by Anna Wilson
‘What do you mean . . . ?’
‘In a word,’ said the cat, ‘revenge.’
Meanwhile Wilf was feeling more and more miserable.
Titch hasn’t found her way home yet and it’s getting dark,’ he said. ‘And Mum says it’s good riddance because she never wanted Titch anyway and she hasn’t laid any eggs, so she is a “good-for-nothing birdbrain”!’ His eyes were wide with alarm, his little freckled face pale in the evening gloom. ‘I’ve looked everywhere, Grandma,’ he went on. ‘I took my head torch and I looked under all the bushes and shrubs. I think – I think something must’ve got her!’
Grandma took Wilf by the shoulders. ‘Don’t despair,’ she said firmly. ‘She must be out there somewhere. I’ll help you look.’
She shot an anxious glance at Ned who seemed to be prowling around Brian’s cardboard box. ‘I think we should take Brian back out to his hutch while we’re at it.’
Wilf glanced across at the animals. It’s not Ned you have to be worried about in this house, he thought.
They picked up Brian, took their coats off the pegs by the back door and went out into the garden with a big torch, which Grandma said would be better than only a head torch to guide them.
Once the guinea pig had been returned to his hutch, Wilf and Grandma searched high, low and in between. They looked underneath and in the middle of every place in the garden they could think of. They looked in the greenhouse and in the garden shed. They even hunted in the compost heap and the bonfire pile. But Titch was nowhere to be seen.
Wilf was in tears now. He knelt down by Brian’s hutch and whispered, ‘Oh, where did she go, Brian? Can’t you tell me?’
Brian squeaked and squeaked and dug himself deeper into his bed of sawdust and sat there, his pink nose quivering, as though he was feeling very sorry for himself (which, of course, he was).
‘Wilf, love, I think we should go in.’ Grandma had come up to the hutch and was crouched down, listening to her grandson talking to his guinea pig. ‘I’m not sure there’s much more we can do tonight. Come on, we’ll make a plan of action for tomorrow.’
Wilf got up slowly and wiped his eyes on the back of his sleeve. ‘I don’t want anything to happen to her!’ he sniffed.
‘I know,’ said Grandma.
‘I wanted to take her to that pole tree show,’ he went on.
‘And you will,’ said Grandma.
But Wilf did not think she sounded very sure about that.
Brian was finally dozing off when he heard a scratching noise on the other side of his bedroom wall.
He jerked awake and held his breath as he tried to work out what it was. Surely the Terror would not come out in the dark?
‘Brian?’ said a voice.
It didn’t sound like the Terror. It didn’t sound like the cat either.
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
‘Brian! You dozy little—’
‘T-Titch?’ said Brian. ‘Is that you?’
‘Who else would it be?’ said the hen.
‘You could be anyone! You could be Ned in disguise. You could be a rat! Rats spread germs. I have enough problems without germs!’ Brian squeaked. ‘I’ve probably already got bird flu anyway, thanks to you—’
‘Oh, for goodness sake,’ clucked Titch. ‘Forget it. I only came to say goodbye.’
Brian shuffled out of his bedroom and peered into the darkness. ‘So, it really is you.’ He sounded almost disappointed. ‘Well, I – I can’t let you in. Wilf and Grandma have gone and I can’t undo the door. You know that. You’re going to have to stay out all night!’ The guinea pig hurled himself at the wire mesh to demonstrate the hopelessness of the situation. ‘Look! It’s solid! I can’t break it down! Oh no, what are we going to do?’ He was winding himself up into a full-scale panic attack. ‘This is all my fault, isn’t it? If I had been kinder, if I had shared my food, if I hadn’t shouted at you . . . I’m sorry. I’m—’
‘Be quiet!’ Titch chirruped. ‘You’ll let the whole garden know I’m out here. Listen, I wanted to escape, didn’t I? I keep telling you, I don’t belong here. I deserve to be wandering free range, out in the fields and the woods, making a life for myself, doing something marvellous! I spent enough of my life hemmed in while I was in the chicken run. I’m sorry, Brian. There’s a whole world out there, and I intend to see it.’
