The landing of the crate, like the takeoff and everything surrounding it, seemed to happen in just the blink of an eye.
Fowler was the one who first alerted them all to the new problem, in his usual fashion. "We're losing altitude!" he yelled, his voice blaring out from the cockpit. "The enemy artillery has found its mark!"
Ginger scrambled up the ladder and through the door and was at his side in a second. "How high are we now?" she asked.
"Twenty meters, I'd estimate, and dropping fast! The blasted engine must be giving out."
Hoping the other girls hadn't heard that, Ginger leaned over and spoke into the tube running down to where their 'engine' sat. "Any chance you can keep us in the air, Mac?"
"Not likely!" she shouted back up. "We're losin' material fast as it is!"
As if on cue, the crate let out a dreadful screech of splintering wood and grinding gears. The whole contraption shuddered and pitched to the right, dropping further toward the ground as it did so. It took Ginger a few moments to steady herself afterward.
"Sorry about that," she heard Mac say rather sheepishly. "Lost a few more parts there…"
Right. Well. They had built the crate just to get them beyond the hill, hadn't they? Evidently it was going to hold them to that deal. Beyond the hill and no further.
"We'll have to take our chances in the air, girls!" Fowler said. "Just like in Operation Carrot Stick of '42! Now make a jump for it and flap !"
"Hang on, hang on!" Ginger looked down at the land stretching out below them, trying to see the path ahead. As tense as she felt, she couldn't help catching her breath at what she saw. The rolling hills were a brilliant dark green, and the sunrise in the horizon sent rays of gold cascading out in all directions. It was just like the faded picture she had kept on her bunk for so long, admiring and touching. Only this was like being inside the picture. The sun's rays were bright and warm, and when she finally touched the grass, it would actually be -
"Do we have a plan, hen?" Mac shouted up from below, sounding properly agitated at this point.
"Working on it!" Scanning the hills again, Ginger saw what she had been looking for. A sizable island in the middle of a wide lake, covered in tall trees. Large enough, well secluded and very green. And the crate was rapidly closing in on it. Perfect!
"You see that island, Fowler?" she said, pointing. "Think you can get us that far before the crate gives out?"
"I've gotten us this far, haven't I?" he huffed.
"Good. Aim for the trees, and give us a squawk when we're just above them."
He gave her a salute, and she ducked out of the cockpit.
Back in the main room, the girls were trying their best to keep up their pace at the pedals. Even Bunty was started to get winded, however. The crate was continuing to pitch back and forth. Nick and Fetcher were scrambling around trying to corral their merchandise as it slid across the floor, and Rocky was hanging on to a ladder rung for dear life. At the sound of the cockpit door sliding open, everyone looked up and stared at Ginger with worried, expectant eyes.
"Listen up!" she said to them. "There's a spot we can land just up ahead. Fowler's got his eye on it now. As soon as he gives the signal, everyone needs to stop pedaling."
Several exclamations of shock rippled through the crowd of hens. "We'll fall right out of the bloomin' sky!" Bunty shouted.
"Exactly."
"Right, an' what's the real plan, then?" said Nick.
Ginger fixed him with her iciest stare. "If you don't like the sound of that," she said, "you can try jumping to the ground from twenty meters instead."
The brief, horrified silence that followed was mercifully broken by Rocky's voice. "You heard her, ladies!" he shouted, plastering on a veneer of confidence and the smile that came with it. "Pops up there gives the signal, and we shut this thing down!"
As the crate lurched again, they heard Fowler yelling to them again. "Target destination is nearly in position! Prepare for disembarkment!"
"Everyone grab onto something!" said Ginger as she braced herself against the door frame.
Rocky was still looking up at her. "So how's this gonna work, exactly?"
"If we fall at just the right moment, the trees will slow us down."
"And you're sure about that…"
She had no time to answer, because that was when Fowler spoke up again. "Five seconds! Four, three, two, one... NOW!"
And just like that, the roaring clatter of the pedals ceased. No one breathed a word to fill the silence that rushed in. For a split second, nothing happened. The crate seemed to hang precariously in the air.
Then it pitched forward and dropped like a stone.
Gritting her teeth, Ginger tried not to scream along with the rest of the flock. Through the back doors on the other end of the crate, she could see the green hills abruptly sink out of view as the sky began to spin. Just glancing out made the flip-flopping of her stomach even worse. She squeezed her eyes shut and thought of a quick, silent prayer. Don't you dare kill us all now. I won't allow it.
