Chicken Bone Charlie

The camp councilor sat down on the log before the campfire, eyeballing the scouts, looking for those who might disturb his telling of the chosen story.
All the scouts were silent, waiting in rapt anticipation, knowing the rarity of the event. Councilor Bob Has only told "the story" three times in the past, but all three times were memorable to the glorious point of nightmares and mental scarring . "This was gonna be great," was the general sentiment among the scouts. All of them had heard the stories of Bob's stories, and the excitement was indeed palpable.
"I heard this story from an extremely respected man in the community, who was the Doctor of an old farming woman back when he was starting out as a young physician ," Camp Councilor Bob began, checking the boys for any misbehavior.
All the boys were chin-in-hands attentive.
"Seems the old farming woman had recovered a book from her great, great Grandmother's belongings after her death. It was called The Illymus . "
At that point a hand shot up at three o'clock . Bob looked over his glasses and the boys hand slid back down.
"Now," Bob continued , "The old farming woman couldn't make sense of the words in the book, but as if driven she continued trying to pronounce the strange language," checking the scouts again, swiftly, for attention level Bob went on, satisfied they were interested and not messing around .
At that point an owl sounded it's hooting . The moon was incredible . Big pie.
"Finally the old farming woman pronounced a sentence from the book correctly . She knew this for sure because her beautiful flower garden of tea roses , snap dragons, and lillies were in an instant turned into a garden of weeds, thistles, and burrs," councilor Bob said, using this point in the story to take a drink from his coffee cup.
The scouts were eyes on attentive.
"Ok," Bob sighed, continuing;
"The old farming woman tried another chant . She was a woman possessed . The second chant the old woman learned left her poor tomcat dragging around a giant horses tail," councilor Bob reported darkly.
The scouts murmured and shifted ever so slightly, mindful of their behavior.
"Now, as the story goes ," Bob said with an aire of mystery, "As the old farming woman was reading the third chant she stubbed her toe . She cursed when she hit her toe on the leg of the chair . This curse was prefixed by a root chant . She held her breath, looking around . Nothing. The old farming woman put the Illymus book away and hurried off to put on soup for her old farming husband. However , when she retrieved the chicken from the ice box the old farming woman noticed something ; there were no bones in the chicken . None, " The scout councilor said , sucking in his breath for effect .
"It was the chant she messed up huh? " one of the scouts asked in wonder.
"She smiled . The old farming woman thought she had a chant that would come in handy. One she could use to debone chicken with , which was a time consuming task to say the least..."
"Yeah my Mom hates that !" A scout stated abruptly .
"Yeah," Councilor Bob returned. "Well right about then she heard the screen door slap shut and the old farming woman turned to greet her old farming husband . He walked in - eyes bulging. She gasped when she saw him," Bob said looking around at the boys .
"What was it ???" a scout yell from the back of the group .
"Chicken Bones were sticking out of his neck and the cheeks of his face. If that wasn't bad enough , she looked down and saw chicken leg bones sticking out of his belly . She screamed , 'Charlie!'," the councilor concluded and drank from his mug of coffee, smiling at the shell-shocked scouts, enjoying the look on their faces .

The End

R.L.Stark
2015