AN: This chapter was written by StarryPeaches. Enjoy :)

Chapter 2.

They began to make their way to the dining room where they would eventually be faced with the noisy Sheffield family and the big haired nanny.

"Don't worry, Babs, I have a few tricks up my sleeve. Don't you worry at all."

But, of course, she did worry. She always worried when she knew she would be forced into the company of inferior minds and kept with them, penned up like a chicken in a coop. She felt the corner of her mouth twitch in the beginnings of a smile. Perhaps Niles wasn't so wrong about me, after all. I am just like a chicken, in so many ways. Except, of course, for my breeding. And education. And intellect.

CC had been to a petting zoo once as a child, for a birthday party. The other children had seemed delighted by the animals, feeding peeled carrots to gentle, taciturn ponies, and running grubby fingers over the backs of tortoise shells. CC, dressed impeccably in a frilly lace dress and patent leather shoes and terrified of Nanny Bobo's wrath if she should so much as smudge her clothes, had stood unmoving next to the chicken coop for the duration of the party. The proprietor of the petting zoo had noticed her eventually, overdressed and petrified as she was, and had approached her.

"Afraid of the animals, honey?"

CC had looked up at the woman and had run an already disdainful eye over the mud-stained overalls and farm boots.

"Hardly," she had answered, turning up her nose. "But the other children are dirty, and they might touch me with their hands, and then my new dress will be covered in goat sweat and turtle slime."

"Huh," the proprietor had answered, apparently accepting the little girl's explanation at face value.
The two had stood side by side, and had watched the other children for several silent minutes. Without looking back down at her, the proprietor had broken the silence.

"You want to know something about chickens?" she'd asked.

CC had looked into the chicken coop, unimpressed, and had replied, "They're smelly and loud."

The proprietor had chuckled and nodded. "Yep, that's true. Smelly and loud. And they're stupid."

This last word had caught CC's attention. She had always thought that most people were stupid, and she had been intrigued by the idea that other animals could be as slow as people were. "They're stupid?"

"Yep. They're terrified of rain. They don't know what's happening to them when it starts raining – all that water coming out of the sky, when usually it just sits in puddles safe on the ground. Some of them try to figure out where the water is coming from, so they just raise their heads and stare at the sky with their stupid chicken beaks open. They never do figure out what rain is. You know why?"

CC had been fascinated in spite of herself. "Why?"

"Because they drown. They let the rain fall into their open beaks and they drown."

CC had frozen in place. Could any living thing be so stupid that it couldn't realize when it was dying? Why didn't the birds just accept that they didn't understand the rain, but recognize that it was killing them?
She had turned to stare at the chickens. They had stared back at her, heads bobbing in uncomprehending nods, as though acknowledging her confusion.

Without turning back around, CC had tried to formulate a question from the frantic, panicked thoughts that this story had inspired in her.

"But what… why… why wouldn't the chickens just learn what drowning is, so that it doesn't happen to them when it rains?"

Hearing no response, CC had turned back to face the proprietor. "Why-"

But the woman had gone.

CC was jostled back into the present as Niles leaned over her shoulder to deposit a piece of meat on her plate. She guffawed as she realized what was on the menu for dinner. At her outburst, the chattering family abruptly turned silent.

"And just what's so funny, Miss Babcock?" Maxwell asked, raising an eyebrow.

"It's just…" CC replied. "It's chicken."

The family gaped at her.

She heard a snort from behind her, and swiveled around in her seat to glare at Tidy Bowl. She had made the dinner table awkward, as she always seemed to, although she could never really understand which kinds of comments were going to blend in with the drone of domestic conversation, and which would make the family react the way they were doing now. As a child, she had been terrified at the idea of spoiling her pristine image, but as an adult, she was mostly just annoyed. She wished someone would give her a dossier of potential familial situations and the appropriate comments to make in each. "The little one scraped her knee: offer to find a Band-Aid." "Nanny Fine's ex-boyfriend's wife is expecting a baby: make a disparaging remark about its back hair." That way she could get through these things – workdays, family dinners, trips to the lake house – speaking in the same code that the rest of them seemed to have known since birth. Instead, the family was staring at her silently, as though she weren't quite human, and Lemon Pledge had the gall to laugh at her.

But when she met his eyes, they weren't filled with the scorn and derision she'd expected. They were twinkling.

Cluck, cluck, he mouthed at her, while the family lost interest in CC's non sequitur and fell back into their chatter. CC felt her heart thump hard in her chest and she turned back to face the table.

"Niles," she whispered under Nanny Fine's squawk.

Niles bent down behind her, placing his cheek within a few inches of hers.

"Yes, Miss Babcock?" he murmured.

"Did you know that chickens look up into the sky when it rains and they're too stupid to realize that they're drowning themselves?" CC whispered, not moving her gaze from her untouched plate.

She felt the gentle warmth of his breath against her ear as he huffed out a quiet laugh.

"I believe that is just an urban legend, Miss Babcock," he replied.

CC turned her face in surprise, and watched, captivated, as Niles turned his head to meet her eyes.

"What?"

"It's a miss, Myth Babcock," whispered Niles, winking gently.

"The chickens don't drown?"

"They don't drown. They just get confused when the rain starts. In fact, some of them can even swim."

CC could barely tear her gaze away from Niles' face. But as she felt the attention of the family start to shift to Niles' bent form, she cleared her throat loudly and turned back to the table.

"Well, this chicken won't," she muttered, "Even if she is dragged forcibly to a lake house full of squawking fowl."

And the family found themselves gaping once more in bafflement as Niles, retreating into the kitchen, burst into raucous laughter.