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Oscar knew something was wrong before he even got through the front door.
Lavender House was not quiet.
That, by itself, was not suspicious. They had lived there for less than six months, and the place still echoed with the constant disruption of moving boxes, contractors, Bee discovering new cupboards, and Felicity deciding that every room required “one small adjustment” that inevitably involved power tools.
But this noise was different.
A low, repetitive clucking drifted from somewhere behind the house.
Oscar stopped on the front step.
He listened.
There it was again.
Cluck.
Cluck-cluck.
A sharp squawk followed, then Bee’s delighted laughter.
Oscar closed his eyes.
No.
Surely not.
He had been away for four days.
Four.
He had left Felicity with a half-unpacked kitchen, a toddler, a list of furniture deliveries, and very specific instructions not to start any major projects until he got home.
Felicity had kissed him at the door and said, with a perfectly straight face, “Of course.”
That should have warned him.
Oscar set down his suitcase and walked around the side of the house.
Lavender House sat on enough land that Felicity had nearly cried the first time they viewed it. There were old trees, uneven stone walls, a small orchard, a weathered outbuilding she had immediately claimed for restoring cars, and a broad stretch of grass behind the kitchen that Oscar had imagined filling with a swing set.
There was, indeed, now a swing set.
There was also a chicken coop.
Not a little flat-pack coop.
A proper one.
Painted pale sage green, with a pitched roof, nesting boxes, a secure run, and a small hand-painted sign that read:
BEE’S WORLD CHAMPIONS
Oscar stared.
Felicity stood inside the run wearing muddy overalls, her hair twisted into a loose knot, one sleeve rolled higher than the other. She was tightening a latch with a screwdriver.
Bee sat cross-legged in the grass beside her in yellow wellies and a raincoat, surrounded by chickens.
Actual chickens.
Several full-grown hens scratched around her feet. A cluster of tiny chicks huddled beneath a heat lamp inside the coop. One reddish-brown hen stood beside Bee and leaned against her hand while Bee stroked its feathers as if it were a particularly cooperative cat.
Oscar’s mind went completely blank.
Felicity glanced up.
For one brief second, guilt flashed across her face.
Then she smiled.
“Hello.”
Oscar looked at her.
Then at the coop.
Then at the chickens.
Then back at his wife.
“What,” he said slowly, “is this?”
Bee scrambled to her feet.
“Papa!”
She ran toward him, tripped over one of her own wellies, recovered without concern, and flung herself into his legs.
Oscar caught her automatically.
“Hello, Bumblebee.”
“We got champions!”
Oscar looked over her head at Felicity.
“You got what?”
“Chickens,” Felicity said.
“I can see that.”
“They’re rescues.”
“That does not explain why they are in our garden.”
Felicity rested the screwdriver against her thigh. “Because this is where we live.”
Oscar stared at her.
She had the nerve to look serene.
Bee tugged urgently at his trousers. “Come meet them.”
Before Oscar could object, she took two of his fingers and pulled him toward the run.
Felicity opened the gate.
Oscar did not move.
“I’m not going in there.”
Felicity’s brows lifted. “Why?”
“They’re chickens.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know them.”
Bee looked up at him, deeply confused. “You can meet them.”
That was difficult to argue with.
Oscar stepped inside.
Immediately, a white hen charged directly at his shoes.
He stopped.
The hen stopped.
They stared at each other.
The hen pecked his trainer.
Oscar took one step back.
The hen followed.
“What is wrong with that one?”
Bee beamed. “That’s Verstappen.”
Oscar’s head snapped toward Felicity. “No.”
Felicity bit the inside of her cheek.
Bee pointed proudly. “She is very fast and very cross.”
The hen pecked Oscar again.
“Why is there a chicken named Verstappen?”
“Bee named them,” Felicity said.
“You allowed our daughter to name an aggressive chicken after one of my colleagues?!”
“It seemed appropriate.”
The white hen flapped her wings and lunged toward Oscar’s ankle.
He moved out of the way.
Bee giggled.
“Verstappen likes you.”
“She absolutely does not.”
“She’s establishing dominance,” Felicity explained.
“Over me?”
“Apparently.”
Oscar looked down at the hen.
The hen looked back with pure malice.
“No. I’m not calling a chicken Verstappen.”
Bee frowned. “That is her name.”
“We can call her Vera?”
