Episode 2 – The Rooster Story

Amanda was never one to seem to take after either of our parents, though my aunt on my mother's side had hair as golden as Amanda's was. She held a fascination with birds, the outdoors; deer in general, and of all things, roosters. Each month, at various times, she would ask mother and father for a rooster; either on Christmas or on her next birthday. Our father eventually gave into her desire for one. He purchased it without my mother's consent, and in the same stroke he acquired mother's full-throttle fury for doing so.

"What?" mother shouted.

Dad asked her in the kitchen, "She's been asking for one since she could speak 'Rooster! Rooster!' "

"But a rooster, Allen?" my mother held a knife out in a menacing fashion. You could feel the heat rising in the kitchen from more by their conversation than the stove itself.

"That thing will cackle all hours of the morning; our neighbors, Allen!"

"Just wait," he proposed, "You'll see; all is well."

Particularly myself, I was deathly frightened of the thing.

It nearly attacked my friends and me as we came and went from the house. That contagion rooster always stood guard as if our home was a chicken coup, and we were the foxes who planned to carve out a meal from a chicken or two. He roused his feathers, stood erect in a soldier stance at the base of the front door; one leg pinned up underneath its belly feathers, and so ready to strike at the least movement he saw.

The neighborhood dogs took to incessantly badgering it, barking with such fierce anguish that the rooster would cackle, bob its head, prance around the dogs in semi-circle, and duck-walk back up to its spot on the porch when it was done.

Of course the only remedy my father saw in the situation was to allow the rooster residence in our house. This brought out more ire from my mother, even still.

"I'll NOT have a rooster in our house!" she harped.

She was carrying two kitchen knives this time; one for my father, and one for the rooster itself, "This is NOT an animal farm!"

"Annie," my father pleaded, "Think of your daughter."

"NO! Allen," she firmly held her voice down, though she gritted her teeth through those words, "That rooster is very aggressive… It might one day attack our children."

"Then we'll leave it in the basement."

"Oh good," she swore, "and hear the call every hour of the morning. No Allen! The rooster must go!"

And with that sweeping edict, the decree was final and set by the script from my mother's own words. Certainly Amanda was disheartened by the news when my father told her in her room later that night. She had often carried the rooster with her throughout the local neighborhood. She constantly looked behind to see if the rooster had finally laid an egg. It baffled her as to why the rooster did not do so.

"Come on Chicky," she would call it, "Lay your egg now."

Amanda would pause, swirl about her as she held the rooster in hand, round and round, and searched for the egg that must have dropped, but had somehow escaped her detection of it.

Father had a friend who owned a farm several hours north of the city and he had so inclined that his friend needed a watchful rooster to guard his hen house from the neighboring foxes. They popped in and about when they had a mind to the material fact that they were hungry. Amanda gave the rooster her dramatic 'goodbye's', short-tear farewells, and off the rooster went in the station wagon. That night Amanda went to her room alone, crept into bed, and cried softly till she fell asleep.

Author's Notes:

Author's Birthday Bash Sale - A Diary's House is available for only .99c from September 28 - October 6, 2012 midnight est time! Check out the reviews on goodreads/amazon - average rating to date 4.1667 /5.0000

'A Diary's House' is currently available for purchase on a multitude of websites including: Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Smashwords – to name a few. More information is provided on www . cdavidmurphy . com. There is also a heartbeat series on this site called 'Language from the Heart' . You can follow the extensive blog tour – details provided on www. promotionalbooktours . com, beginning September 24, 2012. Reviews are provided on www . goodreads . com