At Home on Ladybug Farm (25 page)

Half an hour later, having tracked down baby chicks under the stove, behind the china cabinet, in the cabinets, and under the table, all were present and accounted for and safely contained inside a deep cardboard box from which they could not escape. Cici and Bridget helped Lori carry the box into the kitchen while Ida Mae stayed behind to pluck feathers from the dining room rug and Lindsay, pretending a savoir faire she could not possibly feel, tried to get Easter dinner back on track.

Cici collapsed into a ladder-back chair, and for the longest moment seemed incapable of doing anything but staring at her daughter. “A hundred and
forty-four
?” she said, again.

“There are two more boxes on the porch.”

“But . . . Lori!” Now it was Bridget’s turn to stare as she searched for words. “A hundred and forty-four! Chickens!”

“They were twelve dozen for a hundred dollars,” Lori said defensively. “We would have paid a lot more if we’d just bought a dozen.”

“We?” repeated Cici. “
We?
”

“But . . .” Bridget gestured helplessly. “I don’t understand. What . . . why . . . chickens?”

Lori spread her hands in a sincere gesture of apology. “I really didn’t mean to ruin Easter dinner, honestly, and I
never
would have brought them inside if I’d realized everyone was at the table, but Jonesie stopped by early—he had to go to his mother-in-law’s for dinner—and . . .”

“Lori,” Cici said. “The point.”

She took a breath, the spark of irrepressible excitement creeping back into her eyes, and declared, “The way to success in business is to reinvest your profit. Donald Trump or someone said that. So we’re taking our profit from the sheep and investing it in chickens. Our new business!”

There was absolute silence.

Ida Mae came through the swinging doors with a dustpan scattered with yellow chicken fluff. A scattering of laughter and Prissy’s melodic chatter filtered in from the dining room, signaling that all was not lost on that end, but neither Cici nor Bridget turned her head. “Ya’ll gonna eat?” Ida Mae demanded. “Food’s getting cold.”

They ignored her. “Where are they going to live?” Bridget asked. “What are you going to feed them? Don’t baby chicks have to have special food?”

Ida Mae shook the dustpan out in the trash can. “You’re gonna need an incubator, least till they get bigger.”

Lori looked at her in surprise. “An incubator? Jonesie didn’t say anything about that.”

“Everybody knows that,” Ida Mae returned with a touch of exasperation. “Reckon you could rig one up with a woodbox and some lightbulbs, though.”

“Lori, don’t you realize these chickens aren’t going to stay this size forever?” Cici demanded. “Do you have any idea how much room a hundred and forty-four chickens need?”

“We’ll build them a coop,” Lori assured her.

“A
coop
? For a hundred and forty-four chickens, we’re going to need a commercial chicken house!”

“Not to mention the work,” added Bridget. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but chickens make a mess!”

“Exactly,” returned Lori, pleased. “And do you know how much chicken manure costs?”

“No,” admitted Bridget, “but I do know how it
smells
.”

“It’s a high-nitrogen fertilizer,” Lori explained, “great for the garden. And we get it for free! But that’s not even the best part.”

“I’m so glad,” murmured Cici.

“Cage-free eggs!” Lori declared. “They’re over three dollars a dozen in the grocery! All we have to do is hook up with a distributor—”

“Who’ll take half the profit.”

“Which still leaves us with $1.50 a dozen, and if each chicken gives a dozen eggs a day—”

“Ain’t no chicken alive gonna give you a dozen eggs a day,” Ida Mae pointed out sourly. “It takes fourteen hours of sunlight a day for a laying hen if you want to get just one egg. It also takes a rooster. You got any roosters in there?”

For the first time, Lori looked nonplussed. She turned to the box. “Well . . . I don’t know. But I’m sure . . .”

“Lori, didn’t you do any research at all before you spent a hundred dollars on chickens?” Cici could not quite keep the incredulity out of her voice.