‘In the middle of the night?’ squealed Brian. ‘But you can’t see anything at all – it’s pitch black!’
‘Aha, but that is where you are wrong,’ said Titch. There was a small click and the hutch was flooded with light.
‘Waaah! What’s that?’
Titch’s voice came from behind the light. ‘A head torch. Wilf dropped it when he was out looking for me earlier.’
Brian picked up a piece of corn and began nibbling at it nervously. ‘I – I need to tell you something about Out There,’ he squeaked.
Titch clucked impatiently. ‘What on earth could you tell me that would be of any use to me whatsoever? You never go anywhere unless you are lifted out by that horrible little girl. I doubt you even know what is at the bottom of the garden, let alone what lies beyond.’
The piece of corn got stuck in Brian’s throat and set off a nasty coughing fit. ‘Wait!’ he shrieked as Titch began backing away. ‘I need – craaauuugghh – to tell – blerurrugh – you!’ He eventually managed to dislodge the corn. ‘I need to tell you about THE MONSTER!’
She laughed. ‘There is no monster – it’s only Ned. I’ve worked that one out for myself.’
‘No, no!’ Brian insisted. ‘Ned is the least of your worries. Trust me, you do not want to be out in the garden after dark. There are animals far worse than Ned to contend with. I tried telling you this earlier, but you will not listen, will you? Have you ever met a fox—?’
‘You, Brian, are a nervous wreck!’ Titch cut in impatiently. ‘The only thing to fear is fear itself. I am going to prove it by going on an adventure. And if you are lucky I shall come back to visit you one day and I’ll tell you all about how marvellous it has been!’
Brian stopped chewing for a moment and put his head on one side. ‘You would come back and visit me?’ he asked shyly.
‘Yes, yes,’ Titch chirruped. ‘But first I am going to do a spot of reconnaissance.’
‘What’s that?’ squeaked Brian in alarm. ‘It sounds terrifying!’
Titch fluffed her feathers out and clucked. ‘It simply means that I want to take a good look around to plan my escape route. It’s what all clever spy types do, you know. I need to keep the area under surveillance.’
‘Surveillance? Escape route? Since when were you a spy?’ Brian twittered. ‘I thought you wanted to roam free and do “something marvellous”? Now all of a sudden you are a spy?’
But Titch was already moving away from the door. ‘I can’t hang around here all night,’ she said. ‘I’m a chicken on a mission. And anyway, you should get some sleep. It’s bad for your nerves to stay up all night.’
But the little hen did not feel so brave once Brian had retired, squeaking irritably, to his sleeping quarters. Suddenly the garden seemed darker than before, and the air was alive with strange noises.
‘Wooo-wooo!’
Titch leaped into the air in fright. It was all she could do to stop herself from squawking. ‘Now don’t go getting into a flap,’ she told herself sternly. ‘It’s all the fault of that Brian, filling your head with his stupid ideas.’
‘Sschhhhrrrrrreeeek!’
‘Oh, my goodness, oh, my goodness!’ Titch chirruped. She scuttled under the nearest bush and huddled down, shivering. ‘This was probably one of the stupidest ideas I have ever had! But it’s too late for regrets,’ she said, trying to make herself feel brave again. ‘And I can’t have that tail-less rat telling me “I told you so”. I need to keep my wits about me while I suss out the lie of the land.’
She took a deep breath and stuck her head out of the bush. A bright light suddenly flooded the garden, which nearly
made Titch squawk again. But then she looked up and realized where it was coming from.
‘Now you really are being silly,’ she told herself. ‘That must be the moon! I remember some of the girls in the chicken run telling stories about it. How beautiful and silvery it was. At last I get to see it for myself instead of being shut in all night.’ She sighed. Then, turning to more practical matters, ‘And the good news is, I won’t have to use this stupid torch to see by any more.’ She gave a swift kung-fu style kick at the switch and turned the torch off.
