The chicken who was really the Bayam had never been in a wicker basket before; somehow, for all her centuries in the Strong-hold, she had managed to avoid being caught. But she had seen other chickens – birds she knew, birds she had roosted beside – taken away in them. And none of those chickens had ever come back.

So when she found herself being carried to the kitchens, crammed up tight against eleven other chickens, with their feathers filling her beak and their wing bones poking her in tender places, she was deeply alarmed.

Eek! she thought.

And when the wicker basket was dumped roughly on a table, and she heard the scrape scrape scrape of a chopper being sharpened, and the bubble bubble of a large pot of water, she was terrified.

EEEK!

All around her, the other chickens were mumbling their protests at being tossed on top of each other and squeezed up so close. They complained about being taken away from their dust baths. They scolded unknown persons for interrupting their day so rudely.

But the Bayam chicken didn’t make a sound. She flattened herself against the bottom of the basket, as if she was just out of the egg and hiding from monsters with hot breath and sharp teeth. So when the lid of the basket was eased up and one of the chickens was taken out, it wasn’t her.

She heard an alarmed squawk, cut off suddenly by the thunk of a chopper. She heard a splash, as something the size of a headless chicken was dipped in hot water. She smelled blood, and scalding feathers.

EEEEEEEEEK!

She crouched lower.

One by one, the other chickens were taken from the basket. One by one, the Bayam chicken heard that awful squawk, and that terrible thunk.

Helphelphelphelphelp! she thought.

But no help came.