Clever Chicks

by Rebecca Johnson

  ‘I’ll have to run it by Ms Sterling, and get permission from the shopping mall, of course,’ said Mrs Parry, ‘but I’ll see what I can do.’

  The girls all hugged their chicks excitedly.

  ‘We’d better keep working on your tricks, Aussie,’ said Hannah. ‘We don’t want you getting stage fright!’

  The girls went back down to see Mr McPhail, but there was still no news. They spent the rest of the afternoon doing washing and tidying their room. None of them could relax or sit still, so their chores were a good distraction.

  ‘Ha! That’s where that sock has been hiding,’ said Abbey, finding a sock between the sheets at the bottom of her bed.

  Mrs Bristow was back for dinner, and she seemed a lot calmer, although she spent most of her time in the back of the kitchen rather than patrolling the dining hall for dropped peas and girls chewing with their mouths open.

  ‘Ms Sterling must have talked to her,’ whispered Talika.

  Then the door to the dining hall opened and Mr McPhail came in.

  ‘That’s odd,’ said Hannah when she saw him as Mr McPhail was usually at home by now.

  ‘Maybe he’s got the results,’ said Abbey, turning towards him.

  Mr McPhail didn’t look at the girls but walked straight into the kitchen and spoke to Mrs Bristow, then he came back out and approached the three friends. His face was serious and full of concern.

  Abbey found Hannah’s hand under the table and held onto it, terrified of what might happen next.

  ‘Girls,’ said Mr McPhail, quietly, ‘can you come with me?’

  Abbey couldn’t move her legs.

  ‘Has Pepper got it?’ she whispered, searching the teacher’s eyes for an answer.

  ‘Just come with me,’ he said, gently. Together, the four of them walked to the door. Elizabeth was watching, and she followed.

  ‘Where are we going?’ said Hannah. ‘Can you please tell us what’s going on, Mr McPhail?’

  ‘Let’s just go to Ms Sterling’s office. She wants to talk to you all together.’

  Abbey felt instantly nauseous. Her mouth kept filling with saliva and she swallowed hard, trying to make it go away.

  Ms Sterling was waiting for them in her office.

  She smiled when they entered and asked them to sit down, but the smile did not make it to her eyes.

  ‘Pepper’s got Hendra, hasn’t he?’ said Abbey, unable to hold back her tears.

  ‘The results aren’t back yet,’ said Ms Sterling, ‘but Pepper is sick.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Hannah, covering her face with her hands. Elizabeth pulled her sister towards her.

  Abbey stared straight ahead. Her hand, now holding onto Talika’s, was shaking.

  ‘There has to be a mistake,’ she said, pushing her chin into the air. ‘This is a mistake. Horses get sick all the time. He could have a cold. He could have colic. Where’s Dr Brown? Is Dr Brown with him? I want to see Pepper.’

  Ms Sterling came around from the other side of the table and hugged Abbey. Talika was crying too now, and Elizabeth had gathered her into the hug she shared with her sister. Mr McPhail stood to the side with his hat in his hands, clearly not knowing what to do.

  ‘Abbey, listen to me,’ said Ms Sterling. ‘I’ve called your parents and they’re on their way. You just have to hang in there.’

  ‘Is Bedazzled sick too?’ sniffed Hannah. ‘And Pudding?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ cried Talika. ‘They have been in there together. If Pepper is sick, they will all probably get sick too. I read about it on the internet.’

  Miss Beckett came into the office and, with Elizabeth, helped the girls back up to their room.

  Abbey felt like a zombie as she changed into her pyjamas and crawled into bed. She pulled her head under the cow print doona and curled up into a ball.

  Miss Beckett sat on the edge of Talika’s bed and stroked her hair soothingly, trying to calm her down. Elizabeth spoke softly to Hannah too. It was only when the girls’ breathing fell into the deep and rhythmic pattern of sleep that Elizabeth and Miss Beckett slipped back into the hall.

  Abbey waited a full twenty minutes until she was sure they were in their own rooms. She opened the bedside drawer and drew out her torch silently. Then she pulled her tracksuit over her pyjamas and slipped on her joggers. Without a sound, she crept from the room.

