Don't Chicken Out Read online

  “To go where?” said Fiona.

  Again, nothing. The more questions she asked, the less she found out. Finally Tom had a question of his own. “What do you feed him?”

  Fiona looked at Mayflower, who was snoring. “I don’t feed him. My job is just to take him on walks.”

  Tom shook his head. “Your pollywog is what I mean. You do feed him, don’t you?”

  “Oh. Mr. Funbucket eats boiled lettuce mostly. We’re still waiting on his legs to arrive.”

  Tom nodded, and as he did, Flo stood on his lap. Right away, he gently put his arm around her belly and lowered her to the ground. Flo leaned over to where Mayflower was lying and stuck her beak in his ear. This must have been enough to undo Mayflower’s spell, because he raised his head and started to bark. Fiona’s heart started racing. She pulled at Mayflower’s leash. There was no way she would let him have chicken for dinner tonight.

  “What should I do?” said Fiona.

  “About what?” said Tom.

  “Mayflower wants to eat Flo!”

  Tom laughed. “He’s just talking to her.”

  Flo stretched her neck at Mayflower and continued pecking at his ear. For being a chicken, Flo sure was brave.

  Tom clucked his tongue and gathered the end of Flo’s leash into his hand. “Come on, stop riling that old dog.” He took a few steps and then turned back to Fiona and Mayflower, who was standing up and barking with such force that Fiona worried his teeth might rattle loose. “Hold out your hand like this.” He showed her with his own hand, held flat with his palm to the ground.

  Fiona made her hand look like his. “Now hold it above his head, back a little,” he said. Right away, Mayflower looked up and stopped barking. And when his head went up, his rear end went down. “Now, lower your hand real slow,” Tom said.

  Fiona did, and when Mayflower lay down, Fiona got so excited she yelled, “I did the spell! I did the spell!” She scratched Mayflower’s chin and said, “Did you see?” But Tom and Flo were already down the path, walking toward the sunset.

  • Chapter 11 •

  Fiona peered into the bowl and examined Mr. Funbucket. He was still just a fish, and Fiona was beginning to wonder if Rick from the pet store had sold her a lemon of a pollywog.

  “A watched pot never boils,” said Mrs. Miltenberger.

  “What does that mean?” asked Fiona.

  “It means staring at that pollywog all night won’t make it grow legs.”

  Fiona wondered if the chicken boy knew a spell for sprouting pollywog legs. Max leapt off the couch and landed practically on top of Fiona. “Hey!” said Fiona.

  “Do you want to buy a sticker?” asked Max.

  “No way.”

  “Half price.”

  Fiona shook her head.

  “I made it special just for you,” he said. “And I promise this one is really nice.”

  “Let’s see it.”

  Max grinned and pulled a handful of stickers from the pocket of his swim trunks. He sifted through them and then held one out to Fiona. Written on it were these words: I LOVE MAX.

  Fiona tossed it back to him. “No thanks.”

  He handed her another sticker. “How about one that says ‘Max Is the Best’?” Fiona sighed. “I’ve got a whole bunch about how great Captain Seahorse is.”

  Fiona held her hands out, just above Max’s head. “Hushabye,” she said. “Hush.”

  Max looked up, and when he did, he stopped talking. Fiona lowered her hand slowly until Max sat cross-legged on the floor. “What are you doing?”

  “Hush. Hush now,” Fiona said, trying to make her voice as gentle as the chicken man’s.

  Max stared up at her, and Fiona smiled at the same bewilderment in his eyes that she’d seen in Mayflower’s. So the spell worked on people, too. This was very good to know. “Stay,” she said to Max. “Good boy.”

  • • •

  Fiona found Tom and Flo sitting on the same park bench the next evening. Before Fiona had a chance to use her spell on Mayflower, he stopped barking and settled at Tom’s feet. Fiona sat next to Tom. “The spell works on people,” she told him. “Six-year-old boy people, at least.”

  “Spell?” said Tom. He scratched Flo’s head with the tip of his pointer finger.

  “The magic trick you showed me on Mayflower. Do you know any more?”

  Tom shook his head, but Fiona wasn’t sure she believed him. In fact, she was sure she didn’t. “Why does Flo walk on a leash like a dog?”

