Counting Our Chickens…

Millie sighed. Playtime. Again. Rolling her lurchery eyes, and expressing herself through her springy eyebrows, she launched herself at the little tyke.

She had tried every tactic known to Lurcher-kind. Freddie simply refused to accept tiredness. She outran him, taught him to jump, to chase, to race through the woods and the long grasses, and yet… she looked up at Mrs Fox. Mrs Fox did not quite seem to understand how tiring it was for a Lazy Lurcher to entertain a Frantic Freddie… she wasn’t even sure what type of dog he was. She was simply grateful that he slept with Sebastian and Cezar, and not on her Princess-and-the-Pea mattress in the Foxes’ room.

Millie settled down, watching the game unfold, as she had set Freddie on a mission with Sebastian. They were playing “Counting Chickens” again. Too easy, thought Millie to herself, to confuse them both. They both got happily to four, but then struggled …. Millie smirked. Even if they had combined paws, they would not have managed eleven chickens…. Millie knew she was safe for a goodly while now.

Cezar nudged Millie. He had a proposition, he had said. Millie’s eyes widened…

From then on, Cezar joined Millie on the Foxes’ bed in their turret room. Cezar was a mathematician. He has worked out that the “Counting Chickens” game which occupied Freddie and Sebastian so well for Millie’s peace and quiet would be short lived if he added his four Carpathian paws to the mix.

Cezar settled down, luxuriating on the Foxes’ bedspread, and started to snore gently in contentment.