Ode to Cluck

Mr Cluck - one of animals from the Haanta Series written by Michelle Franklin. He's the cutest and funniest cockerel ever ^^

The clucking just beyond the sitting room door increased and became interspersed with a loud rapping.
“He’s tellin’ me I’m late,” Beryn said. “Better open the door before he starts scratchin’ at it.” 

She turned from the sitting room as the door to the porch was opened, and there, standing on the threshold, was Mr Cluck: his large red comb, long brown feathers, high breast, arched tail, wide stance, and canted head gave him a distinguished air so strange and yet to becoming in a fowl. He moved toward Beryn, his steps wary, his gestures quick and disjointed, staring up at him with an impatient look.

“Aye, I know I’m late,” said Beryn.

The cockerel clucked and seemed to be waiting for further reason to accomplish Beryn’s delay.

“I got a reason for bein’ late.” Beryn held out his hand toward Meraliegh. “This is Meraliegh Calcannan, Cluck. She’s gonna be visitin’ with us the while.”

The cockerel gave a few heated clucks.

“What do you mean another one? Ain’t my fault all the hens like me, you know.”

Cluck!

“Well, this one belongs to me and I ain’t sharin’,” said Beryn with playful firmness. “Be nice at least and say hello to Mer even if she ain’t your hen.”

A cluck and a scratch at the ground, and the cockerel turned up his nose.

“Well, I see how it’s gonna be.”

This assertion was thoroughly ignored, and the cockerel began pecking at Beryn’s feet and flapping his wings.

“Aye, we’re comin’,” Beryn assured him, shooing him away with a wave of his hand. [...]

As Beryn went to the coop to let the hens out for their morning graze, his cockerel gave a triumphant cluck and began hastening after him. He caught up with him, and when Beryn stopped to open the coop door, the cockerel began marching about his feet in circles.

“Tryin’ to round me up,” Beryn fleered. “I ain’t a hen, Cluck.”

Cluck!

“I can’t be a hen. That trough is too small for me.”

This reasoning, though sound, was not to be believed, and the cockerel clucked in opposition, stopping to refute all of Beryn’s assertions, and then going around him again, strutting in circles and pecking at the ground in hopes of having his large and unruly hen do as he bid.

Beryn shook his head at him, and then looked at Meraliegh, who was wiping the tributaries from her cheeks. “There’s no tellin’ him anythin’,” he declared, and there was nothing more to do than to stand aside and watch the hens pour out of the coop, all of them eager eat, and all of them just as eager to avoid Mr Cluck.