Once upon a time, there was a clever fox and two squires. (Squires are kids who are training to be knights.) The squires were guarding a chicken that the fox wanted to eat. The knight who was teaching them had told them to guard the chicken at all costs because it could tell the future.
When the fox got closer to the chicken, the chicken said, “I will get eaten by a fox today.” This scared the squires. So, they first put the chicken’s back to a farmhouse wall, that way the fox couldn’t sneak behind the chicken and eat it. Then, they put spikes in front of the chicken. Big, pointy spikes. For added protection, they put themselves in front of the spikes, to make sure the fox couldn’t get close.
Still, the squires didn’t feel safe. What if the fox was magic like the chicken and could avoid their traps? What if it leapt over them and the spikes? What if it was so hungry that it just charged through anyways and ate the chicken? They needed to send a message that the fox would understand.
One of the squires remembered learning a little about animals. Some animals pee all over the place they live. This is called “marking their territory.” They do it to warn other animals not to come there. So, the squires decided to pee everywhere around the chicken to mark their territory.
This isn’t normal behavior for squires. Normally, when people try to mark their territory, they use banners and flags. “Clearly, these are some very weird squires,” thought the fox, so it decided not to mess with them.
When the Knight came back, he sniffed the air and asked, “What’s that smell?”
The squires said, “Uh oh.”
When the knight learned what had happened, he decided the chicken was a bad influence on his squires, so he threw it into the woods. There, the chicken was eaten by the fox — just as it had predicted.
Two Brothers Write 