  Tom stroked Flo’s feathers, and after a while said, “She thinks she is one.”

  “One what?”

  “A dog.” Flo clucked in agreement.

  “Why does she think that?”

  Tom said, “She was raised with a dog. I guess she never could see any difference between them.”

  “Maybe you should get her a mirror so she can see what a chicken looks like,” Fiona said.

  He scratched his head. “Won’t help. She wants to be something she’s not.”

  Fiona gently touched Flo’s wing. She flat-out understood that kind of thinking. “You should enter her in the fair or something. I bet you could get a prize because no one has ever seen a chicken like her before.”

  Tom shrugged.

  “So you’re going to enter her?” said Fiona.

  “Nope.”

  “Why not? Don’t you want to win a prize?”

  “Nope.”

  “I never met a person who didn’t want to win a prize or be noticed for something,” said Fiona. This was a first.

  “Now you have,” said Tom.

  Then two boys walked right by where Fiona and Tom were sitting. They looked to be about Tom’s age, and Fiona wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw Tom grip Flo’s leash a little tighter.

  The boys said something in low voices, so low Fiona couldn’t make it out, and then they laughed.

  After they passed, Fiona was going to ask Tom about what other tricks Flo could do. But before she had a chance, Tom said, “Why are you following me all the time, anyway?”

  Fiona wasn’t expecting that question, and she didn’t know what to say. All of a sudden she felt like she was doing something wrong by sitting here. “Because we’re both walkers,” she finally said.

  “So?”

  “And because everybody could use some company.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Mrs. O’Brien.”

  “Well, I don’t want any.” Then he muttered something, but Flo happened to cluck at the same time, and Fiona couldn’t hear what Tom said. He reached down and patted Mayflower on the back. “Nice boy,” he said.

  One thing was clear to Fiona: Tom liked Mayflower a lot more than he liked her. “Don’t you want my company?”

  Mayflower rolled over onto his back so Tom could scratch his stomach. Tom pressed his lips together like he was trying to keep words inside. Eventually he stopped petting Mayflower. Then he looked away from Fiona and said, “You’re a kid.”

  “So are you,” she said. After all, Tom was only a couple of years older.

  “Not so much as you.”

  Fiona felt her hands tighten into fists. “I am not. Kids don’t have jobs, and I have a job.”

  Tom shook his head. “A job doesn’t make you a grown-up.”

  “Yes, it does.”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  “Yes, it does.” Fiona stood up. “Come on, Mayflower. Let’s go.” But that dog stayed where he was. “Come on, Mayflower. I said we’re going.” She tugged at his leash.

  “Mayflower,” said Tom in a low voice. And don’t you know that Mayflower stood right up and looked at Tom as though Fiona wasn’t even there. Something else was becoming clear: Mayflower didn’t think of Fiona as a grown-up one bit. Not when Tom was around, at least.

  • Chapter 12 •

  Fiona stared into the fishbowl. “He’s depressed,” she told Mrs. Miltenberger.

  “Who is?”

  “Mr. Funbucket,” said Fio
na.

  Mrs. Miltenberger put down her crossword puzzle and said, “How can you tell?”

  Fiona stuck her finger in the water and made a little splash, just to give Mr. Funbucket some excitement. “All he does is swim around and around.”

  “I hate to break it to you, kiddo,” said Mrs. Miltenberger, “but that’s what fish do.”

  Fiona wasn’t convinced. “He could be crying right now, and we wouldn’t even know.”

  Mrs. Miltenberger sighed and then turned the television to the local news. “Your father’s weather forecast is coming on.”

  Fiona leaned in close to the bowl and whispered into the water. “Mr. Funbucket,” she said, “I don’t know what you’re waiting for, but you’ll be a lot happier once you get your legs.” Then she got up to go to her room.

  “Aren’t you going to stay and watch your father?” asked Mrs. Miltenberger.

  Fiona shook her head. The weather, she figured, wouldn’t change things.

  • • •

  It rained for the next three days, so Fiona didn’t walk Mayflower. And she didn’t see Tom or Flo. If dogs didn’t like the rain, she guessed chickens didn’t either.

