The Hungry Herd at Christmas

"I am stuffed," the turkey said, "completely stuffed, can't move, couldn't eat another pellet. What do they put in those things anyway?"

"Calm down Tarq, what's rustled your feathers this morning?"

"Oh, I dunno, Tina, it all seems so wrong. I mean, I love three square meals every day but this constant supply of fast food is relentless."

"You don't have to eat it all, you know."

"Yeah, but you feel compelled to, the troughs are never empty... yet look at you, the slimmest turkey in the barn. I just don't have your willpower."

"I still love you as you are, big guy."

"You're so sweet. But I'm still angry about this food. Look, I've seen the packages the food comes in, 'GM' is says on the labels, I reckon it stands for Goat Meal."

"It sure ain't porridge."

"And we're packed in here like sardines, it's worse than the Legoland queue for Fairy Tale Brook. I can't even move around to exercise. Hey you, move, and you budge over. Hey guys, give me some room to breathe here."

There were protests from some of the other birds but they generally moved over to give Tarquin some more space.

"Tarquin Turkey," Tina scolded, "now what are you doing?"

"Exercising. Knees bend once, knees bend twice. Wiiiiings outstretched once, wiiiiings stretched out twice. ... *Puff*, well that's enough for today."

"Think that'll do for exercise, huh, big boy?"

"Hey, I'm just saying, Tina, it's a start. I can't help it if I'm naturally big boned. See, feel that leg. Right?"

"Yeah, very meaty, dear."

"That's solid hard muscle, Teen. Anyway, I think we gotta get outta here, away from this barn, make a break for freedom, you and me. I gotta bad feeling about staying here much longer."

"What? Bad feeling? Why? It's really cosy in here, Tarq."

"Well, I don't like the way that The Farmer's Wife keeps looking at me."

"Well, sweetheart, you're a fine figure of a turkey, I like looking at you myself."

"Yeah, well that's alright baby, because I think you're pretty cute and I could look at too, but you don't lick your lips and rub your belly while you're looking."

"Maybe you've got a point, Tarq."

Later that day, Tina noticed Tarquin sitting by himself, morosely chewing pellets at one of the corner dispensers. She worked her way through the crowd of turkeys, who tended to stay away from the barn corners.

"So, have you cheered up a bit more now, Tarq?"

"No, I'm still miserable."

"So why are you back to eating all the time again?"

"Bored. Absolutely bored. Nothing else to do. Look around us. Turkeys stuffed from here to the walls and back again. And all of us eating and drinking and, not to put it too bluntly, passing a lot of wind."

"You probably are, Tarq. I'm a lady, I am surrounded only by subtle perfume."

"Yeah, right, don't forget I'm here around you all the time, Teen, I've seen your feathers rustle."

"So," she said, quickly changing the subject, "how's the exercising going?"

"Saving me energy, aren't I, for our great escape bid."

"So, digging us out of here are you? Huh! The only scratching I've seen you do, I've had to look away in embarrassment."

"Well, the way we're crowded in here, I'm not surprised we're scratching. If one bird in here caught the sniffles it would be through the lot of us before we knew it. Hey, look, Tina, the barn door's being unlocked, I can hear the bolts sliding, let's get over there. Come on, we can do this, make our bid for freedom, you and I."

Tarquin and Tina pushed their way through the crowd of turkeys towards the barn door. It creaked open and The Farmer's Wife stood in the doorway, a bucket in one hand. Tarquin pushed past her before The Farmer's Wife realised what was happening, but she managed to grab Tina before she could squeeze by. Tina squawked at her mate Tarquin.

"Run, Tarq, run for your life!"

Tarquin stopped and turned, Tina was struggling to get free but The Farmer's Wife was too strong and lifted the turkey's claws off the ground. Tarquin was torn. Go or stay, if he stayed he would never be given another chance of freedom, but could he live with his conscience leaving Tina behind?

Tarquin ran back and grabbed the bucket that the Farmer's Wife had dropped by her side so she could grab Tina with both hands. He ran away from the barn with the bucket for five or six strides, turned and dropped the bucket at his feet.

"I have here," he announced loudly to all the curious turkeys gathered in the barn doorway, behind The Farmer's Wife and the struggling Tina, "the finest, tastiest gourmet pellets that money can buy. Come and get them, no dodgy E numbers in them, and all very very tasty!"

He stuck his head deep into the bucket, which was full of disgusting smelly flea powder treatment, but came up showing his chewing beak, pretending to enjoy a special treat.

"Mmmm, perfect pellets! Limited supply now, first come, first served!"

