Amy Is a Little Bit Chicken Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1: Cluck, Cluck!

  Chapter 2: Fire Drill

  Chapter 3: Marion’s Exciting News

  Chapter 4: Oops . . . Paint Fight!

  Chapter 5: Practice Makes Perfect

  Chapter 6: Amy’s Got a Frog in Her Throat

  Chapter 7: A Shady Idea!

  Chapter 8: The Quiz Bowl

  Chapter 9: And the Winner Is . . .

  Chapter 10: What Do You Call a Little Chicken?

  “A New Friend” Excerpt

  About Callie Barkley and Tracy Bishop

  Cluck, Cluck!

  Amy swung the barn doors open. Sunlight and fresh air came in. Dust and dirt went out as Amy began sweeping the barn floor. It was a beautiful Sunday—cleanup day at The Critter Club.

  Amy and her best friends, Marion, Liz, and Ellie, talked as they worked.

  “My mom took me to the art museum yesterday,” Liz said. She was wiping down the tables. “We saw some Chinese brush paintings. They were so beautiful!” Liz sighed. “I want to learn how to paint like that!”

  Amy smiled. Liz was always planning her next art adventure.

  Ellie was emptying the garbage can. “I spent yesterday making up a dance routine,” she said. “Then I put on a show for my family!”

  Ellie showed the girls some of the moves—ballet leaps, jazz taps, and hip-hop bounces. Liz, Marion, and Amy clapped. Ellie was such a fearless performer.

  Marion told them about her Saturday lunch with her grandparents. “After that, Coco and I had our horseback-riding lesson.” Coco was Marion’s horse. “We started working on jumping over ditches!”

  Wow! Amy thought. She could not imagine flying through the air on a horse!

  “I didn’t do anything that exciting,” Amy said. She explained that she’d checked out a brand-new mystery from the library. “Actually, that Was pretty exciting. Then I started writing a story of my own. It’s a fantasy story about a giant, evil—”

  Cluck, cluck, baaawk! A hen came wandering into the barn. Two more followed right behind her.

  “A giant, evil chicken?” Liz joked. Amy, Ellie, and Marion laughed.

  The chickens had arrived the day before. They had been wandering around downtown Santa Vista. They had even walked into the road, stopping traffic! No one knew where they’d come from. And no one knew what to do!

  Then Ms. Sullivan happened to pass by. She knew a place the chickens could stay while their owner was found—The Critter Club!

  Already the girls had learned a lot about keeping chickens. For starters, they needed a coop, or henhouse. Luckily Ms. Sullivan’s neighbors offered to help. Mr. Mack was a farmer and Mrs. Mack was a carpenter. Together, they made the perfect coop-building team.

  The girls went outside to see how it was coming along. Behind the barn, Mrs. Mack was hammering a shingle onto the coop roof.

  “Wow! It’s almost done!” Ellie exclaimed.

  “We have a few more things to add inside,” said Mrs. Mack.

  Mr. Mack nodded. “Like the nesting boxes where the hens can lay their eggs.”

  While Mrs. Mack finished the coop, Mr. Mack had a job for the girls: to help him make a chicken run. They used mesh fencing to enclose a large piece of the barnyard. “Now the chickens have a safe area to run around in,” Mr. Mack said. “Let’s try to get them inside of it.”

  That was easier said than done! Marion tried shooing the hens in. But they flapped their wings and went in the wrong direction.

  Ellie tried singing to them: “Here, chicky, chicky, chicky.” The hens didn’t come.

  Liz tried picking one up. The hen flapped and squawked loudly. Liz had to put her down.

  Amy tried luring them with chicken feed. But when she tossed some toward them, the hens ran away from it.

  “It seems like they’re afraid of everything,” Amy said to Mr. Mack.

  He smiled. “Chickens sometimes are kind of . . . chicken.”

  Fire Drill

  Amy thought about the chickens as she walked into school the next morning. It was presentation day, and she was nervous.