  Meanwhile, at school, nobody else seemed to believe there really was a chicken boy.

  “I want to see the chicken boy,” said Harold after school. He zipped up his book bag and slung it on his back. “I told my grandma all about him and she didn’t believe me. She wants proof.”

  “Me too,” said Cleo. “It’s no fair that you get him all to yourself.”

  “Unless there really isn’t a chicken boy at all,” said Milo.

  Fiona dropped her Thinking Pencil into her tote bag. “Fine,” she told them. “You can come to Baker’s Park later and see for yourself.”

  On the walk to Mrs. Lordeau’s, Fiona wondered if Tom and Flo would even be at the park. And what would Cleo and Harold and Milo say if he wasn’t there.

  At Mrs. Lordeau’s house, Mayflower was waiting at the door. “Thank heavens the rain has finally stopped,” said Mrs. Lordeau. “He’s been a wreck these last few days. Nervous, scratchy even. These walks are so good for him, Fiona. When he misses them, he really misses them.”

  Fiona led Mayflower down the porch steps and started their regular route toward the park. Mayflower took the lead, pulling Fiona along. “Slow down,” she told him. She wasn’t in a hurry to get to where they were going. “Let’s go someplace else today. I’m tired of the park.” She pulled on Mayflower’s leash and started walking toward downtown Ordinary.

  Mayflower seemed confused at first. He grabbed part of the leash in his mouth and pulled, as if to say, You’re going the wrong way!

  “Tom doesn’t want company,” Fiona told him. “At least, he doesn’t want me hanging around.” Mayflower barked. “I know, Harold and Cleo and Milo will be there waiting for us. I know.” Mayflower whined and scratched his ear. Fiona sighed and looked down at the slobbering dog. “Mayflower, from now on it’s just you and me.”

  As they walked, Fiona wondered how you could try so hard to get somewhere and never get even close. She had tried her best to be a grown-up, done everything she knew how, but no matter how good of a dog walker she was, she was still just a fourth grader to the chicken boy, to her dad, and to everyone else.

  When Mayflower stopped to drink out of a fountain on the corner of Second Street, two boys came up to them. The very same ones she saw at the park. “I know you,” one of them said. “You hang out with that guy who thinks he’s a chicken.” The other boy laughed. He had awful teeth.

  You don’t know me, Fiona wanted to say. Not at all. But instead she just said, “Tom doesn’t think he’s a chicken.”

  “That’s right,” said the boy. “He just wants to be a chicken.”

  Then they started making high-pitched noises at each other and at Fiona, noises that Fiona knew were supposed to sound like a chicken but really didn’t at all. Mayflower must have thought so too, because he stopped drinking and lifted his front legs off the ground. Then he howled. That shut the boys up pretty good, and they looked back over their shoulders a couple of times as they crossed the street.

  “Good boy,” said Fiona, scratching Mayflower’s ears.

  Fiona and Mayflower walked on. She didn’t think that Tom really wanted to be a chicken, like those boys said, but she hoped that he did, in a way, because it was nice to know that other people besides her wanted to be something that they weren’t.

  A while later, Fiona found herself in front of The Fish Hut. She peered in the window, and Mayflower stood on his hind legs and licked at the glass door. There was Rick. Fiona watched as he scooped out a pollywog for a customer and dumped it into a plastic bag.

  All at once, Fiona felt her face get hot. She scratched at her cheek. It was one thing to not give Fiona a job, but it was another thing—a much more despicable thing—to sell her a lemon of a pollywog. She started to push open the door, but this time she read the sign. It read NO PETS ALLOWED INSIDE. This made no sense at all to Fiona because the whole entire store was nothing but pets!

  She looked at Mayflower and then looked around to find someplace to put him while she was inside. There was a tree in front of the store next to The Fish Hut. “I’ll only be a minute, Mayflower.” She wrapped his leash around the trunk of the tree and looped it through in a knot. “You stay here, and I’ll be right back.”

  Inside The Fish Hut, the tanks were bubbling and giving off a quiet hum. She said a quick hello to the tank of pollywogs near the register; after all, they were Mr. Funbucket’s brothers and sisters, and probably cousins even. She checked for legs (there weren’t any) and then stood before Rick. “Remember me?” she said.