Titch looked about her, mesmerized by the beauty of the garden. The trees and grass were glowing, and the windows of the house shone like mirrors. As Titch let her eyes become accustomed to this new kind of light, she saw that there were thousands of stars out there in the sky as well.
‘This is the life!’ she cooed. ‘This is why I had to get out. There is a whole world to see and I am not going to miss it.’
She crept out from under the bush and tiptoed quietly into the middle of the lawn.
‘Where shall I go? I could fly up on to the roof and have a bird’s-eye view from there,’ she said.
She lowered her head, took a run-up and opened her wings as wide as she could, her little feet pounding the grass faster than they ever had before. Then she closed her eyes for the lift-off and flapped and flapped as hard as she could.
‘Would you like a hand?’ said a smooth voice from somewhere in the shadows.
‘Oh!’ cried Titch, coming back down to earth with a bump. She whirled round and flung her claws out, just to be on the safe side.
‘Dear me, madam,’ said the voice. ‘There’s no need to be so prickly. I was only being friendly. Although I apologize for alarming you. I must admit that the moonlight plays terrible tricks, does it not? Perhaps you cannot see me clearly.’ With those words, there was a rustling of leaves and a sleek, handsome face appeared in a gap in the hedge.
Titch felt rather ashamed of herself. All that talk of being brave and the only thing to fear being fear itself, and here she was getting terribly flighty – and being rude to an extremely polite and good-looking stranger.
‘I – I am terribly sorry,’ she twittered, fluffing out her feathery petticoats and bobbing a little curtsy. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’
The stranger bowed his head graciously. ‘That is quite all right. One never knows whom one might meet out and about on a night like this, but I can assure you, you have nothing to be scared of.’
And with that he stepped fully out of the shadows and gave a deep bow and a swish of his fine tail.
Titch did not mind admitting to herself that she was speechless. This was not something that had happened many times in her short life, but then again, she had never met anyone so debonair, so beguiling, so handsome.
The gentleman smiled and licked his lips. ‘What a perfectly delicious little creature you are,’ he said with a drawl. ‘Would you care to take a stroll through the garden with me?’
‘Oh – y-yes,’ said Titch.
‘Oh NO, more like!’ said a voice.
The attractive stranger whirled round, but his reaction was too slow. With a screeching war cry, a black-caped crusader (or so it seemed to Titch) had landed on his shoulders.
‘Gerroff! Gerroff!’ shouted the stranger, sounding decidedly less suave now that he was under attack. He leaped and twirled and swiped at the figure, but to no avail. ‘Get your claws off me!’
‘Only if you promise to leave right this instant,’ hissed the voice.
Titch was flapping in circles, clucking and chirping. If she had calmed down for just one instant, she might have realized that the voice belonged to someone she knew, but all she could think was, I have to get to safety! I have to hide somewhere!
‘All right, all right,’ said the stranger. ‘But this is just not cricket, you know. It’s finders keepers in my book. And I found her first.’
‘Yes, well, I think you’ll find this is a case of losers weepers, mate,’ said the voice. And there was another howl from the stranger as his attacker sank his claws in deeper to prove his point.
‘I’m going, I’m going!’ cried the stranger. And with that he gave a final shake to rid himself of his assailant, and melted silently into the bushes from where he had come.
‘Oh my!’ said Titch. ‘Please don’t hurt me, please don’t—’
‘It’s me, you fool,’ said the voice.
Titch peered at the dark figure, and then remembered her torch. She kicked at it and switched it back on.
‘Turn it off! For heaven’s sake, do you want to announce your presence to the whole garden? It’s not just foxes you have to careful of, birdbrain!’
‘Ned?’ exclaimed Titch. ‘Is that really you?’
‘Who else did you think it would be?’ said the cat. ‘The Queen?’ He waved a paw crossly towards the torch and repeated, ‘Turn it off!’
Titch did as she was told and let her eyes become accustomed to the moonlight again. Then she said cautiously, ‘What was that you said about – foxes?’
Titch had heard tales of foxes in the chicken run, of course. Terrible creatures, they were said to be, with needle-sharp teeth and razor-like claws, who liked nothing better than to tear a chicken limb from limb just for the fun of it. She shivered. ‘Are there really foxes? Here? In this garden? I thought that was just Brian telling me stories to unnerve me.’