“Her name is Verstappen.”
“Vera.”
“Ver-stap-pen.”
Oscar looked at Felicity for support.
Felicity shrugged. “Vera is a nice household name.”
“Thank you.”
“But her full name is Verstappen.”
Oscar exhaled through his nose.
This was going badly.
Bee moved on, blissfully unaware that her father had already lost the first battle.
She pointed to the reddish-brown hen still lingering near her.
“That’s Senna.”
Senna trotted toward Bee the moment she heard her voice, lowered herself beside Bee’s wellington, and allowed Bee to run both hands over her back.
Oscar blinked. “That one behaves like a cat.”
“She thinks Bee is her chick, I think,,” Felicity said.
Senna followed when Bee took two steps sideways.
Bee stroked her again. “Senna is nice.”
Oscar crouched slightly, holding out one cautious hand.
Senna inspected him.
Then walked straight past to press herself against Bee’s leg.
“Right,” Oscar murmured. “Rejected by the chicken.”
“She has standards,” Felicity said.
He shot her a look.
Bee pointed to another hen, a small grey one standing perfectly still beneath the coop ramp.
“That’s Räikkönen.”
The hen did not make a sound.
It did not move.
It barely seemed to breathe.
Oscar glanced at Felicity. “Why?”
“She has never made a noise,” Felicity said.
Oscar looked back at the chicken.
The chicken stared into the middle distance with the detached expression of someone who had been invited somewhere against her will.
He nodded. “Fine. That one makes sense.”
Bee crouched beside the silent hen. “Räikkönen is pretty.”
Oscar immediately pointed at her. “No. We are not shouting Räikkönen across the garden every morning.”
“But she’s Räikkönen.”
“She’s… Kimi.”
Felicity’s lips twitched.
Bee looked unconvinced but was distracted by a fluffy cream-colored hen dramatically launching herself into the dust bath and flapping as though she had been mortally wounded.
“That’s Rosberg.”
The hen rolled over, kicked dirt in every direction, then froze on her side.
Oscar’s stomach dropped.
“Is it dead?”
Felicity didn’t even look. “No.”
“How do you know?”
“Rosberg just does that.”
The hen suddenly sprang upright and strutted away.
Oscar stared.
Bee clapped. “She’s dramatic.”
“Rosie,” Oscar said firmly. “Her name is Rosie.”
“Rosberg.”
A speckled hen squeezed through the gap between his legs and bolted toward the open gate.
Felicity moved faster than he expected, blocking it with one boot.
The hen pivoted and raced the other way.
“Mansell,” Bee cried, delighted.
Felicity caught the hen neatly against her side. “Mansell keeps trying to escape.”
Oscar watched Felicity secure the wriggling bird beneath one arm like this happened every day.
“You’ve had them for how long?”
“Two days.”
“And one is already trying to leave?”
“She has an adventurous spirit.”
Bee patted the hen’s back. “Mansell wants to explore.”
“Mandy,” Oscar said. “We’re calling her Mandy.”
Felicity nodded. “Reasonable.”
“Thank you.”
“Her legal name remains Mansell.”
“Chickens do not have legal names.”
Bee gasped.
Felicity looked at Oscar as though he had just said something unforgivably stupid. “Don’t tell her that.”
Oscar rubbed a hand over his face.
There were more.
Of course there were more.
Bee introduced each one with ceremonial seriousness.
Hamilton was a sleek black hen who had already found the highest possible place in the run and stood there looking elegant and mildly superior.
“Millie,” Oscar said.
Schumacher was a sturdy little brown hen who scratched at the earth with relentless determination.
“Minnie.”
Alonso had apparently arrived as an older rescue and immediately worked out how to open the unsecured feed container.
“Allie.”
Niki Lauda was missing several feathers from a hard life before arriving at Lavender House and had already survived an encounter with Vera by refusing to move out of her way.
“Niki can stay Niki,” Oscar decided.
Bee nodded. “Niki is brave.”
“She is,” Felicity agreed softly.
Farah—Fangio—was a dignified grey hen who moved with slow purpose and seemed to disapprove of all the others.
Then there was Prost.
Prost was standing in the water dish.
Oscar watched her for several seconds.
The hen did not seem to realize this was unusual.
“She looks stupid,” he said.
Felicity winced. “That’s not kind.”
“It’s also ridiculous that you named that one after The Professor when it looks like it has no brain cell left.”
