Henry and the fox
When Henry visited his grandparent’s house he loved to collect the eggs that the chickens had laid. So when he got out of mum’s car and had given Baba and John a hug he raced up the garden, across the lawn, past the lime tree, past the pond, and onto the path by the chicken run.
In the middle of the path was a fox!
He was a large fox, some people would say that he was handsome; but Henry knew that foxes kill chickens.
Henry stopped. The fox growled at him. It was a big fox. If the fox had jumped up and put his paws on Henry’s shoulders he would have been taller than Henry. Henry wanted to turn round and run as fast as he could, down the garden, past the pond, past the lime tree and across the lawn and into Baba and John’s house slamming the door behind him.
But he knew that if he did the fox might jump into the chicken run and ... - he didn’t want to think what might happen then. So although he was trembling and although he wanted to cry he puffed up his chest, waved his arms and shouted as loudly as he could ‘“Go away!”.
The fox did not move.
Henry really, really, wanted to cry.
But then he did a very brave thing.
He took a step forward toward the fox still shouting “Go Away” and waving his arms.
The fox turned round and disappeared through a hole in the hedge.
Henry was so happy even though his legs felt that they were going to fold up underneath him. He turned to run back past the pond, past the lime tree across the lawn and into Baba and John’s house.
But then he stopped. “What about the chickens, are they OK?” he thought.
He opened the gate and went into the run. There should be nine chickens, five white and four grey.
He counted the white chickens who were scratching in the patch just inside the gate. One, two, three, four,five he counted. There were three grey chickens perched on the branch on the other side of the run. “Only three!” .Just as he was getting really worried he heard behind him that special clucking that chickens make when they have laid an egg and he turned round to see the fourth grey hen coming out of the nestbox.
He was so happy that he almost forgot to collect the eggs
Lucky he remembered, because for the very first time every chicken had laid an egg.
.“Nine eggs” he shouted as he ran past the pond, past the lime tree and across the lawn.