We were eating lunch when a chicken walked out of the woods. “Jennie, look behind you.”

She turned around. “What the heck?”

We watched as the chicken came closer. It pecked the ground, not in any kind of hurry.

“There was one more after all,” I said.

“Yeah, the stupid one,” Jennie pointed out. “Although it’s the last one standing, so it’s done something right.”

It came right up to Jennie and she said, “Oh, hi. Do you not know what we did to the rest of your kind?”

It tilted its head and looked up at her as if it were trying to figure out what she said. My mouth watered. I thought about the chicken dinner Jennie and I would have. But then she said, “Let’s not kill this one, Jiho. Let’s see if it lays eggs.”

I built a small pen. Jennie picked the chicken up and put it inside. It sat down and looked at both of us like it was happy with its new house. Jennie put some water in an empty coconut shell. 

“What do chickens eat?” she asked.

“I don’t know. You’re the teacher. You tell me.” 

“I taught English. In a major metropolitan area.”

That cracked me up. “Well, I don’t know what it eats.” I bent down by the pen and said, “You better lay eggs because right now you’re just another mouth to feed, and if you don’t like coconut, breadfruit, and fish, you may not like it here.”

I swear to God that chicken nodded its head.

It laid an egg the next day. Jennie cracked it into an empty coconut shell and scramble