"Daddy!"
Newkirk, who had been fiddling around under the kitchen sink, trying to fix the leaky plumbing, jumped at Lizzy's call, immediately hitting his head on some protruding apparatus.
"Ow! Ugh, Lizzy, what is is?" he asked, emerging from the Land of Leaky Pipes.
"Guess what!" asked Lizzy, bursting into the room. "Oh, are you busy?" she asked, seeing him sitting on the floor, rubbing his head.
"Not anymore. What's all the fuss about, love?"
"Look what I found!"
It was the first time Newkirk noticed that Lizzy had had her hands behind her back since she had entered the room, and she quickly brought something from behind her back to show him.
In her hand was a tiny, fluffy yellow chick.
"What...where in the world did you find that?" asked Newkirk, getting up.
"On the ground outside. Can I keep him, daddy? Please?" she asked, looking up at him with her big eyes.
He was toast.
"Well...does he belong to someone?" Newkirk asked. What kind of question was that? No one in the neighborhood owned chickens, so why in the world would there be a chick wandering around?
"I don't think so. He was out by the mailbox all alone," said Lizzy, petting the tiny creature's head. It let out a peep. "I think he fell off one of those farm trucks that go by sometimes."
"I...don't know Lizzy...it's going to grow up into a chicken," said Newkirk, looking down at the fluffy thing looking completely at ease in his daughter's hands.
"So? I love birds," said Lizzy, bringing the little animal close to her chest.
"So does Schultzie, but not in the same way," he countered.
"Daddy, Schultzie was fine when we bird-sat Inez Stephenson's parakeet," said Lizzy.
This girl was good.
"Let's wait until your dad gets home."
x
x
x
"She found a what?"
"A chick. You know, like a baby chicken?"
"I know what a chick is, Newkirk, it's just the fact that she found one that surprises me. Actually, it doesn't surprise me at all. If anyone is going to find a baby chicken by their mailbox, it would be Lizzy," said Hogan, sitting down at the table with a cup of coffee.
"She wants to keep it."
"Naturally. And I suppose you told her it was alright?"
"I told her we would wait until you got home."
"Very democratic of you. Well, I think it's fine," said Hogan, flipping through the newspaper that was on the table.
"You do?"
"Yeah, why not? My family always kept a couple of chickens around when I was growing up," said Hogan, looking nowhere as displeased as Newkirk hoped he would.
Newkirk sighed. "I guess I'll go tell her she can keep 'im."
"I can keep him?"
Neither men had noticed Lizzy and the small fuzzy animal in question hovering by the doorway of the kitchen until she had spoke.
"Yeah, Liz, he's all yours," said Newkirk, who couldn't help smiling when he saw how much Lizzy's face lit up at the news. "But you're responsible for taking care of 'im, makin' a little chicken house and such."
"Okay, daddy! I'm so glad he can stay! I even picked out a name already. This is Little Sweetie!"
x
x
x
Little Sweetie did not like Newkirk.
The animal had somehow made itself a housepet, which was fine when Little Sweetie was little and lived in a box in Lizzy's room.
Now, the creature had fully feathered, and, pun heavily intended, thought it ruled the roost.
Little Sweetie (who turned out to be a lady chicken) would perch herself in all sorts in inconvenient places: on the sink, on Newkirk's bed frame, on his chair, on his desk, even on Bruno.
Whenever he tried to make the chicken shoo, he was awarded with a dirty look and complete insubordination from the animal.
He knew Little Sweetie loved Lizzy. He even had to admit, it was really cute to see Lizzy sitting at the table, either eating or coloring or doing homework, and the chicken would always perch itself on a chair near her, Schultzie and Bruno not far away. In fact, he had even secretly taken a photo of the foursome together, and it was indeed remarkably sweet.
But it remained that Little Sweetie roundly disliked him.
It wasn't even his fault, really. Sure, he made a few jokes about her being tomorrow night's dinner, but really, the chicken should learn to lighten up. And it's not like he got in her way. In fact, Newkirk practically jumped through hoops to avoid the animal, yet she still showed up in his closet, on his bed, and once, in his clothes drawer. Needless to say, much laundry had to be done that day.