Prost stepped out of the water dish, walked directly into the side of the coop, and sat down.
Oscar pointed. “I rest my case.”
Bee hurried over. “Prost is learning.”
Prost tried to peck a shadow.
Oscar stared at her.
Something about the chicken gave him a bad feeling.
Not danger. A complete absence of survival instincts.
“Polly,” he decided.
Bee looked scandalized. “Prost.”
“I am not coming outside my house shouting ‘Prost’ every morning while he’s visiting the paddock occasionally.”
“She,” Felicity corrected.
“I know the chicken is a she. I mean Alain.”
Felicity’s smile widened. “I’m sure he would be touched.”
“I hope he never find out.”
Bee wrapped both arms around Prost and lifted her with the alarming confidence of a child who had clearly been doing this unsupervised.
Prost hung there limply.
Oscar reached out instinctively. “Careful.”
“I am careful.”
“I know. Support her feet.”
Bee adjusted her grip.
Prost blinked at him.
Oscar did not trust her. He did not trust any of them. But especially Prost.
Oscar stood and surveyed the scene again.
The coop.
The run.
The hens.
The chicks.
His wife in muddy overalls.
His daughter radiating happiness.
“How did you build this?”
Felicity glanced at the coop. “Timber.”
“Fliss.”
“I found plans online. Bee helped measure. The rescue had hens that needed somewhere immediately, and the chicks had been abandoned after a school-hatching project.”
Oscar looked at Bee.
She was still holding Prost, whispering something into the hen’s feathers.
“You built a chicken coop with a two-year-old.”
“She was very good with the spirit level.”
Bee looked up. “Bubble goes in the middle!”
Oscar’s chest tightened against his will.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “It does.”
Felicity watched him carefully.
She knew him too well.
Knew the irritation was already crumbling beneath the sight of Bee’s delighted face. Knew he could complain about mess and livestock and the fact that their garden now contained a hen named after Max Verstappen, but none of that would survive his daughter being happy.
Still, he had principles. “You should have told me.”
Felicity lowered her gaze. “I know.”
Oscar’s frustration softened further. That was unfair. “I would have said no,” he admitted.
“I know.”
“And that’s why you didn’t tell me.”
“Yes.”
He stared at her.
Felicity stared back.
Bee looked between them.
“Are you cross?”
Oscar glanced down immediately.
“No, Bumblebee.”
“Verstappen is cross.”
As if summoned, Vera charged past and pecked Oscar’s shoelace.
He jerked his foot back. “Vera is a menace.”
“Verstappen,” Bee corrected.
Oscar gave up. For now.
He crouched beside her and Prost.
“Do you like them?”
Bee’s face became so bright it seemed impossible.
“I love them.”
That was that, then. Oscar sighed.
Behind him, Felicity’s shoulders relaxed.
He looked at the coop again. “Who’s cleaning it?”
“I am,” Felicity said.
“Fine. But you’re not doing it alone.”
Her brows rose. “You’re volunteering?”
“I’m establishing a reasonable division of labour.”
Felicity turned away, but he saw her shoulders shake.
Oscar narrowed his eyes. “I like the eggs,” he said defensively.
They did not have eggs yet.
He was already preemptively justifying his surrender.
Felicity looked back at him, smiling now.
“Yes, Oz, sure. You’ll like the eggs.”
Oscar’s war with the chickens began six days later.
It began, specifically, with Prost.
He came downstairs before sunrise because Bee had woken him by climbing onto his chest and announcing that Prost was dead.
Oscar was out of bed before his brain caught up.
He ran through the house in pajama trousers, pulled on the first pair of shoes he found—which turned out to be Felicity’s garden clogs and therefore several sizes too small—and stumbled into the garden.
Prost lay motionless beside the coop.
Bee stood a few feet away in her dressing gown and wellies, clutching Felicity’s hand.
Felicity looked concerned.
Oscar crouched beside the hen. “She’s not breathing.”
Felicity knelt and placed two fingers against Prost’s body.
There was a terrible pause.
Then Prost sneezed, lifted her head, and stood up.
Oscar fell backward into the mud.
Bee gasped. “She’s alive!”
Felicity pressed her lips together.
Oscar stared at the chicken.
Prost wandered over to the food as though nothing had happened.
“What was that?”
“She may have been sleeping,” Felicity said.
