"If you promise not to drop me." Gideon said seriously, waiting for confirmation before he took the scoop and got a lot of chicken food, looking at it curiously. It was just little pellets - why did they eat that? It was like seeds and little round pegs of food. Weird. He let Holden lift him and he frowned, all serious and ready to get his job completes. He tossed the first lot and the chickens came closer. He reeled back against Holden for safety.
"How do you tell if they're happy?" Or if they've come to try and eat him... he honestly wasn't sure. They didn't look friendly. One chicken squawked happily and he flinched, spilling some food. "Oh no!" He spilled. The worst had come.
"See? She's happy! Did you hear the little sound she made there?" Holden simply kept holding Gideon, laughing a little. "They surprise me sometimes too. You should get used to it, every now and then they squawk at night. I assume when one of them has a nightmare or something."
Ah, chickens. "Do you see the tiny ones? The two over there? Those are the quails, they are smaller. They lay tiny eggs too. Very cute."
Holden hadn't even noticed that Gideon was worrying over spilled food. "You can toss some more, if you want. Do you see how eagerly they are eating it up?"
"I dropped some. It's on the floor. I'm sorry, chickens." He frowned at the floor and then looked up at the birds, tossing some towards the tiny ones so they could eat. He didn't want to waste the food, he wanted the tiny babies to have lots to eat. He didn't care if they weren't babies, in his head they were.
"Why do you have chickens?" He'd never stayed with people who had chickens before.
He emptied the whole scoop finally and the birds were all eating happily, wings ruffling and moving around contently. Gideon cocked his head. "Do they ever fly away?"
"Nah, they can't fly so far or high. And they like it a lot here, it's a proper nice place, innit?" Lots of space for them, different terrain and some sand for bathing, a great chicken hang. "I have chickens because the coop was here when I got the place and I feel it needed chickens."
Made sense to him at the time. "Besides, then I have someone to talk to. They are called Leela, Susan, Ace and Sarah Jane. And the little ones are called Ian and Barbara."
What a beautiful flock he had there. "I bet they'll be friends with you soon."
"I hope so. They seem nice. I don't have any friends but I need to have friends. Postmen are friends with everyone." So he had to learn how to be friends with everyone. From mayors to firemen to dogs and cats. And even chickens and cows. He wiped his hand on his shirt and then turned around so he could face Holden.
"You said they had a gift for me. What is it?"
Did chickens go shopping? Did they prepare something? should he have gotten the chickens something? He had that smelly old Barbie, he could give it to them.
"Hmm, we'll have to check inside, won't we? Can you hold on to me? You don't have to worry, they are really quite friendly." Holden made sure that he was holding Gideon securely, then he opened the gate. He stepped inside and closed the gate behind himself, walking over to the coop. There, on the usual perch, he could already see some eggs in the hay. "Can you see anything they might have left for you?"
He looked around. "Maybe they laid some eggs? Especially for Gideon."
It was scary and he clung to Holden, slowly moving into the coop and towards the perch. He looked around and then he saw the hay with three whiteish eggs sitting there. His eyes widened in awe. "There's eggs!"
Woah, chickens laid them? He didn't know that. Why did they make food? It was strange but he didn't care. He pointed at the eggs like the amazing egg tracker he was. "Are they for me?"
"They are for you! Wow, we could have a really nice second breakfast with those, couldn't we?" Holden felt that was quite exciting. He handed one of the eggs to Gideon to hold and put the other two into his jacket pocket so they'd be safe, looking down at the chickens. "Thank you for the eggs, chickens!"
They had done a really good job. "Maybe they will lay a few more for tomorrow. Do you want to help me cook the eggs for now, Gideon?"
"Thank you, chickens." Gideon offered too as he held the egg in his hand like it was the most precious thing that had ever existed in this world. He nodded his head when Holden asked and then smiled at him, his eyes lighting up. "I can help cook? I wanna help cook..."
And he had never tried, sure, but he was given this gift and he wanted to cook with it. "I've never eaten an egg before." He had seen them on TV but his mom didn't cook stuff and his foster parents never made eggs. Just the usual sort of stuff, chips and chicken and veggies. Never eggs. And now, he was going to eat an egg. Amazing.
"It tastes pretty nice." Holden was carrying Gideon out of the chicken coop as he explained, they headed back into the house. "There is two parts to every egg, the egg white and the yolk. The yolk is yellow."
