Poultrygeist

The Amazing Case of the Haunted Henhouse.

- Bob Morrow

IT WAS PRECISELY 3:31 a.m. on the morning of October 31 when Farmer Bob’s chickens spilled out of the henhouse, screeching and squawking and flapping their wings in great distress.

Farmer Bob awoke with a start and grabbed his slippers. He rushed out into the night, bump, bump, bumping down the back porch steps on his rear end as he tried to yank them on. With one slipper on and the other halfway off, he raced to the henhouse.

“What’s the matter with you chickens?” he cried, as the frantic fowl flapped around in a flurry of dust and feathers. Farmer Bob quickly counted his chickens. Yup, they were all there: twenty-six gawky, white Leghorns and Carmenella, the fat Rhode Island Red.

Carmenella desperately hopped up and down at Farmer Bob’s feet, trying her best to tell him what was wrong. “The henhouse is haunted!” she squawked. “There’s a ghost in there! It rose up out of the straw and crept around, and then it got all white and wavy! It near about scared the eggs out of us!”

Farmer Bob didn’t understand. He poked his head inside the henhouse, turned on the tiny electric light, and saw nothing out of the ordinary. “It’s too early for chickens to be up,” he said, trying to shoo the birds back to their roosts.

They wouldn’t go inside. Instead, they ran off flapping and squawking in all different directions.

“Chickens,” muttered Farmer Bob. “It must be the full moon.” He went back to bed in a grumpy mood.

Carmenella was not happy about spending the rest of the night in a bush. By dawn, she was both determined to get to the bottom of this mystery and afraid to go back into the henhouse. She decided she’d need help, and she knew just who to see.