Chicken Mission: Chaos in Cluckbridge

by Jennifer Gray

  ‘Quick, Ruth, open the suitcase,’ Amy cried. ‘The Venombrella’s still in there. Cleopatra did swallow something metal after all. We can trap her with the magnet.’

  ‘Good thinking!’ Ruth wrenched open the self-packing suitcase. The magnet emerged. Its prongs turned in the direction of Cleopatra.

  The three chickens threw themselves to one side as Cleopatra’s body was drawn towards it. The snake thrashed her head from side to side, trying to fight the strong magnetic force. ‘No!’ she choked. But the magnet was too strong for her. It kept on tugging at the metal in her throat.

  ‘You sure she’ll fit?’ asked Amy. The suitcase looked quite small compared to Cleopatra.

  ‘It’s expandable,’ Ruth said. ‘You can fit anything in there. Even a queen cobra.’

  ‘Wow!’ Amy said. ‘You are clever, Ruth.’

  PING!

  The top of Cleopatra’s long body shot towards the suitcase, followed by her twists of brown coils. The suitcase packed her neatly inside.

  ‘Watch out!’ Amy yelled.

  ‘BBLEAARCCCCCHHHHURRRRRRPPP!’

  Cleopatra had finally managed to burp out the Venombrella. But it was too late for the queen cobra. ‘I’ll get you for thisssssssssss,’ she screamed.

  BANG! Ruth brought down the suitcase lid and locked it.

  Amy lay on her back with her feet in the air. ‘That was scary,’ she said.

  ‘Very.’ Boo sat down next to her. ‘You were really brave,’ she whispered. ‘Thank you for saving me.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ said Amy. Then she added, ‘I always knew I could get out with the Burp Powder. It was nothing really.’ Of course it was a fib, but only a little one, and she thought it might make Boo feel better.

  The two chickens held wings.

  ‘Can someone please help me fix this rocket blaster to the suitcase?’ Ruth said. She was struggling with what looked like a very large firework.

  Amy jumped up. The mission wasn’t over yet. They still had to get Cleopatra back to the City Zoo. And retrieve her eggs before they hatched. ‘Where did you find it?’ she asked.

  ‘It was under the straw with the snake-charming flute and the net,’ Ruth explained.

  Carefully the three chickens attached the rocket blaster to the suitcase. Most of Cleopatra was inside it, but part of her tail didn’t fit. It flopped about, twitching angrily. Amy and Boo made some air holes with a tack so that she didn’t suffocate.

  ‘She’s ready to go,’ Boo said.

  Ruth typed in the coordinates of the zoo on the rocket blaster and pressed BLAST OFF. The three chickens watched in silence as the suitcase flew out of the cellar door towards the warehouse exit.

  ‘Good riddance,’ Amy muttered. She never wanted to see a snake again ever, ever, ever, EVER, in her whole entire chicken life.

  ‘What happened to him?’ Boo asked. She pointed at James Pond.

  The duck agent had regained consciousness. He was sitting up groggily. He didn’t seem to be hypnotised any more. Amy felt a bit better about knocking him out. The blow to the head had brought him out of his trance. ‘Never mind about him, we’ve got to find Cleopatra’s eggs,’ she said.

  ‘Her eggs?!’ Boo echoed. ‘You mean she’s already laid them?’

  Amy nodded.

  ‘Where are they then?’ Ruth said, looking around.

  ‘That’s the problem.’ Amy told her friends about Virginia Fox Diamond’s evil plan to create more battery farms.

  Ruth whistled. ‘So that was what the foxes were whispering about earlier!’

  ‘How on earth are we going to find thirty-six snake eggs?’ Boo asked. ‘The rats could have hidden them anywhere. There must be loads of broody hens at the farms. And we don’t even know which farms they’ve taken them to.’

  ‘There must be a map somewhere,’ Ruth said in her super-brainy detective voice. ‘Look, there. On the flipchart.’

  The chickens hurried over.

  Amy looked at the map with horror. Thaddeus had targeted Perrin’s Farm.

  ‘Mum!’ she whispered.

  The others looked at her questioningly.

  ‘Mum’s broody,’ Amy said in a tiny voice. ‘She’s sitting on a clutch of eggs. The rats might have put some of Cleopatra’s babies in her nest.’

  ‘Oh Amy, this is my fault.’ Boo said. ‘It was me who told Thaddeus where you lived.’

  ‘We’ll go there now and warn your mum and dad,’ Ruth said firmly. ‘Don’t worry, Amy. We’ll find the snake eggs and post them back to the zoo. Although we might need to figure out what to put them in.’ She scratched her chin.