He was surprised that Hogan wasn't bothered by the fact that he was sharing his house with a rude chicken, but maybe Hogan was just better at avoiding Little Sweetie than he was.
But it always came back to the fact that Lizzy loved Little Sweetie, and that always made pulling feathers out of the washing machine less of an annoying task.
x
x
x
"Daddy, have you seen Little Sweetie?"
"Why don't you check my closet. She's always in there," said Newkirk, who was sitting at the kitchen table.
Lizzy had come down the stairs to ask him the whereabouts of her pet, and it was only a few moments later that heard her shout "I found her!" from upstairs.
Good. The last thing he needed right now was a missing chicken. He had much more important things to think about, namely, what to get Lizzy for her upcoming birthday. It seemed like she had an awful lot of those, and they seemed to be coming quicker and quicker every year.
Besides the fact that she was growing up right before his eyes, the fact that Lizzy was getting older meant something else: once again, he had to pick out a present that she would like.
It wasn't as though Lizzy was hard to shop for. She knew what she liked, and so did he. It was just finding something that would prove he knew everything about her and that she was special that was the hard part.
Although, this year, he felt like he had a bit of a leg up on what to get. Ida Stephenson had gotten a bike for Christmas, and he knew that soon she would be learning to ride it. So he figured it was time for Lizzy to get her first bike.
She was a pro on the tricycle already, but her legs seemed to be getting longer every day, and soon her faithful little trike would be outgrown all together.
x
x
x
It was this procession of events that led to Newkirk being awake at 2:30 in the morning, bike parts scattered everywhere, and for once having forsook his beloved cup of tea for the coffee he needed to get himself through this ordeal.
Hogan, to his credit, had only given up two hours ago, leaving Newkirk to the task of assembling the bike all by himself.
Newkirk was currently in the guest bedroom of the house, the closet of said room having been the only space he was certain he could hide the unassembled bike so Lizzy wouldn't see it before her rapidly approaching birthday.
Although, now that he thought about it, she probably wouldn't even know what in the world all these pieces were supposed to be, because he was having a hard time believing that they were going to turn into a bicycle, himself.
He was on the verge of a breakthrough (or a breakdown…) when he realized that Screw A was missing, and that was why he was having such a hard time getting Piece Q to fit with Lever R.
A quick check of the closet where the bike in its unassembled form had been stashed revealed Screw A on the floor, with none other than Little Sweetie perched on a box behind it.
Newkirk reached for the screw on the floor, aware his actions were being observed by a chicken looking down at him.
Normally, he would gingerly pick up Lizzy's poultry friend and remove her from the premises, but Little Sweetie had a habit of making a loud flapflapflapflapflapflap with her wings whenever he picked her up, and he couldn't risk having the bird wake anybody up.
"I guess you can stay," he whispered to the chicken, who looked down at him contemptuously.
He was almost finished with the bike assembly when he heard a dull thump come from the closet. In a few moments, Little Sweetie trotted out from the closet and stood in front of him, an unreadable expression on her little chicken face.
"Well, what?" asked Newkirk, realizing that it must be later than he thought if he was talking to a chicken.
To his relief, the bird didn't answer him, but merely began to preen itself contentedly, letting Newkirk turn back to the bike.
When he had finally finished, triumphantly, he turned to Little Sweetie, his only audience.
"Well, what do you think? Think Lizzy'll like it?"
Little Sweetie looked up from preening her soft, tan feathers to give him another one of her mysterious chicken looks.
"Well, I certainly 'ope she will," said Newkirk, putting away the various tools he had used to put together a bike that would have probably perplexed even the most intrepid of engineers.
Little Sweetie gave what appeared to be a yawn, as if to remind him that it was time to go to bed.
Newkirk sighed. "I guess you're right, chicken. Time for lights-out."
Little Sweetie seemed to agree; the animal briskly trotted off, most likely headed towards her nest box in Lizzy's room.
"Maybe the bird's not half bad…" he muttered to himself as he cleaned up the rest of what was left from the grueling bike assembly.
His feelings would be softened further when he found a small, smooth, brown egg on his pillow the next morning.