Chicken

So, Monday at lunch I had duty out behind the side of school. I had just finished shoving a sandwich into my face and had to run out my res. door because I was late. As I approached the back field on campus I saw several student congregated around a small bush. One yelled out “Teacher, teacher!! There is a chicken”. I laughed and kept on walking saying ‘yes kids…” they’re usually playing some sort of game, so I thought nothing of it. Another students yelled “No teacher really really. Chicken is real!” At this moment I began to have a little panic. A Chinese chicken, which gods no what kind of diseases is running around campus and the students are hoping to pet it!! As I got closer to this small bush I realized they were not lying. In the bush sat a small hen. He was light brown and looked very calm. His feet were tied together with a small string, making me assume that he may have escaped from the cooks in the cafeteria. I immediately cleared the scene, notified the principal and waited for help to arrive. By now the excited students had rallied others to come and check out the chicken. After much ‘shooing’ of children and a couple of visit from staff members, the two female cleaning ladies from the school were sent to save the day. Neither of these ladies spoke a word of English…not even Hello. I directed them to the chicken bush and went back to handling the crowd, that had now gather (it wasn’t big, but rather very excited). Here’s where it gets interesting….the cleaning ladies then proceed to stick their hands into the bush in an attempt to grab the fowl. The chicken began to squawk. Feathers were spurting in ever direction! It was ridiculous. The cleaning ladies burst in hysterics as they followed the now running chicken to the next bush. One lady made a dive for it, but missed. The next tried to corner it into a certain direction to be caught, but was unsuccessful. Rather amusingly the chicken found its way into the school and proceeded to run down the hallways. Yes you read right, it was in the hallways of the school. As you can now image the crowd I was trying to control had gone wild and loved the free entertainment. Thankfully, one cleaning lady made a grab for the chicken when it was next to a locker and was able to catch it. We were all having a pretty good laugh at this point. The chicken, which was now in the arms of the Chinese cleaning lady, was calm once again, but began squawking as it was carried down the hallway…..o China how you amuse me.