  Abbey had worked out some time ago that if she walked right on the edge of the stairs, they didn’t creak. She held her breath as her feet carried her down the stairwell and along the corridor towards the laundry. There was no light coming from under Miss Beckett’s door. She heard a cough and Abbey froze. When silence returned, she tiptoed like a thief into the laundry and slowly unbolted the door that led outside.

  The cool air surrounded her immediately and her breath made little steam clouds as she trotted down the path past the stables. Then, breaking the most serious rule at Willowvale Girls Grammar, a rule that could see her expelled, she ran out through the front gates and down the road.

  Abbey jogged on through the darkness, trying to stick to the shadows. A dog barked in the distance and she could hear the swish of cars on the main road off to her left. Every now and then, she had to stop and pinch the stitch that cramped her sides, sucking air into her lungs. She turned right when she reached the road that led to the cane fields.

  Abbey had been frightened when she was unable to find her friends playing hide-and-seek last weekend, but that was nothing compared to the fear she felt now. She was in trouble, there was no doubt about that, but her fear of not seeing Pepper or not being able to thank him for being the best horse in the whole world, was greater than any fear she had for her own safety or the consequences of her actions.

  The headlights of a car coming from behind made her dive into the scrubby bushes that grew beside the road. Abbey held her breath as the car slowly drove past. She recognised the four-wheel drive vehicle immediately. It was Dr Brown’s car, but Abbey didn’t move. She waited until the red tail-lights were just specks in the distance, then clambered back out onto the road.

  It was more than twenty minutes before Abbey saw the first block of cane towering up like a huge wall.

  Sticking to the shadows, she peered into the darkness, trying to make things out in the dim light. She could see a car parked near the entrance to the cane field and the moonlight caught the flashes of white in the tape that surrounded it. The car was in darkness, and Abbey couldn’t see if anyone was inside. As she crept closer she knew that it wasn’t Dr Brown’s car. The tape across the gate had been lowered, perhaps to let Dr Brown enter the property.

  Abbey eased her way through the barbed wire fence about fifty metres from where the car was parked. Now in the cane field, she watched and waited.

  Sticking close to the edge of a cane block she crept forwards then stopped. She did it again and was just about to step out to move a little further forwards when the interior light came on in the car. She saw a man’s face she didn’t recognise.

  Abbey knew she’d have to go another way. She slowly turned around and crept back until she was behind the cane block. Now completely out of sight, she jogged down the track. But the dark path was rough and she stumbled on a tuft of grass, too afraid to use her torch in case it was seen. As she crept around the corner of the block she was met by an even deeper darkness. Abbey wished she had taken more notice of where the entrance was to the place where the horses were kept. She tiptoed along, looking down each lane to see if she recognised anything.

  When she came to the intersection of the third block of cane, she stopped in her tracks. Dr Brown’s car was parked only twenty metres away. Abbey could see that Pudding and Bedazzled where tied to the four-wheel drive’s bumper bar. Bedazzled pawed the ground impatiently.

  Both horses looked up when they saw Abbey, and Pudding nickered happily. No doubt he thought she might be bringing him a treat.

  Abbey put her fingers to her lips. She crept forwards. The headlights of the car
shone through the gap in the cane, lighting up the area within. She peered around the edge of the sugarcane and saw Pepper, her Pepper, being treated by two people covered from head to toe in protective suits.

  Abbey just wanted to see her horse, to talk to him and to tell him everything was going to be okay. She bent down and hid in the shadows beside Dr Brown’s car. Through eyes filled with tears she saw her beautiful chestnut gelding covered from head to toe in sweat and shifting his weight from one leg to another as he groaned in pain.

  She put her hand over her mouth to stop herself from crying out. Then, as she watched in what seemed like slow motion, the vet held up a large syringe and checked its level in the glow of the headlights.

  ‘Just destroy it, to be on the safe side. It’s obviously got Hendra.’

  Abbey recognised the voice. It was Bruce, the uptight, unfriendly man the girls had encountered when they first tried to leave the cane fields.

  Abbey saw Dr Brown’s shoulders rise as she took a deep breath and sighed. Then, to Abbey’s horror, the vet plunged the syringe into the horse’s neck.