He wasn't sure just how little Gideon knew, so he started at zero. "There's a lot of ways to have them, but I was thinking we could just have a simple sunny side up and eat it with toast?"
He walked into the kitchen and set Gideon on the counter, then put the eggs gently down next to him. "Have you made toast before?"
"Yeah, I don't like toast." He had it instead of cereal and he never even tried it but he hated the idea of it. "It's not breakfast, it's just bread..." Hard bread that he didn't want in his mouth. He struggled a lot with deviating from routines he had built himself and having toast instead of cereal was such a trauma that now he resented the very idea of toast. Ew.
"I like cereal." Something Holden already knew but he felt it needed to be stated. He sat on the counter and watched him curiously, still holding his egg really close. "My last home had no cereal. Ever. It was toast and butter. I don't like butter either." Out of spite.
"Well, we can give it a try. You can still have more cereal instead of toast if you want to." Holden didn't want to discourage him. "Or you could try the egg without toast. But let's see."
For now, Holden got a pan out and started heating it up, adding a little bit of oil, as apparently Gideon disliked butter.
"This is the toaster over there." He gestured. "Can you put two slices of toast in?" He handed the pack of bread to Gideon, wanting to encourage him to try something for himself.
"But what about the egg?" The special egg he was holding. He looked at it and then looked at Holden before he held his hand out to him. "It's special, be careful." It was his present egg and he wanted it to be safe and cooked well or he will have failed the chickens. Once he finished that, he took the bread and looked at it.
Then he put it in the toaster, hit the button and watched it glow orange. He didn't touch, orange usually meant fire. Fire meant burns. "I got burned once." Gideon shared as he showed off his hand to Holden. There was indeed a white scar on his small little hand. "I touched the stove."
"Oh no, that's awful. Did someone kiss it better?" Without waiting, Holden leaned down and kissed the scar. "Now it will feel nicer." Well, there were worse lies to tell people.
"You have to tell me when the toast is ready. But right now you have to watch carefully, to make sure everything goes right." With that, he took the special egg and cracked it against the counter, so he could drop it into the pan. He took one of the other eggs next and repeated the process, two little eggs slowly turning white in the pan.
"Do they look fun? I like to watch how egg cooks, it is so weird."
Now it would feel better? Not that it felt bad before but... he looked at his hand for a long time and then giggled cause it was kind of funny. "Gunn says I have lots of owies that I have to see people for like my teeth. They hurt when I eat candy. But only sometimes." Not all the time, if he said that then he wouldn't get candy. "I got sick last time when I was staying with the-the-the other family." He kept forgetting their names. "I hated the doctor. He put stuff in my ear."
So he would never, ever forgive doctors ever.
Watching the egg cook, he tilted his head and saw how yellow it was in the middle and how the white popped and danced in the pans. "Eggs are funny!"
"Yeah, we will go make a dentist appointment, you and I. It's a jolly good deal, going to the dentist, because after you've done it all nicely, you get a toy and your favourite food the next day." A pretty good incentive, he was hoping, because, yes. Gideon desperately needed someone to take care of his teeth. "And then there is the whole thing with the stickers and brushing teeth. So much fun!"
He was clearly hyping it up, but hey. Whatever worked. Holden lowered the temperature a little, then got two plates ready. "We'll wait until there's crispy edges on the eggs, yeah? Tastes better that way."
He did put some salt on the egg though, had to help that taste along a little.
"The toast is done!" Gideon loudly reported as the toast popped out, pointing at the toast before he turned to Holden, more focused on that than the scary dentist and brushing his teeth. Urgh, it was so boring. And yet, it was utterly fascinating to watch as Holden made food. The eggs were crispy, the salt was added and suddenly they had plates! Plates for the food they made.
"What do we do now?" Did they eat the egg with the toast? How did he eat an egg? He was bad with his fork so he hoped hands were fine.
Holden put one egg on each plate and then cut the freshly toasted bread into triangles. With two triangles of bread on each of their plates, they were ready to be served. So he set them down on the table, got out the feared forks and sat down, encouraging Gideon to sit next to him.
"There's a couple ways to do it. Eggs are really soft, so you can just cut them with the side of the fork, see?" He did as he explained, putting some egg onto one corner of a triangle. Then he took a bite. "You can also dip the bread in the yolk!" He demonstrated that as well. "See how you like it, yeah?"