The turkeys looked at one another and then, as a flock, stampeded towards Tarquin and the bucket. The Farmer's Wife in the way didn't stand a chance, she was bowled over by the birds and had to release Tina, who rushed at the head of the stampede towards Tarquin.

"Run for it!" she shouted, and Tarquin turned just as Tina overtook him at full,pelt. They ran on until they hit the lane to the farm, leaving the other turkeys far behind.

"Stop, stop," had puffed Tarquin, seeing Tina getting farther away from him.

Tina turned to look back, stopped and started laughing.

"What'yer laughing at? I just needed to catch my second wind."

"I'm not laughing at you, Tarq. Take a look behind you."

Tarquin turned and started laughing too, in between breathing heavily.

In front of them they could see thousands of turkeys running in every direction, with The Farmer's Wife and the rest of the farm staff running around like, well, just like headless ... chickens.

"Come on Tarq, you were the one who wanted to get away, let's keep going while we can."

On The Run

Soon they left the hubbub behind and they found that the country lane leading away from the farm was quite quiet. It was soon starting to get dark. Not only had they had never been out of the barn at night before, they had, in fact, never been out of that barn, ever. The sky above and around them just looked enormous. Tina was a little frightened and walked closer to her mate.

"I'm hungry and thirsty," Tarquin said, "I haven't eaten for hours."

"Forty-five minutes, Tarq, that's all we've walked and you were eating pellets almost up to the very moment we charged out the barn door."

"Still hungry," he muttered sullenly.

"Hey you guys, where ya goin'?" came a voice from nowhere.

"Who's there?" asked Tina.

"Me," came a voice from over a dry stone wall.

Tarquin peered over the wall. There was a tiny lamb standing next to a sitting calf. The lamb was bright and alert, bouncing about excitedly, while the calf relaxed with her head down lazily munching some grass, growing tall in the damp shelter of the wall.

"Hi little fellow," Tarquin addressed the lamb, "how —"

"I'm no fellow, I'm a girl lamb," the lamb said, "me name's Lola, and this is Kelly Calf. We two got left behind."

"Behind?"

"Yeah," said the calf, looking up, "when the trucks came to take us away, we both got left behind."

"Where were the trucks going?" asked Tina, "Oh, I'm Tina, by the way, and this big lunk here's Tarquin. We left The Farmer's Wife behind and struck out for freedom."

"Yeah, she's nasty." Kelly said, "although she looks better without the moustache."

"I noticed that," Tina smiled, "I was curious but none of my girlfriends knew the reason why it was there and suddenly went away."

"Movember, whatever that is," said Kelly. "Anyhow, don't know where the trucks were going, but they left me behind 'cause the field was full of boy calves and I was put in here by mistake at the outset."

"Er, is it going to rain?" asked Tarquin not paying attention to the rest of the talk.

"Why?" Kelly asked in return.

"Because you're lying down, and it looks to me like a clear afternoon and evening."

"I'm lying down because I'm tired, no because of any rain."

"Oh. Could do with a sit down myself, been on my feet all day, but I'm too hungry to sit. Where's the nearest pellet dispenser?"

"You've got a shock coming," Tina laughed, "no free food out in the wild, you'll have to learn foraging."

"What's '4 edging'? Is that another name for four square meals a day? If it is, I tell you, I'm all for it!"

"No, dummy!" Tina replied, "it means you have to hunt around, find edible berries and seeds, grass, leaves and stuff."

"Pah! You know I hate salads!" Tarquin spat. He turned to the others, "I'm purely a pellet person."

"There's some pellets in a trough in my field," Lola said brightly, "The Farmer calls 'em 'nuts', though. They taste awful, I use 'em to practice counting, but you're welcome to eat —"

"Where's your field, Lola? Right now I could murder a beakful or two of tasty pellets."

"The sheep field is the next one up. Ya won't fit through me gap in the fence, as it is only a small way through the bushes, but with that beak ya should be able to open the outside gate. I'll show ya."

The lamb scampered off towards the fence separating the fields and Tarquin and Tina trotted up the lane until they reached the next gap in the dry stone wall, which had a five-bar gate across it. The two turkeys stood in front of the gate, Tina looked the gate over carefully, while Tarquin scratched under his wing with his beak.

"Well, what do we do now, Teen? At the barn we had The Farmer's Wife to open the door for us."

"Look, Tarq, at the top of the post, that square piece of metal, see it?" she pointed with her wing. He nodded. use your beak to lever it up and I'll push the gate once it's clear of the post."

