Once again a scary night to account!
Richard slowly opened the window and peeped inside the room. The gunny sack that covered the bamboo lid was thrown to a corner.
He could smell fresh blood in the air.
He felt dizzy and immediately understood something was wrong.
‘Dad.’ Richard screamed all the way calling his dad.
‘Come, soon. Something has happened.’
Richard’s father unlocked the room and started to check what went wrong. The bushel kept at the corner of the room was in place, with the hen sitting in the middle. Richard’s dad slowly lifted the hen. The hen started to make strange noises that resembled like the save our soul message.
‘Keep quiet.’ Richard shouted at the hen.
To their horror, they found some of the chicks were missing. Richard remembered counting the chicks last night before they locked the door safely. In that brood, they had more than twelve chicks. Nearly half of them were missing.
Richard looked at the window bars. No one could come inside the narrow window bars. Even if a snake has found its way down into the room, only a few chicks might go missing. But things looked worse than they expected.
Not even a single drop of blood on the floor, every drop of blood that was spilt on the floor was cleaned away without any trace. Who would have done that? There is no chance for a cat to come inside the room through the narrow bars.
Once a wild cat tried to come into the room through the narrow bars of the window, but it could not succeed. Richard remembered watching the cat desperately trying to come inside the room as it smelt the fresh brood of helpless chicks inside the bushel.
Richard’s father decided to change the place that night. Instead of leaving the hen along with the chicks in bushel at the usual place, he kept the bushel in the other room. The room had no windows and once the door was locked no one could enter into the room. Richard’s father thought it would be safer to leave the hen and chicks there.
Richard could not sleep that night. He sat along with his father outside the room till 12 o’clock in the night. Sitting like that in the midnight was something new for him. Richard never attempts to come out of their home after 9 in the night. Darkness scared him. The same little cat that played with him during the day looked so scary with the green eyes in the night. That cold look sent shivers down his spine and he always avoided to walk alone around their house.
The next day brought them the shock. The remaining chicks were gone. Richard’s father could not make it out and tell who might have come inside the room that had no windows and only a door. At the corner of the room, Richard’s father found a heap of fresh soil. Yet, he could not tell who took away the chicks.
Twelve chicks that went away just like that came as a shock to the entire neighborhood. Everyone started to talk about this incident and they all planned to find out the culprit behind that mass loot that left not even a trace of evidence.
More than a month went away. Richard’s mother cooked all the eggs every day. She made scrambled eggs or poached eggs or omelets for lunch and for dinner at night. She thought it will be better to use the eggs immediately rather than loosing them after waiting for chicks to grow.
After waiting for another two months, Richard’s father kept a brood of eggs to hatch. First, he wanted to test it with six eggs and slowly increase the number of eggs if things turned fair. He kept frequent watch over the eggs. Every hour he woke up and checked if any one tried to smudge into the room. Nothing happened for the first few days.
One day in the middle of the night, Richard heard the stealthy steps of some one outside the room. He could not make out from the sound and tell who it was. He decided to sit and watch sitting near the window from their bedroom. Till two am in the morning nothing happened. Then in the darkness he could sense some movement. Some animal was trying to jump to the window and move inside the room. The animal somehow succeeded in going inside the room through the window. After some time, he could hear the animal jump from the window. He could see the tiny bead like eyes shining in the dark and he could see those eyes staring at him boldly.
‘Dad.’ Richard screamed loudly that woke up the entire family.
Richard opened the door and started to run towards the animal. It jumped across the fence and ran fast into the open space. Richard got a glimpse of the thick bushy tail of the animal and he could smell fresh blood in the air.
The next day, Richard’s father took away the bushel from the room and kept it safely inside their house. He kept the bushel at the corner of the veranda. He left their dog at the door to watch. Nothing happened at that night.
Two days afterwards, Richard’s father left the bushel in the usual place. But he left a trap below the window bars for the animal that took away their chicks.
To their horror, they found a well grown adult mongoose that snarled at them angrily with the wet blood on its mouth.