Chicken Chicken Read online

  “Cole, be quiet,” Mom scolded.

  “Doesn’t anyone want to hear about my sprained thumb?” Cole whined.

  “No,” Mom shot back. “Be quiet.” She turned back to me. “You didn’t play well?”

  “I—I tripped over my own dribble. Twice,” I stammered. “And I missed an easy layup. The ball didn’t even touch the rim. Airball.”

  “Well … next time …” Dad started.

  “But this was my big chance to show I can be a starter!” I cried. “And I blew it. I just felt so tired. I hadn’t slept the night before. And … and …”

  “You’re still the sixth player,” Mom said soothingly. “You’ll get a chance.”

  “Do you have team practice tomorrow?” Dad asked, helping himself to more salad.

  I shook my head. “No. Tomorrow afternoon is chorus practice. Cole has it, too. You know. The chorus is performing for the junior high graduation next month.”

  “I get to sing two solos,” Cole bragged. “I’m the only fifth grader in the chorus—and I’m the only one with perfect pitch.”

  “No one’s perfect,” I reminded him. I know. It was a really lame joke. No one laughed.

  Mom lowered her eyes to Cole’s hand. “How did you sprain your thumb?” she asked.

  “I didn’t,” Cole replied. “I was just trying to get into the conversation.”

  Mrs. Mellon, the music teacher, was a tiny, birdlike woman. She always wore gray sweaters and gray skirts or pants. With her feathery gray hair and snipped beak of a nose, she always reminded me of a sparrow. Or maybe a chirping chickadee.

  She called us her canaries.

  Greene County Middle School wasn’t big enough to have a music room. So the chorus met after school in a corner of the auditorium stage.

  There were eight kids in the chorus. Four boys and four girls. Mostly sixth graders, with a few younger kids like Cole thrown in. It was hard to put a chorus together in such a small school.

  Mrs. Mellon was late. So the boys shot paper clips across the stage at each other with rubber bands. And the girls talked about how dumb the boys were.

  When Mrs. Mellon finally arrived, her hands fluttering tensely at her feathery hair, she wanted to get right down to business. “Our performance is two weeks from tonight,” she announced fretfully. “And we really don’t know what we’re doing—do we?”

  We all pretty much agreed that we needed a lot more rehearsal time. Lucy-Ann, who is our only soprano, raised her hand. “Maybe we could lip-synch some songs,” she suggested. “You know. From records.”

  Everyone laughed.

  I studied Lucy-Ann. I wasn’t so sure she was joking.

  “No fooling around this afternoon,” Mrs. Mellon said sternly. “Let’s see how much we can get done when we’re being serious.”

  We sang our warm-up scales. We were interrupted when a large black spider dropped from the rafters into Lucy-Ann’s curly blond hair. She shrieked and staggered back. And she began shaking her head wildly and tugging at her curls with both hands.

  Finally, the spider dropped onto the stage floor, and Cole tromped on it.

  “Isn’t that bad luck or something?” a boy named Larry called to my brother.

  Cole shrugged and scraped the sole of his shoe against the floor.

  “Let’s begin with ‘Beautiful Ohio,’” Mrs. Mellon suggested, ignoring the whole spider problem. She shuffled sheet music on her music stand. “That’s the one that gave us so much trouble last time.”

  “It’s the high part that’s the problem,” Lucy-Ann chimed in.

  “It’s your voice that’s the problem!” Larry teased Lucy-Ann.

  Mrs. Mellon cleared her throat. “Please, folks. Serious. Serious.” She turned to Cole. “Have you been practicing your solo?”

  “Oh, yeah. Sure,” my brother lied.

  “Then let’s try it,” Mrs. Mellon suggested. “Remember, Cole—you wait three beats before you come in.”

  “No problem,” Cole told her.

  At the last rehearsal, he didn’t do it right once.

  Mrs. Mellon raised her arms. Smiled. And fluttered her hands, her signal for us to start.

  We began to sing “Beautiful Ohio.” It’s kind of a drippy song, but I like to sing the high part.

  “Very good. Very good,” Mrs. Mellon encouraged us as we sang, a tight smile on her face.

  It did sound pretty good.

