“Oh!” mom gasped, edging around a white
clump of feathers. “Are those chickens?” Mom asked as she spotted a second
clump of feathers a few feet away.
“Yes mom, what do you think they are?” I
said, my voice held some surprise and it trembled a bit before I could pull
myself together.
“Are they sleeping?”
“No mom.” I said flatly, exasperated.
“Are they dead?” She said incredulously.
“Well, what else would they be? Just look
at the way they are lying on their sides.”
“Are you sure they're not sleeping?” I
don't know how she could think they were sleeping.
“Mom, chickens don't sleep on the ground
like that. Besides, they would have moved when you got close to them.” I picked
up a stick, first making sure it wasn't a snake and waved it close to the
chickens. They didn't stir.
“We should tell dad.” I said, knowing
with my amazing intellect that that was the best way to deal with the problem.
“Well let's close in the chickens and go
and tell dad.”
“Fine.” I was getting just a bit unhappy
about being outside in the dark with two dead chickens at my feet. I walked
forward to close in the chickens and then leapt back. I had heard a hissing.
“Did you hear that?!” My voice wavered
with real fear.
“Hear what?” Mom asked skeptically.
“That hissing! Didn't you hear it?”
“Noooo.”
I frowned at her. I was not going to
close the chicken coop and risk dying. Knowing that I had a longer life ahead
of me than my mother, I kindly allowed her to close in the chickens.
Then getting too jumpy and too nervous to
carefully examine every stick to make sure it wasn't a snake, I ran back
inside.
“Hey dad,” I said my eyes glittering with
the excitement of everything. “There are two dead chickens out back, and I
heard a hissing in the hen's house.” All my fears had vanished upon entering
the brightly lit up and snake-free house.
Dad soon armed himself properly with a
plastic baseball bat and a broom. Dressed in a wet white T-shirt with a picture
of a globe on it and red shorts he went to vanquish the foe.
All us kids danced around inside waiting
for him to return.
Dad soon returned undefeated, or at least
not yet dead. He was not quite victorious either. The snake was still alive.
“I'm glad I didn't try to get it. I heard
it's hissing, its huge!”
I was flattered and greatly gratified.
“See!” I told mom.
Then as dad was too smart to go into
combat with the great serpent, everyone decided the best course of action was
to call over the neighbor with great snake killing capabilities.
After that everything wrapped up nicely.
With two gunshots the snake was dead and everyone rushed outside to behold the
fallen foe. It's black scaly dead body twisted in figure eights even after it's
head was chopped off. There were lumps in it's scaly profile that told us it
had been munching on eggs. The headless corpse finally decided to settle down a
bit and it was thrown in the bushes beside our property. It was about four feet
long.
My parents weren't so insistent that I
close in the chickens after that.
- Summer