CRASH! With another violent shudder, the crate hit the treetops, snapping branches as it fell. Hens were tumbling out of their seats, the force of the collision tossing them around like ragdolls. Ginger lost her grip on the door frame and tumbled backward, slamming against the second ladder up to the cockpit.
But then, all of a sudden, it stopped. The crate was still rocking back and forth, but something had managed to halt its fall. The hens, no longer being flung about the room, looked around in a daze or tried to regain their footing. A few pinched themselves as if trying to test that they were still alive.
Ginger could see dense foliage poking through the back doors, but no sign of the ground. They must still be caught in the branches. "Well done, Fowler!" she called up to the cockpit. "Can you see how far up we are?"
No answer.
"...Fowler?"
Still nothing.
A cold, stabbing fear gripped Ginger. Trying to steady her trembling hands, she grabbed the ladder rungs and started to climb up towards the cockpit door.
And that was when the crate let out one final groan and tipped sharply backward.
Ginger yelped as the ladder rungs suddenly dropped out from under her feet, leaving her dangling in the air. Below her, the hens shrieked louder than before as they lost their grips and were unceremoniously dumped out the back of the crate. And as Ginger tried craning her neck to see what was happening, she could feel her own grip starting to loosen as well.
She looked down. Through the chaos and flying feathers, she could see the ground with its carpet of dark, shimmering green. And, without thinking, she let go.
Everything for the next few seconds after that was a blur, figuratively and literally. Ginger fell from the second level of the crate, landed on the first and kept sliding across the floor. She heard Rocky scream out her name and saw him try to grab her by the wing, but he was a second too late. She tumbled over the edge and was falling again, out in the open with no branches to catch her, the whole world flying by in streaks of blue and brown and green.
THUD.
For a moment she was seeing stars, but then they blurred and dispersed into the sight of the crate still hanging a few meters overhead. Ginger took deep breaths, trying to regain the air knocked out of her lungs. She was lying on her back, with her cheek pressed against the grass and -
The grass.
She froze. Then she inhaled again, taking in the smell. Rich, earthy and fresh, tinged with pollen the sweetness of fresh rain. She ran her hands through the soft blades, feeling the way they bent at her touch, then dug her fingers into the cool, damp dirt. On the farm, the dirt had been a solid mass, coarse and barren and difficult to pierce. But this? She had never held something so soft, something that crumbled in her hands so easily.
"Ginger!"
A shape appeared from the corner of her eye, and then there was Rocky kneeling over her, his face a tangle of concern and fright. "Can you hear me? How many fingers am I…"
"Grass."
He had to lean in closer to understand her. "What?"
"It's grass," she whispered again, faint enough for only the two of them to hear. Tears welled up in her eyes. "Real grass."
Ginger beamed, then abruptly sat up and leapt back on her feet, pulling Rocky up with her. She gave no thought to the farm, or to the crate, or to the fear of the other girls seeing her composure crumble. For one blessed moment, that was all as far away as the hill had once seemed. Sticking out her wings, she twirled around as fast as she could, laughing and relishing the feel of the grass between her toes. She twirled until she couldn't stand any longer and collapsed against a tree trunk. Now she was dizzy and short of breath again, but her broad smile never faded for a second.
She opened her eyes and looked at Rocky. "Isn't it the most wonderful thing you've ever seen?"
He had a look of awe and relief on his face. "Yeah," he managed to say, but he was still looking at her and not the grass.
"I'm too young to die, Nick! I never got to see Birmingham!"
" Get off me, you great lug!"
The loud wailing snapped Ginger and Rocky out of their reverie, and they looked up to see the rats dangling from the edge of the crate. Well, Nick was, anyway: Fetcher was clinging to his shoulders.
"Oi! Lovebirds!" Nick called down. "Think you can give us a little help?"
The cut string of Christmas lights was still long enough to dangle the last few meters from the crate to the ground. With a bit of careful coordination (and much complaining from the rats), everyone who had managed to stay inside the crate was able to get down. Then it was a matter of locating everyone else. Thankfully, the rest of the flock wasn't far away: Babs, for example, was found happily knitting amidst the patch of weeds she had landed in.
Fowler, to everyone's relief, was similarly unharmed. Except for a bruised ego, perhaps, since they found him sticking legs-first out of a hawthorn bush. Dealing with that took a while: it was Bunty who finally succeeded in pulling him out.
