‘I do like a rainbow,’ says Mrs Pumphrey, deciding to go rogue and try a pancake spread with Marmite, a decision she soon realises comes laced with regret.
‘Me, too,’ says Mrs Slocombe. ‘They’re just so…rainbowy, aren’t they?’
Mrs Poo gulps down the last of her eight pancake, releases a fairly substantial yet also ladylike burp, and dashes from the table like a hen on a mission.
‘Buckwheat does that to her sometimes,’ says Mrs Miggins.
‘Does what?’ says Mrs Slocombe.
‘Induces a sense of urgency, if you know what I mean,’ says Miggins.
Mrs Slocombe doesn’t, but as she also doesn’t want to get into any conversations of an unsavoury nature, she nods sagely and takes it upon herself to top up everyone’s tea mugs. All is very convivial for a Friday morning breakfast with a rainbow backdrop.
Within ten minutes, Mrs Poo returns. She is dressed in her explorer gear - sturdy knickerbockers, safari jacket, knee length boots and a pith helmet, the top of which is adorned with a large ostrich plume. She has her canvas rucksack slung over one shoulder and a massive butterfly net over the other.
‘Going somewhere?’ says Mrs Miggins, raising an eyebrow.
‘I’m off adventuring! I’m going to find what’s at the end of that rainbow,’ says Mrs Poo, pointing out of the window. It is the first time a glint has appeared in her eyes since the hens’ return to Much Malarkey Manor. She’s a bit of a do-er, is Mrs Poo. She’s not one to sit and crochet all day.
Mrs Miggins laughs and the other two hens join in because Mrs Miggins is usual correct in her responses and history dictates it is always prudent to stay on the right side of correctness, for an easy life of nothing else. ‘There’s nothing at the end of a rainbow,’ she cackles. ‘Unless you are thinking of a pot of gold, of course? Ahahahahahahahahahahaha….ha!’
‘I might be,’ says Mrs Poo, feeling a tad indignant. ‘But I am open to all possibilities and eventualities.’
And, because she is not one to stand and be the silent butt of anyone’s joke, least of all to Mrs Miggins who appears to be wearing a particularly hideous pair of earrings this morning, Mrs Poo emits a large ‘huff!’ and marches out the back door.
‘She’ll be back by lunchtime,’ predicts Mrs Miggins, and the three remaining set about their day of dealing with, and doing, all sorts of malarkey.
Lunchtime comes and goes, and even the smell of slug au vin on toast does nothing to draw Mrs Poo homewards. The sun begins to slip slowly towards the horizon. An evening chill settles on the fields. A solitary bat flitters around for gnats and bugs, before smacking its head on the French windows of the drawing room. Mrs Slocombe administers a warm toddy of damson gin - the bat flitters off, revived.
Just after 8 p.m, with darkness settled and Mrs Slocombe whipping up a batch of hot chocolate and wondering if she should make enough for three or four, Mrs Poo crashes through the front door of the Manor, a triumphant look on her face and a jaunty air about her step. She strides through the grand hallway and down the passageway to the kitchen where hot chocolate is always partaken of, by the warmth of the Aga.
‘Ta dah!’ she sings, flinging wide her wings and looking jolly pleased with herself.
‘Just in time for hot chocolate,’ says Mrs Slocombe, glad that her friend is safely returned.
‘Well?’ says Mrs Miggins, also secretly pleased. ‘Did you track down the end of the rainbow?’
Mrs Poo beams the beam of a smugly happy hen. ‘Yes, I abso-bloody-lutely did!’
‘And…?’ says Miggins, frowning in anticipation of being proven abso-bloody-lutely wrong regarding her morning pronouncement.
Mrs Poo removes her trusty box brownie camera with digital conversion from her rucksack. ‘I couldn’t bring home what I found,’ she says, enigmatically. ‘Because it was way too big. But I did stand on a ladder and take a photo…’
The hens gather round Mrs Poo and peer over her shoulder into the camera’s viewing screen.
‘This is what I found at the end of the rainbow,’ whispers Mrs Poo. ‘And isn’t it the most beautiful and precious thing of all? Worth more than all the pots of gold, don’t you think?’
And this is the photo she shows her friends…
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KJ
KJ