Page 4 of Rough Around the Hedges

I leant back. She was holding the gate open for Waffles the rooster who was being closely followed by his chicken wife, Pancake, and the chicks she’d hatched three weeks ago. After much consideration, I’d lovingly named them Roll, Bap, and Barmcake.

And yes.

I had set off a whole round of fighting over what a bread roll wasactuallycalled when I’d announced that.

For the record, it was roll.

It was a bread roll. After all, the whole argument was what the proper name for abread rollwas, thus it was a bread roll.

I could maybe accept bap on a good day, but barmcake was simply out of the question.

There was nothing quite like a cultural debate over the name of a bit of baked dough to wake you up on a morning.

Or just haunt you and make you regret all your life choices when, three weeks later, said cultural debate was still ongoing and causing the occasional chaos.

Was I talking about myself? Who knew. It was a mystery.

“Good afternoon, Waffles, Pancake, kids,” I said, looking at the allotment’s most famous chicken family.

Why were they famous?

Easy.

The internet loved a good chicken.

I really had started The Polyamorous Adventures of Waffles as a joke, but there was a surprisingly large group of followers who were anxiously awaiting the moment Pancake found out Waffles had a whole harem of chickens he was servicing on a regular basis.

And no, before anyone asked, I’d never seen him ride another one of his girls while she was nearby.

Yes, it was weird.

No, I didn’t care.

Weird was my middle name. It’d taken me a long time, but now at my ripe old age of twenty-nine years, four months, threeweeks, and two days, I had fully come to embrace my weirdness and roll with it.

It made the whole dating part of my life a bit on the tough side, but eh. If a man couldn’t handle me at my weirdest, then he didn’t deserve my normal.

Because there was no normal.

There was only weird.

“I’m starting to think that chicken has a fetish where you’re concerned,” Isa said, staring at Waffles as he hopped up into my lap and settled down.

I smoothed my hand across his back. “He’s my little baby. It would be my pleasure to be his fetish.”

“Some of the things that come out of your mouth scare me.” She sighed, perching on the edge of one of my vegetable beds. “I know you hatched him, but aren’t you too attached?”

“I didn’t hatch him. He was the only one that made it out alive from that stupid school project,” I said. “I rescued him and raised him.”

“And then lobbied the late duke for permission to keep chickens at the allotment.”

“Lobbied is a strong word.”

“Rose. You made banners that said, ‘Justice for Waffles,’ and superglued them on his gates in the middle of the night. If that isn’t lobbying, I don’t know what is.”

I cleared my throat and looked away. “I prefer to think of it asconvincing.”

“Yes, but it wasn’t convincing. It didn’t work.”

---