After sixty minutes of chickens clucking, relieving themselves, and breeding (Becky gagged at this) all over her kitchen, the exterminator finally arrived.

“Oh thank you, thank you so much for coming! Just how long will this take, though?” Becky babbled at the exterminator.

“The extermination?” he asked in a New Jersey accent. “About, say, thoity minutes.”

Anything, Becky thought.

But the chickens seemed to have other thoughts. As soon as the “E” word came out of the man’s mouth, all their eyes turned red. The Lead Cluck (for this was the “clan’s” name for him) bocked

“Defend the Queeeeeennnn!!!”

“Did that chicken just t—” but the man’s words were lost in a flurry of flying feathers.

“I’m a rooster!” the Lead Cluck cried.

Horrified, Becky backed away into her room, and locked herself in. A sigh of relief.

She turned around. The entire chicken clan sat gazing at her, filling every inch of the room. Awkward silence.

“We have defended the Queen!” the Lead Cluck clucked.