  He looked Fiona over. “Ah, the fish rouser. How’s your pollywog?”

  “Still swimming,” she said.

  “Good.”

  Fiona shook her head. “Not so good. It’s a lemon. Mr. Funbucket wants to be a frog. He is supposed to be a frog by now. But he doesn’t have any legs.”

  “They’ll come,” said Rick. “All pollywogs eventually get their legs. You just need to gain some patience.”

  “How can you be so sure he’s not a lemon?” asked Fiona.

  Two customers started to lurk nearby. Fiona could tell they were listening.

  Rick said in a loud voice, “There are no lemons in The Fish Hut. That is a guarantee.”

  Fiona made sure the other customers heard her when she said, “You mean if Mr. Funbucket doesn’t sprout legs, I can get my money back?”

  Rick cleared his throat. “That’s The Fish Hut promise.”

  “Okay,” said Fiona with a smile. “A promise is a promise.” A satisfied customer, Fiona headed for the door. As she pushed it open, she thought of one more thing. She turned to Rick. “I think you should let pets in here, on account of the fact that you have pets in here already, and you could probably get more customers.”

  Rick rubbed his chin and laughed. “Still looking for a job, are you now?”

  “No,” said Fiona. “I have a job. I’m a dog walker. As a matter of fact, I’m working right now. He’s right out . . .” Fiona pointed outside at Mayflower. But the spot under the tree where she left him was empty! “Mayflower!”

  Fiona pushed open the door and raced outside. “Mayflower!” she shouted again. Fiona began to sweat. She ran up and down the street calling his name. But there was no answer and no Mayflower.

  She fought back tears when she stopped to catch her breath. Her legs ached, and she didn’t know what to do or where else to look. Then she remembered that Harold and Cleo and Milo were waiting for her somewhere in Baker’s Park. After all, she needed help. Mayflower needed help.

  She got her legs going again and ran all the way to the park without stopping.

  Fiona raced through the park’s entrance. She weaved her way around park-goers. “Excuse me! Watch out, please!” she shouted. No one else seemed to be in the least bit of a hurry. Apparently Fiona was the only person in Ordinary who wa
s frantically looking for a runaway dog.

  She took a shortcut across the footbridge toward the clock tower. She didn’t want to think about all the awful things that could have happened to Mayflower. Was he dog-napped? What if he had wandered into the street and been hit by a car? Fiona shook her head to scatter the thoughts.

  Finally the clock tower came into view and Fiona ran straight for it. Her legs were rubber, but she couldn’t stop because if she did, she was sure she would never get them going again. When she reached the tower, Fiona fell to her knees in the grass. She held her side where a cramp had started and searched for any signs of her friends.

  They were nowhere. Fiona’s stomach gurgled and sank. What had she done?

  So tired, her eyes filled up. She would have to tell Mrs. Lordeau. How would she tell Mrs. Lordeau? And then, from somewhere nearby, she heard someone call her name. She listened, looked around, and there behind her stood Cleo, Harold, and Milo.

  Fiona wiped her eyes and got to her feet. She leaned on Cleo and hugged her.

  “Where have you been?” said Milo. “We’ve been waiting all this time.”

  Cleo asked, “Are you okay? You don’t look so good.”

  Fiona shook her head.

  “I brought my camera,” said Harold. “Where’s the chicken boy?”

  When Fiona caught her breath, she told them, “I need your help.”

  • Chapter 13 •

  Fiona and her friends decided to split up and search the streets of Ordinary for Mayflower. Fiona would search the park, too tired to go any farther. “He’s got brown hair and very tall legs and sad eyes that make you want to say you’re sorry even if you don’t have a reason to.”

  “Is his hair more of a light brown like sand or dark brown like chocolate?” asked Harold.

  “Brown like dirt,” said Fiona.

  “Like dirt that’s dry or dirt that’s wet?”

  Fiona snapped, “Harold, just brown. Brown. He’s a brown dog!”

  “I’m just trying to get a good picture of what Mayflower looks like so I’ll know him when I see him,” said Harold. “You don’t have to be so mean.”