Tarquin pushed the latch with his beak, taking the strain of the weight while Tina pushed the gate clear and it swung open. Tarquin released the latch, which fell with a 'clank!'

Just then Lola gambolled across her field towards them.

"Wow! You guys are really good. I'll show ya where the pellets are an' maybe, you can help me find the rest of me flock."

"How did you get left behind?" Tina asked.

"I'm too embarrassed to say."

"Oh, come on, we're all friends here."

"OK. I am a counter," Lola said, "It is what I do. I love to count. I add up everythink. I learned to count up to three from me mother, but she can't count for toffee. But then I pushed the numbers up from there. We are three: one Tina, two Tarquin, an' three me. An' with Kelly in her field, that's four!"

"Very good, Lola," Tarquin, who couldn't count for toffee either, admitted, "I can't count for anything." He didn't even know what toffee was.

"Well, the shepherd an' his two sons turned up in a gurt big lorry, five days ago, see I can count to five, too."

Tarquin groaned, 'To five too?' His head hurt at the very thought of numbers, but Tina took his mind off his head when she kicked him in the ribs.

"Don't mind him Lola, you carry on sweetheart." Tina encouraged.

"Well, the big gruff shepherd lowered the ramp at the back of the lorry an' one of his sons came to open this gate, with barriers down each side, an' counted the sheep as they climbed on board. I loved this game an' I counted them sheep on as well: one, two, three, four ... Next thing I know I wake up an' the shepherd's son is snoring, flopped over this gate, an' his brother is standing next to him counting. So I start counting from one again. It starts to rain, so I shelter over by the wall, down here," she pointed, "where I could still see the sheep follow one another. Perhaps they couldn't see little me. Next thing I know, I wake up by the wall, it's stopped raining an' everyone's gone."

Lola started crying and Tina put a comforting wing around her.

"They left me an' they're never ever comin' back!" she wailed, while Tina clucked sympathetically.

Tarquin kicked at the dry mud ridges of wheel ruts in the gateway, as his stomach rumbled, which overwhelmed his sympathy for the little lamb.

"Where did you say those food pellets are, Lola?"

Tina glared at the big lunk. Tina still had her wing wrapped around the tiny lamb.

"I am never going to see them again," Lola sniffed.

"There, there, sweetheart," Tina soothed, "what makes you think that?"

"Me Mum told me, that all me brothers an' sisters were taken away from her when they were my size, an' none of 'em never ever came back," Lola wailed.

Tina clucked not sure what to say, while Tarquin looked around, muttering to himself about 'pellets for tea-time, because eating too late in the day keeps me awake at night'. Tina was still holding Lola otherwise she would have kicked him in the ribs again.

"It keeps on happenin'," Lola sobbed, "the lambs an' mothers are separated as soon as we switch from milk to grass an' pellets. Again an' again, she told me. Me Mum was taken from her Mum an' put on a truck an' was brought to this farm. She could only count to three and told me she'd had more than three lambs, one at a time. I listened to her describe each one of them in turn. I remembered them all an', as I learned to count, I recalled what she said an' I counted up to six. I am her seventh lamb."

"Seven's lucky," Tarquin offered, only really half listening, concerned it was getting dark and he had never dined in the dark before. His big belly let out another rumble as deep as thunder.

"Sorry," he said and thought sheepishly, without realising the irony of his thought.

"Come on, big fella," Lola laughed, suddenly jerked from her sadness, "let's get ya to the food an' drink before it gets too dark to find it. There's shelter too, in case it rains tonight."

"Well, lead the way, Lola," Tina laughed, "the big guy gets scratchy when he's hungry."

Five minutes later Tarquin exclaimed, "Bah, bah! Eugh! These pellets taste like ... well, like you smell, Lola. No offence sweetheart, but it's not what I'm used to."

"Sorry, Mr Tarq, but that's all we have, an' they only brought that out when the grass stopped growin'." She dropped her voice to a whisper, "I used to look through me gap in the hedge when the tractor dropped food called 'silage' in Kelly's field. I used to count how many loads they dropped off. Oh boy, Kelly loves it but that stuff smells horrid!"

It was raining hard now in Lola's field but the two turkeys and lamb were under a corrugated roof which had been designed to keep the sheep pellets dry. Only when the odd gust of wind blew the rain in underneath did they get wet. It was noisy when it rained on that roof and sleep did not come easy until suddenly the rain stopped. If anything, though, it then got colder.

"Brrr! It's chilly!" Tina shivered as she cuddled up to her big feathered friend on one side, with woolly Lola on the other. "It was warmer when we were in the barn, but then we would have missed out on all this adventure."