"Just like back in your day, eh?" Bunty said as she placed him back on his feet. "Try to do something daring, end up with your beak stuck someplace it shouldn't be?" She had a mischievous grin on her face as she watched the old rooster shake with indignation.
"As your commanding officer," he said, "I must respectfully request that we never speak of this incident again."
"Can't promise that."
Fowler ignored her and began to strut around the tiny clearing they were in. "All hands are accounted for? Jolly good. Not a painless operation, but the best sort of landing is the one you can walk away from, what what! That's what old Jacko used to say. Oh, this is marvelous terrain! Ideal for a cricket pitch. Or perhaps a… gah!" His train of thought was derailed as he caught sight of Rocky, who was looking as though he would very much like to sink into the ground at that moment.
The old rooster's shock quickly gave way to anger. "What in the name of Churchill is the Yank doing here?!"
"There's no need for that, Fowler," Ginger said. "Didn't you see him when…"
"Why, back in my RAF days, if a deserter dared to show his sorry face in camp again, the punishment would be unspeakable!" Fowler continued, jabbing his cane at Rocky's chest on the final word.
Ginger pushed the cane aside as she stepped between them. "Fowler, stop it. I'll deal with him from here. And I expect you to show him a little gratitude."
"Poppycock! If it weren't for him, we…"
"At best, we would all still be trapped on that farm," Ginger said, her voice and her stare unwavering. "And at worst, we would all be pies. Do remember that, please."
Fowler sputtered a few more times, but he could tell that was getting him nowhere. "Very well. I leave the dispensation of justice in your hands." His composure more or less regained, he marched off, still muttering under his breath about insubordination and court-martialling.
As the flock dispersed, Ginger could feel Rocky's hand hesitantly slip into hers. She turned around, already knowing what she wanted to ask, but he asked it first.
"Could I talk to you, please?" he said. "Alone?"
"Oi, Fetch, keep still. They'll see us."
"But you've got the better view! All I've got are these leaves in me way."
"Shush!"
Nick and Fetcher had seen the old rooster's outburst at the Yank, of course. So when they also saw the Yank walking off with Ginger towards an isolated cluster of trees, they knew at once what was going to happen. Obviously the hen was going to give him a good tongue-lashing about how he'd lied to them all, especially those poor rats who were never going to get their promised eggs.
Fetcher had leaned over to Nick and simply said "Wanna watch?"
"...Yeah, alright."
And that was why they had scrambled up a tree (much harder than it looked) and were currently trying not to plummet to the ground (significantly harder than it looked). And for what? Certainly not the verbal bloodbath they were hoping for.
Ginger wasn't even the one doing most of the talking - or much of it at all, really. She and Rocky were standing at the base of the next tree over, and they had been there for quite some time. She stayed rooted to one spot, her wings folded as she watched the rooster pace back and forth. Every now and then she would say something to him in a low voice, but that wasn't often. Yet she didn't seem angry with him. The look on her face wasn't the stern glare that the rats had come to know well. It was solemn and pensive, almost sad.
Rocky, meanwhile, didn't look like his normal self one bit. Those smooth words and the confidence always radiating from him seemed to have up and left just when he needed them most. He kept moving as he talked, making vague gestures with his hands. Ginger's silence seemed to worry him even more than her words: he would pause, look to her for a response and get more flustered when she didn't answer. He looked scared and miserable and small. So very, very small.
At last he said something loud enough to be heard. "If you want me to leave, then I…"
"I don't." Ginger approached him and took his hands in both of hers. "It's the others that you need to ask forgiveness from. You already have mine."
He looked at her in disbelief. Then he smiled - not the fake, flashy grin from his poster, but a proper smile.
"If it was up to me," she continued, "I would say you belong here. But everyone deserves a part in it, I think. Give them your apology, and then we'll decide. Does that sound fair to you?"
He nodded.
"Off we go, then. Best not keep them waiting." She paused, then leaned forward and gently kissed him.
They began to walk away after that, her hand still holding his. The pair was still deep in conversation, but they spoke in hushed tones again, much too low for Nick and Fetcher to hear.
Until the moment when Ginger stopped, looked right up at them and shouted "And you two little eavesdroppers come down from there!"
They screamed and sprang back, forgetting in their shock that there was very little for them to spring back on. With a flurry of limbs and a volley of curses, they tumbled out of the tree and landed in a pile on the ground.