  ‘Professor Rooster gave us a stack of boxes,’ Amy told her eagerly. ‘They’ve got stamps on and everything. They’re in the Emergency Chicken Pack.’

  ‘Good,’ said Ruth.

  ‘What about the other farms?’ Boo asked. ‘What are we going to do about those?’

  They both looked at Ruth.

  ‘I’ve got an idea about that too,’ Ruth said, polishing her spectacles. ‘I reckon it’s time we got those beastly rats to work for us chickens for a change. They put Cleopatra’s eggs all over the place, they can jolly well go and fetch them back.’

  ‘But how can we make them do that?’ Amy asked, bewildered.

  ‘With the Stuff-a-Snake, of course!’ Ruth grinned. ‘We’ll hypnotise the little brutes into doing what we tell them, just like Cleopatra and Thaddeus did – only in reverse! We’ll get them to go back to the farms on the chicken-feed lorries and send the snake eggs back to the zoo. That just leaves Perrin’s Farm for us,’ She grinned. ‘Come on, you two. Let’s go and wake the little beasts up.

  On the other side of the river, Thaddeus E. Fox was finding it hard to sleep. There was very little room in the dustbin where Snooty Bush lived for one fox, let alone two, and Snooty Bush’s hind legs were digging him in the ribs. Still, it wouldn’t be long before they were both rich. Then he could move to a luxury garden shed of his own, and keep the old burrow in the Deep Dark Woods for weekends.

  Snooty Bush shifted in his sleep. Now he had his tail up Thaddeus’s snout! Grumbling to himself, Thaddeus got to his feet and climbed out of the dustbin. It was nearly dawn. He decided to take a stroll across the bridge.

  He was about half way across when he heard a loud, whooshing noise above him. Thaddeus peered into the sky. His jaw dropped. A suitcase attached to a small rocket was flying over the river from the direction of the abandoned warehouse. It was heading towards the City Zoo. Dangling out of one side of the suitcase was the tail end of a long, brown snake.

  Cleopatra?!!!!!!!!???????!!!!!! Thaddeus could hardly believe his eyes. She had been captured! But how? It was impossible! The chickens at the battery farm were far too stupid and cowardly to stage an attack on the queen cobra, except for the plump, juicy one that belonged to Professor Rooster’s elite chicken squad, and she was on death row. There was no way she could escape. An alarm bell clanged loudly in his brain.

  Unless the others had come to rescue her …

  Thaddeus let out a roar of rage. He should have eaten the wretched fowl when he had the chance. He set off towards the battery farm.

  Virginia Fox Diamond was already waiting for him. ‘You’re too late,’ she said. ‘The chickens have gone. Someone opened all the cages. I think they escaped down the sewers.’

  ‘What about the rats?’ Thaddeus fumed. ‘Why didn’t they stop them?’

  ‘There’s no sign of the rats either,’ Virginia said. ‘But I found this.’ She held up the limp Stuff-a-Snake. The air had gone out of it but you could still see that it was an exact replica of Cleopatra. ‘I think whoever rescued the chickens has hypnotised the rats using this. My guess is they’ve sent the rats to collect Cleopatra’s eggs from the farms and take them back to the zoo.’

  Thaddeus realised he had been completely outfoxed. He let out a roar of rage.

  ‘Those bleeping chickens have had it!’ Thaddeus didn’t remember ever being this angry before. He felt his
lip curl and steam shoot from his ears. He thought he might be turning into a were-fox.

  ‘Which bleeping chickens?’ Virginia demanded.

  ‘Professor Rooster’s elite chicken squad,’ Thaddeus said between gritted teeth.

  ‘Explain,’ Virginia Fox Diamond sat back and folded her paws across her chest.

  Thaddeus filled her in.

  It was Virginia’s turn to be furious. ‘You should have told me before,’ she shouted. ‘Why didn’t you give that chicken on death row to Cleopatra straight away, or eat it yourself, you moron? Now the whole operation is in jeopardy, thanks to you.’

  ‘Keep your fur on!’ Thaddeus growled. It was easy to be wise after the event. He felt his admiration for Virginia Fox Diamond slip a little. It wasn’t his fault the rats had been hypnotised into returning Cleopatra’s eggs to the zoo. How was he supposed to know Professor Rooster would have given his chickens a Stuff-a-Snake? Virginia was being a dreadful nag.

  ‘Well, what are you going to do about it?’ Virginia snapped.