  The week before, everyone in class had made posters of an animal of their choice. It was hard for Amy to choose just one favorite animal. In the end, she chose the owl. There were so many cool facts about owls! Amy loved that part of the project.

  But today everyone would present his or her poster. That meant standing up and talking in front of the whole class.

  Inside Mrs. Sienna’s room, Amy saw Marion, Ellie, and Liz by the coat hooks.

  “Amy, you’re here!” Marion said. “I wanted to tell all three of you at the same time. I have exciting news!”

  Amy hung up her jacket and backpack. Then she huddled up with her friends.

  “So what is it?” Ellie asked. Marion opened her mouth to answer.

  Just then, Mrs. Sienna called out, “Okay, class, take your seats! Time for Monday morning announcements. Then we’ll begin the presentations!”

  Amy groaned. Marion shrugged. The girls split up and sat down at their desks.

  Amy wondered what the big news could be. She was itching to know. But she was happy to have something to think about besides her nerves. She thought about the surprise while the first three students presented their posters.

  Then—too soon—Mrs. Sienna called Amy’s name. It was her turn.

  Amy carried her poster to the front of the room. She tried to read clearly and slowly as she pointed to each animal fact. But her hands were shaking. And she could feel her face blushing.

  After what seemed like forever, she was done. The class clapped as Amy hurried back to her seat.

  From the desk behind her, Ellie tapped Amy on the back. “That was so great!” Ellie whispered.

  Amy shrugged. “It didn’t feel great,” she whispered back. “But it’s over!”

  She watched the rest of the class do their presentations. How come they all look so confident?

  Liz was presenting her poster on chameleons. She seemed as calm as ever talking about their cool color-changing ability.

  Suddenly a loud noise filled the room. The whole class jumped. It was the fire-alarm siren!

  “Fire drill!” Mrs. Sienna called. “Calmly push your chairs in and line up at the door.”

  Marion’s Exciting News

  Mrs. Sienna’s class filed down the hallway and out a back door. They walked to the edge of the playground. They lined up between the first graders and the third graders. Mrs. Sienna took attendance. Amy was in line in front of her friends.

  Marion leaned forward and whispered her news. “I signed us up as a team for the Santa Vista Quiz Bowl!”

  Ellie and Liz heard and turned. Ellie clapped silently but excitedly. Liz gave a thumbs-up.

  Amy looked back at Marion and smiled while mouthing the word “cool!” Amy loved trivia and quiz games.

  But then all of a sudden she felt a pang of dread.

  Wait. Is the Quiz Bowl that trivia contest they have at the huge theater? The one that a lot of people come to watch?

  Amy would have to wait until later to ask. Mrs. Sienna was walking up and down the line. She had her finger to her lips. They weren’t supposed to talk during fire drills.

  Finally at lunch, Amy and the girls had time to chat. Marion unpacked her lunch while she explained.

  “I went with my dad to the grocery store yesterday,” she said. “There was a woman there with a Quiz Bowl sign-up sheet. It’s for kids ages eight to fifteen.”

  Ellie beamed. “Good thing we’re all eight already!” she said.

  Marion nodded. “It’s divided up by age. So we’re in the second- and third-grade division!”

  Marion pulled a folde
d-up paper from her pocket. “I copied this down from the Quiz Bowl website. It’s a list of topics that the questions might cover.”

  Amy’s eyes lit up. I bet I could do pretty well in literature, she thought.

  Liz leaned forward. “When is it? When is it?” she asked eagerly.

  “Exactly three weeks from yesterday!” Marion exclaimed.

  Amy breathed a little sigh of relief. At least she had some time to get used to the idea.

  Oops . . . Paint Fight!

  After school, Amy’s mom dropped her off at The Critter Club. She and the girls had some fun but messy work to do. All of them had changed into old clothes.