"Yeah," agreed Tarq, "but let's get some sleep now, huh? I'm bushed."

It was sunny but cold the next morning when they woke. Once one of them woke up, they were all awake.

"At least the clouds kept the frost at bay," Lola observed, looking around her familiar surroundings.

"What's 'frost', Lola, can we eat it for breakfast?" Tarquin asked hopefully, dreaming of a bay full of pellets, as he stretched his wings and legs, then ruffled his feathers.

"No!" Lola laughed, "it's when the water droplets on all the trees and on the grass goes as white as my woolly coat and freezes. It was so cold one morning three days ago that the top of the water in the trough also turned to ice."

"What's ice?" asked Tina.

"It's when the water gets so cold it turns into a solid and you can't drink it. You can lick it though, but you have to be careful. First time I tried it my tongue stuck and I counted up to 20 before my warm breath melted the ice and released me."

Tarquin almost asked what '20' was, but stopped himself in time. He glanced at Tina furtively. Yeah, he thought so, she was looking at him with that quizzical look on her beak again. Only Tina, in Tarquin's experience, could take on that look.

"So, do you know where you two are goin', this mornin'?" Lola asked.

Tarquin shuffled his feet while thinking. Not about the question. No, not one little thought about where he was going. He was thinking about the fact that he'd eaten some of the sheep food pellets last night and quite a lot more this morning for an early breakfast, even though they were not particularly to his liking. He had been hungry, but now he had eaten them he felt bloated, very bloated indeed.

Tina spoke up for him to fill the silence.

"Not really Lola. Tarq here never thought our escape through. We were crowded in that barn and Tarq likes a bit of scratching room. We left more on a whim than anything else. For me, it was just getting so crushed and as for the smell in there, well —"

That did it, Tarquin couldn't hold it in any longer.

He passed wind, and oh boy did he pass wind with a vengeance. It was loud, starting with a thunderclap, then it rumbled on like thunder, rising in pitch to a crescendo, before ending in a decelerating series of increasingly wet-sounding puh-puh-puh blips. Tarquin's feathered face looked a picture of mixed emotions, relief, embarrassment and pride, in a firm understanding that this was probably his best gas release projection of his or anyone in the history of bronze turkeys, like for ever.

"12 seconds!" Lola laughed, jumping about on her woolly legs in joy, "I counted. That's the longest one I've ever heard!"

"One of my best," Tarquin admitted, puffing himself up, in spite of his recent explosive deflation, and polishing the claws of one foot on his chest feathers.

"Stick around, Lola," Tina said resignedly, rolling her eyes skywards, "I have to put up with that kind of thing every morning, in fact from time to time at irregular intervals for the majority of every day."

"I can put up with that!" grinned Lola. "Well, if we're goin' to get away from The Farmer an' his Wife, we're goin' to have to carry on down the lane quite aways an' quickly before they get up this morning an' start searchin' for us."

"Well, I'm more than ready to get away from here," Tina agreed, still waving her wings about to dispel the 'fowl' air, "and going down the lane is at least heading upwind."

"First, we need to collect Kelly from the last field. She needs our company to cheer her up. She's only just gettin' round to acceptin' that her cousins won't be back. Then we can pass the pigs as we go down the lane. My friend Paul the pig would love to meet you two."

"Paul the pig?" asked Tarquin.

"Yeah, we talk through the fence all the time, an' he's been wantin' to go on an adventure ever since I've known him."

"OK." Tina agreed reluctantly, "that would make us a herd."

"Yeah, a herd of five," said Lola with a smile, she never ever tired of counting.

"A hungry herd," said Tarquin, who never ever tired of being hungry, "does Paul, by any chance, have any pig pellets?"

"More than you, I or they can count, Tarq, you can depend upon it."

They walked down to the gate they came in through. Try as they might, though, they couldn't open it.

"Gates sure is tricky things," said Tarquin, as he admitted defeat.

Tina looked closely at the gate while Lola jumped up and down in frustration.

"When we opened it last night," Tina spoke her thoughts aloud, "Tarq held up the latch while I pushed and the gate opened inwards. The gate opened then, but it won¡t open outwards and pulling is impossible, the wooden parts of the gate are too thick to grip with our beaks."

"What are we going to do?" Tarquin asked.

"Well I better run up along the wall and speak to Kelly," Lola said, "she's probably worried what's delayin' us, she'll fear the worse. At least it's stopped rainin'. You wanna come with me Tina? I think you're thin enough to get through."