He was resistant at first and sat there, just sort of staring and unsure what to do, the fork in his hand as he eyed up the egg. It looks fun in theory but then he had to eat it. It wasn't spaghetti o's or beans or chicken nuggets so it was already on his no-fly food list but he wanted to try it so badly so Holden didn't get mad and get rid of him. He wanted to stay in the Postman Pat village. He didn't want to go back to the Smith family and their scratchy cat and mean kids.
He used the fork awkwardly and then tried to copy Holden, timidly licking his fork and then looking at the bread. He ripped some pieces off the bread and nibbled on that, poking the egg occasionally and trying his best. It was just a lot and it was all fresh and new. He wasn't used to fresh cooked food.
"If you don't like it that's just fine, Gideon. I don't think I cared much for it at your age either. Although we do have one secret weapon at our disposal." Holden grinned and got up. Then he walked off, only to return with a bottle of ketchup. He held it out triumphantly and put some on Gideon's plate. "Everything is better with ketchup, don't you think?"
At least to a kid's palate, he imagined. He hoped.
"I like ketchup more." Gideon admitted as he put his egg more into the ketchup and ate it like that. It was definitely better and it was nice too. He even ate some of the bread. It was just scary, his first dinner with Holden. And he was so afraid of messing it up, he felt sick and couldn't keep eating. He set his fork down and smiled nervously at Holden. "I'm finished."
It was really tasty, he liked it a lot, he was just full of weird butterflies in his stomach and he wanted them to go away. "I never had an egg before. It tastes weird but it's better with the ketchup." Was that okay? He looked at Holden, awaiting his judgement.
"Wow! For your first time eating an egg, you ate a lot. You are a really brave boy, aren't you?" And so eager for approval, so eager to be loved. Holden could feel the pain in his heart, but he simply leaned forward and ruffled Gideon's hair. "Thank you for trying something new with me. It was fun, wasn't it?"
What an adventurous day they were already having. "Do you have a favourite food, Gideon?"
"I like spaghetti and I like chicken nuggets." His mom sometimes made chicken nuggets or got them from McDonalds - he wasn't sure which, she never made it clear. He ate those a lot. And he liked spaghetti from a can cause he could make that himself. "The last place I stayed at, I didn't like the food. It made me barf." It was too rich, too fancy and too much for him to handle. He'd been sick the second night and he'd been scolded for puking in the room of his foster brother. Now all new food was a bit anxiety inducing.
"I like the food here better." So far, he had pie, cereal and ketchup on top of stuff. No weird fish or meat dish, no strange curries or anything like that. Just easy stuff. He could understand it. "What's your favourite?"
"You know, I really like spaghetti and chicken nuggets too. And I like potatoes. Jacket potatoes especially. I think that's what I ate the most growing up." So it was partially nostalgia, but hey. Sometimes the best thing about a day could be a hot and fluffy potato and he was ready to admit that to himself. "Do you like potato?"
He wondered. Maybe he hadn't encountered that much yet either. "We could have spaghetti for dinner tonight." They had eaten two breakfast, he assumed they could skip lunch. Maybe just have a snack at some point.
"I like potatoes - I have mash potato sometimes. You just add water and it's pretty tasty." He knew what was easy to cook and easy to eat, he always found a potato just fine. It was all the weird stuff that he hated. "I don't like spicy things. I hate fish, it's super gross. And I don't like when there's green stuff everywhere, it usually means it tastes bad."
He finished sharing his foot preference and awkwardly played with his shirt, still in his pyjamas from yesterday. "I like pizza. My mom would order pizza sometimes when she was hungover. That means an adult has a headache. Mom had lots of headaches."
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gay90s2023-08-16 08:00 pm
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"How do you tell if they're happy?" Or if they've come to try and eat him... he honestly wasn't sure. They didn't look friendly. One chicken squawked happily and he flinched, spilling some food. "Oh no!" He spilled. The worst had come.
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Ah, chickens. "Do you see the tiny ones? The two over there? Those are the quails, they are smaller. They lay tiny eggs too. Very cute."
Holden hadn't even noticed that Gideon was worrying over spilled food. "You can toss some more, if you want. Do you see how eagerly they are eating it up?"
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"Why do you have chickens?" He'd never stayed with people who had chickens before.
He emptied the whole scoop finally and the birds were all eating happily, wings ruffling and moving around contently. Gideon cocked his head. "Do they ever fly away?"
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Made sense to him at the time. "Besides, then I have someone to talk to. They are called Leela, Susan, Ace and Sarah Jane. And the little ones are called Ian and Barbara."
