“Chicken,” said Mindy.
“Or any other animal,” Charles reminded her.
“Or any mention of a birthday surprise,” said Cornelia.
Mindy nodded. The three of them started off again across the Delaneys’ yard, through the cluster of walnut trees and the bushes near the back, and over to the old shed in one corner.
Their father was standing just inside looking down at a chicken, and Deeter was spreading a handful of grain across the bare dirt floor.
“A live ch...!” Mindy clapped her hands over her mouth.
It was, Cornelia thought, the ugliest chicken she had ever seen. It was supposed to be white, she guessed, but its feathers were dirty looking. Its black eyes, surrounded by pink and gold, were lopsided or cockeyed. Half its tail feathers drooped, and the others stuck straight up in the air like a sail. The red comb on top of its head had crusty patches, and one of its legs was crooked. But then, maybe that was the way chickens were supposed to look. Cornelia had never paid that much attention to them back on the farm.
Then Charles said it: “Boy, is that ever an ugly chicken!”
But Father only laughed. “Isn’t it, though? Helen’s going to love it!”
Grown-ups certainly had some weird ideas about fun, Cornelia decided.
“It’s a leghorn. A pullet,” her father went on. “Bet it was the runt of the lot. But she’s just about old enough to lay eggs.”
Well, that was a different matter entirely. If it laid eggs, it would be the gift that went on giving!
“I’d better get home or Helen will suspect something,” Father said. “But remember, don’t come to me with your problems over this chicken. It’s your job to take care of it and keep it secret. If you kids can manage to do that, Deeter included, I’ll take you all to Starlight Park.”
“You won’t just drive us there for fifteen minutes and make us come home again, will you?” Cornelia asked suspiciously.
“You’ll let me ride the Red Devil? As many times as I want?” asked Charles.
“How about the Mad Hornet? Can we go on that too?” asked Deeter.
“And the merry-go-round?” added Mindy, just to make sure.
Father smiled. “If you guys manage to hide this chicken till next Friday, which I doubt, I will take you to Starlight Park not just for an hour, not just for a morning, but for a whole darn day. You may ride on whatever you like for as long as you like and I won’t bring you home till closing time. How’s that?”
There were high fives again, all around, but Father wagged his finger. “You have only been taking care of this chicken for about ten minutes,” he laughed. “And you have about...uh...eight-thousand six-hundred and thirty more minutes to go.” He gave them a thumbs up and a doubtful grin, then left the shed and closed the door.
Cornelia, Charles, Mindy, and Deeter sat down on the floor in a circle, letting the cockeyed chicken walk around in the middle, scratching at the dirt with her wide yellow feet, pecking now and then at the ground, and thrusting out her neck with each step.
“It’s like she’s marching,” said Deeter, smiling.
“One...two, one...two, one...two, three, four....” counted Charles, and for a few moments, the crooked-legged chicken seemed to be marching in time. They all laughed.
“What are we going to call her?” asked Mindy.
“We could call her ‘dumpling,’” said Charles. “As in ‘chicken and dumplings.’”
“It’s Mom’s gift. She can name the chicken herself,” Cornelia told them.
But Deeter said, “We have to call her something. Until next Friday, let’s just call her ‘No-Name.’”
So No-Name it was. The hen made low clucking noises as she marched flat-footed around the floor looking for bugs. When Deeter put his hand in the feed sack and sprinkled more grain on the ground, the chicken eagerly gobbled it up—peck, peck, peck—like a mechanical toy, until it was all gone.
“Where will she lay her eggs?” Cornelia asked.
“We could set a skillet on the ground and she could drop her eggs in that,” said Charles eagerly.
But Deeter shook his head. “We’ve got to make a nest for her. Hens like boxes with straw in them. I don’t have any straw, though.”
Neither did the Morgans.
“I’ll find a box she can use as a nest if you and Deeter will find something to use for straw,” Cornelia told Charles.
“What should I do?” asked Mindy.
“You stay here and keep her company,” said Cornelia. “And make sure the door stays closed.”