  The chickens were roaming happily in the chicken run. The coop was all done. It looked great.

  Ms. Sullivan had found the chickens’ owner. He was a farmer who’d had the hens in the back of his truck. And they had escaped! But he was going out of town so he asked if The Critter Club could watch the hens until he returned.

  In the meantime, Liz had decided the coop needed something more. Color! So she had drawn up a color plan for it.

  The girls had brought some leftover paint from home. They had yellow, white, red, and green.

  Liz passed out brushes. Then they each took a paint bucket and started painting.

  Marion brushed the red paint onto the roof. Liz was covering the walls with the green. Ellie brushed white on the window trim. Next to her, Amy painted a shutter yellow—her favorite color.

  Amy dipped her brush into her bucket, loading it with color. As she raised it to the shutter, the brush flicked some paint drops. They landed on Ellie’s arm.

  Ellie gasped.

  Amy looked over, realizing what had happened. “Whoops!” she cried. “Guess I had too much paint on my brush. Sorry, Ellie!”

  Ellie’s shocked look turned into a devilish smile. “Oh, yeah?” she said. She dipped her paintbrush in the white. She reached out and painted a stripe on Amy’s arm.

  “Hey!” Amy cried with a laugh. She aimed her brush at Ellie’s shirt. Ellie ducked out of the way. The paintbrush landed on Liz’s cheek instead.

  Amy gasped. “Oops—again!”

  “Ah!” Liz cried, her eyes wide in shock. She touched her now-yellow cheek. “Amy!”

  “It was an accident!” Amy said.

  Liz smiled. “I know.” She dipped her brush into the green. “But this isn’t!”

  Defensively, Marion dipped her brush into the red. “Paint fight!” she cried.

  Suddenly paint was flying everywhere. Amy put more yellow on her brush. She covered her face with one arm. With the other, she waved the brush to spray the yellow around. She could feel paint drops hitting her arms and her hair! “Aaaaaaaah!” she shrieked between giggles.

  Only a minute into the battle, Rufus came bounding over. “Woof!” he barked, and wagged his tail. He sprang and jumped around them, as if asking to play too.

  “Stop!” Marion called. “Truce!”

  The girls lowered their brushes. No one wanted to get paint all over Rufus. He’d need a doggie bath for sure. And getting Rufus in the tub wasn’t easy!

  Ms. Sullivan had followed Rufus outside. She walked up and stood over the girls, who had fallen to the ground, laughing.

  “What a creative way to paint a chicken coop,” Ms. Sullivan said.

  The girls turned to look at the coop. It was splatter-painted all over in red, yellow, white, and green. That made the girls laugh even harder.

  “I have to say,” Liz said, “it looks pretty good!”

  Amy, Ellie, and Marion agreed.

  It was the most cheerful-looking chicken coop Amy had ever seen!

  Practice Makes Perfect

  The girls told Ms. Sullivan all about the Quiz Bowl.

  “That sounds wonderful!” she said. “I don’t remember having those where I grew up. But I did win a spelling bee or two!” Ms. Sullivan got a faraway look in her eye. “I would study so hard beforehand. My mother quizzed me from the dictionary.” Ms. Sullivan smiled at them. “So think about practicing. It helps!”

  Amy thought that was a great idea. Maybe the more prepared she was, the less nervous she would be!

  “How about this,” Amy said. “Let’s each come up with five questions. Then tomorrow at lunch, we can quiz each other.”

  The others agreed. “Good plan, Amy!” Marion said.

  That night after dinner, Amy tried to think of a good geography question. It came to her as she cleared the table: What is the capital of California?

  She knew that one. It was Sacramento. But it gave her the idea to sit down with her atlas. She scanned the U.S. map and reviewed all her state capitals.

  Later, while brushing her teeth, Amy thought about tricky spelling words. What’s that word I spelled wrong on my homework last week? Envelope! I always thought it was onvelope.

