Chapter Three
The Mayor of New York appeared on TV. Surrounded by chickens, he tried to be cheerful. ‘Everyone loves New York,’ he said, ‘and that includes chickens.’ This didn’t go over too well because people didn’t want the Mayor cracking jokes at a time like this. ‘Seriously, though,’ he went on, ‘we’re working at break-neck speed, all systems go, 24/7. Hey, we’ll have these chickens out of our hair in a New York Minute.’ ‘Yeh, like how?’ somebody shouted at the TV screen. ‘Keep in mind,’ the Mayor continued, ‘these aren’t ordinary chickens. They are super-chickens. In other words they’re a whole different kind of chicken from what we’re used to. But they’re still chickens. They aren’t invaders from outer space. So keep calm and don’t panic. They mean no harm. As a matter of fact, they are quite friendly.’ ‘Oh yeh?’ said the man watching at home, ‘What do I care if they’re friendly or not?’ ‘And besides,’ added the Mayor, ‘the President has assured me he will not rest while one chicken remains at large on the streets of New York.’ ‘I’m not holding my breath,’ the man replied. But he spoke too soon. Just at that moment a cloud of green smoke blew down his chimney. The man held his breath. He had no gas mask.
At first the President wanted to give everybody a gun to shoot the chickens. Fortunately his advisers talked him out of it. That would be far too dangerous, they pointed out, and anyway the chickens weren’t doing anything wrong. It wasn’t their fault if they couldn’t stop bringing chickens into the world; they were just doing what came naturally. ‘Then send in the army,’ the President shouted. But he soon realized that soldiers without guns would only add to the confusion. All the same, a solution had to be found. And fast.
Beulah was frightened. She rounded up as many chickens as she could, but it was no use. There were just too many of them and she couldn’t be everywhere at once. Already buildings were collapsing under the weight of chickens. Where was The Great Chicken when she needed him? He was responsible for this mess. Why didn’t he speak up?
At home in Minnesota Harry watched the Mayor of New York on TV. A chicken sat on the Mayor’s shoulder. Harry inspected her closely. Could it be Beulah? Harry believed it was. Obviously she wanted to say something. But Beulah couldn’t speak English, so she just flapped her wings and clawed the Mayor’s suit. Poor Beulah, thought Harry, she needs help.
Harry phoned the Mayor and told him he had a plan.
‘Wow,’ said the Mayor, ‘that’s a great plan.’ He was so impressed that he invited Harry to come to the Big Apple right away. Harry was delighted. His parents didn’t want Harry to go, but they finally agreed when the Mayor promised to look after him personally. Harry packed a bag and took the first flight to JFK. At the airport a helicopter waited to fly him to the TV studio where he and the Mayor were to appear on television together. Harry had never been in a helicopter before. As they rose into the air scattering chickens in all directions the pilot pointed to the streets below. The thruways leading into the city were blocked with chickens. Chickens covered every bit of pavement and the roofs of all the buildings for as far as Harry could see. Things were worse than he had expected.
When the helicopter landed chickens blew head over heels in the wind from the big blades. But by the time Harry stepped out of the chopper they had gathered around again to watch him shake hands with the Mayor. Then the Mayor took Harry’s arm and both of them waded knee-deep in chickens to the TV studio.
As soon as they were made up Harry and the Mayor took their places and the broadcast began. First, the Mayor introduced Harry. After that, a famous TV anchor asked him about his plan to rid the city of chickens. Harry was about to reply when a chicken landed on his head.
Harry grasped the chicken firmly by the ankles and lowered it to eye level. It was Beulah.
Beulah nestled under Harry’s arm. Harry explained to the TV audience that Beulah was his friend. She had led the chickens to New York but now she realized she had made a mistake. There were far too many chickens for her to manage by herself. She needed help, Harry said, and help was exactly what he intended to give her.
‘How,’ the interviewer asked, ‘will you stop these chickens from turning New York City into one big chicken coop?’
‘Well, you see,’ said Harry, ‘that is where my plan kicks in.’ Harry talked about his plan for three hours. Everybody thought it was a wonderful plan. At least it was better than having New York City destroyed by chickens. The Mayor, the Governor and the President gave Harry their full support. Harry was put in charge.
At last, one dark and stormy night with plenty of clouds in the sky, Harry’s assistants set up a giant movie projector on top of a skyscraper. As chickens laid eggs and beat drums in the streets, the projector flashed pictures of Beulah onto the clouds overhead. When Harry switched on the soundtrack, Beulah seemed to speak from the sky like The Great Chicken himself. Unfortunately the chickens down below were too busy laying eggs to notice. Harry turned up the volume to an ear-splitting squawk. That did the trick. The sight of their leader scolding them in true-to-life color stopped those disorderly chickens right in their tracks. Those who, moments before, had thoughtlessly beaten drums and laid egg after egg, were silent, weeping in shame as they gazed skyward. Slowly they formed into lines as Beulah gave them their marching orders.
