It was a sad day.
The chicken had to go. Mikhailo had been saying it for a long time. He (the chicken, not Mikhailo) crows when Mikhailo is in the middle of business calls, and of course also in the mornings, starting at 3:17. Besides, he was very lonely and would always try to come inside. He would sit at the window next to the dogs and follow us around the yard.
At last we came up with a plan: the Hard Rain Children's Fund home where I visit my friend Carol agreed to take him in as a pet. We decided to buy a friend for him, but this proved more difficult than we had expected: No-one in the neighbourhood was selling chickens! I decided to go down to Lindelani (the children's prison), because when our chicken crowed, a chicken from one of the staff houses over there would always respond, so we hoped the owner could sell us a chicken. I was accompanied by Mikhailo's lab assistant, Charmaine. We ran into the odd-job man at Lindelani, who advised us to try Flip, one of the workers on our landlord's farm.
So we went to Flip, negotiated a good deal in about twenty seconds flat, and this evening we trapped and caught our poor chicken ("Kwaaa-puk-puk! Kwaaa-puk-puk!"), put him in a box and went to pick up his arranged bride at Flip's place. Mikhailo felt dreadful about having broken the chicken's trust. (He loved the chicken at sunset when we would sit outside and feed it, and the crowing didn't disturb civilization then, because civilization had gone home.)
I had pre-arranged with Carol that one of the boys, Eugene (who had shown the greatest interest in the coming of the chickens), would be personally responsible, so we took them over to the house and there we left them with instructions on care. The boys were all excited.
We drove home like two people who have just sent off their teenage son to study for three years in Borneo... |  |