"Chicken Run - Larch Haven Style"- Act I (For Blogging)

OThe Setting: Eggs were purchased and hatched in the Spring.  It is now mid-summer and there are 3 chickens and 3 roosters that belong to Miranda, and the three children: Michael (8), Alice (7) and Betty (5).

Alice (running into the front room, frantically calling):  

"The chickens are lost. The chickens are lost.   They are all gone.  I can't find them anywhere."

Grandmother: (calm but remembering that she has seen the Wood's sheep dog, Reno, chasing the chickens around through the trees half an hour previously.  She also remembers seeing Owen Wood chasing Reno, then capturing the dog, and then dragging it back home by its collar to its leash which is on Lot five.  At that point Grandmother is also remembering the 12-year-old boy down low, a toss-up as to whether the boy is dragging the dog, or the dog dragging the boy -- it might be the first is the case, and then it changes back to the other is winning and so forth.)  

"Don't worry.  Chickens know how to hide in the woods."  (She is thinking to herself, maybe the chickens have scrambled over the hill and are down on the road and on their way to the beach.

Alice: (throwing hands in the air and then onto her head and then back into the air.)  

"No.  I have been looking everywhere for them.  They are lost.  Really lost.  Someone has to come and help me find them."

Grandmother: "I think they will be OK."

(Alice goes out to the porch.)

(Suddenly through the front door comes a chicken, being chased by a dog, the dog is chased by Owen Wood.  Owen and the dog are chased by Alice, then Michael and Betty.  All appear to come through the door at the same time.  The chicken flies high toward the ceiling, hitting the light, then falls and perches on top of the round table that is between the two couches.  There are the 3 fake Inuit soapstone carvings, one wire basket and a chicken on the table now.  The dog is in pursuit, climbing with its paws on the couch that butts against the end table.  Again, the chicken takes flight, but it can't get out through the window.  With its wings beating madly against the window pane, it can't gain height and it slips down behind the couch.)

Alice (yelling): 

"Save the chicken, save the chicken!"

Owen (Now behind his dog, all the while pulling on the dog’s collar, trying to back him up, but the dog is not trained to back up.  It is in forward motion, trying to get that chicken that is trapped behind the couch.  He is yelling out to no one in particular, for no one has said anything.):  

"Sorry! Sorry!"

(Owen looks up from his crouched down position with the dog, at Miranda who has now entered the room):  

"Sorry! sorry!"

Miranda says nothing.  She strides up, takes the dog in her arms full on, then switches the dog off to her side, under one arm but it is a big dog.  The boy is willing to take the dog, but she does not hand it over.  She walks calmly out of the house and down toward the creek.  

Grandmother is wondering if Miranda is going to drown it.  

Alice is gathering up the chicken in her arms.

Grandmother: (not saying anything to anyone in particular, but thinking): "I’ll bet there is a trail of feathers and chicken shit to be found there behind the couch."

(She knows Michael has just hand mopped the whole marble floor this morning, for she has been supervising him, so she knows how clean this floor is/was.  Grandmother is also laughing, for she has just been an actor in an event that could not be staged.  She can't stop laughing, even though she can see that no other actor in the scene is finding this humorous.  Alice is still yelling out words about the chicken's close call with death.  Alice takes the chicken out of the front door.)

(Grandmother goes in to report all of this to Aunt Bonnie Wyora who previous to this, needed a quiet rest, long before all of this action takes place, so she has missed it all.)

Bonnie Wyora gets out of bed, goes to the front room and begins to move all of the furniture to see if there is any chicken shit behind the couch.  There is.  

She begins moving both couches away from the window, and tries to move the end table.  It may weigh 100 pounds. 

She can remember Grandmother upon buying it had said, 

“This is either real wood or concrete.” 

Bonnie Wyora really doesn't want any help cleaning. Nor does she want an audience for the way she is going to clean and tells this to Grandmother, who leaves the room, since Bonnie says:  

"I can’t clean while you are watching.   Go away.  Go blog this." 

Grandmother (speaking aloud but quietly and to no one): 

"I can blog this but I don't think I am quite capable of doing it so close to the event."

 (Still, she goes to try.) 

(Betty has needed to get right there in all of this action.  She now wants to see the chicken shit, since she has heard these two words together with a new emphasis.  She gets her nose right in the corner, close to the specimen.  The spot is easy to find, marked, for there is a feather also, seemingly a placeholder – as though to make chicken shit easier to find.  Betty comes up with her nose wrinkled saying): 

"Pee-yew." 

Grandmother (speaking to Betty):  

"Your chicken, your chicken shit.  You clean it up, Betty." 

Betty: 

"No, it is Miranda's chicken. She can clean it up." 

Grandmother (again): 

"No, your chicken. Your chicken shit."

(Betty shakes her head.  She is not going to clean it up. She cleans up other things, but not this. Her nose is still wrinkled up from the smell.)

Miranda comes back and the 3 women gather to try and make sense of what has just happened.  

Michael walks through the door for the first time.  He is ashen and can hardly move. 

Aunt Bonnie Wyora (notices Michael and turns to him): 

"Michael are you all alright?"

Michael is as stiff and still as a statue: 

"I am going to be OK.  Just don't talk about it." 

Aunt Bonnie Wyora: 

"No, you need to talk about what is wrong with your mother."

(Tears well up in Michael's eyes, his lip trembles more.  Aunt Bonnie Wyora and Grandmother start backing up.)

Aunt Bonnie Wyora: 

"We will go into the other room and take Betty with us".

(Betty is the five-year-old who likes to be a spectator in all dramatic scenes.)  

Bonnie (still speaking:) 

"You call us when you are ready to have us near again." 

(They back up, taking Betty with them.  Michael moves toward the arms of his mother.)

(Bonnie Wyora later comes to find Grandmother with a pair of pink shoes in her hands, from which she is going to wash off the chicken shit.) 

Bonnie Wyora (to Grandmother):  

"By the way, the Rogers have just phoned.  They have a chicken down there at the beach and wonder who it belongs to."

(Meaning the question is no longer "why did the chicken cross the road?" but is "why did the chicken cross the railroad tracks"?) 

The End...?

Addendum:  No chickens or dogs were killed in this, Act I.