Chapter Ten

‘He crowed, did he?’ said Jemima’s father when she told him.

‘Yes,’ said Jemima. ‘That means he’s a proper grown-up cockerel now, doesn’t it, Dad?’

The farmer looked thoughtful. ‘You know, Jemima,’ he said, ‘I think it’s time you thought this business through – I mean, about Frank wanting to be a duck. OK, he enjoys swimming in the pond, but it’s not natural. He should be running around with the rest of the flock, stretching his legs, preening his feathers, behaving like the chicken he is. He can’t do any of that while he’s dressed up in bits of an old hot-water bottle and a pair of rubber gloves.’

‘Well, what d’you think I should do, Dad?’ asked Jemima.

‘Nothing for the present. But I think we’ve got to give him something to tempt him out, something that will be more attractive to him than the ducks.’

‘Like what?’

‘Well,’ said Jemima’s father, ‘now that he’s a big boy, what he needs is a nice girlfriend. That’d really give him something to crow about. Tell you what, next market day, I’ll have a look around the poultry pens and see if I can find a pretty little pullet for your Frank.’

Frank, too, was thinking of his future. As he watched the flock running helter-skelter across the orchard when Jemima came with food, as he saw them scratching about in the grass or taking a dust bath and then preening their feathers, he began increasingly to feel that he had become a prisoner of his own ambition. Because he had wanted to swim like a duck, was he to spend the rest of his life stuck inside his wetsuit so that he couldn’t preen or have a dust bath, with his feet confined in his artificial webs so that he couldn’t scratch and couldn’t run? He remembered how his late father, the big red rooster, had strutted noisily and proudly among his many brown wives. Was he, Frank, never to have a wife of his own?

Over the next couple of days he found himself spending less time on the water and more on the land. At feeding times, he even tried talking to some of the flock, and went as far as saying, ‘Hello, Mum, how are you?’ to Gertie, but she did not answer.

Jemima, meanwhile, was consulting her mother. She it was, after all, who had been to all the trouble of designing Frank’s swimming costume.

‘What d’you think, Mum?’ she said. ‘Should we take it off him? He doesn’t seem to want to swim as much as he used to.’

‘If we take it off him, he won’t be able to, will he?’

‘Can’t we just try and see what happens?’

‘OK, we’ll do it tomorrow. I’m a bit busy today.’

As things turned out, it was just as well that Jemima’s mum postponed the undressing of Frank. For that evening, the old dog fox sneaked back and lay up once more in the nettle patch. Most of the flock had already made their way up to the henhouse and only Gertie and Mildred were still down at the far end of the orchard, having a last forage in the grass.

Though they were not as firm friends as they had once been, Mildred had partly wormed her way back into Gertie’s good books, mostly by toadying to her. Now, looking up at the sky, she said, ‘Don’t you think it’s getting late, dear? Time for bed. Come along now.’

Gertie did not like to be told. ‘I’ll come when I’m good and ready,’ she said.

Frank was still standing by the edge of the duckpond. The ducks had gone in, but he stayed, his eye on his distant mother. I’ll try and have a word with her as she goes by, he thought. She might give me some advice on what to do.

As he peered down the darkening orchard, he saw the figure of Mildred approaching.

‘Isn’t Mum coming?’ he asked her.

‘Don’t know, I’m sure,’ said Mildred huffily as she went by.

I’d better go down and see what she’s doing, thought Frank. It’ll be dark soon. But then he saw his mother turn and begin to walk up the orchard towards him.

Then he saw a bushy-tailed red shape emerge from the nettle patch and follow …