  ‘Pepper!’ screamed Abbey as she launched towards him. ‘No! Pepper! Nooooo!’ She threw her arms around his neck, wet with sweat and foam, knocking Dr Brown away.

  ‘What on earth?’ bellowed Bruce. He pulled Abbey backwards as the horse collapsed and was now writhing around on the ground.

  ‘Do you realise what you’ve just done?’ he roared.

  Dr Brown stepped between them. ‘Bruce,’ she said breathlessly. ‘She’s a child and she’s upset. Just calm down! You’re making everything worse!’

  ‘Making everything worse?’ he yelled, pacing backwards and forwards. ‘Making everything worse? The kid has just exposed herself to Hendra. On my watch! How can it get any worse?’

  Abbey was on her hands and knees now, looking at her horse as he was bathed in the glow of the headlights.

  ‘Please don’t die, Pep,’ she sobbed.

  Bruce pulled his phone from his pocket and angrily punched numbers into the screen. When someone answered, he pushed past Abbey and said he wanted to speak to the Public Health Unit and that it was an emergency. Then he was gone.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Dr Brown,’ sobbed Abbey.

  ‘What are you doing here, Abbey?’ she said softly. ‘Everyone will be frantic when they realise you’re missing.’

  ‘I know,’ sobbed Abbey. ‘But I just had to see him. I had to say goodbye. I don’t care if I get sick.’

  Pepper was still thrashing around on the ground.

  ‘I have to get him up,’ said Dr Brown. ‘You need to go and sit in my car, Abbey, and stay there, do you hear me? I have to help Pepper.’

  Abbey was totally confused. ‘But . . . so you didn’t give him a needle to put him to sleep . . . forever?’ she said.

  Dr Brown looked horrified. ‘Oh no, Abbey! Is that what you thought I was doing? I was just giving him something to help with the pain. We don’t know if this is Hendra yet. We have to stay calm and wait for the results in the morning. Can you do that for me, Abbey? Can you stay calm?’

  Behind them they could hear Bruce yelling on his phone. They both looked at each other and smiled a little bit.

  ‘I can stay calm,’ said Abbey, and she hopped into Dr Brown’s vehicle.

  Dr Brown was able to encourage Pepper to struggle back onto his feet. Abbey watched through blurry eyes as the vet walked him around and around the rectangular block. He was unsteady on his feet and in a lather of sweat. His head hung down and he looked every bit as miserable as Abbey felt.

  When Abbey awoke, her parents were at her bedside.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked. ‘Where am I?’

  ‘You’re in hospital, Abbey,’ said her mother, squeezing her hand.

  Abbey strained as she tried to remember what had happened. Suddenly an image of Pepper on the ground came back to her.

  ‘Pepper!’ she said, sitting upright.

  ‘Abbey, listen to me,’ said her father, sternly. ‘You have put yourself at enormous risk. We know you love Pepper, but we love you, and you have to understand how dangerous what you’ve done is.’

  A nurse came into the room and checked a clear bag of fluid that hung on a stand next to the bed. It was then that Abbey realised she had a long thin tube coming from under a plaster taped to the back of her hand.

  ‘Am I sick?’ she asked, looking at each of her parents in turn, still trying to piece together what had happened the night before.

  Her mother eased her back onto the pillows. ‘We don’t know yet,’ she said. ‘If Pepper does have Hendra, and you’ve caught it by hugging him and getting his saliva on you, it can take five days to show. They’re giving you some fluids, just in case.’ Abbey’s mother was speaking in the quiet, slow way she always did when she was really worried about something.

  Her father stood at the window, looking out into the early morning and running his hands through his hair.

  ‘So I have to wait five days to find out if I’m sick?’ said Abbey. She should have been feeling frightened, but instead she felt sleepy and confused.

  ‘Abbey, just rest,’ said her father. ‘You were in such a state last night. When the ambulance picked you up from the cane fields, you fell asleep right in the back of the vehicle. Do you remember? You must have been so exhausted. Just try to relax until we find out what’s going on.’

  ‘Pepper?’ whispered Abbey, but she fell asleep before she heard a reply.

  Abbey had crazy dreams about horses falling into deep, deep holes. She and Talika and Hannah were desperately trying to pull them out but the animals were just too heavy.

