The Great Chicken Debacle

by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

  “Deeter has a pup tent. It just holds one, but I haven’t had a turn yet. I’d love to sleep outside on the ground under the stars,” said Cornelia. She didn’t exactly say she wouldn’t be in the tent, and she didn’t mention that there would be a roof between her and the stars, but if Mother was worried about safety, Cornelia would be even safer in the shed.

  “Well, I suppose you could,” said Mother. “This is a quiet neighborhood. Nothing ever happens here.”

  Ha! thought Cornelia.

  “In fact,” said Mother, “it sounds like so much fun, maybe I’ll come camping with you!”

  Cornelia felt herself freeze. Her tongue wouldn’t even move.

  But then Mother said, “No, I’m sure Mindy wouldn’t like sleeping outdoors. I’d better stay in the house with her,” and Cornelia could breathe again.

  About nine that night, Cornelia took her sleeping bag and the flashlight and went over to the Delaneys’ shed. She also took the red pepper, in case anyone tried to roll her up in a sleeping bag. But she had no intention of sleeping. She sat on her sleeping bag, back to the wall, pepper in one hand, flashlight in the other, and waited for the ransom note to be delivered.

  An hour went by. Then two. The Mickey Mouse watch on Cornelia’s wrist gleamed in the dark. She was beginning to nod off when she heard a noise, and her heart began to pound.

  Footsteps?

  A pause.

  A snuffling, shuffling noise just outside the walls of the shed.

  And suddenly Cornelia’s anger got the best of her. How dare anyone steal her mother’s chicken! How dare anyone put her through all this worry just to go to Starlight Park! How dare anybody make Cornelia sit up half the night in a stuffy shed waiting for some dumb boy to deliver a ransom note!

  Without waiting for the note to be slipped under the door, Cornelia silently rose from her sleeping bag, inched her way across the floor, and flung open the door at the same instant she snapped on the flashlight.

  There in the beam of light was a small red fox that stared at her for a moment, one paw off the ground, and in the next instant streaked off again and disappeared into the woods. Cornelia was so surprised that she forgot all about the red pepper.

  She couldn’t help laughing. If anybody has asked her on the last day of school what she would be doing a week from then, she never would have dreamed she would be spending the night with a chicken, outwitting a fox, and waiting for a ransom note. And all for the love of a roller coaster.

  She closed the door of the shed again, lay down on top of her sleeping bag, and closed her eyes. A light rain began to fall on the roof of the shed—a gentle pity-pat, pit pat, pity-pat, pit pat.

  Cornelia’s breathing grew slower and deeper. Her eyes felt heavy, her legs went limp, and then she was dreaming that she was running down a long, long hill with a chicken cradled in her arms, a fox behind her, and the Scoates gang behind the fox.

  When she opened her eyes, sunlight streamed through the one small window of the shed. Cornelia thought how delicious the sleeping bag felt beneath her, how refreshed she was feeling. She sat up slowly and looked around. And there, right as she had expected, was a note under the door of the shed.

  She crawled over the dirt floor and picked it up.

  Dear Stupid:

  Susan Slager loves soup. If you don’t want your dumb chicken turned into noodle soup, put five dollars in a Campbell’s soup can and leave it under the sickamore tree at the end of the playground by four o’clock this afternoon.

  The Scoates Gang

  At the bottom of the paper was a blue circle. Inside the blue circle was a red one, and inside the red, a green one.

  11

  The Message and the Messenger

  This was starting to get exciting. Cornelia went home with fire in her eyes. Because she was older than her brother and sister, she was allowed her own house key, so she quietly let herself in and went upstairs to her room.

  Taking out a pen and a sheet of note paper, she carefully drew a skull and crossbones. Inside the skull, about where the eye sockets would be, she wrote:

  Give us proof that the chicken’s alive or else! The Delaney-Morgan Mashers

  “Mashers?” Charles asked, after Cornelia went in his room and showed him her note.

  “I want us to sound tough,” she said. Two days until Mother’s birthday, and no chicken in sight.

