Chicken Chicken (7 page)

Squinting into the room, I spotted two more of them, lying open on the low
coffee table in front of the couch.

“Cole—” I whispered, my heart starting to pound. “See those old books? Do
you think they are books about magic?”

“Huh?” He pressed his face against the glass. “What do you mean?”

“You know. Bluuuck. Books about magic spells. Sorcery books. They look like
they could be old spell books—don’t they?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Maybe.”

I plucked a white feather from under his chin.

“Owww!” he yelped. “Why’d you do that?”

I shrugged. “Sorry. It was bothering me.” I turned my face back to the window
and stared at the old books.

“Let’s go,” Cole urged, tugging my arm. “She isn’t here.”

“But those books are here,” I replied, tugging myself free. “And if they
are
spell books, maybe we could find the right book. You know. Bluuuuck. With the right spell. And
we could change
ourselves
back to normal!”

Cole rolled his eyes. He clicked his beak. “Yeah. Sure. Then maybe I’ll flap
my arms and lay an egg!”

“Don’t be sarcastic,” I scolded him. “It may be a bad idea. But at least it’s
an idea.”

I pulled him to the front door. I turned the knob—and pushed.

The heavy door creaked open.

“Bluuuuck. Let’s just take a quick peek at those books,” I told my brother,
stepping into the cool darkness of the house. “What have we got to lose?”

I pulled Cole into the front hall. The house smelled of coffee and peppery
spices. Sort of a sweet-sharp aroma.

I led the way into the living room. Silvery light flooded in through the
front window.

The floorboards groaned beneath my shoes. I stopped beside the couch and
stared at the pile of old books.

I reached out for the book on top of the stack—when a furious shriek made
me stop.

“Ohhh!” I pulled my hand back.

“Vanessa—!” Cole cried.

My breath caught in my chest. My heart skipped a beat.

I spun around—and saw Vanessa’s cat leap onto the high back of an old
armchair.

The cat’s eyes flashed, golden in the pale light. It bared its teeth again in
another angry hiss.

“I—I thought it was Vanessa,” Cole murmured in a choked voice. “That cat
cluuuuck doesn’t want us here.”

“Well, we’re not staying long,” I told the cat. I motioned for Cole to come
over to the couch. “Help me check out these books. If we find the right one…”

As Cole passed by the chair, the cat swiped its claws at him.

“Hey—!” Cole ducked away from it.

“Cats don’t like chickens,” I whispered.

I picked up one of the open books on the coffee table. I raised it close to
my face and tried to read the title in the dim light.

The print was smudged. The heavy cover was cracked with age and covered in a
layer of dust. “I can’t read it,” I told Cole.

I saw him move to the wall. “I’ll turn on a light,” he suggested.

The cat hissed again.

“No—don’t!” I called. “No light. If Vanessa comes back, we don’t want her
to see us.”

I rubbed my finger over the title. And tried to focus on it.

“Hey—I don’t believe it!” I cried happily.

“What is it, Crystal?” Cole called. “Did you find—”

Before I could answer, the ceiling light flashed on.

“Ohhh!” I cried out when I saw Vanessa standing by the wall.

I stumbled back.

The book dropped from my hand. It thudded heavily on the floor at my feet.

“Vanessa, I—”

I swallowed hard.

And realized I was staring at a painting. A huge oil portrait of Vanessa,
hanging on the wall.

“Oh, wow!” I cried. “That painting—it’s almost life-sized. I thought—”

I turned to Cole. He stood by the light switch, staring at the big portrait.

“Did
you
click on the light?” I demanded.

“Yes,” he replied. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bluuuck bluuuck scare you. I
thought it would help you read the book title.”

The book title!

“Cole—I think I found the right book!” I cried. “The very first book I
picked up.”

I bent down and excitedly lifted the old book from the floor.

Yes!

“Cole—look!” I exclaimed, holding up the front cover. “It’s called
Chicken Chicken Chicken.
This has to be it! If I can find the spell that
Vanessa used inside this book—”

“Then maybe we can reverse it!” Cole cried.

A loud
bang
from the front of the house made us both jump. The black
cat screeched and jumped off the chair back. It scurried silently from the room.