  She heard a man’s voice talking to her parents. He said something about moving her to another hospital that dealt with infectious diseases if the results were positive, but she wasn’t sure if she had dreamt it or not.

  She thought she heard Hannah’s and Talika’s voices, but when she opened her eyes, she could only see her mother sleeping in the chair beside her hospital bed. She drifted back to sleep and had dreams of racing on Pepper up and down rows of sugarcane, unable to find a way out.

  Abbey slowly opened her eyes. She blinked to make sure she was seeing things correctly. There, crowded into her room, were Talika, Hannah, Miss Beckett, Mr McPhail, Ms Sterling and her parents. Even Dr Brown was there. They were all looking at her . . . and they were smiling.

  Abbey pushed herself up onto her elbows.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she said, looking at her mother and trying to make sense of it all. Was she still dreaming?

  ‘We came to tell you that Pepper had colic,’ smiled Dr Brown. ‘Just a really bad stomach ache from eating too many cane leaves. He’s fine.’

  ‘No Hendra?’ said Abbey in disbelief.

  ‘No Hendra,’ said a chorus of voices.

  ‘Which means the horses are able to go back to Willowvale!’ said Dr Brown.

  Abbey fell back on the bed and sobbed. Great big gasps of pure relief washed over her as Hannah and Talika hugged her so hard she thought she might suffocate.

  ‘You girls could give Suzy the Squeezer a run for her money!’ she said, barely able to breathe.

  Hannah and Talika laughed their heads off, but everyone else looked confused.

  ‘It’s a long story,’ said Abbey.

  Later when the doctor came in, they were told that Abbey could go back to school. ‘Can we pick up the horses on the way?’ said Abbey.

  ‘Already done,’ said Mr McPhail. ‘They’re probably still racing around their paddock happily. I don’t think they liked being locked up for so long.’

  Abbey looked at Ms Sterling. ‘Am I expelled for sneaking out?’ she said.

  Ms Sterling smiled. ‘No, Abbey Mason. You’re not expelled. But if you ever give us another fright like the one you did last night, I will personally walk you home to your front door, even if it is a six hour drive away.’

  Hannah, Talika and Abbey all got a ride back to school with her parents. As they
drove past the cane fields on the way, the quarantine tape on the fence fluttered in the breeze. Driving in the school gates, they saw their horses in the distance with their muzzles buried in fresh green grass.

  ‘Pepper!’ called Abbey, as soon as she clambered out of the car.

  Her lively chestnut neighed and cantered straight up to her, with Bedazzled hot on his heels. Pudding kept eating. He didn’t even look up.

  ‘I give up,’ laughed Talika. ‘I actually, truly give up!’

  ‘Well, at least he didn’t give himself colic eating cane leaves,’ said Abbey, hugging Pepper around the neck.

  After Abbey had said goodbye to her parents, the girls sat on the rail of the fence and watched their beloved horses for more than an hour.

  ‘We’d better go up and see how we can help with the chicken display,’ said Hannah, eventually. ‘Elizabeth has been doing heaps.’

  They walked into the science lab where there was a flurry of activity. Elizabeth had everyone organised either training chicks, painting signs or printing out photos of caged chickens. Mrs Parry had found some trestle tables they could use and had printed off a petition people could sign to send to the government calling for a ban on battery hens, which was a fancy way of saying chickens in cages.

  ‘How about this?’ said Talika. She’d borrowed the plush chicken from Abbey’s bed and had it sitting in the lid of an A4 photocopy paper box. On the front there was a sign that said ‘Caged chickens spend their whole adult life in this amount of space. Please help to stop chickens being kept in this way’.

  ‘Talika, that’s brilliant,’ said Abbey.

  On Saturday morning, the day girls joined them and all eighteen Vet Cadets, a teacher and the school captain of Willowvale Girls Grammar set up a stall at the front of the local shopping centre. Above them hung a huge sign saying: ‘Chicks Doing Tricks!’

  People gathered to watch as each of the girls showed what their little chickens could do. There were chicks who could ring bells, pull cords for food, choose shapes and colours and climb ramps and ladders. The crowd was clearly amazed that animals often referred to as dumb could be trained so easily.