英语美文欣赏 1 -Jacob's Chicken by Milos Macourek (Czech)

Jacob's Chicken

by Milos Macourek (Czech)

A chicken is a chicken, you all know how a chicken looks, sure you do,

so go ahead and draw a chicken the teacher tells the children, and all

the kids suck on crayons and then draw chickens, coloring them black

or brown, with black or brown crayons, but wouldn't you know it, look

at Jacob, he draws a chicken with every crayon in the box, then

borrows some from Laura, and Jacob's chicken ends up with an

orange head, blue wings and red thighs and the teacher says that's

some bizarre chicken, what do you say children, and the kids roll with

laughter while the teacher goes on, saying, that's all because Jacob

wasn't paying attention, and, to tell the truth, Jacob's chicken really

looks more like a turkey, no wait, a peacock, it's as big as a quail and

as lean as a swallow, a peculiar

pullet

, to say the least, Jacob earns an

F for it and the chicken, instead of being hung on the wall, migrates to

a pile of misfits on top of the teacher's cabinet, the poor chicken's

feelings are hurt, nothing makes it happy about being on top of a

teacher's cabinet, so, deciding not to be chicken, it flies off through

the open window.

But a chicken is a chicken, a chicken won't fly too far, hence it ends up

next door in a garden full of white cherries and powder-blue currants,

a splendid garden that proudly shows its

cultivator

's love, you see,

the

gardener, Professor Kapon, a recognized authority, he is an

ornithologist

who has written seven books on birds and right now is

finishing his eighth, and as he puts the last touches to it, he suddenly

feels weary, so he goes out to do some light gardening and toss a few

horseshoes, which is easy and lets him

muse

over birds, there are

tons of them, so many birds, Professor Kapon says to himself, but

there isn't a single bird that he discovered, he feels down, flips a

horseshoe and dreams a love- filled dream about an as-yet-unknown

bird when his eye falls on the chicken picking the baby-blue currants,

the rare blue

currants

, that darn it, he didn't grow for chicken feed,

now that would make anyone's blood boil, the professor is

incensed

,

he is

furious, he seems unable

to

zap

the chicken, so in

the end he

just

catches it, flings it over the fence, the chicken flies off, and

voila

,

Professor Kapon follows, he flies over the fence in pursuit of the

chicken, grabs it and carries it home, quite an unusual chicken, that

one, bet nobody has seen one quite like it, an orange head, blue wings

and red thighs, the professor jots it all down, looks like a turkey, but

then not quite, reminds one of a sparrow but also of a peacock, it's as

big as a quail and as lean as a swallow, and after he has written it all

down for his eighth book, the professor, all quivers, bestows upon the

chicken his own name and carries it to the zoo.

A chicken is a chicken, who would fuss over a chicken, you think, but

this one must be well worth the bother for the whole zoo is in an

uproar, such rarity turns up perhaps once in

twenty years, if that

often,

the zoo director is rubbing his hands, the employees are building a

cage, the painter has his hands full and the director says the cage

must sparkle and make the bed soft, he adds, and already there

appears a nameplate, Kapon's chicken, Gallina Kaponi, it sounds

lovely, doesn't it, what do you say, it sounds, actually. . .how about it,

the chicken is having the time of its life, it's moved to tears by all this

care, it really can't complain, it has become the zoo's main attraction,

the center of attention, the zoo has never had so many visitors, says

the cashier, and the crowds are growing larger by the minute, wait,

look, there is our teacher with the whole class standing in front of the

cage, explaining, a while ago you saw the Przewalkski horse and here