  The door to Charles’s bedroom suddenly swung open, and there stood Mindy in her nightgown.

  “Well, did No-Name come back or what?” she demanded.

  “No,” said Cornelia, “but we got a ransom note.” Mindy listened solemnly while Cornelia explained about the first note Charles had found and about Susan Slager and the multicolored pen.

  “Why does Susan Slager have No-Name in her shirt?” asked Mindy.

  “She doesn’t, of course. Homer is just trying to give Deeter some of his own medicine.” Cornelia said. She turned to Charles. “But it might have something to do with a shirt. Maybe that’s a clue—we should be looking for a shirt. Did the note say it was in her shirt or down her shirt or wrapped in a shirt, or what? Where’s the note?”

  Charles looked around his room. He got out of bed and searched the pockets of the jeans he’d been wearing the day before. “I don’t know,” he said. “I guess I lost it. It could be anywhere.”

  Cornelia was exasperated. “How could you lose it? You just had it yesterday. You didn’t take it anywhere, did you?”

  Charles swallowed. “After dinner last night,” he confessed, “I took the note and rode over to the school playground asking kids if they knew Susan Slager. I thought maybe if I just told her myself how much we need that chicken back, she’d give it to me.”

  “You actually showed that note around?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Well, did you find her?”

  “No. They said she wasn’t there.”

  Cornelia sighed. “Well, you know where Homer Scoates lives, don’t you?”

  They all knew where Homer lived, because when Homer had chicken pox last spring and didn’t have to go to school, he sat at the window of the big yellow house on the corner of Main and Locust and thumbed his nose at people as they went by.

  “Yes, I know,” said Charles.

  “I want you to take this message to his house and deliver it personally. You have to hand it to him. Not his mother or dad or sister or cousin. Put it in Homer Scoates’s own hand. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” said Charles again, as she gave him the slip of paper. Cornelia sounded like the Queen of England. If the stupid note was so important, why didn’t she deliver it herself?

  But there was no refusing Cornelia, so Charles pulled on his clothes, stuffed the note in his jeans’ pocket, and ten minutes later was on his way to Homer Scoates’s house.

  Homer lived about two blocks away. As Charles walked along the street, he counted all the newspapers that were lying on porches and realized that half the neighborhood was still asleep. In fact, Homer Scoates was probably still sleeping.

  When Charles got to the Scoates’s house, sure enough, the blinds were drawn and the newspaper lay on the porch.

  Charles stood looking at the house. In one of those rooms in one of those beds was an ordinary boy who was causing more trouble than anyone could possibly imagine. Homer was a year older than Charles but a year younger than Deeter and Cornelia. Charles wondered why Deeter didn’t just punch Homer Scoates in the nose and get it over with.

  He sighed. Resting on one foot, then the other, he finally sat down on the curb across from Homer’s house, watching for any sign of life—a blind rising, a light going on, a door opening...Nothing.

  When fifteen minutes had gone by, possibly twenty, and still nothing had happened, Charles crossed the street, went up on the Scoates’s front porch, and peered in the picture window. Then he went around the house looking in one window after another. On the back porch he put his hand up to the glass and took a long look inside, but th
ere was no mother baking biscuits, no father making pancakes, no children pouring cereal. Charles began to feel hungry. He went around to the front porch again, and this time, he had an idea. Lying on his stomach, he could see a thin crack under the door. If he could slip Cornelia’s note through the crack, he could go home and have breakfast. Never mind that he was supposed to hand it to Homer. He was hungry!

  Charles took the paper from his pocket and began pushing it under the door. It went partway, then stopped. There must be a mat or rug or something on the other side that kept it from going all the way in, Charles thought. He shoved and shoved, moving the paper this way and that.

  All of a sudden he felt a tug. Someone had hold of the paper and was pulling it inside. Maybe it wasn’t Homer, maybe it was his dad. And Charles began to think this was a bad idea after all. He held on tightly himself. The paper went one way, then another. Back and forth, back and forth.

