The story of Amélie

Dear Children,

Today I want to tell you the story of Amélie, the hen from the Casa di Calamine, who wants to fly like a seagull. It’s for this reason that she’s a little bit too foolhardy, but Amélie was born under a lucky star and, apart from a few scratches and bruises, she never gets badly hurt.

Everything in due time. Let’s start at the beginning.

Amélie’s mother was called Greta. She was a magnificent , thoroughbred hen from the Padovana race, the most beautiful in the hen-house.

Her feathers shone like silk and she had beautiful, almond shaped eyes.

The cockerel, Berto, was madly in love with her. They cooed together like lovebirds day and night, so much so that sometimes Berto even forgot to sing at dawn!!

In the henhouse lived a nasty, jealous hen, who couldn’t stand the fact that Berto only had eyes for Greta.

One night, out of spite, whilst everyone was asleep and Greta and Berto were flirting on the hill in the moonlight, as silent as a cat, Dina went to her rival’s nest and stole the egg that Greta had just laid. She ran into the woods and abandoned it under a holly bush, at the foot of a centuries-old elm tree, certain that a fox or a racoon would soon pass by and find it and eat it.

Luckily that was not the case.From the top of his nest in the elm tree, the flying squirrel Manolo saw the whole scene.

As soon as the hen had disappeared, Manolo flew down from the tree and found the abandoned egg, still warm from its mother.

He immediately thought of his friend Bo, who would most certainly take care of this egg.

Manolo hurried to the Casa di Calamina and Bo was very happy with this task.

Twenty -one days later, Amélie was born.

My dear children, with a flying father like Manolo, present at each stage in her life, and the peculiar family at Casa di Calamina, where anything is possible, how could a little hen not want to glide gently in the sky?

Everyone tried to help her. Fernandel gave her theoretical lessons on how to fly, Manolo practical, Gaïa tried to make her lighter by attaching balloons with wings, but all in vain, Amélie was too heavy…..

Until the day when Fred arrived with a small airman’s hat, made-to-measure, with a small and powerful propeller at the top, which when a button was pressed, allowed Amélie to take off, go up above the trees and to flutter her wings.

She’s perhaps not as light as a butterfly, nor as gracious as a seagull, but Amélie doesn’t care. She is happy because she can fly!