Mindy was happy to be the chicken-sitter, and while Cornelia went home to search for a box, Charles and Deeter went to the Morgans’ garage to look for something they could use for straw.
They thought about using wood shavings or even grass. But suddenly Charles’ eye fell on the broom hanging on the wall beside the rake. The broom had bristles, long bristles, that looked like straw, felt like straw, and—for all Charles knew—were straw.
“What do you think?” he asked Deeter.
“I think your mom would be really mad,” Deeter told him.
“Not if she knew what it was for,” Charles said.
The boys took the broom down and tried to pull out the bristles, but they were fastened tightly. The only thing Charles could think of was to use his father’s saw, so they laid the broom over the hood of the car, and Deeter sawed away, bristles falling to the floor like rain.
There were footsteps outside, and the boys froze as the garage door opened.
“What’s taking so long?” asked Cornelia, stepping inside. Then she saw the remains of the broom on the floor.
“Charles!” she gasped. “Mom’s new broom!”
“Straw,” Charles said, pointing.
Cornelia had to admit it was probably the best they could do, so they gathered up all the bristles, wrapped them in Deeter’s shirt, and started across the yard toward the Delaneys’ shed.
“Cornelia? Charles?” Mother called from the back porch. “You’re keeping an eye on Mindy, aren’t you?”
“We know right where she is,” Charles answered.
But they didn’t know at all, because when they reached the shed, the door was closed, but Mindy and the cockeyed chicken were gone.
4
Never Say Chicken
“A chicken-napper!” said Deeter, his eyes huge.
“But where’s Mindy?” Cornelia wailed. “I’m supposed to be looking after her.”
“I guess somebody just walked in and kidnapped them both,” said Charles. Cornelia gave a little shriek.
Deeter was already playing detective. He opened the door and crawled outside on his hands and knees, checking the ground for chicken feathers. Cornelia merely groaned when he triumphantly held a white one up in the air.
“What does that prove?” she asked. “No-Name could have dropped it when Dad brought her here. It doesn’t mean someone took her.”
“Maybe we ought to tell somebody,” Charles suggested. “We’d better tell your mom, Deeter.”
“If you tell Mom, the secret will be out in five minutes,” Deeter said. “Do you remember that big so-called surprise party we had for my grandparents on their anniversary last month? Mom called the newspaper herself and announced it!”
Cornelia began to panic, but Deeter pounced on still another feather. “Aha!” he said. “Look where I found this one! On the path to the creek, not the path to your yard.”
Cornelia and Charles followed along behind Deeter as he crawled through the weeds on his hands and knees like a bloodhound.
“Why don’t you try barking while you’re at it?” Cornelia said, not nice at all, and was instantly sorry because there, coming along the path from the woods was Mindy, holding the World’s Ugliest Chicken in her arms. Deeter was right.
“Mindy!” the three cried.
The little girl stopped, still petting the chicken’s head. “What?”
“What are you doing? Where are you goin
g?” Cornelia demanded.
“I’m just taking No-Name for a walk,” said Mindy. “She likes it. She was so sa...aaad.”
“We told you to stay in the shed!” Cornelia scolded as Deeter carefully took the hen from her so it couldn’t escape.
“But she was bored!” Mindy protested. “She just kept looking up at me like this....” Mindy let the corners of her mouth droop and her eyes go cockeyed.
“Chickens don’t get sad and they don’t get bored; they were born bored,” Deeter told her.
Once No-Name was safely back in the shed, Cornelia said firmly, “Mindy, don’t you ever, ever take the chicken outside again. What if she got loose? What if she ran away? What if Mom saw you?”
Mindy sank down in a corner like a collapsible chair until her neck seemed to have disappeared into the collar of her pink dress. “This chicken isn’t any fun,” she complained.
“It’s not supposed to be fun for us, it’s supposed to be fun for Mother. All we have to do is take care of it till next Friday,” Cornelia told her. “What will be fun is going to Starlight Park! What will be fun is riding the Screaming Cyclone!”
“There’s a new haunted house at the park, I heard, with mummies popping up out of coffins,” said Deeter.