  Until Cole began his solo.

  I saw him take a deep breath. He stepped forward. Waited for three beats. Opened his mouth.

  And sang: “BLUCK BUCK BUCK BLUUUCK BLUCK.”

  “Huh?” Mrs. Mellon gasped.

  We all stopped singing. I stared hard at my brother.

  He had a confused expression on his face. He kept clearing his throat.

  “Sing the words, Cole,” Mrs. Mellon instructed sternly. “You do know the words—right?”

  Cole nodded.

  “Let’s begin with the chorus just before Cole’s solo,” she told us.

  We began again. As I sang, I kept my eyes on my brother.

  I saw him count off the three beats. Then:

  “BLUCK BLUCK BLUCK CLUCK BUCK!”

  What was he trying to prove?

  Larry laughed. But no one else did.

  Cole kept rubbing his neck and clearing his throat. His face was bright red.

  “Are you okay?” I mouthed the words to him.

  He didn’t answer me.

  “Cole—please!” Mrs. Mellon pleaded. “Stop fooling around. We really haven’t time.” She frowned at him. “You have a beautiful voice. I know you can sing this. Will you please do your part?”

  She raised her hands. “Begin on three,” she told him. “One … two … three …” She began conducting with one hand. “Now let’s hear your best,” she urged.

  “BLUCK BLUCK BUCK BUCK BUCK!” my brother clucked in a high, silly voice.

  I stepped away from the other girls and rushed up to him. “Cole—what is the big idea?” I cried furiously. “Why are you doing that?”

  “BLUCK BLUCK BUCK CLUCK BLUCK,” he replied.

  Later, I was up in my room, getting Lucy-Ann’s birthday present ready. I glanced to the doorway and saw Cole standing there tensely.

  His blond hair stood up straight on top of his head. He was wiping his sweaty hands on the front of his T-shirt.

  “What do you want?” I asked sharply. “I’m busy.” I slid the gift card into an envelope and sealed it.

  Cole cleared his throat, but didn’t reply.

  I shook my head at him. “You ruined the whole rehearsal,” I told him.

  “It wasn’t my fault!” he cried shrilly.

  “Hah!” I slammed my scissors down on the desk. “You refused to sing. You stood there clucking like a hen! Whose fault was it?”

  “You don’t understand—” Cole croaked, tenderly rubbing his throat.

  “No, I don’t,” I interrupted angrily. “You know, we’re all tired of your dumb jokes. Especially me. You just think you’re so funny all the time, Cole. But you’re really such a pain.”

  “But I wasn’t being funny!” he protested, stepping into the room. He walked up to the desk and fiddled nervously with the tape dispenser. “I didn’t want to cluck like that. I—I couldn’t help it.”

  I rolled my eyes. “For sure,” I muttered.

  “No—really, Crystal. I—I think Vanessa made me do it! I think she made me cluck like that!”

  I laughed. “I’m not stupid, you know,” I told him. “I may fall for the same joke of yours once or twice. But I’m not going to fall for it again.”

  “But Crystal—”

  “It wasn’t funny,” I repeated. “And it wasn’t fair for you to ruin the whole rehearsal for everyone.”

  “You don’t understand!” Cole protested. “It wasn’t a joke. I really had to cluck. I—”

  “Out!” I shouted. I made shooing motions with both hands. “Out of my room—now!”

 
His face turned bright red. He started to say something. Changed his mind with a defeated sigh. Turned and slumped out of my room.

  “Anything for a joke, huh, Cole?” I murmured to myself.

  I’m usually not that mean to my brother. But this time he deserved to be taught a lesson.

  I finished wrapping the present. Then I did homework until bedtime.

  I turned out the light and was climbing between the sheets when I heard a chicken clucking.

  That’s weird, I thought. I never hear the chickens at night. They’re all locked in their coop.

  “Cluuuuck bluuuuuck.”

  Sitting up, I stared across the dark room to the open window. My curtains fluttered in a soft breeze. A triangle of pale moonlight slanted over the carpet.

  Did the chicken coop door come open? I wondered.

  Did a chicken escape somehow?

  “Bluuck bluuck buuck.”