“On her side? In the mud?”
“She’s unusual.”
“She’s an idiot.”
Felicity frowned. “Kind thoughts.”
Oscar pointed at Prost. “She made me run outside in your shoes.”
Bee looked down.
The garden clogs were cutting into his heels.
She giggled.
That was Prost’s first pseudo death.
The second happened when she wedged her head through the fence, became convinced she was trapped, and stopped moving.
The third happened when she fell asleep beneath a wheelbarrow.
The fourth happened when she ate too quickly, choked briefly, recovered, and immediately returned to the same food.
The fifth was, unfortunately, her first real death.
Oscar found her floating in a shallow water trough she had somehow climbed into despite three bricks having been placed around it specifically to prevent this.
Bee cried for two hours.
Felicity cried quietly while holding her.
Oscar did not cry, because he did not like Prost and had spent months insisting that the chicken was a health and safety violation with feathers.
He buried her beneath the apple tree and put a little painted stone over the grave.
The following week, Felicity came home with another pale hen.
Oscar stood in the kitchen and stared. “No.”
Bee held the new chicken proudly. “Prost is back.”
“No.”
“She looks the same.”
“That is not the same chicken.”
“It’s Prost Two,” Felicity offered.
Prost Two died three months later after becoming trapped inside an empty feed sack after escaping somehow.
Prost Three fell from a low branch and broke her neck.
Prost Four ate something she should not have eaten and required emergency treatment, after which Oscar paid the vet bill while muttering that a replacement chicken should not have cost more than a set of tyres.
By Prost Five, Oscar had stopped pretending.
“Where is Prost?” he would ask every morning.
Bee would point.
Oscar would visually confirm the hen was alive.
Only then would he make coffee.
Meanwhile, Senna remained Bee’s shadow.
She followed Bee through the garden, waited outside the kitchen door, and once climbed onto the back step because Bee was eating strawberries there.
Bee stroked her like a cat. Senna closed her eyes and leaned into it.
Oscar found this unsettling. “Chickens don’t do that.”
“This one does,” Felicity said.
Vera remained furious.
She chased Oscar specifically. Not Felicity. Not Bee. Oscar. She waited near the gate in the mornings and launched herself at his ankles the moment he entered the run.
“I think she knows,” Felicity said once.
“Knows what?”
“That you renamed her.”
“She’s a chicken.”
Vera flew at him.
Oscar dropped the feed bucket.
Bee laughed until she fell over.
Kimi remained silent.
Oscar once crouched beside her for five full minutes trying to make her cluck. Nothing.
She simply stared at him.
“Honestly,” he said, “this one might actually be the most accurately named.”
Rosie screamed every time someone picked her up, even though she actively approached them to be picked up.
Millie learned to stand on the garden bench and watch Oscar through the kitchen window until he brought scraps.
Minnie scratched holes in Felicity’s flower beds.
Allie escaped the run once, entered the workshop, and laid an egg beneath a restored Jaguar.
Mandy escaped constantly.
They reinforced the fence.
Mandy went over it.
They added a net.
Mandy went under it.
They blocked the bottom.
Mandy discovered the gate latch.
Farah observed it all with quiet disappointment.
Oscar complained every day.
He complained about the feed on the patio.
He complained about the feathers.
He complained about the mud.
He complained about Vera. Especially Vera.
He complained while helping Felicity to repair the coop roof.
He complained while installing a more secure gate.
He complained while researching automated chicken doors in an airport lounge.
He complained while buying a heated water container because Felicity mentioned the winter might be hard on Niki.
He complained while carrying Senna to Bee’s bedroom window when Bee was ill, because Bee had asked to see her.
And every morning, he collected the eggs. He brought them into the kitchen in a small wire basket Felicity bought him as a joke.
He inspected them for cracks.
He washed his hands twice.
Then he made breakfast.
“Fresh eggs are better,” he said once, defensive even though no one had challenged him.
Felicity sat at the table with Bee on her lap and smiled into her tea.
“Yes, Oz.”
“They taste different.”
“I know.”
“And it would be wasteful not to use them.”
“Of course.”
Bee ate a forkful of scrambled egg and announced, “Thank you, champions.”
Oscar looked toward the garden.
Through the window, Vera was standing on the patio, staring directly at him.
He narrowed his eyes.
She pecked the glass.
Oscar sighed.