"That's better," Ginger said with a smile, and she strolled away.
"You all know what this is about." Ginger was standing on a tree stump with Rocky just behind her, looking over the uneasy crowd of hens. "Rocky has something he would like to say to you all, and I think you ought to listen."
There were a few whispers and another bit of grousing from Fowler, but no one objected. That was good enough for Ginger, who nodded to Rocky and then hopped off the stump. "Tell them what you told me," she whispered.
He opened his mouth, wanting to ask her to stay, but she leaned against the side of the stump and looked up at him expectantly. You have to do this part on your own, her eyes said.
"Right. Okay." He looked out at the rest of the group, which looked back at him with a mix of apprehension and disdain. No one was calling for his head yet, but no one was smiling, either. He found himself wishing they were just another crowd at the circus, expecting sparklers and theatrics instead of something real.
Don't try and give them a show, he thought. Just give them you.
"I owe you an apology," he said. He'd been hoping to start with something more eloquent, but that was what came tumbling out of his mouth. "I owe you more than that, actually. I owe you an explanation."
They stood at attention, waiting.
"Yes, I lied to you," he continued. "I can't fly - not by myself, anyway. And I should have told you that right from the start. But I...well, I wanted to be in that circus about as much as you gals wanted to be on that farm. I thought, 'If they can keep me from getting sent back there, I'll be whatever they want me to be.' But I couldn't. Not after I got to know you all. Definitely not after I realized how big a mess you were really in."
More silence, but he could glimpse some flickers of sympathy in their faces.
He pressed on. "I knew I'd taken the whole flying rooster thing too far. And I knew there'd be no easy way to end it if I stuck around. So I did the only thing I knew how to do when the going got tough. I left."
By now he was finding it easier to stare at the ground, but he could still feel their eyes on him.
"I thought it would make me feel better," he said. "But it didn't. I realized that all I'd done was make another mistake. And then I knew that the least I could do was go back and try to make things right." He took a deep breath. "And...I hope I got that off to a good start."
Even the rhythmic clicking of Babs's needles had come to a stop.
"I don't really know how to put it better than that," Rocky said. "This isn't the kind of thing I'm used to. But I'm sorry. If you gals can find it in yourselves to forgive me, I'd be grateful. And I'd be extra grateful if you let me stick around. But if you don't want me to, I...I understand."
He waited another moment, then slowly climbed down from the stump. And still there wasn't a word.
"...You must find us good company if you came back from holiday so early."
"What?"
Babs had returned to her knitting, unaware of the odd looks now pointed in her direction. "I thought you'd be gone much longer, Mr. Rhodes, but here you are again just like that! It's really quite kind of you. And it was ever so kind of you to help with the crate, like Ginger said. Does this mean you'll be joining us on our holiday, then? I'd like that very much." She focused again on her work, the familiar click of the needles filling the empty space.
"Alright, then," Ginger said after a moment. "You all heard Babs there. Would anyone else like to say a few words?"
Bunty shrugged. "Oh, I suppose he can stay if he wants. Better than just having the old fool around."
"He's a good enough egg," Mac added. "No harm in keepin' him around, I say."
"Me too!"
"Me three!"
The hens all began to speak up at once, echoing each other's words of agreement. It was unanimous in the end, for even Fowler and gave a single brisk nod. "I suppose he did demonstrate a certain amount of moral fibre when the situation called for it…"
"It's settled, then." Ginger smiled up at Rocky. "He stays with us."
And for just a moment, they both felt as if their joy could lift them off the ground.
"I've never been on holiday before," Babs chirped. "What sort of things do we do first?"
"Well," said Ginger, "we ought to take a look around the whole island, see what we can do about food. And if we start pulling scrap from the crate, we can start building new huts…"
It wasn't until much later, when the sun was high in the sky, that Ginger finally had another chance to rest.
Mac sat down next to her with a satisfied sigh. "We had quite a time, didn't we, hen?"
Ginger looked out across the wide field where they had chosen to settle down. All around her was a flurry of activity: Babs was laying out knitted groundsquares where the huts would eventually go, Nick and Fetcher had taken charge of the scrap pile and Rocky was helping Bunty build a fire pit.
Feeling the grass beneath her feet had made her heart soar. But this was so much more than that - it was the feeling of an impossible dream achieved, a bright future and the hope of someone to share it with. A new life for all of them to live as they saw fit.
"We're not finished yet, Mac," she said. "We're just beginning."