  ‘I’m going to teach them a lesson,’ Thaddeus snapped back.

  ‘How? You don’t know where they’ve gone.’

  ‘Give me a minute, will you?’ Thaddeus closed his eyes. Know your enemy. That was the number one rule of warfare. That way you could anticipate their next move and outsmart them. What would he do, he wondered, if he were Amy, Boo and Ruth? Go back to Chicken HQ to celebrate? Go on holiday? Go home and relax? Gradually his snarl turned into a smile. ‘Oh, but I do know where they’ve gone, Virginia,’ he said, his good humour returning. ‘I know exactly.’

  ‘Where?’ the vixen asked.

  ‘Perrin’s Farm.’

  Amy landed in the farmyard close to her parents’ coop. Boo and Ruth landed behind her. They had sent James Pond back to Poultry Patrol where he wouldn’t get in the way.

  ‘Cock-a-doodle-doo!’ Amy’s father was just finishing his morning chorus.

  ‘Amy!’ her father came rushing towards her. ‘You’re back! How was the training?’

  ‘We weren’t training, Dad, I had to go on a mission,’ Amy admitted. ‘These are my friends, Boo and Ruth.’

  ‘Hello,’ said Ruth.

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Boo.

  ‘Where’s Mum?’ Amy said.

  ‘In the coop,’ her father replied. ‘Most of the chicks have hatched, but the farmer gave her six more eggs to sit on yesterday, so she’s still stuck on the nest.’

  ‘The farmer didn’t give them to her, Dad,’ Amy said, pushing past him into the coop. ‘The rats put them there when she wasn’t looking.’ She disappeared inside.

  ‘The rats? What on earth is she talking about?’ he asked the others in bewilderment.

  ‘They’re snake eggs, Mr Cluckbucket,’ Ruth explained. ‘The rats were hypnotised by Cleopatra, the queen cobra, and sent from Cluckbridge to distribute her eggs to local farms. Cleopatra was in cahoots with the foxes too. The plan was for the farm chickens to incubate the baby snakes. Then, when they hatched the snakes would force the chickens to produce more eggs and set up their own battery farms with the local foxes nearby.’

  Amy’s dad whistled.

  ‘It’s our job to stop Cleopatra and send her and her eggs back to the City Zoo,’ Ruth said.

  ‘My goodness! I had no idea Amy was involved in anything so dangerous. I mean she told me about her other adventures, but this …’

  ‘I expect she didn’t want to worry you, especially as Mrs Cluckbucket is broody,’ Boo chipped in. ‘You should be very proud of Amy,’ she added. ‘She saved my life.’

  ‘She did?’

  Boo nodded. ‘Cleopatra tried to eat me but Amy made Cleopatra eat her instead.’

  Mr Cluckbucket gasped. ‘Amy was eaten by a queen cobra? How on earth did she escape?’

  ‘With Burt’s Burp Powder,’ Boo said. ‘She’s very resourceful.’

  ‘She certainly is,’ Mr Cluckbucket agreed.

  ‘If you’ll excuse us for a minute, we’ve got six cobra eggs to return to the City Zoo,’ Ruth said politely. She took out the stamped-addressed boxes from the Emergency Chicken Pack.

  ‘Be my guest,’ Amy’s dad stood to one side.

  The two chickens bustled into the coop to join Amy.

  ‘I wondered why those eggs were such a funny shape,’ Amy’s mother was saying, ‘and such a peculiar colour. I thought maybe you might have laid them, Amy, they were that strange-looking!’ She chuckled.

  Amy didn’t really mind being the butt of the joke. She was just glad they had found the eggs. ‘Mum, this is Boo and Ruth.’

  Amy’s mum gave them a wave. ‘I must say it’s a relief to get off this nest,’ she said, getting up and stretching her legs. ‘I’ll put the kettle on. We’ll have some seedcake and you can meet Amy’s brothers and sisters.’

  ‘There might not be time for that,’ said Amy’s dad. ‘Amy and her friends will need to go and collect the snake eggs from the other farms before they hatch.’

  ‘No, it’s okay actually, Dad,’ Amy said.

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Ruth re-hypnotised the rats to make them do it.’

  ‘That’s ingenious!’ Amy’s dad laughed in delight. ‘How on earth did you manage that?’

  ‘With something called a Stuff-a-Snake,’ Amy said. ‘We’ll tell you all about it once we’ve got rid of these.’

  Amy, Boo and Ruth carefully collected the snake eggs from the nest and put them in the boxes.

