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.”
23
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.
The book fell from my hand and thudded loudly to the floor.
Egg-shaped spots sparkled in front of my eyes.
When the spots faded, the room turned purple and started to tilt.
“Hey—something is happening!” Cole cried in a tiny voice. He sounded far, far away.
Yes, something is happening, I agreed, grabbing the window ledge to keep from falling.
Something is happening.
But what?
24
I felt so dizzy. The room rocked and swayed.
The floor suddenly appeared so far away. I blinked. Once. Twice.
The floor still seemed a mile below.
“Cluck cluck, Cole—?” I turned to my brother. Then I let out a shrill squawk of horror.
Now I knew why the floor seemed so far down. Cole and I had GROWN!
We weren’t chickens anymore. We were BIIIIIG chickens!
“I—I’m as big as a horse!” I cried.
I gazed up. The ceiling was only an inch or two above my head.
Cole uttered a startled moan. His whole body trembled. Enormous feathers shook free and fell to the floor. He flapped his arms, and more feathers tumbled off him.
I saw Vanessa’s black cat back into the hallway. Its yellow eyes were wide with fear. It arched its back and raised its tail and hissed at us furiously.
I took a step toward Cole. My big, feathery body bobbed in front of me. “I—I must have bluuuuuck done something wrong!” I told my brother.
Cole hopped up and down, bobbing his head. He clicked his beak, but no sound came out. Finally, he choked out, “Crystal—try again.”
Yes. He was right. I had to try to reverse the spell again.
Maybe I couldn’t turn us back into humans. But I might be able to shrink us back to our normal size.
I bent over to find the book on the floor. It was hard to find. I was so tall, the book looked about the size of a CD case!
It wasn’t easy to pick it up, either. It kept sliding out from my scraggly chicken fingers.
It seemed like hours before I managed to find the spell again. Then I raised the little book up close to my right eye and began to perform the spell backwards once again.
Please, please, I prayed. Let me get it right this time. Please, let Vanessa’s spell reverse itself.
I finished up with the final: “Cluck cluck chick cluck. Cluck chick cluck.”
Would it work?
I heard Cole let out a choked cluck from across the room.
Once again, I began to feel weird. The egg-shaped spots sparkled in front of my eyes, blinding me with their brightness.
I shut my eyes.
I could feel the room tilting and swaying.
I tried to grab hold of something. But my hands grasped only air.
“Ooooh!” I let out a low moan as I felt myself start to fall. Yes. I was falling… falling…
When I opened my eyes, I didn’t know where I was. The room had disappeared. I was surrounded by darkness. Surrounded by…
Whoa!
I gazed up at the book. The book of spells—it rested beside me on the floor. But it had grown! The book was taller than me!
“Cheep cheep!” I cried.
“Cheep cheep cheep,” I heard Cole’s tiny reply.
I spun around to find him. “Cheep?”
“Cheep cheep!”
He was a little yellow chick! I swallowed hard. I knew what that meant. That meant that I was also a tiny yellow chick!
I had reversed the spell—too much!
I struggled to speak—but I could only make a tiny cheep cheep sound. My tiny feet clicked on the wooden floor.
“Cheep cheep?” Cole asked. The poor little guy sounded so frightened.
My tiny heart was pounding in my feathery yellow chest. I suddenly felt so angry. Why was this happening to us? Why did Vanessa think she had a right to do this to us?
I pecked my little beak furiously against the floor. I had no other way of letting out my anger.
But I didn’t have much time to be angry.
A dark blur of motion made me raise my eyes.
I saw the giant shadow. No. It was Vanessa’s cat. The cat perched on the desk next to an old-fashioned-looking typewriter.
Its tail smacked the typewriter as the cat dropped to the floor.
It crossed the room quickly, silently—and rose up over me, its eyes glowing with excitement.
It pulled back its lips, revealing its enormous teeth.
“Cheep cheep!” I squeaked. I froze in fear.
The cat pounced.
I felt its front paws wrap around my tiny, soft body.
Then the paws began to squeeze.
25
I tried to kick. I tried to thrash my arms. Tried to wriggle free.
But I was helpless against the giant cat.
Its big paws squeezed me until I could barely breathe.