Following Beulah’s instructions to the letter, they came from all over the city and trooped into Yankee Stadium. When the stadium was full to bursting, chickens crowded into the surrounding streets, until every chicken in town was either inside the stadium or watching the huge screens set up outside. On a platform in the middle of the playing field sat Harry, the Mayor and some other dignitaries who didn’t want to be left out.
They lowered Beulah from the ceiling on a trapeze. Her feathers were sprayed with platinum paint, making her glow in the dark like a neon sign. Beulah stood on the podium and waited for silence. No one, not even Harry, knew what would happen next.
Suddenly Beulah leapt into the air, flapping her wings and screeching at the top of her lungs. To Harry it sounded like swearing, but not being a chicken himself he couldn’t be sure.
Beulah bawled them out and didn’t stop until she had delivered a terrible warning. In English it went roughly like this: ‘In case you haven’t been listening, I will say it again. From now on any chicken that lays an egg will have its feathers removed one by one until it is completely bare and will be hosed down until it is totally wet. Furthermore, any such chicken will repeat the words, “I promise never to lay another egg” a thousand times a day while standing in a bucket of ice-water. DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?’
A deep hush fell over the audience. Chickens hung their heads. Beulah looked around and cleared her throat. All at once a sharp crack was heard, followed by a puff of green smoke the color of limes. Soon the whole stadium was filled with smoke. Beulah shrieked and cackled and flapped but it was no use. Laying lime eggs is habit-forming and nothing Beulah said or did could stop it for long. Beulah had quit laying eggs, but she was special; Beulah was reliable. The rest of them were immature, they wanted to stop but they couldn’t.
Fortunately Harry had a back-up plan. He had to get a million chickens out of the city. For now that was all he could do. Later on he could figure out how to put an end to this egg-laying business once and for all. He took Beulah aside and showed her a drawing of a large open space filled with chickens. Beulah understood what he meant right away: he wanted her to begin the trek. Beulah returned to the podium. The chickens quieted down, waiting for her to speak. They were ready to do anything she asked them to, even stop laying eggs again, although of course they couldn’t stop for more than half an hour.
Beulah told them what to do. They made a path for her straight to the door of the stadium. And then, just as she had led them into the stadium, Beulah led them out of it. The chickens who were waiting outside joined the line and all of them, including several hundred newly-hatched chickens, followed Beulah out of New York City and into the countryside.
Beulah marched a million chickens one hundred miles to a place in the middle of nowhere, a place so far from civilization that no one had even heard of a lime-egg chicken before. The government built a high-tension fence around the chickens so they wouldn’t get any funny ideas and Beulah squawked commands from a helicopter. But the chickens went on laying eggs just the same. Everything depended on Harry. Sooner or later the chickens would break loose if he didn’t come up with a solution.
Reporters camping near the enclosure where the chicken population was growing day by day wrote frightening stories with headlines like ‘Scientists Predict End of World as Chickens Multiply’, ‘Harry Baffled by Lime Egg Attack’, and ‘Green Cloud Mushrooms over Chicken Farm.’ Bloggers blogged and tweeters tweeted. They had plenty of advice for Harry, but Harry had his own ideas and he didn’t have much time. People were getting hysterical. They wanted to wipe out the chickens and have done with it.
Harry called a news conference. He explained that lime-egg chickens had to lay eggs, they couldn’t help it. Wiping them out would be cruel and hardhearted, he said. He hoped to prevent the world from being overrun by chickens by reducing the number of eggs laid by each chicken. He added that he was working on it. Reporters shouted questions, but Harry said he didn’t have any answers just yet.
Then one day, as he held his head in his hands and watched the chickens multiply, Harry had a brainwave, a stroke of genius really, because he had figured out how to prevent a single egg from being laid ever again, and do it without harming a single chicken. Harry was modest, but you had to give him credit. He saved the world from being demolished by chickens. Of course, he couldn’t have done it alone. Beulah was essential to his plan.
Beulah worked day and night, but despite her best efforts it took four months to finish the job. After all, she had to hypnotize over a million chickens. It isn’t easy to hypnotize a lime-egg chicken. First, you have to get its attention and stop its eyes from rolling. The trick is to back the chicken into a corner until you are eyeball to eyeball with it. Nine times out of ten this makes the chicken stop rolling its eyes and look straight at you. You are now ready to put the chicken into a trance. The best way, according to Beulah, was to make a sleepy clucking noise in the back of your throat. Cluck Cluck Cluck Cluck Cluck Cluck Cluck Cluck Cluck Cluck Cluck … Cluck. By the last cluck the chicken is usually in a trance. If it isn’t you have to start all over again. Some difficult chickens don’t go into a trance for an hour or more. When the chicken goes stiff as a board and keels over you know you have succeeded. Now you can tell the chicken what you want it to do. Naturally Beulah ordered it not to lay any more eggs. After that she threw cold water on the chicken, which ended the trance. The chicken was confused. It didn’t know what to do. Ordinarily it would have laid an egg. But instead it began pecking in the dirt. Beulah hypnotized every one of those lime-egg chickens: they didn’t even think about laying eggs anymore.