“Was that the gate—or was it Vanessa?” I cried.

Cole clicked off the light. We listened, frozen in place. I gripped the old
book closely to my chest.

Silence now. Then another bang. Just the fence gate in the wind.

“Let’s get out of here,” I whispered, raising my eyes to the front door.

“Bluuuuck,” Cole replied. He turned and began walking stiff-legged to the
door. Even in the dim light, I could see that a thick tuft of feathers had grown
on the back of his neck.

Vanessa’s cat stood on the hallway floor, arching its back as if ready to
attack. We edged past it carefully.

“Nice kitty. Nice kitty,” I murmured.

Its angry expression didn’t change.

I pushed open the door. The gusting wind caught it and nearly blew the door
handle out of my hand. Cole and I stepped outside. I tugged the door shut.

I carried the heavy book against my chest as we made our way home. We leaned
into the wind. My hair fluttered up behind me like a pennant.

Goshen Falls stood in darkness. All of the stores close early. The only
bright lights were at the self-serve gas station on the first corner.

Cole and I half-walked, half-trotted down the center of the street. I
couldn’t wait to get home and find the spell that Vanessa had used on us.

Finally, our house rose into view. The driveway was still empty. Mom and Dad
hadn’t returned yet from their meeting at school.

Good! I thought. Maybe I can find the spell and change Cole and me back to
normal before they get home.

I led the way up the stairs to my room, still clutching the book to my chest.
Cole closed the door behind us.

I dropped onto the edge of my bed and spread the big book on my lap. Cole
stood beside me, clucking softly. Staring down at me as I rapidly flipped
through the old pages, squinting hard at the tiny type.

“Well?” Cole demanded impatiently. “Is it in there? Is the spell in there?”

I didn’t reply. I turned the pages furiously, my eyes running down each
column. Faster. Faster. I turned page after page, my heart pounding.

“Well?” my brother demanded. “Well?”

I slammed the book shut in disgust.

“Noooooo!” I wailed. I tossed the book onto the bed.

“Cole,” I cried, shaking my head sadly, “we’ve made a horrible mistake.”

Cole uttered a squawk of horror. The white and brown feathers on the back of
his neck stood up on end.

“Crystal—what’s wrong?” he choked out.

“It’s the wrong book!” I cried, jumping up from the bed. I left a pile of
feathers where I’d been sitting. “It’s a
cookbook!
It’s a whole book of
chicken recipes!”

“Yuck!” Cole cried.

The idea sent a wave of nausea up from my stomach. My arms suddenly itched. I
gazed down and saw white feathers curling up from the skin.

“We have to go back there,” I told my brother. My beak clicked loudly. It
stretched out in front of my chin now. My teeth were sinking into my gums, about
to disappear completely. I really had to struggle to form words.

Cole swallowed hard. “Go back?”

“Before it’s too late,” I whispered. “Before we’re completely chicken—not
human at all.”

He gulped and didn’t reply.

I hoisted up the book and started waddling to the bedroom door. I stopped in
shock when I glimpsed my reflection in the dresser mirror.

My eyes! My head!

My eyes had changed into small, round circles. And the shape of my head was
changing, too. Growing narrow. My eyes were far apart now, moving to the sides
of my head.

“No! Oh, noooooo!” I opened my beak in a mournful wail.

“Come on—let’s hurry!” Cole urged. He grabbed my hand. Feathers brushed
feathers. The backs of our hands had sprouted a thick layer of short, white
feathers.

“Yes. Hurry!” I repeated, bobbing my head up and down.

We made our way down the stairs and out the door. Back out into the dark,
wind-swirled night.

I had a strong urge to bend down and peck some gravel from the driveway. But
I fought it off and trotted to the street.

We had to hurry back there. Back to Vanessa’s house.

Would we make it in time?

The trip was normally a ten-minute walk. But it took Cole and me much longer.
Partly because our chicken legs were so stiff. And partly because it’s a lot harder to see where you’re going when your eyes are on different
sides of your head!

The gusting winds softened a little as we finally reached Vanessa’s
farmhouse. Pale moonlight cast shadows over the broken shingled roof.

The windows were still dark. We leaned on the fence, catching our breath and
studying the house. No sign that she had returned home.

