Consternation in the hen house

'Mrs Bennett! Mrs Bennett!' calls Mrs Miggins. She finds her friend behind what remains of the old shed, a dead spider hanging from the corner of her beak. Mrs Bennett looks up guilty. She knows how cross Mrs Miggins gets when she finds her binge eating. Mrs Miggins is cross. 'How many have you had this time?' she asks. 'Mmmftty seven,' Mrs Bennett replies, hurriedly shovelling down the last legs of this spider in case Mrs Miggins grabs it from her and stamps it into the ground. 'You know you shouldn't, don't you?' Mrs Miggins reprimands. 'Andy and Denise provide us with a balanced diet to keep us healthy. And there's free ranging and free bingeing. It's not attractive, dear.'

Mrs Bennett hangs her head but secretly she is enjoying the feeling of the spider descending to her crop and the fact she told Mrs Miggins she had eaten mmmftty seven when she had really had mmmftty nine.

'What did you want?' she says, cunningly changing the subject. 'Well,' says Mrs Miggins, putting on her jodhpurs getting ready to climb on her high horse, 'I have heard a most disturbing conversation between Denise and Andy concerning our part in their Christmas celebrations this year.' 'Oh yes?' says Mrs Bennett, and a flash of sage and onion stuffing and a roast potato pass before her eyes, she didn't know why. 'Yes. Apparently they are going to take photos of us and use Paint to superimpose Santa hats and reindeer antlers on us for their Christmas cards. What do you think of that?'

'Well, I'm not sure about the paint. When we helped Andy do the new garden gate it took him ages to get the green off us. I liked the green myself but I'm not sure it was your colour. And you say rain, dear?' 'That's right,' said Mrs Miggins, a bit miffed because she thought green was her colour, 'reindeer.' 'I thought I felt a damp spot on my beak,' said Mrs Bennett. Mrs Miggins looks up to heaven for help in keeping her wings to herself. It wasn't so much that Mrs Bennett was a peabrain, but that she had a line in very bad, very old jokes that she was unaware she was using in every day conversation.

'Anyway, what are we going to do? Should we contact our agent, do you think?' says Mrs Miggins, desperately trying to steer the conversation back to sanity street. ' It is modelling after all. When we did that job for Chunky Chicken it paid for our cruise that year.'

Mrs Bennett spots another spider. 'Well,' she says, trying not to drool and give the game away,' I think it is important to protect the copyright at least. Our solicitor should be able to do that for us, shouldn't he?' 'Good idea,' says Mrs Miggins. 'I'll call him immediately. And leave that spider alone.'