  The cry seemed to be coming from close to the house, beneath my bedroom window.

  Watching the fluttering curtains, I climbed out of bed and crossed the room to the window. The moonlight washed over me, cold and silvery.

  “Bluck bluck cluck.”

  I leaned on the window ledge. Peered down to the ground.

  And gasped.

  Nothing down there.

  No chicken.

  I stared at the silvery ground. Then moved my eyes to the long chicken coop beside the garage. It sort of looked like a long, low, wooden doghouse. The door was shut tight. Nothing moved inside its tiny round windows.

  “Bluuuuck bluuuck.”

  Feeling confused, I pulled my head inside. Where was that clucking coming from?

  From inside?

  “Cluuck cluuuck.”

  Yes. I could hear it through the wall. The wall to my brother’s room next door.

  Why is he doing that? I asked myself, climbing back into bed. Why is he in there clucking in the middle of the night?

  What is he trying to prove?

  I knew Lucy-Ann’s birthday party would be fun. Lucy-Ann always throws great parties.

  She comes from a big farm family. She has seven brothers and sisters.

  Their big farmhouse is always filled with great smells—chickens roasting, pies baking. Lucy-Ann’s parents are the most successful farmers in Goshen Falls. And they’re really nice people, too.

  Lucy-Ann invited the whole class to her party, and about two dozen of her relatives. It was a beautiful spring afternoon. And a lot of people were already hanging out in the yard in front of the tall, white farmhouse when I arrived.

  Lucy-Ann has a lot of little cousins. As I hurried up the gravel drive, I saw a bunch of them hanging around the side of the utility barn. Lucy-Ann’s dad was giving tractor rides, and the little kids were jumping up and down, wrestling each other in excitement, waiting their turns.

  I met Lucy-Ann at the top of the drive and handed her the envelope.

  She studied the square shape and grinned. “Thanks!” she said.

  Lucy-Ann’s expression turned serious. “Are you going to chorus rehearsal tomorrow morning?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. We really need to practice.”

  “I’ll be a little late,” Lucy-Ann said. “We usually don’t get back from church till after eleven-thirty.” She frowned. “Did you talk to your brother? Why did he act like such a total jerk yesterday? What was all that horrible clucking? Did he think it was funny or something?”

  I shrugged. “Yeah. I guess.” Then I added with a sigh, “No way I can explain my brother. Sometimes I think he’s from Mars.”

  Lucy-Ann laughed. “Tell me about it,” she muttered. “I’ve got four brothers!”

  I waved to a couple of girls from my class who were leaning against the broad trunk of an old maple tree. I walked over to talk to them.

  I like a lot of kids in my class, although I don’t get to see some of them outside of school. You see, Goshen Falls is so tiny, and we have the only middle school for miles. So kids are bussed to our school from all over the county.

  That means some of my friends live over thirty miles away. When I want to call them at night, it’s a long-distance call!

  It was a nice party. We stayed outside the whole time. Lucy-Ann cranked up the music, and we all danced. I mean, all the girls danced. A couple of the boys joined in. But most of them stood on the grass, making jokes about those who were dancing.

  I really had fun—until birthday cake time.

  And then the fun turned to horror.

  As the afternoon sun started to lower itself behind the farmhouse, Lucy-Ann’s mom carried out the birthday cake. Actually, she carried out two cakes—one vanilla from the bakery and one chocolate that she baked herself.

  “With so many kids in our family,” Lucy-Ann explained to me, “no one could ever decide what kind of cake everyone liked best. So Mom always has to bake an extra for every birthday!”

  We all grabbed plates and gathered around the long, white-tableclothed table to sing “Happy Birthday” to Lucy-Ann. Beside the two cakes stood a blueberry pie about the size of a pizza!

  It took a long while to light the candles on both cakes. The wind kept gusting and blowing some of the candles out.

  Finally, Lucy-Ann’s parents got them all lighted, and we sang “Happy Birthday.” Lucy-Ann looked really pretty standing behind the cakes, the flickering candlelight dancing over her face and curly blond hair.

  She seemed to be staring at me as we sang.

  And I suddenly realized that something was wrong.

  That loud clicking sound I heard—it was coming from me!

