly I felt it in my guts. That was one rugged bird. I braced my feet against the wall and pulled as hard as I could with both hands. The chicken made a hard banging sound as its body hit the wood. I gave it my best yank. Finally the whole board gave up and pulled away, sending me THWACK! against the wall. Barbie screamed.
“Don’t worry, Shish, I’m all right. Not too sure about the chicken, though.”
“I’m not worried about you. Look what’s back there!” She pointed at the opening. The broken board had pulled several other boards ajar, just like a door. Whoa, it was a door! And behind it, we found what we were looking for all right.
Chickens. Lots and lots of chickens, and a few eggs, piled every which way in the narrow space. Nothing moved, though.
“That,” I said, “is really, really freaky.”
“Are they still alive? Sebby, you check. I don’t wanna touch them.”
“I meant the door,” I said, but I was still on my butt with a chicken between my sneakers, so I tapped on it with the broken board. The hen no longer had soft, giving feathers. They thumped.
That bird was petrified.
“Wow. And I thought the turkey Ma made for Thanksgiving was tough.”
Barbie rolled her eyes at me. “So the chickens are all dead. We’re gonna hafta tell Ma.”
“Well of course.”
We were both quiet a moment, staring at the rock chicken. I felt the absolute worst I had ever felt about being me, even worse than the moment I saw myself in the mirror at Odum’s mansion. This was all my fault. I must have left the supply closet door open. I honestly thought I hadn’t,