“I heard there was a Whirl-o-Wheel, where the bottom drops out and you’re held against the wall by central force,” said Charles.
“Centrifugal force,” Cornelia told him.
“Well, I just want the merry-go-round,” said Mindy. “I want to ride the biggest, bestest horse there is with silver tassels on his head.”
“You shall have rings on your fingers and bells on your toes as well,” Cornelia promised, “if we can keep this chicken a secret.” She took the sturdy square box she had brought and set it on its side in one corner of the shed. Then Charles and Deeter put the broom bristles in it to make a nest.
“There!” Charles said to the hen. “Go lay an egg. What are you waiting for?”
“A golden egg,” said Deeter, grinning.
The cockeyed chicken waddled crazily around some more but paid no attention to the nest.
“Mom’s going to love her,” said Cornelia. “Knowing Mom, she’ll probably buy her a collar and leash and take her for walks! I wish this could be our present for her too.”
“What are we giving Mom for her birthday?” Charles asked.
“I don’t have any ideas yet,” Cornelia said, and turned to Mindy. The little girl shrugged and shook her head.
Deeter studied them for a moment. “Well, anyone can give a chicken,” he said, “but what about giving her a trained chicken? A performer chicken? If your mom likes zany gifts, that would be perfect. Then you could claim it’s your present too.”
“Trained to do what?” asked Cornelia. “We’ve only got a week.”
“I’ll think of something,” said Deeter.
They watched the chicken some more. “Well,” said Charles after a while. “She’s been fed and she’s got a nest. What else do chickens need?”
“Water,” said Cornelia.
“Then let’s get some,” said Charles. But they dared not leave No-Name alone with the sack of feed Father had bought for her, so Deeter got a large square cooler from his house, put it on the floor of the shed, and they stored the feed in there. When they left the shed, they were careful to close the door behind them, but they had not gone halfway up the Delaneys’ backyard when they came face-to-face with Deeter’s mom.
“What are you kids doing back here?” she asked.
Cornelia, Charles, and Mindy stood like rocks, their mouths shut tight.
Deeter answered for them. “Playing,” he said.
“Playing what? You’re usually out front riding your bikes or something. What kind of game?” his mother asked.
“Chicken,” said Deeter.
The rocks were speechless, and Mindy gave a little gasp at the sound of the forbidden word.
But Mrs. Delaney said, “Chicken? We used to play that game when I was growing up. We’d all try something scary and see who dropped out first. You kids aren’t doing anything dangerous, are you?”
“No,” said Cornelia. “Really. We’re just having fun.”
“I don’t want any broken arms or legs this summer,” Mrs. Delaney said. “Here, Deeter. Help me pick some beans.” She handed him a bucket, and he gave a quick thumbs up to the Morgans as he followed her around to the garden at the side of the house.
Cornelia, Charles, and Mindy headed for their own yard. “Whew! That was close!” said Charles.
“Too close!” said Cornelia. “Now remember, Mindy. Don’t say the word ‘chicken.’ Don’t say the name of any animal at all.”
“I won’t!” Mindy said, frowning. “I told you I wouldn’t!”
Mother called them to dinner about six. “We’re having Chinese take-out food,” she said. “I thought we’d celebrate the start of summer vacation.”
“Yea!” said Charles, who would rather eat than do almost anything else, and quickly began opening the little white boxes with the wonderful smells.
“What would you like, Mindy? The cashew chicken or lamb with spring onions?” asked Mother.
Mindy started to answer, then pressed her lips together tightly.
Mother asked again. “Which do you want? Chicken or lamb?”
There was silence at the table. Everyone stared at Mindy. Cornelia knew exactly what was the matter.
“Point, Mindy,” Cornelia said.
Mindy pointed to the lamb.
“She wants lamb,” said Charles.
“What are you, the interpreter?” asked Dad.
“Just eat,” said Charles. “Pass the rice, please.”