  Suddenly the door opened wide, and there was Homer Scoates down on his hands and knees.

  “What do you want?” asked Homer, who was still in his pajamas. Dinosaur pajamas, with Stegosauruses all over the tops and bottoms, and a Tyrannosaurus rex on the shirt pocket.

  “I’m supposed to give you this note from Cornelia,” Charles told him.

  “So why didn’t she bring it herself?” Homer asked.

  “I don’t know,” Charles told him. “I don’t know anything anymore.”

  Homer read the note.

  “Proof? She wants proof?” he said. “Just a minute.”

  He went back inside and returned with a white feather.

  “Give that to your sister.” Then he reached out for the morning newspaper, pulled it inside, and shut the door.

  Charles walked home with the feather in his pocket. Cornelia met him at the door.

  “Well? Did you see the chicken?” she whispered.

  “No, but Homer gave me this,” said Charles, coming inside, and he pulled the white feather from his pocket.

  Cornelia stared. “What does that prove?” she hissed. “That feather could have come from a dead chicken, for all we know. How do we know that No-Name hasn’t already been eaten?”

  Charles couldn’t believe he had been so stupid. Cornelia was right. No-Name could have been stuffed and roasted by now.

  There were footsteps on the stairs behind him, and Mother came down.

  “Well, you two are up early this morning,” she said.

  “I was thinking of making French toast.” She had just reached the bottom step when the doorbell rang.

  Cornelia opened the door. A policeman in a dark blue uniform seemed to be blocking the whole entrance.

  “Good morning,” he said, looking right at Charles. And then, to Cornelia, “I wonder if I could speak with your brother.”

  12

  Deeter’s Turn

  “Charles?” said Mother, stepping forward as Mindy appeared at the top of the stairs. And then, to the officer, “You want to speak to my son? What on earth for?”

  “Just a few questions, ma’am, that’s all,” said the policeman.

  Charles took a deep breath and walked over to the screen door.

  “Would you step outside, please?” the officer asked.

  “No!” Mindy screamed and rushed down the stairs. “Don’t take my brother to jail! Please don’t take him to jail!” she shrieked, throwing herself at the policeman.

  The officer looked startled. “Sweetheart, I’m not taking your brother anywhere. I just want to talk with him a minute.”

  Sobbing, Mindy stood with her nose pressed against the screen while Mother and Cornelia listened from a few feet away.

  “Son, were you down at the corner of Main and Locust streets this morning?” the officer asked.

  Charles scratched his neck. “Yes.”

  “A neighbor reported seeing a boy about your age looking in the window of the Scoates’s house. She said she watched while you went around to all the windows, and finally it looked as though you were trying to pry open the front door. That’s when she called the police.”

  “I wasn’t trying to open the door,” Charles told him.

  “I was trying to push a note underneath, and I didn’t knock because I was afraid I’d wake someone up.”

  “I see,” said the policeman. “Well, I didn’t figure you were trying to break in, but the lieutenant wanted me to check it out. I pulled up in front of their house in time to see you disappearing around the block, and followed you here. Next time, maybe you should go a little later when people are up and you can just ring the bell.”

  “Okay,” said Charles. There would never be a next time if he could help it. He didn’t care if he got to be ninety years old and had still not gone to Starlight Park, he would never go near Homer Scoates’s house again.

  The policeman tipped his cap to Mother and went down the steps to the squad car.

  “Good-bye! Have a nice day!” Mindy called happily.

  “All right!” said Mother, her arms folded across her chest. “Now what?”

  The phone rang and Charles, Cornelia, and Mindy could hear the caller’s voice. “Helen, is anything wrong at your house?” asked Mrs. Hoover.

  “Yes, but nothing that a week of kitchen duty won’t cure,” said Mother. And after she hung up, she said, “First you saw all the bristles off my new broom, and now a policeman follows you home. What am I going to do with you, Charles? Why were you on the Scoates’s front porch this morning?”

