Chicken Chicken (novella)
| File:Goosebumps Chicken Chicken.jpg | |
| Author | R. L. Stine |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Tim Jacobus |
| Language | English |
| Series | Goosebumps |
| Genre | Horror fiction, Children's literature |
| Publisher | Scholastic |
Publication date | March 1, 1997 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Preceded by | How I Learned To Fly |
| Followed by | Don't Go To Sleep! |
Chicken Chicken is the fifty-third book in the Goosebumps series, written by R. L. Stine.
Plot
Crystal and her younger brother Cole live on a farm in a small town where their parents made them move to a farm a few years back. The two have to do chores like cleaning up after the chickens in the coop, which they find horrible. They often openly say that they can't stand the chickens, with their 'large pecky beaks'. In this small town there lives a weird woman named Vanessa who dresses in black and is described at the beginning of the book as being roughly the same age as the main characters but at some point turns into an old spinster. She's the resident weird person in a small town, so we're introduced to her as a herd of children are planning to prank her. Cole and his friend Anthony dare Franny and Jeremy, to pour water into her mailbox. The kids pour water into her mailbox. They then run away because they are all scared of Vanessa.
The next day, Crystal has to go to the market to buy her best friend Lucy-Ann a CD for her upcoming birthday. While in town, Cole and Anthony follow Crystal around, tossing an egg between themselves. Eventually the egg lands on Anthony's head and he gets mad because somehow he's the only person in the entire universe who didn't see how this would end. He charges Cole and the two fight for several pages until they knock over Vanessa as she is exiting the grocery store. She falls and her grocery bags rip open, spilling her purchases everywhere. Anthony runs off scared, apologizing as he runs away. Crystal and Cole just sort of stare at her and she whispers "Chicken chicken" to them. They run away.
Back at the house, Cole teases Crystal about how one of their old classmates once upset Vanessa and she turned his head into a giant sponge. Gradually the two kids turn into giant chickens. The kids grow feathers on their neck and shoulders, which they prick out and leave bloody holes. They continue to prick out their feathers for a span of several days. Cole's voice is the first to go, as his singing voice during choral practice slowly devolves into nothing but clucks. Crystal is at Lucy-Ann's birthday party when her lips turn into a beak. She locks herself in the bathroom, panics, and sneaks away from the party. At home, her parents won't listen to her or her brother. They're planning a big barbecue and are oblivious to their children. When the guests arrive, Cole and Crystal go into the chicken coop and pick up chicken feed with their beaks as the party guests laugh and ridicule them.
Crystal and Cole suffer various other humiliations, including Crystal finally getting a chance to be a star-player in the basketball game, but she can't stop bobbing her head like a chicken and clucking and then growing feathers as she runs away from the auditorium in tears. The two kids visit Anthony, who has had no adverse reactions in the past week except that suddenly he's a great golfer. Then their hideous mutation into a chicken gets worse as their eyes move to the side of their heads and their fingers turn into claws. Crystal and Cole decide the only way to save themselves is to apologize to Vanessa. They go to her house, and seeing that she's not there, they naturally do the smart thing and break into the witch's house. Crystal sees a book called Chicken Chicken Chicken, swipes it, and the two safely return home only to find out that they've stolen a cookbook. They then go back to the house again, find a magical spell book, and perform various spells that first turn them into twenty feet tall chickens, and then into baby chicks. Vanessa's cat eats Crystal, then throws her up and plays with her.
Vanessa finally comes home and sweeps the two chicks up in her hand. She asks them if they like the lesson she's taught them. She points to her bookshelf full of books on manners. She tells the chicks that she's dedicated her life to manners, so she turned them into chickens to teach them a lesson about not apologizing when they knocked her over. Crystal then realizes that that's why Anthony wasn't turned into a chicken too -- as he had apologized before running away. Vanessa then tells them that she might put them outside on the road to be run over, captured or eaten by cats. Crystal the baby chick leaps out of Vanessa's palm and lands on a convenient typewriter and types out an apology. That doesn't do much, so she then types out a thank-you note to Vanessa for teaching them the error of their ways. Vanessa is so hysterically happy that a child would write a thank-you note that she turns them both back into normal kids. She offers them some soda to drink, as they are probably parched from all the abuse she's doled out on them. Cole drinks his cup down and then burps. They both laugh, then see Vanessa isn't. Vanessa then points at them and whispers "Pig pig."
Tagline
It's a finger lickin' nightmare! bnb 'Bold text'
Notes
- Crystal and Cole's last names aren't mentioned at any time throughout the story.
- The original run cover was printed backwards. In all reprints, this is corrected.