Mommy brought home a large chicken. It had a bright-red comb. She put it in the fridge and said, "If Daddy comes home before I come back tell him to put it up. You won't forget, will you?"

"Of course not."

Mommy went off to her college. I took out my paintbox and decided to paint a squirrel jumping from tree to tree in the forest. It looked pretty keen at first, but then it stopped looking like a squirrel and began looking like a funny man. The squirrel's tail was his nose and the branches on the trees were his hair and ears and hat. I really surprised myself.

"Guess what this is, Daddy?" I said when Daddy came home.

He didn't say anything for a while but kept looking at it. "A fire?" he said at last.

"No! Look again."

He did and said, "It must be a soccer game."

"You're not trying to think. You must be very tired."

"No, I'm just hungry. D'you know what's for dinner?"

"There's a chicken in the fridge. Mommy said to cook it."

Daddy got out the chicken and put it on the kitchen table. "Easier said than done. It's no problem to cook a chicken. The idea is to decide on a recipe. There are at least a hundred fine chicken dishes. For instance, chicken cutlets, or chicken in wine. Or chicken fricassee. That'll make your mouth water. There's stuffed chicken, or you can fry it with a heavy weight like an iron on top of the lid and then pour garlic sauce on it. Then you'll have a Georgian dish called 'Chicken tabaka'. Then you can..."

"Make something simple that you don't have to iron. Something that won't take long," I interrupted.

"Right! The main thing is to get it done quickly. What'll it be? Chicken soup? That's the fastest." Daddy even rubbed his hands.

"D'you know how to make chicken soup?"

Daddy chuckled. "What's so hard about that? It's easy as pie. You put a chicken in a pot of water and wait till it's cooked. That's all there is to it. It's decided, then. We're going to make chicken soup. Before you know it, we'll have a two-course dinner. Chicken soup and bread and butter, and hot, steaming boiled chicken "

"What do I do?"

"See these little hairs on the chicken? You cut them off. I'll put the water on to boil meanwhile."

I took Mommy's manicure scissors and began cutting the fine hairs off one by one. At first I thought there'd just be a few of them, but when I saw there were a lot, I began snipping away like a real barber.

"Don't forget the sideburns," Daddy said. "Think it's easy?" -

Daddy suddenly clapped his hand to his forehead. "What dunces we are! How could I've forgotten? Put down the scissors, Dennis. It has to be held over a flame to singe the hair. Understand? That's the way everybody does it."

He lit another burner, because the pot of water was warming on one, and singed the chicken. It began to burn. The whole house was beginning to smell like burnt wool. Daddy kept turning it, saying, "Just a few more minutes now. This'll really be delicious. As soon as we singe all the hair it'll be clean and white."
For some reason or other, though, the chicken was getting blacker and blacker. It looked real charred by the time Daddy finally turned off the gas.

"It looks sort of smoked, doesn't it? D'you like smoked chicken?" he asked.

"No. And it's not smoked. It's all covered with soot. I'll wash it off."

"That's a great idea! You're a smart boy. You take after me. That's for sure. All right, go ahead and wash it. I'll take a break meanwhile." He sat down on a kitchen stool.

"It'll only take a minute," I said. I let the water run in the sink, held the chicken under it in one hand, and started rubbing hard with the other. The chicken was hot and dirty. My hands and arms were soon black and greasy. Daddy was rocking back and forth on the stool.

"See what you've done to it, Daddy? The dirt won't come off. It's all full of soot."

"We'll soon take care of that. The soot's only on the surface. You never heard of a chicken that consisted entirely of soot, did you? Be right back," he said and went off to the bathroom. He came back with a large cake of pink soap. "Here. This'll do the trick. Soap it good and hard!"

I began soaping the poor chicken. It looked miserable. I was soaping it good, but it wasn't getting any cleaner, even though streams of black, soapy water kept running off it for I don't know how long.

"It's getting all smeary from the soap."

"Use the brush then. First do the back and then the rest. That should get it clean."

So I started brushing it as hard as I could. The skin was even coming off in places. It was a tricky job, because the chicken was getting so slippery you'd think it was alive. All Daddy was doing, meanwhile, was giving me orders.

"You've got to get a better grip on it. Hold it by the wing! Not like that! I'm afraid you don't know how to wash a chicken."

"Here, Daddy, you do it." I handed him the chicken. The minute his hand closed over it, it slipped off right under the kitchen cabinet. This didn't faze Daddy.

"Get me the floor brush!"

I handed him the floor brush and he started knocking it around under the kitchen cabinet. First, he pulled out an old mousetrap. Then a tin soldier I thought I'd lost and was so happy to find again. Finally, the chicken appeared. It was full of dust. Daddy was as red as a beet from bending over so long. He grabbed hold of a leg and carried it back to the sink.

"Well, bluebird, let's see you get away this time!" he said and stuck it under the faucet. He rinsed it off pretty good and then dropped it into the pot of hot water.

Just then Mommy came home. "What in the world's going on here?"

Daddy sighed and said, "We're cooking the chicken."

"Has it been cooking for long?"

"I just put it up."

Mommy lifted the lid. "Did you salt the water?"

"I will when it's done."

Mommy sniffed at the pot. "Did you clean out the insides?"

"I will after it's done."

Mommy groaned and dumped the chicken and the boiling water into the sink.

"Hand me my apron, please, Dennis. I see it's no use asking you two to help."

I handed Mommy her apron and went to get the picture I 'd painted. "Guess what this is, Mommy?"

"My sewing machine?"