Ned rolled his large yellow eyes. ‘Who the devil did you think that was you were talking to just then? Father Christmas?’
‘The devil? Father Christmas? I don’t know what you are talking about!’ twittered Titch.
‘Hmm, I can see that,’ said Ned. He washed one paw thoughtfully. ‘Where did you live before you came here?’ he asked.
Titch bristled. ‘I don’t see what that has to do with anything,’ she said.
Ned let out a short, sharp derisive miaow. ‘It has everything to do with everything!’ he declared. ‘You are hardly a chicken of the world. You say that you want to escape, to do “something marvellous” . . .’ He tailed off with a sneer.
‘Hey!’ Titch protested.
‘So, I’ve been listening in,’ Ned said, waving his paw dismissively. ‘It’s not hard. You and Brian make a noise fit to rouse a hedgehog from hibernation.’
‘To rouse a what?’ Titch cried.
Ned twitched his whiskers in amusement.
‘You don’t know what a hedgehog is either?’ He cleared his throat and in a droning, teacherly voice said, ‘A hedgehog is any of the spiny mammals of the subfamily Erinaceinae, which is in the order Erinaceomorpha. There are seventeen species of hedgehog in five genera . . .’
‘Oh, shut up,’ said Titch.
Ned started. ‘Charming,’ he said. ‘You really are a bird of very little brain. And you don’t get out much, do you?’
‘I am out here tonight,’ said Titch huffily. ‘And I’m going to stay out. I cannot remain with that tail-less rat a moment longer.’
Ned flicked his own long and fluffy tail. His mouth twisted once more into a look of amusement, but he persisted. ‘That’s all very well, but you simply have no idea of the dangers you will face. That creature reeling you in with his charming ways and silky smooth voice back there – that, my feathered friend, was a fox. A real live one!’ At this, poor Titch became flappier than ever. ‘You see?’ Ned continued. ‘Your reaction plainly tells me that you know what foxes do to chickens. But you had evidently never come across one before, or you would have taken flight the moment you saw him.’
Titch gave a fluttery sigh and flopped down on to the silvery, dewy grass. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘I know nothing about anything and I’ve never been outside a chicken run in my life – before coming here, I mean. I lived in a large enclosure with so many other chickens I had no idea how many there were. I did not even know all their names. It was intolerable! I know I’ve painted quite a different picture to you all, but I could see you had freedoms I had only dreamed of. I felt p
athetic in comparison. I have spent my whole life imagining what it would be like to roam the fields and hedgerows the older hens told us about in their bedtime stories.’
‘I see,’ said Ned. ‘So how did you escape?’
‘There was a rumour going round that some of us were going to be sent to new homes. The other hens were suspicious and did not want to be moved so they ran around the run clucking and flapping and causing a hullaballoo. But I thought, If only I can get out of the run, I can use it as the first stage in an escape into the wider world. So when I saw the farmer coming with some boxes, I sat very, very still so that I was easy to pick up.’
Ned was impressed. ‘That was extremely courageous of you,’ he said. ‘You had no idea of your destination?’
‘None at all,’ said Titch. ‘And I am now beginning to regret my actions. It seems I have left the frying pan only to find myself in the fire! I need to get out of here, Ned. I need to make the most of my life – you only get one chance to do something marvellous. Sharing a home with that bossy little Brian is even more unbearable than living with hundreds of other chickens. And as for those children: well, the boy is quite sweet, I know. But the girl—’
‘Yes, don’t get me started on the girl,’ Ned cut in. ‘She is not known as the Terror for nothing; she’s every bit as much a menace as the fox. Possibly more so. However, have no fear. I have a plan for dealing with her. But that will have to wait. If we don’t get you to safety, you will not survive the night. I am afraid you are not going to like this, but I feel sure you would be better off going back to your home – to Brian’s home,’ he corrected himself, ‘just until you have thought your escape plan through a bit more carefully.’
