Reading progress update: I've read 200 out of 380 pages.
We were eating lunch when a chicken walked out of the woods.
“Anna, look behind you.”
She turned around. “What the heck?”
We watched as the chicken came closer. It pecked the ground, not in any kind of hurry.
“There was one more after all,” I said.
“Yeah, the stupid one,” Anna pointed out. “Although it’s the last one standing, so it’s done something right.”
It came right up to Anna and she said, “Oh, hi. Do you not know what we did to the rest of your kind?”
It tilted its head and looked up at her as if it were trying to figure out what she said. My mouth watered. I thought about the chicken dinner Anna and I would have. But then she said, “Let’s not kill this one, T.J. Let’s see if it lays eggs.”
I built a small pen. Anna picked the chicken up and put it inside. It sat down and looked at both of us like it was happy with its new house. Anna put some water in an empty coconut shell. “What do chickens eat?” she asked.
“I don’t know. You’re the teacher. You tell me.”
“I taught English. In a major metropolitan area.”
That cracked me up. “Well, I don’t know what it eats.” I bent down by the pen and said, “You better lay eggs because right now you’re just another mouth to feed, and if you don’t like coconut, breadfruit, and fish, you may not like it here.”
I swear to God that chicken nodded its head.
It laid an egg the next day. Anna cracked it into an empty coconut shell and scrambled it with her finger. She put the coconut shell near the flames and waited for the egg to cook. When it looked done, she divided it between us.
“This is fantastic,” Anna said.
“I know.” I finished my share in two bites. “I haven’t had a scrambled egg in so long. It tastes just like I remember.”
The chicken laid another egg two days later. “That was a good idea you had, Anna.”
“Chicken probably thinks so, too,” she said.
“You named the chicken, Chicken?”
She looked embarrassed. “When we decided not to kill it, I got attached.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “Something tells me Chicken probably likes you, too.”
A chicken named chicken?
This book is perfection.I'm loving it and it's been a while since I really enjoyed a romance book.