Chicken Chicken Read Online Free PDF Page A

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.

 
 
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    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