Anke was just about to leave the coop when hurried footsteps crunched across the gravel path outside.
A moment later, Dr. Wepper appeared in the open doorway, slightly out of breath, his medical bag in one hand and wearing the serious expression veterinarians apparently acquired automatically whenever an animal sneezed.
His eyes immediately swept over the five white hens.
Herbert strutted through the straw with his feathers puffed out, as though he were personally in charge of coop security. The others pecked peacefully among the grain and hay.
“Which one is showing symptoms?”
Anke blinked at him.
“You could’ve started with ‘Morning.’”
Wepper gave a brief nod. “Morning. Which chicken is causing trouble?”
Anke looked around the coop. Herbert crowed loudly. Sissi scratched near the water bowl. Gertrud calmly pecked at the straw.
“If you ask me, they all seem more sensible than the people outside.”
Wepper stepped closer and observed the birds.
“Hmm.”
“Exactly,” Anke said dryly. “Hmm.”
Before Wepper could reply, Mayor Clausen appeared in the open doorway.
Behind him, as always, stood McDoven, and a few steps farther back was Leonie Martens, already eagerly filming with her smartphone.
Anke noted with annoyance that Käthe Kruse had returned as well, looking rather pleased with herself.
“This cannot be happening,” Clausen puffed. “From one twenty to one eighty! Because of ONE missing egg!”
“You really shouldn’t dismiss the egg so lightly,” Wepper said seriously. “If one of the birds is sick, we may have a problem.”
Clausen’s eyes widened.
“What kind of problem?”
“In the worst case, something could spread.”
Leonie zoomed in.
Finally.
Bird flu in Lüttmoorsiel.
Maybe even quarantine.
Maybe the press.
Real press.
“That’s all I need,” Clausen muttered, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief.
Herbert crowed loudly and pecked at McDoven’s shoe.
The Englishman took half a step back and regarded the rooster with polite reserve.
“A remarkably spirited animal.”
“Herbert’s a racist,” Anke said dryly. “He only accepts poultry.”
Käthe Kruse nodded approvingly. “Proud rooster.”
“Perhaps we should examine all the birds,” Wepper said, already opening his bag.
“Absolutely not!” Anke immediately positioned herself protectively in front of the hens. “With all this stress, they’ll stop laying altogether!”
Wepper nodded seriously. “Then perhaps at least a stool sample.”
Anke pointed matter-of-factly at the floor of the coop.
“Help yourself. There’s plenty of it back there.”
“That’s all I need,” Clausen muttered. “Next thing you know, Bertels will turn this into an election campaign event.”
A bicycle screeched to a halt outside the picket fence.
Fifteen-year-old Nils Albers squeezed curiously past everyone and stopped abruptly beside Leonie, who was still filming with her smartphone.
“What’s going on here?”
Leonie didn’t take the camera off the coop for even a second.
“An egg is missing.”
Nils blinked. “A what?”
“An egg.”
He looked at her as though she had lost her mind.
Leonie pointed her phone toward the chicken coop.
“Five hens. Five eggs. Every day. Always has
been. Today there were only four, and nobody knows why.”
Nils looked into the coop.
Then at the adults.
Then back at the chickens.
“Why don’t you just put a camera in the coop?”
Suddenly, everything went quiet.
Leonie immediately swung her camera toward him.
Nils cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders slightly.
“Then you can just see which chicken isn’t laying an egg. Before you drive all the animals crazy.”
Silence.
Even Herbert stopped crowing for a moment.
Anke stared at the boy.
“That,” she said slowly, “is the first sensible idea I’ve heard all day.”