Chicken Chicken (4 page)

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, wrapping Lucy-Ann’s birthday present. 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 folded a corner of the
birthday wrapping paper and taped it down over the CD case.

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 wrapped-up CD.

She studied the square-shaped box and grinned. “Wow. I’ll
never
guess
what this is!” she joked.

“Okay, okay. So I’m not too original,” I replied with a shrug.

“You don’t know what a perfect present it is,” she said as we began to walk
across the grass to the others. “Mom and Dad got me a Discman for my birthday—but no CDs.”

I laughed. “Well, now you’ve got
one
,” I said. “At least I know you
don’t already have it!”

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 volume on her tape player, 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 ugly
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.

My lips clicked as I ran. My heart pounded. I ran all the way home without
slowing down once. Luckily, I didn’t run into anyone I knew on the street.

Mom and Dad’s car was gone. I ran up the driveway and into the house through
the kitchen door.

Cole turned shakily from the sink. “Crystal—!” he cried. I could tell
instantly that something was wrong.

I turned my face away. I didn’t want him to see my ugly bird mouth.

But he rushed forward, grabbed my arm, and turned me around. “Mom and Dad
aren’t home,” he murmured. “I—I have to show you something.”

“Cole—what is it?” I demanded, my lips clicking. “Why are you—
click click
—wearing that bath towel around your neck?”

“I… need help,” he replied, lowering his eyes.

He slowly unwrapped the blue bath towel. Then he slid it off his neck.
“Look,” he insisted.