Lori’s chin went up in a gesture that was remarkably reminiscent of her mother. “Of course I did! For one thing, these aren’t just ordinary chickens. They’re Rhode Island Reds—show chickens! They’ve won all kinds of awards. And show chickens, I’ll have you know, can go for up to a thousand dollars a piece.”

Bridget’s eyebrows arched. “Where did you hear that? From Jonesie?”

“No,” Lori admitted, looking uncomfortable. “Noah.”

Ida Mae sniffed. “Rhode Island Reds are common as dirt. Fine chicken, but if I ever met a man who’d pay a thousand dollars for one I’d sell him my worn-out stockings next.”

Cici blew out a breath that was so forceful it ruffled her bangs. “Lori, we’ve talked about this. You’ve got to think these things through. You can’t just invest in a business idea and
hope
it works out—especially when it involves as much work as this one.”

Lindsay pushed open the door and poked her head through. “Ladies,” she said through gritted teeth, and rolled her eyes dramatically back toward the dining room, “could you do this later? We have company, you know.”

“I’m sorry Aunt Lindsay,” Lori said, and she turned away, busying herself with stroking the tiny bobbing chirping heads in the cardboard box as Lindsay closed the door.

“I reckon we could clear out a place for them in the conservatory,” Ida Mae grumbled, “at least till you get a coop built. Plenty of daylight in there. I’ll go take up the carpets.”

Bridget stood and gave Lori’s shoulder a sympathetic stroke before she left the room. “Honey,” she reminded her gently, “the library is our friend.”

When they were alone, Cici pushed herself to her feet with an air of resolve. “Lori,” she began.

Lori whirled on her, with her arms flung wide and her eyes flashing. “Okay, Mom, I get it, okay? I’m a total screwup. Nothing I do is right. I don’t know anything about farming or old houses or sheep or chickens. The only chance I’ll ever have at making a life for myself is to go sit in some boring classroom and bat my eyelashes at some boring professor until he gives me a passing grade in some boring subject so I can be some boring lawyer or something. Got it. I’m not as smart as you. I’m not as talented as you. I can’t make things work like you can, and guess what? I’m not perfect like you are! But I don’t see anyone else coming up with any better ideas, do you? At least I’m trying! And if you want to know the truth, I think you’re afraid to even consider the possibility that one—even
one—
of my ideas might work because then you’d have to admit you were wrong! Well, my new goal in life is to make sure that’s exactly what you have to do. You’re wrong, okay? You’re wrong and I’m going to prove it to you! Maybe not with chickens, maybe not with sheep, but I’ll prove it! You just watch me!”

Lori’s face was flushed, her breath was quick, and there was a slight catch in her voice with the last words. The room practically rang with the silence that followed her impassioned speech, broken only by the cheeping from the box on the countertop behind her.

At last Cici spoke. “I was just going to say, we’d better bring the other boxes in from the porch before some stray cat wanders up.”

It seemed to take a moment for her mother’s mild tone to register, and yet another for the heat to fade from Lori’s gaze. Finally she glanced away, embarrassed. “Oh.”

Cici crossed the room, opened the back door, and let Lori lead the way to the porch. And she waited until Lori was out of hearing distance to murmur, under her breath, “That’s my girl.”

“Well.” Cici lowered herself into the rocking chair, next to her friends, and stretched out her legs, grimacing a little as she did so. “One temporary chicken coop-slash-incubator is up and running. One hundred and forty-four tiny little chickens are scattering sawdust all over the sunroom and preparing to keep us up all night with their cheeping. Tomorrow I start building a chicken house. Oh no, don’t thank me. It’s all part of the service here at what is rapidly becoming Loony-bug Farm.”

Following Ida Mae’s instructions, Cici had built a large, bottomless wooden box out of one-by-sixes to contain the chicks, drilled holes for ventilation, and added a lid. She then had taken apart several small lamps, threaded the sockets through holes in the lid, and added sixty-watt bulbs to keep the chickens at their ideal temperature throughout the night. It had taken most of the afternoon.

Bridget poured white wine into the glass Cici held out. “Isn’t there some kind of law against building chicken habitats on Easter?”

