Mia Hears the Hens

"Cluck, cluck, cluck!" Mia heard it from her bed, and she was out of her pajamas and into her sneakers before the third one.

Mia was the farmer, and every morning she gathered the eggs. Today she wanted a whole basket, so she could make egg toast for Grandpa.

She tiptoed into the henhouse. The hens were all outside, scratching in the dust. The nests were full of straw, and there wasn't one egg.

"Where are my eggs?" said Mia.

Something white flashed in the corner. She dashed over, but it was only a feather. Behind the barrel, she saw a pale round shape. She reached for it. It rolled away, bump, bump, bump, and bumped under the water trough.

"Come back, egg!" said Mia.

She got down on her tummy and stretched her arm as far as it would go. Her fingers touched it, and it rolled out the other side.

Mia sat up and thought. Chasing wasn't working. The egg rolled whenever she got close.

"Maybe I should be still," she whispered.

So Mia sat very quietly beside the trough with her basket in her lap. A pale shape rolled slowly down the ground, down the little hill, and stopped, right against her sneaker. Then it went crack.

Out popped a tiny wet chick with fluff sticking up like a dandelion.

"Peep," said the chick.

Mia laughed. "So that's why you were rolling. You were wiggling inside!"

Behind her, a brown hen hurried over, clucking and fluffing. She had been looking for this egg all morning. She tucked the chick under her warm wing.

Mia looked again at the nests. There was one egg beneath the straw, and then another, and another. They had been hiding all along. Her basket filled up, one by one.

Mia carried it toward the house. Behind her, the little chick said, "Peep, peep," and the morning sun warmed the yard.