Sweet Summer Chicken

“Jonathan, you can’t!” Jamie screamed at her brother. “Mom’ll kill you!”

“Not if she doesn’t know, she won’t,” Jonathan shushed her clutching the precious box to his chest. “And she won’t find out if you keep your baby, blabber mouth shut!” He poked his head around the corner of the house and scanned the back porch. The coast was clear.

Tip-toeing with elaborate care over his mother’s marigolds and snapdragons, he balanced the precious box on one shoulder, crept around the railing and up the porch stairs. Heart slamming a frantic drumbeat against his ribs he paused at the kitchen door, listening for sounds of his mother’s activity. A soft melody drifted from the back of the house. Jonathan loved it when she sang. It meant she was happy and at peace.

Inch-by-inch Jonathan pulled the screen door open, praying it wouldn’t betray him with its sometimes wood-on-wood screech. Jamie nibbled her thumbs and glared at him.

“I’m tellin’ you, Mom’s gonna have your hide on the wall when she finds out.” She tapped her right foot on the dirt path in irritation. Puffs of summer-dry dust puffed around her ankles with each smack of her little bare toes. She crossed her arms over her skinny chest in mimic of her mother’s posture when she was about to discipline them. Jonathan rolled his eyes and shot a prayer heavenward.

“Please make her stay put and mind her own bees-wax,” he whispered.

Sometimes little sisters are too much to bare, he thought as he slipped through the screen door easing it closed lest it smack shut with a slam and give notice of his entrance. A dim quiet cloaked the kitchen. A pair of massive oaks overhung the house and sheltered it from the harsh glare of the afternoon sun. He paused letting his eyes adjust.

Jonathan peeked out of the kitchen door and down the hall. The mid-day heat hadn’t penetrated the house's cool and soothing interior. He inhaled the aroma of the sweetbriar in a huge, cobalt blue vase on the hall table. For as long as Jonathan lived the scent of sweetbriar reminded him of his mother on summer afternoons. The rhythmic creak and squeak of the rocker echoed down the hall. In his mind’s eye, Jonathan watched his mother rocking and stitching – mending was a never-ending task – and heard her singing in a pure sweet voice.

He crept down the hall avoiding floor boards that groaned or squeaked, and gave away the presence of unwary sneaks. Flexing his shoulders and settling the box snug against his slight frame he mounted stairs that looked as if they climbed to the heavens. He paused between each step, wary for any tell-tale hint of discovery. A huge sigh of relief escaped as he slipped into the safety of his sanctuary.

He rested his back against the door and heard it click softly shut. Heat poured in waves off the sloped ceiling of the long, narrow attic room. On summer afternoons the over-like atmosphere drove him downstairs, but it was perfect for what he had in mind now. A tiny window high at the apex of the roof shed a dappled patchwork of sun light across the floor. Dust motes danced slow pirouettes in the heavy air. Beads of sweat formed above his brow as he tucked the precious box into a hidden cubby in a low, shadowed corner.

He cracked open the box lid and slipped his hand in. The egg was smooth and still warm. He sighed. He felt just the slightest bit guilty at having snatched it from under the momma hen’s fluffy, feathered rear. She’d nearly pecked his hand raw trying to defend her eggs. Heck she has four left, he thought. She shouldn’t be so stingy.”

“You will hatch my little beauty,” he chanted over the pale brown egg. “You’ll be plenty warm here and I won’t have to sit on you.” The attic cocooned the heat all though the night during the summer months. “I’ll be back to check on you before dinner. Gotta go now. Can’t leave Jamie alone too long. She might get in a fuss.”

He patted the precious egg one more time, balanced the lid against the side of the box cleverly hiding the contents. “Just in case . . .” he mumbled.

When he reached the back porch, Jamie was sitting on the top stair chewing a dried straw, knobby elbows resting on her bony knees. “What took you so long?” she demanded.

“Had to make sure it was settled just right.”

“Sheesh, it’s just a stupid egg. It’ll never hatch anyway. You eat eggs not hatch ‘em,” she said with all the wisdom of her eight years.

“Where do you think chickens come from, Doofy?” Jonathan nudged her in the side as he slid to a seat on the porch step beside his sister.

She rolled her eyes again. “Mother chickens,” she snapped. "And don't call me 'Doofy'?"

“Eggs!” he snapped back. “It will hatch and I’ll call you Doofy if I want!”

“What if mom finds out?”

“She won’t. Nobody goes in the attic this time of year. Too hot. By the time anyone knows my chicken will be hatched and all grown up.”

“Well if it does hatch you better keep it out of the bathroom.”

“Why would I take it in the bathroom?”

Jamie’s gaped at her brother in astonishment. “Duh! To take a bath, of course.”

Jonathan glared at his sister. “Chickens are birds and birds use birdbaths!”

“Well if it uses that birdbath, Mom will see it and it’ll be bathing in gravy in her chicken noodle casserole!”

“Oh!” He was startled at the thought, “Maybe I better take it in the bathroom after all.”

“Only if it hatches,” Jamie snapped jumping up and running across the withered lawn.

“It will hatch!” Jonathan hollered running after her.

The children’s mother smiled a secret smile and scampered up the attic stairs, a fuzzy, yellow, chirping, baby chick cradled in her hand.