~ helping your child overcome cultural and language barriers is part of the expatriate package -- but conquering a mad rooster was a bit out of my scope ~

The rooster's cold stare stopped four-year old Emily dead. This was it then. The final showdown. It wouldn't be just a mean-spirited peck on the butt and a flurry of feathers this time - no, this encounter might well signal the end for one of them. The barnyard was empty except for the bird and the child. There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to run from where the rooster couldn't easily attack.

As the sharp-beaked face got closer and closer, Emily's fingers tightened round her only hope - her secret weapon - her one chance. And just as the bird fluffed itself out to enormous proportions and hurled itself at Emily's forehead - THWACK!!

Emily shot the rooster absolutely between the eyes with her brand-new hot pink automatic umbrella! The victory was tremendous, immediate and unquestionable! The rooster, unhurt but terrified beyond belief, picked itself up out of the dust and scurried off to its coop, with Emily screaming gleefully behind him, THWACKING several more times just for good measure.

That umbrella, a recent birthday gift, was from thenceforth endowed with all sorts of qualities and went everywhere with Emily. She took it to her friend's house and shook its magic crystals all over the from-around-the-world doll collection to give them life. When the entire family-sized bottle of baby powder was used up, Emily left to make an umbrella boat for her bear but couldn't find a big enough puddle, so she went home and took an oatmeal and bubble bath instead.

Emily was inseparable from her friend, that hot-pink umbrella, open wide under the hot summer sun. She twirled it like a crazy ballerina and tried rolling it down a hill; she let it pull her in the breezes and on the slide and on the swing. All the other little girls nearby got out their umbrellas and marched together, umbrella to umbrella, like a colorful caterpillar to their mothers' watchful eyes.

And as long as Emily had her umbrella, she was invincible. No bee, no monster-under-the-bed, no big boy from next door, and certainly no ROOSTER could ever bother her again as long as she had her hot-pink umbrella.

But then one day she lost it. She didn't quite know how but her umbrella was just gone. And that rotten rooster found out. He had been waiting and watching. Quietly and patiently. And at last his chance had come! As Emily searched near the chicken coop for her lost umbrella, the rooster COCK-A-DOODLED loud enough to make your eyes water and then puffed himself up really big, clawing at the dirt, ready to do battle.

But this time, Emily was so busy looking for her umbrella that she wasn't horribly scared - not really. She just wanted to find her wonderful magical umbrella; she didn't have time for a rooster brawl. So she looked that bird right in the beady eye and said very firmly and loudly: "GET OUT OF HERE! I'M BUSY!!" Then she pretended that SHE was the hot-pink umbrella and screamed "THWACK!", throwing her arms up in the air.

The rooster wasn't taking any chances. He packed up that night and left the farm for good.

Emily's mom found the pink umbrella in the refrigerator later in the day. But how it got there's a different story.