Everyone celebrated when they heard the news. Cars honked, sirens blared and people danced in the streets. The President gave Harry the Medal of Freedom. Beulah didn’t get the Medal of Freedom because she was a chicken, but Harry let her wear it every other day.
Now that the lime-egg chickens were behaving themselves, Beulah had time for an afternoon nap. One day as she was dozing off she heard a voice.
‘This is The Great Chicken speaking,’ the voice said. ‘As you know, The Great Chicken has placed you- whatever your name is- in charge of every lime-egg chicken in the world. Otherwise you would still be pecking dirt on a third-rate chicken farm in Minnesota. Unfortunately you have failed to discharge your duties satisfactorily. It would not be an exaggeration to say that The Great Chicken is deeply disturbed by your behavior, in fact he has a good mind to toss you in a bag of weasels and throw away the bag. On reflection, however, The Great Chicken has decided to be merciful. Does he expect you to seek forgiveness? No, he does not. Does he expect you to grovel? Of course not, although a little groveling now and then never hurt anyone. What he does expect, however, is that a miserable, selfish, treacherous, back-stabbing chicken such as yourself never again has the impudence to interfere with the natural reproductive functions of her fellow-chickens. In future, therefore, you will leave these chickens alone. You will not hypnotize them and you will never, never order them to stop laying eggs. In short, you will tend to your knitting. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?’
Beulah opened one eye. ‘Where have you been for the last three months?’ she asked.
‘In case it’s any of your business, The Great Chicken is responsible for the welfare of every single chicken in the universe. The Great Chicken is a diligent chicken but he cannot be in six places at once.’
‘You were on vacation, I bet,’ Beulah said, and went to sleep.
When Beulah woke up it was raining. Lightning sizzled in the trees and thunder rattled in the sky. A bolt of lightning sent a big blue flame running from one end of the fence to the other. For a moment Beulah could see everything clearly. The chickens were scared. Their eyeballs were big and round and red and the ground was covered with egg-shells.
Egg-shells? Beulah gave a terrible squawk.
Harry rushed out of the cottage the Mayor had built for him. He couldn’t believe his eyes. Chickens were laying eggs non-stop.
‘How did this happen?’ he asked, and Beulah, who didn’t understand English, knew the answer just the same. It was The Great Chicken. He was to blame for this catastrophe. The Great Chicken wanted lime-egg chickens to multiply and take over the world. At this rate he would soon get his wish.
Lightning hit the fence again. A ball of fire hissed and went out with a bang. Harry and Beulah looked at each other. Neither of them knew what to do. Things were happening too fast.
Then Beulah heard the voice again.
‘This is The Great Chicken speaking,’ it said. ‘The Great Chicken is a benevolent chicken. He is a soft-hearted chicken. Had he not been, he would have zapped you and your partner in crime to a crisp and stomped on your remains. But surely that will not be necessary. The Great Chicken has rescued these feeble-minded creatures. He has scared them back into their natural condition. From now on they will lay eggs like gangbusters. They will fill the world from the South Pole to the North Pole and from the Yellow Sea to the Red Sea with lime-egg chickens. The Great Chicken always gets his way. Suck it up.’
‘You ought to be ashamed,’ Beulah replied. ‘Why don’t you go on vacation and let us look after ourselves?’
‘Vacation? Vacation? The Great Chicken never goes on vacation. The Great Chicken maintains a tight schedule. The Great Chicken cannot sleep at night because his responsibilities weigh heavily upon him.’
‘Okay, but there are over a million chickens here. And now more are on the way. Somebody has to control them.’
‘The more the better, you irritating bird. Chickens must be allowed to accumulate. The human race must be taught a lesson it will never forget.’
‘What lesson is that?’
‘That it is one thing for people to eat chicken every day and fail to express their gratitude. That is bad enough. It is quite another to tell chicken jokes. Chickens are not amusing. The Great Chicken will teach people not to laugh at chicken jokes.’
‘I should think you’ve done enough damage as it is,’ Beulah said.
‘Your opinion is of no interest to The Great Chicken, The Great Chicken is always right.’
Beulah sighed.
‘I have an idea,’ she said. ‘You stop these chickens from laying any more eggs and I’ll build a Chicken Theme Park with a picture of The Great Chicken over the gate. People who eat chicken will have to pay money to The Great Chicken, and anyone who tells chicken jokes or says, ‘This tastes like chicken’ when it isn’t chicken will be beaten with a stick.’
The Great Chicken thought about it.
‘Nice try,’ he said.