  My lips were clicking together noisily as I sang.

  As soon as the song ended, I rubbed my lips with my finger. They felt very dry. Sort of cracked and dry.

  “Crystal—what kind of cake?” Lucy-Ann was asking. I gazed up to see her and her mother slicing the cakes.

  I held my plate up. “A little bit of both?” I couldn’t decide, either.

  Balancing my plate and fork in one hand, I walked off to join some friends. “Looks good,” I said.

  I mean, I tried to say it. But it came out, “Tcccck tccccck.” Sort of a metal click.

  I ran my tongue over my lips. So dry.

  “Tcccck tcccccck.”

  I tried to chew a forkful of cake. But each bite made that loud clicking sound.

  I licked my lips again.

  Tried to chew.

  I started to choke. I couldn’t chew the cake.

  “Ckkkkkkk tccccck.”

  A few kids were staring at me.

  “Crystal, are you okay?” someone asked.

  I clicked a reply. Then I hurried to Lucy-Ann at the table. “Do you have any Chap Stick?” I demanded shrilly.

  My lips clicked as I talked. She struggled to understand me.

  “Chap Stick?” I repeated. “Chpsttttccck?”

  She nodded, narrowing her eyes to study me. “In the medicine chest. Downstairs bathroom on the left.” She pointed.

  I set down my cake plate and took off, running across the grass. I pulled open the screen door and flew into the house. It smelled sweet inside, from all the cake and pie baking.

  I turned to the left, into the hallway. I knew my way. I’d spent a lot of hours with Lucy-Ann here.

  The bathroom door stood open. I stepped inside, clicked on the light, and shut the door behind me.

  Then I dove to the medicine cabinet and gazed into the mirror.

  It took my eyes a few seconds to adjust. But when I could finally focus on my lips—I opened my mouth in a shrill scream of horror.

  Bright red, my lips poked out from my face.

  I ran a finger across them. Both lips were bumpy. Hard and bumpy.

  I tapped my lips with my finger. It made a soft click.

  My lips were hard. They didn’t feel like skin anymore! They felt as hard as fingernails!

  “Tcccck tcccck.”

  I clicked them. Opened and closed my mouth. Staring hard at the ugl
y reflection in the mirror.

  Had my lips grown some sort of crust? Were my real lips underneath?

  I raised both hands and struggled to pull the crusty part off.

  But no. No crust. The hard lips were attached to my face.

  “Oww!” I gasped. My lips clicked shut.

  “What is happening to me? It—it’s like a bird beak! I can’t let anyone see me like this!” I cried out loud.

  I banged the mirror with both fists. This can’t be happening! I told myself in a complete panic. It can’t!

  I tried to pull the hard beak lips off one more time.

  “Crystal—calm down. Calm down!” I instructed myself. I took a deep breath and forced myself to turn away from the mirror.

  It’s an allergic reaction, I decided.

  That’s all. I ate something I am allergic to.

  It will disappear in a few hours. And if it doesn’t disappear, Dr. Macy will know how to shrink the lips back to normal and make them soft again.

  I took another deep breath. My whole body was shaking. I was trembling so hard, my lips were clicking.

  I shut my eyes. Then I turned back to the mirror. I opened them, praying my real lips would be back.

  But no.

  “A bird beak,” I murmured in a shaky whisper. “It looks like a bird beak.”

  Click click.

  I ran my tongue over the bumpy lips.

  Ow. The hard lips scratched my tongue.

  I can’t let anyone see me like this! I decided. I’ll sneak out the front door and run home. I’ll explain to Lucy-Ann later.

  I shut off the light and pulled the bathroom door open a crack. No one in the house, I saw. Everyone was still out in the back, enjoying the cakes and pie.

  Will I ever enjoy cake again? I wondered.

  Or will I have to pull up worms from the ground and suck them through my bird lips?

  Sickening thoughts.

  I crept along the living room. Then pushed open the front door—and escaped.

  As I ran to the road, I could hear the happy voices from behind the house. Kids were laughing and shouting over the boom of dance music.

  I turned and started running full speed toward home. I hoped no one could see me.

  The sun had sunk behind the trees. Evening shadows reached across the ground toward me.