5
Ghost Feathers
All the months Charles had been waiting for summer vacation, he had thought he would stay up until midnight as soon as school was out. He would make popcorn every evening, he’d told himself, eat ice cream, and watch his favorite shows on TV. He would read all the books he hadn’t had time to read before—Who Kidnapped the Sheriff? and The Grand Escape, and he would sleep till noon, if he wanted.
That was B.C., however—Before Chicken. Just one day of worrying about that stupid bird, and Charles felt incredibly tired. He made popcorn and ate ice cream, but when it came time to watch TV, he fell asleep, and at last he dragged himself off to bed.
He fell asleep so early, in fact, that sometime in the night he woke feeling not very tired at all. Or perhaps it was a thunking noise that woke him—a soft, little thud that started and stopped, started and stopped.
The chicken? The only way a chicken could make that much noise was to put on clogs and dance, Charles decided.
The door! Maybe he hadn’t shut the shed door after he’d given the chicken some water. Had he shut the door? Charles couldn’t remember. Maybe it was banging in the breeze.
He got out of bed in his pajamas with the racing cars on them, pulled on his sneakers, and went downstairs. He took Dad’s flashlight from the shelf in the kitchen. Outside, the beam made a round yellow sphere on the ground ahead of him, and he followed it as far as the lilac bush, then cut over into Deeter’s backyard, around the cluster of walnut trees, and down the path to the shed.
Suddenly he stopped for, just as he had feared, the shed door was open eight inches or so, swinging in the breeze. When Charles shone the light inside, No-Name was gone.
Charles stood there in his untied sneakers, softly banging his head against the door frame in despair. He tried to think of the worst thing that could possibly happen: Cornelia would never speak to him again, Deeter would call him a jerk, and Mindy would cry, that’s what. He could kiss Starlight Park good-bye.
He walked around the shed and checked the creek and the path to the woods, shining the light all around him. Here and there he found a white feather, a ghost feather, it seemed, of a cockeyed chicken that had disappeared. A runt of a chicken without a name. But no chicken.
Second thought: Deeter was play
ing a trick on him. Deeter was full of tricks. If he wasn’t teasing someone at school, he was teasing Cornelia or Mindy, so maybe it was Charles’s turn now to be teased.
Feeling somewhat better, he went back home, deciding he’d wait till morning to start worrying. The air was filled with familiar night noises—the chirp of crickets, the rustle of wind in the beech tree, the yip of a dog in the distance, and the sound of Mr. Hoover’s car turning up the street.
The Hoovers lived on the other side of the Morgans’, and Mr. Hoover worked the night shift at the newspaper. When they first moved here, Mom had said she could set her watch, almost, by the sound of Mr. Hoover coming home from work at twelve-thirty in the morning.
Just as Charles reached the back porch, however, there was a sudden squeal of brakes, and then a loud exclamation from Mr. Hoover:
“Jumping Juniper!”
Charles crept around the house and stared at Mr. Hoover’s big green Buick which had stopped at an odd angle in the driveway next door, the headlights still shining on the garage.
The door to the Hoovers’ house opened, and out came Mrs. Hoover in a purple robe with big blue flowers on it.
“Harry?” she called. “What’s the matter?”
“I just saw a chicken!” came the man’s voice from the car.
His wife came down the steps and over to the driveway. “You what?”
“A chicken! A chicken walked right in front of my car. I almost hit it.”
Mrs. Hoover bent down and stared through the open window of the Buick. “Harry Hoover, I think you’re much too tired. You’d better get yourself to bed.”
“Ethel, I tell you I saw a chicken! It was strutting right across our driveway like it owned the place. I almost ran into it.” And then he added, “It was the ugliest chicken I ever saw in my life.”
Mrs. Hoover crossed the driveway in front of the car. Charles watched her bend down and look under the car. She even went around behind and checked the tailpipe.
“Well, there’s no chicken here now. You’d better get inside and go to bed,” she told him.
The car lights went off at last, the Hoovers went inside, and as soon as the door closed behind them, Charles ran quickly around their house to the other side to look for No-Name. She was nowhere to be found. They should have called her Nowhere.
The Great Chicken Debacle Page 2