What a beautiful flock he had there. "I bet they'll be friends with you soon."
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"You said they had a gift for me. What is it?"
Did chickens go shopping? Did they prepare something? should he have gotten the chickens something? He had that smelly old Barbie, he could give it to them.
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He looked around. "Maybe they laid some eggs? Especially for Gideon."
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Woah, chickens laid them? He didn't know that. Why did they make food? It was strange but he didn't care. He pointed at the eggs like the amazing egg tracker he was. "Are they for me?"
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They had done a really good job. "Maybe they will lay a few more for tomorrow. Do you want to help me cook the eggs for now, Gideon?"
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And he had never tried, sure, but he was given this gift and he wanted to cook with it. "I've never eaten an egg before." He had seen them on TV but his mom didn't cook stuff and his foster parents never made eggs. Just the usual sort of stuff, chips and chicken and veggies. Never eggs. And now, he was going to eat an egg. Amazing.
"How does it taste?"
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He wasn't sure just how little Gideon knew, so he started at zero. "There's a lot of ways to have them, but I was thinking we could just have a simple sunny side up and eat it with toast?"
He walked into the kitchen and set Gideon on the counter, then put the eggs gently down next to him. "Have you made toast before?"
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"I like cereal." Something Holden already knew but he felt it needed to be stated. He sat on the counter and watched him curiously, still holding his egg really close. "My last home had no cereal. Ever. It was toast and butter. I don't like butter either." Out of spite.
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For now, Holden got a pan out and started heating it up, adding a little bit of oil, as apparently Gideon disliked butter.
"This is the toaster over there." He gestured. "Can you put two slices of toast in?" He handed the pack of bread to Gideon, wanting to encourage him to try something for himself.
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Then he put it in the toaster, hit the button and watched it glow orange. He didn't touch, orange usually meant fire. Fire meant burns. "I got burned once." Gideon shared as he showed off his hand to Holden. There was indeed a white scar on his small little hand. "I touched the stove."
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"You have to tell me when the toast is ready. But right now you have to watch carefully, to make sure everything goes right." With that, he took the special egg and cracked it against the counter, so he could drop it into the pan. He took one of the other eggs next and repeated the process, two little eggs slowly turning white in the pan.
"Do they look fun? I like to watch how egg cooks, it is so weird."
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So he would never, ever forgive doctors ever.
Watching the egg cook, he tilted his head and saw how yellow it was in the middle and how the white popped and danced in the pans. "Eggs are funny!"
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He was clearly hyping it up, but hey. Whatever worked. Holden lowered the temperature a little, then got two plates ready. "We'll wait until there's crispy edges on the eggs, yeah? Tastes better that way."
He did put some salt on the egg though, had to help that taste along a little.
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"What do we do now?" Did they eat the egg with the toast? How did he eat an egg? He was bad with his fork so he hoped hands were fine.
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"There's a couple ways to do it. Eggs are really soft, so you can just cut them with the side of the fork, see?" He did as he explained, putting some egg onto one corner of a triangle. Then he took a bite. "You can also dip the bread in the yolk!" He demonstrated that as well. "See how you like it, yeah?"
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He used the fork awkwardly and then tried to copy Holden, timidly licking his fork and then looking at the bread. He ripped some pieces off the bread and nibbled on that, poking the egg occasionally and trying his best. It was just a lot and it was all fresh and new. He wasn't used to fresh cooked food.
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At least to a kid's palate, he imagined. He hoped.
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It was really tasty, he liked it a lot, he was just full of weird butterflies in his stomach and he wanted them to go away. "I never had an egg before. It tastes weird but it's better with the ketchup." Was that okay? He looked at Holden, awaiting his judgement.
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What an adventurous day they were already having. "Do you have a favourite food, Gideon?"
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"I like the food here better." So far, he had pie, cereal and ketchup on top of stuff. No weird fish or meat dish, no strange curries or anything like that. Just easy stuff. He could understand it. "What's your favourite?"
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He wondered. Maybe he hadn't encountered that much yet either. "We could have spaghetti for dinner tonight." They had eaten two breakfast, he assumed they could skip lunch. Maybe just have a snack at some point.
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He finished sharing his foot preference and awkwardly played with his shirt, still in his pyjamas from yesterday. "I like pizza. My mom would order pizza sometimes when she was hungover. That means an adult has a headache. Mom had lots of headaches."
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