"Twenty seven pages on why the budget needs to be expanded to cover the purchase of softer toilet tissue" Thirty three separate proposals on new shrubberies for the marketplace?" The chicken avenger just could not believe what could be found in the budget files. This was going to be a bigger project than anticipated.

The files were a disaster, the ledgers nearly mythical in their scarcity, and there was an altercation with a particularly large mouse over the contents of the bottom file drawer. That particular incident ended up with the chicken nursing a bite wound where tail feathers would be had the chicken ever sported plumage, and the mouse retaining ownership of the files in that drawer.

The chicken set to work organizing the papers into stacks marking each page as either Keep or Toss.

Chris had just finished setting up the "mail drop" within the government complex; he had placed it on the corner near the entrance of the district. It was really the only place he could put it and still have it serve the function it was designed to do. The mail drop itself was a simple metal box with rounded tops, painted brown with some green outline, with a sticker on the front that read: Government Mail Only. Hidden, put purposefully underneath the mail drop where it couldn't be seen, was another sticker that read: Caution! Hot!

Since he was already there Chris made his way to the treasury office to see D.C., the Chicken Avenger, and let him know the "mail drop" had been setup and where he could find it. As he walked down the hall he thought he saw the Governor walking his way from the other side, he hadn't seen her in a while and decided to say hello. "Hey baby! Lookin??" That is about the time, as she grew closer, that he realized this woman was an old hag that looked like death warmed over. "Good god Kitty! This job is killing ya! Get out, get out now while ya still can. Please!" He hurried past her to treasury office door, calling back down the hall before entering, "Ya look good though." Disappears into the office quickly afterwards before she can look back and turn him to stone.

Chris began the search for the chicken by moving through the maze created by stacks of paper that was supposed to be an office. "Yo D.C. where ya at' I got that mail drop put up and I had my intern go over the budget things, turns out they burn real well." He stopped and listened for any noise that might be the chicken working before continuing the search. "Ya might want to think about getting out of this government job because I think I just passed the Governer in the hallway and damn! Politics will really screw with ya complexion."

Things had not been going well at the office for the Chicken Avenger. The chicken was worn to the rubber equivalent of a frazzle. The constant demands for money that the treasury just didn't have were piling up, and all those files that the Chicken thought they had gotten rid of with the new 'mail drop' kept showing back up on the chickens desk, somewhat charred with extra pages and more demands.

The Chicken was lonely. Chicken missed Kitty, and rarely saw Erin anymore. The chicken was starting to think the assistant was afraid of him with how seldom she came by.

Even going home at the end of the night had been a letdown lately. House Helston seemed empty without Kitty, and the chicken didn't feel right wandering its halls. So he spent most of his time in his room, curled up in egg position on the bed, sobbing his little beady eyes out.

Left on Kitty's desk was a note from the despondent Chicken.

" Kitty please come back soon, I'm lost without you. Yours, Chicken."

"KITTY!" A little blur of yellow rubber was launching itself across the room to hug the woman and drown her in beaky kisses. "Oh I missed you! I missed you! I missed you!"

Finally after a moment the chicken settled down to look up at Kitty. "Its been crazy around here without you! Erin and I tried to keep up as best we could, But no one chicken can handle something this big even with the best of help."

"But did you see your get well card?"