Clutching the heavy recipe book to my chest, I pushed past the gate and led
the way to the front door. Once again, it opened easily. Cole and I stepped
inside, inhaling the strange, spicy fragrance of the house.

“Cluuuuck, Vanessa?” I called. “Hello? Anyone home?”

A pair of yellow eyes glared at us from the banister. The black cat let out a
yawn. Not at all surprised to see us back. And from the way it stared at us, not
at all pleased to have its home invaded once again.

“She isn’t here,” Cole whispered. “Let’s bluuuck bluuuck hurry.”

I dropped the recipe book on the coffee table and turned to the stack of
books beside the couch. As I turned, a bowl on the coffee table caught my
attention.

Sunflower seeds!

I couldn’t resist. I poked my head into the bowl and began sucking the tasty
seeds into my beak.

“Crystal—what are you
doing
?” Cole cried in a hoarse whisper. “Get
away from there!”

He grabbed a book from the stack and began frantically pawing through it. I
pecked up a few more seeds. Then I grabbed a book, too.

Cole let out a triumphant squawk. “These books—they’re all magic books!” he
declared.

“You’re bluuuck right,” I agreed. “Hundreds and hundreds of magic spells.”

Cole flipped rapidly through the pages of his book. His eyes were practically
spinning! “How will we ever find the right one?” he demanded.

“I think I just found it,” I told him.

I carried the book to the window and held it up to the moonlight to see it
better.

Yes!

“What does it say?” Cole asked excitedly. He dropped his book and came
bobbing across the room to me.

“It’s a whole cluuuuck page of chicken spells,” I replied, holding the book
up to the window. “This one is called ‘Human into Chicken’. That sounds right—doesn’t it?”

“No. Find ‘Chicken into Human’!” Cole exclaimed.

My eyes swept over the pages. “No such thing,” I told him. “We’ll just have
to reverse the ‘Human into Chicken’ spell.”

“Well, go ahead!” he cried, his feathery head bobbing up and down excitedly. “Reverse it! Do it! What do we have to do?”

I saw that he was so excited, he couldn’t stand still. He tucked his hands
under his armpits, stuck out his elbows to form wings—and began clucking round
and round in a circle.

“Cole—bluuuck bluuck bluuuck!” I scolded.

He ignored me and kept clucking away. Flapping his arms and making a small
circle over the floor.

I turned back to the book and carefully read the spell. It didn’t look too
hard. It didn’t call for any special ingredients. It was just a bunch of words
that had to be said rapidly. And the spell caster had to cluck a lot and do a
simple dance.

Then, according to the book, you point at the poor victims and whisper,
“Chicken chicken!”

Just as Vanessa had done to us.

“It looks pretty easy,” I told Cole. “Stop dancing around, and I’ll bluuuck
try it.”

He stopped his frantic flapping and circling. He turned to me. “Don’t forget
to cluuuck bluuck,” he called.

I knew what he meant. He was reminding me to do the spell
backwards.

Hmm… I glanced over the spell. That wasn’t going to be so easy. But I had
no choice. I had to try it.

Balancing the heavy, old book in one hand, I pointed to Cole, then to myself, with my free hand. “Chicken chicken,” I
whispered.

Okay. That was the very end of the spell.

I lowered my eyes to the bottom of the page. And I started to read the words,
going up: “Cluck cluck chick. Chick cluck cluck chick.”

The spell instructed me to take three steps forward and two to the right. So
I took two steps to the left, then three steps back.

I moved my scrawny chicken finger over the words, being careful to read them
in reverse order:

“Chick cluck chick cluck. Cluck cluck chick.”

Then, following the instructions backwards, I took two giant steps, then
three steps to the right. I flapped my arms and clucked four times.

Then I read the
first
words of the spell at the top of the page:
“Cluck cluck chick cluck. Cluck chick cluck.”

That was it.

That was the whole spell. I had done it completely backwards.

Would it work? Would reversing Vanessa’s spell turn Cole and me back to
normal?

Would it do anything at all?

Yes.

Suddenly, I began to feel strange. My arms and legs began to itch like crazy.
The feathers up and down my arms shot straight out.