Then it grabbed my head in its paws.
And lifted me—up. Up.
The cat dangled me in the air for a few seconds.
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to break free.
But I was helpless. Too weak and tiny to do anything.
The cat’s eyes flashed as it dangled me in front of its face. Then it opened its mouth wide—and stuffed me inside.
Ohhhh. The cat’s hot breath roared over me. The inside of its mouth felt so hot, so disgustingly sticky and wet.
“Cheep cheep cheeeep!” I squealed.
The cat bounced me around on its tongue.
And then—to my surprise—spit me out.
I fell hard onto my side on the floor. Behind me, I could hear Cole cheeping weakly.
I scrambled to my feet. I wanted to run.
But the cat grabbed me again. Lifted me high off the floor in its rough paws.
I saw the cat’s head, tilted at an angle. I saw a gleam of silvery drool on its fangs. Felt its hot, sour breath roll over me once again.
The cat raised me high. Higher.
Is it going to swallow me this time? I wondered.
Is it going to shove me into its mouth and swallow me?
No. The purring creature let me drop back to the floor.
I landed on my back. My tiny feet clawed the air.
Before I could scramble to my feet, the cat picked me up again—this time by the foot. It swung me from side to side in front of its open mouth.
It’s playing with me, I realized.
The cat is playing with its food!
And when it’s finished playing… then it will eat me!
I could hear Cole cheeping down on the floor. The cat held me in one paw, dangling me in front of its face. Then it began batting me with its other paw, making me spin.
The spinning made me dizzy. I shut my eyes as the cat dropped me once again to the floor.
I landed on my side and lay there. I felt so weak, so frightened. I didn’t even try to move.
Panting hard, I waited for the cat to pounce again. Waited to feel its claws wrap around me. Waited to be lifted into the air again.
Waited…
When it didn’t pounce, I lifted my head. I struggled to focus.
Where was it?
I could hear my brother cheeping in terror somewhere across the floor.
I climbed slowly to my feet. I ruffled my feathers, which were wet and sticky from being inside the cat’s mouth.
Where was the cat? Why did it stop torturing me?
The lights flashed on.
“Eeeeep!” I uttered a shrill shriek as a big face lowered it
self toward me.
Vanessa!
“Well, well!” her voice boomed in my tiny ears. “What have we here?”
Her hand swooped down and grabbed me off the floor.
26
She swooped me up, then picked up Cole, too. She perched us in the palm of her hand and held us close to her pale face. A pleased smile spread across her black-lipsticked lips.
“I see you found my spell book, little duckies,” she teased. “Let me guess. You must be Crystal and Cole.”
Cole and I cheeped loudly and hopped up and down in protest.
Vanessa laughed. “You’re both so cute!” she exclaimed. “What a shame I had to teach you a lesson.” She tsk-tsked.
“Cheep cheep!” I squeaked.
I wanted to ask why she had done this to Cole and me. I wanted to promise her that no matter what it was we had done—we’d never do it again. I wanted to demand that she change us back—now.
But all I could do was cheep!
“What should I do with you two?” Vanessa asked, her dark eyes flashing. “Should I send you back out? It’s a long way to your house from here. You’d probably be eaten before you got there.”
“Cheeeeep!” Cole and I pleaded.
How could we communicate with her? How could we talk to her? How?
I suddenly had an idea.
The old typewriter on the desk. Vanessa was holding Cole and me right above it.
I glanced down. A sheet of white paper lay curled in the typewriter. Yes! I thought. Yes! Our only chance.
I didn’t take another second to think about it.
I leaped from Vanessa’s palm. And landed with a hard plop on the desktop.
“Hey, chickie—!” I heard Vanessa’s startled cry. She lowered her hand to pick me up again.
But I jumped onto the typewriter keys. Lowered my head. And began pecking away with my hard little beak.
I pecked a V Then I hopped up to the left and pecked an A. As Vanessa’s hand swooped to grab me, I slid back down to the bottom row and pecked an N.
Vanessa’s hand stopped inches above me. Could she see what I was doing? Did she figure out that I was typing her a message?
The E was nearly at the top of the keyboard. I stumbled on the keys and nearly typed the wrong letter. But I hit the E, then backed up a step and pecked two S’s.