The night was perhaps Ginger's favourite time; while many of her fellow Chickens preferred being inside, on their bunks and just letting their bodies lay egg after egg, Ginger often preferred getting outdoors. Daytime wasn't so bad, but with the yard full of noise, and having to watch the Tweedy's do their business, she preferred the peace and quiet of night. Just sitting on the top of the hut allowed her to relax, and escape the continuous and endless fight the chickens fought every day just to get through the days and look for a better future.

Ginger's mother had urged her to escape. Ginger remembered her mother fondly, although she had died when Ginger was extremely young; like her daughter, she had tried to find ways of escaping Tweedy's farm, and she made the mistake of putting in so much of her time and energy into escaping she had missed too many days and hadn't laid any eggs.

The Tweedy's cut her head off as a result, but before she was taken, she mouthed to Ginger an urgent message, "This is not the life you should be living. Get out, Ginger. Get out, and be free."

And Ginger had been trying to fulfil that urgent demand ever since. It was one of the few things that kept her going, and each time she left the coal cooler more determined to escape.

But recently things had changed.

A slow smirk spread across Ginger's beaked face, as she remembered looking at Fowler's medal during roll call. She'd just spent 2 days in solitary confinement. Afterwards, she asked Fowler what the RAF was.

The Royal Air Force.

They'd had the means and inspiration to escape the entire time, and they were just too stupid to see it; even she and Mac had been oblivious.

By that point, Ginger had become tired of their failed attempts to escape through the gates, under the fences and whatnot (okay, while the tunnel idea was a good one, they'd made the mistake of surfacing too close to the gate, and hadn't gone far enough; she only hoped the next tunnel was better), and right now she didn't know how much more she could take.

Unbidden, her gaze went towards the shed door, the last place they had seen Edwina alive…

Ginger slammed her eyes shut, feeling sick, angry, and hateful towards the Tweedy's and towards herself for failing to get them all out.

"Ginger, y'up there?"

"I'm here, Mac," Ginger waited before her friend appeared. "What is it, Mac?"

"We've stopped work on the Crate for tonight," Mac reported. "We've only got the wings to fit; she should be ready soon."

Ginger turned away and looked upwards at the stars. She loved looking at them, and while the pitch blackness was intimidating and made her smaller than she was, Ginger was inspired by its freedom. "I still can't believe we've had the answer under our noses all this time," she shook her head ruefully.

"Och, it's not your fault any more than it's Fowler's," Mac said. "Anyhoo, we've begun working on the hot air balloon in case the Crate doesn't pan out."

Ginger turned to her, unsurprised by her pessimism. When they'd learnt about the Crate after seeing pictures of it in Fowler's hut, and Ginger had ordered its construction to begin before she had tried an escape plan to test if it was viable or not, the chickens had looked for other ways of going over the fence at the same time.

That was the biggest problem with the escape plans; there were so many chickens on the farm, and if only a few fled at one time, they'd be on their own. Vulnerable.

But Ginger wasn't a fool. She had ordered Mac to design a hot air balloon after learning about them, and if the Crate failed they would use that instead.

But Mac knew Ginger better than that. "Y'taking in what Bunty said, right?"

Ginger closed her eyes. She had given the chickens a pep talk, but Bunty, still reeling from the death of Edwina, who'd been a good friend to all of them, had criticised her plans. Ginger struggled, she really did, not to let it all get to her.

"She didn't mean it, Ginger; you know Bunty's dedicated to escaping with the rest of us," Mac saw where her thoughts were going.

"Sometimes I think I wonder if we'll ever escape. But one of these plans has to work. I swore to get everyone out," Ginger was now on the point of sobbing her heart out as the memories of all the chickens who'd been killed and eaten by the Tweedy's surfaced.

"It will work. Everything I've calculated says it will work out…what's that noise?" Mac lifted her head.

Ginger heard it too, it was like the sound of thunder. "Is it a storm?"

"I dunno," Mac looked up in the skies, but then they heard a sound like someone screaming, and they both looked up and saw a rooster flying overheard.

"Ginger," Mac's voice was awestruck before they flinched when they saw the rooster crash-land into a post and fall down to land in a heap on the ground.

"I saw it too," Ginger whispered, just as awestruck. "I think we've just found plan c."

But Mac saw a problem. "But how did he do it, Ginger? I mean, I looked at it while we were building the Crate. There's no way chickens can fly, and I canna see roosters managing it."

"Let's ask him." Together they quickly got down to the ground and dragged the rooster into the hut.

-8-

A Few Weeks later.

-8-

Pies. The Tweedy's were going to put them into pies.

Once they'd learnt Rocky was from the circus, courtesy of Ginger, who'd had to chase after the American idiot and try to persuade him to help them with the building of the balloon and the Crate, and that he'd been fired from a cannon, the chickens at the farm had worked harder on building the Crate and their flying machines.

It wasn't as if they'd had no motivation. Ginger grimaced whenever she thought of the close call she and Rocky had in the pie machine. But tonight they were all escaping.

As they made the final preparations, Tweedy caught them and they put the Crate together in a rush, only for the farmer to knock down their ramp before he was knocked out when Fowler and Rocky knocked him out with the tail, and then Ginger jumped out and tried to put the ramp back up, only for Mrs Tweedy to come out; fortunately, Rocky jumped out when he did and came to help her.

After that, they'd flown out.

The Crate worked!

But Mrs Tweedy refused to give up, and in the end, she was dropped from her line after she accidentally got tricked into cutting the Christmas tree lights' wire in half, and she plummeted down. Her pie machine was destroyed, and a wall fell on her. If there was a heaven, well Ginger prayed the woman was turned away. She didn't deserve it.

As the Crate landed, dawn was beginning to break out over the countryside, but when they felt they'd gone far enough, they landed on an island. As the Crate opened, and the chickens slowly stepped out into their new home, Ginger felt free at last.