“If there’s not, there should be.” Cici leaned back in her rocking chair and groaned. “My daughter hates me.”

“Which only means you’re doing your job.”

“Why did I think this would get easier the older Lori got? I’m the worst mother in the world.”

“Impossible,” Bridget assured her. “I am.”

“Remember last year how worried I was about her? All I wanted was for her to come home. And now that’s she’s home . . .”

Bridget stretched her hand across and patted Cici’s arm. “It’s the old be-careful-what-you-wish-for syndrome. When Jim and I were first married, I was sure all my life needed to be complete was a baby. Halfway through fifteen hours of labor I was rethinking that, I can tell you. And, as much as I adore both my kids, I rethought it about once a day for the next twenty-five years.”

“To top it off, we ruined Easter dinner.” Cici glanced over at Lindsay. “I’m awfully sorry. After the way we behaved, the Hollands probably don’t think we’re qualified to care for ourselves, much less Noah.”

Lindsay smiled absently, her gaze distant. “Oh, that’s okay. They were good sports about it. And you saw how Prissy was after dinner, wanting to ooh and ahh over the chicks.”

“You’ve got to admit they’re awfully cute. They remind me of those little stuffed chicks we used to put in the kids’ Easter baskets.”

“Maybe that’s where I went wrong,” mused Cici. “I should have made sure that stupid Easter bunny only left chocolate chickens.”

Bridget laughed. “Well, I think Lori and I have come to an agreement—a hundred forty-four chickens are too much. So we agreed to keep two dozen. I called Jonesie and he was really nice about taking the rest of them back. He said he had a feeling he’d be hearing from us.”

“I’ll just bet he did.” Cici sighed. “Thanks for handling that for me, Bridge. I didn’t dare try to bring that subject up. But why are we keeping two dozen? Couldn’t you have talked her into returning them all?”

Bridget rocked complacently. “It will be nice to have the eggs,” she said. “And besides, I like chickens.”

“Sometimes I don’t know which of you is worse,” Cici said, sipping her wine. “In fact, I think you’re probably very bad for each other.” She glanced over at Lindsay, who was gazing out over the mountains, lost in thought. “Everything okay, Linds?”

“Hmm?” She looked at Cici absently. “Sure, fine. Two dozen. Right. Sounds great.”

Bridget and Cici exchanged a look. “You seem preoccupied.”

Lindsay turned her attention to the almost untouched glass of wine in her hand, and took a sip. “Did you know all you have to do to get a permit for a wildlife preserve is to apply to the Department of Natural Resources? I talked to Zeb—you know, Farley’s cousin—after services this morning.”

Cici’s eyes went wide. “Wildlife preserve? What are you talking about?”

“I know.” Bridget leaned forward, a note of excitement in her voice. “Bambi!”

Lindsay nodded. “You have to be approved, of course, but he said he would talk to his boss and didn’t think there would be any problem. Meanwhile he can give us a temporary permit.”

“Which means we don’t have to go to court!” Bridget exclaimed.

“Well, we do,” Lindsay clarified, “but we won’t have to pay a fine, and we get to keep Bambi.”

Cici stared at the two of them. “Sheep, chickens, deer . . . what’s next, skunks and raccoons?” She blew out her breath and gave a short shake of her head. “We already
are
a wildlife preserve. Might as well make it legal.”

“Exactly,” Lindsay agreed thoughtfully, sipping her wine. “And all it takes is a piece of paper.”

“Well, well, well,” Bridget said with satisfaction. “Will you look at us? We start out three fancy ladies from the city and we end up running a wildlife preserve. I love the way that sounds.”

“Don’t get too carried away,” Cici warned. “It’s just a title. And it’s just one deer. Lindsay, I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“So do I,” murmured Lindsay, almost too softly to be heard.

“It just goes to show,” Bridget insisted, “you never know where life is going to take you.”

“Well, I’ll drink to that.” Cici held out her glass.

“Right,” Lindsay said with a sudden resolve, and she leaned forward to touch her glass to both of theirs. And then she said, “I’m going to adopt Noah.”