  Amy looked it up to make sure: E-N-V-E-L-O-P-E.

  She thought up three more tough ones.

  Who was the first President of the United States? George Washington!

  What year did the California Gold Rush begin? 1848!

  What do all birds have that no other animal does? Feathers!

  How many planets are in our solar system? Eight!

  The next morning, Amy couldn’t wait until lunchtime! Would her friends know the answers to her questions? Would she know theirs?

  On the way into the cafeteria, Amy passed two third graders. One of them, a girl named Samantha, stopped Amy.

  “I saw your name on the Quiz Bowl sign-up sheet!” Samantha said. “Good luck!”

  Amy smiled. She was about to say thanks, but before she could, the other girl, Danielle, added: “Yeah, good luck. The questions are really hard.”

  The third graders walked off. Amy felt a knot in her stomach. She trudged to her lunch table. Liz, Ellie, and Marion were there. Amy told them what the girls had said.

  Marion waved it off. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “They were on the team that won our division last year. And they entered this year too.”

  Ellie added, “Hmm. So we’ll be competing against them. They were trying to make you nervous.”

  “Well, it worked!” Amy said.

  Amy tried to shake it off as she read her questions to her friends.

  They got them all right—no problem!

  Then Ellie read hers. “What’s the name for a scientist who studies the weather?”

  All Amy could think of was “Weatherperson,” but she knew that wasn’t right.

  “A meteorologist!” Liz called out confidently.

  “Right!” said Ellie. “Okay. How many stars are on the American flag?”

  Amy tapped her forehead. The answer was on the tip of her tongue. But Marion beat her to it. “Fifty!”

  The girls practiced for the rest of lunch. Between them, they knew all the answers!

  But Amy had been keeping a tally in her head. She had only known a few of the answers. And a few weren’t going to win the Quiz Bowl.

  Amy’s Got a Frog in Her Throat

  For the next three weeks, the girls brought new questions to lunch every day. They tested one another at The Critter Club when they went to feed the chickens. Amy asked her mother to quiz her at the dinner table.

  Two days before the Quiz Bowl, Amy invited the girls for a Friday-night sleepover. Amy’s mom made them a big dinner of lasagna and salad. They took a box of question cards from a junior trivia game Amy had. They went through all of them while they ate.

  Amy was getting more of the answers. But she was still nervous.

  “They probably won’t ask us any of these questions,” she pointed out.

  Her mom put a hand on Amy’s shoulder. “Even so,” she said, “you girls are getting practice at listening, focusing, and thinking on your feet!”

  Amy nodded. She hadn’t thought about it that way.

  “And I’m glad there’s a practice round tomorrow,” Marion reminded everyone.

  All the teams were invited to come to th
e theater on Saturday. They would have a turn sitting up onstage. The Quiz Bowl host would even ask them a few practice questions.

  Amy’s mom drove the girls to the theater. They walked in. Amy relaxed a little. There were only about a dozen people there. Some were kids on teams, waiting for their turn to practice. Some were parents.

  This is good, Amy thought. I’ll be able to get used to everything without the whole audience here.

  They watched a few teams take their turns onstage. It didn’t seem like any big deal. So when it was the girls’ turn, Amy walked right up with her friends.

  They walked over to take their seats behind a table that was facing the audience. For the first time, Amy noticed the set of bright lights shining down on the stage. It was hard to see.

  Then Amy’s vision adjusted. She looked out. She felt every pair of eyes in the room staring at them. All of a sudden, it seemed like so many more people were there!

  And look how many seats there were! Sure, they were empty today. But tomorrow they would be filled. Every single one!

  Amy estimated how many seats were in the theater. Five hundred? A thousand?

  She was so distracted that she didn’t even hear the first practice question. Liz nudged her gently. “Amy?” she said. “Do you know this one?”

  Amy jumped a little. The host read it a second time: “The original Nancy Drew mystery series was written by several authors under what pen name?”