  “It’s my fault!” said Cornelia quickly. “I asked him to deliver a note to Homer Scoates. I didn’t realize it would cause so much trouble. He shouldn’t have to do the dishes alone. We’ll both do them.”

  “Cornelia, you shouldn’t be writing notes to boys in the first place,” Mother scolded. “If you have a boyfriend, invite him here.”

  “A boyfriend?” Cornelia gagged. And Charles heard her mutter, “Just wait till I get my hands on Deeter.”

  She didn’t have long to wait, because she and Charles and Mindy had just finished their cereal and were sitting on the back steps sorting clothes from the laundry basket when Deeter sauntered out the back door of his house, eating a piece of toast. The pair of pants he wore hung so low that Charles didn’t see how they stayed up at all.

  Cornelia fairly flew across the yard until she was out of earshot of her house. At first Deeter had the wild notion that she was going to throw her arms around his neck and tell him that No-Name was back. Instead, she put her hands on his shoulders and shook him hard.

  “Deeter Delaney!” she hissed. “It’s only two more days till Mother’s birthday, and we need that chicken back! If you hadn’t taken Homer Scoates’s pen, No-Name would still be safe in the shed.”

  Deeter dropped his toast and stumbled backward, holding onto the top of his trousers.

  Cornelia told him about the note she’d found in the shed that morning and how Charles had gone to Homer’s with her reply and come home with a policeman behind him.

  “That feather doesn’t prove a thing, and we are not paying a ransom of five dollars for a chicken that might be potpie already,” she declared.

  Deeter drew himself up as tall as he could. “I’ll go,” he said. “I’ll go see Homer myself. And I’ll either come back with proof that No-Name’s alive, or I’ll bring the chicken with me.”

  Cornelia’s eyes softened and she gave him a grateful smile.

  Deeter went back home and brushed his teeth. Then he sat down and thought about what he was going to say. He ate another piece of toast and brushed his teeth again.

  Well, he told himself finally, there are more of them than there are of me, but the worst that can happen is that they’ll break my nose and beat me black and blue. Did he really want to go to Starlight Park? he wondered. Was it worth all this to ride the Mad Hornet and the Whirl-o-Wheel? Yes, he decided, because what else was there to do this summer? He couldn’t hide out here for three whole months waiting for the feud between him and the Scoates gang to blow over,
especially since the gang had taken to spying on him from the woods. A whole week had gone by and he hadn’t shot one single solitary basket.

  So he set off down the street, rounded the corner, and walked toward the big yellow house.

  There on the steps sat Homer Scoates, surrounded by all six members of his gang. They were all scowling and looking as fierce as pit bulls. When they saw Deeter, however, they began to laugh.

  “That is some ugly chicken!” sang out Homer.

  “Yeah,” said one of his buddies. “If that chicken was any uglier, they’d put it in a freak show.”

  “Uglier than ugly,” said another.

  “That chicken is so ugly that if you put it in soup, no one would eat it,” said a third.

  Deeter bravely planted himself on the sidewalk. He was doing this for Cornelia. “You have a choice,” he told them. “Either you give me real proof that the chicken’s alive, in which case we will consider paying the five bucks, or we will break into your house, steal the chicken, and you won’t get anything at all.”

  “Ha! Just try it!” said Homer, and he and his buddies laughed.

  “Then how about if the Delaney-Morgan Mashers meet you at the playground and punch out your lights?” said Deeter.

  “Ha!” said Homer again, but nevertheless, he and his buddies huddled together whispering.

  “Okay,” Homer said at last. He went inside and finally came back with his fingers cupped in front of him. “Hold out your hands.”

  Deeter did as he was told, and Homer emptied his hands over Deeter’s. Plop. A round green blob of chicken poop. And it was still warm.

  13

  Rescue

  By the time Deeter realized what he had in his hands, Homer and his gang had scrambled up the steps and locked themselves behind the screen door. They were making faces at him and yelling:

  “Dee-ter!

  Dee-ter!

  Couldn’t hurt a

  ’skeet-er!”

  As they sang, they stuck their thumbs on their noses and waggled their fingers.