  ‘What did your mum mean when she said she thought you’d laid them, Amy?’ Boo asked.

  ‘I tried laying an egg when I was here a few days ago,’ Amy explained. ‘Only it didn’t really work. I’d eaten too much popcorn and drunk too much worm juice so the egg was all knobbly on the outside and smelly on the inside. According to Mum, you have to have a balanced diet to lay a good egg.’

  ‘Interesting,’ said Ruth.

  Amy chortled. ‘But me and my friends had loads of fun thinking of all the silly eggs we could lay and throw at the geese!’ she recalled.

  ‘Cool,’ said Boo. ‘I can’t wait to meet your friends.’

  ‘Let’s post these first,’ Amy suggested, bringing down the lid on the last of the six boxes. ‘Then I’ll introduce you.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘We’ll be back in a minute!’ Amy called to her mum and dad.

  ‘Where’s the post box?’ Ruth asked.

  ‘At the end of the farm track. It’s not very far,’ said Amy.

  ‘Won’t the farmer see us?’ asked Boo.

  Amy checked the yard. ‘No. She’s out with the tractor. It’s all clear.’

  The three chickens put the snake egg boxes in their backpacks and strapped on their flight-booster engines.

  The post box was on the corner of the road, beside the gate to the farm. The next collection was at one o’clock. Boo and Ruth handed their boxes to Amy.

  ‘Four, five, six!’ Amy pushed the last of the eggs inside the box. ‘Phew!’ she said, wiping her forehead with her wing. ‘Thank goodness that’s over.’

  ‘Er, it’s not quite,’ said Ruth, adjusting her super-spec headsets. ‘Take a look over there.’

  Amy pulled down her headset. She blinked. About half a kilometre away, trotting along the ditch beside the road towards them were Thaddeus E. Fox and Virginia Fox Diamond. ‘Barn it!’ she swore softly. Now they were in trouble. If the farmer wasn’t there to protect the coops, the foxes would run amok. ‘What have we got in the way of weapons?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ Ruth said.

  ‘Nothing!’ Amy squawked. ‘What about the mite blaster?’

  ‘We left the mite tube at Aunt Mildred’s,’ Boo said. ‘And we’re out of tacks. We used them all up on Cleopatra.’

  ‘Bloomin’ peck!’ Amy exclaimed. She didn’t usually swear this much, but this was turning into an emergency!

  ‘We’ve still got the snake-charming flute and the net but I don’t think Thaddeus will fall for that,’ Boo said. />
  ‘Is there anything at the farm we can use? Anything at all?’ Ruth asked. Amy wracked her little chicken brain. It was then that she had a second flash of chicken genius.

  ‘Maybe,’ she said, her eyes gleaming. ‘Come on. It’s time you met my friends.’

  Thaddeus E. Fox strolled confidently up the farm track. NOTHING COULD STOP HIM NOW. The farmer was out. He and Virginia had spotted the tractor ploughing the field a little way back. He would kill all the chickens at Perrin’s Farm – every single one of them – take his pick of the plumpest and juiciest to eat and leave the farmer to clear up the remains. He didn’t care any more about Snooty Bush and his battery farm. He didn’t care about Virginia Fox Diamond and her chain of Foxy’s Fast-Food Restaurants. All he wanted was REVENGE.

  The two foxes reached the farmyard. Thaddeus took in his surroundings. The barn stood on one side of the yard, the chicken coops on the other. Behind the coops was a grassy field where horses grazed and beyond that was an orchard. A chicken pen had been set up in the orchard, but no chickens were in it. In fact, there was no sign of any birdlife anywhere.

  ‘I don’t like it,’ Virginia Fox Diamond said uneasily. ‘It’s too quiet.’

  ‘That’s because you’re a city fox,’ Thaddeus said. ‘In the country it’s different.’

  ‘Where are the chickens then?’

  ‘In the coops. They’re only allowed to graze in the orchard when the farmer’s here to protect them. And they won’t come out unless they think there’s food to be had.’

  ‘You’d better be right,’ Virginia said.

  Thaddeus ignored her. Virginia was turning out to be a complete pain in the brush.

  The farmyard was protected by a picket fence that ran all the way around the edge. The fence was trimmed with green wire netting. They couldn’t go over the top. But they could go underneath. Thaddeus trotted over to the gate. The ground beneath had been worn into a hollow by the farmer’s boots. It was just big enough for a fox to squeeze under.

  ‘Follow me,’ he said.

  The two foxes wriggled under the gate.