[Inoni]: 62.Short Stories.Nalon and the Giant Chicken

Nalon and the Giant Chicken

  In the small village of Johnsonsville, there was a young girl named Nalon. She was the daughter of a farmer. The weather was not good for crops that year, so the farmer had pooled his money into buying and raising chickens.

  One day Nalon was sent to see if any of the new eggs had hatched. And what did she see but a nest of ice-cold eggs, beside the other nests that were warmed by mother hens. The cold eggs had no hen warming them. Nalon searched until she found the missing hen, who sat atop the largest egg Nalon had ever seen!! The hen could hardly even warm the top of the egg it was so large!
  Nalon put the hen back on the regular eggs, and took the large egg inside. She put it beside the fire and waited.

  Four days later the egg hatched, into the largest chick Nalon had ever seen. It was the size of a full grown cat!! She went to go put it out with the other chickens, but they chased it away and wouldn't let it eat. They didn't like him at all!

  So Nalon took it upon herself to care for the giant chicken. She fed it handfuls of grain while stroking it's downy feathers, and played with it every day. It grew and grew, until it was the size of a young calf. Now it ate an entire bucket of grain each day.

  Still, Nalon continued raising the giant chick. It grew, and grew, and grew until it was taller than a horse, and almost the same size in width! It ate almost three buckets of grain each day!! Nalon soon learned to ride the chicken like she would a horse, and they spent many hours running around together. It was very fun. But, the chicken's demand for grain become much too costly for the farmer. So one day, the farmer told Nalon,

  “I'm sorry sweetie, but you're going to have to sell that chicken. I can't afford the grain, and even when I can, I buy every last piece in the shop to feed it. Other chicken farmers are starting to complain. Take it down to the market right away, and try to sell it to one of the foreign buyers. Then it will stop taking all the grain in our small village”

  With tears in her eyes, Nalon tied a rope to the giant chicken and led him down to the market. As she was talking to a man from another village, she heard a scream.

  “Help! Help!” cried the fruit stand man. “My precious fruit stand has caught on fire. Thinking quickly, the giant chicken trotted to the fruit stand and fluffed his feathers over the burning wood. He sat down and the flames were instantly snuffed out, without harming the stand.

  “Oh, hoorah! Hoorah for the giant chicken!” the fruit stand man cried. “He has saved my fruit stand! How can I ever repay you?”

  Now, Nalon knew how very, very rich the fruit stand man was. He was the only fruit vendor in the entire village. Nalon used her talents of negotiation to make a deal with the fruit stand man. He ended up spending a large amount of his fortune to buy a life-time supply of grain for the giant chicken. Nalon and the Giant Chicken lived the rest out of their days happily in the small village of Johnsonsville.