Chicken Chicken

Chicken Chicken was the fifty-third in the Goosebumps book series. It was written by R.L. Stine. It was preceded by How I Learned To Fly and followed by Don't Go To Sleep!

The tagline was, It's a finger lickin' nightmare!

Plot
Crystal and her younger brother Cole live on a farm in a small town by the name of Goshen Falls. In this small town there lives a weird woman named Vanessa who always dresses in black and, despite her young appearance, is actually a spinster. According to Crystal, Vanessa is said to have magic powers and has used them on children who have played pranks on her (one time turning a boy's head into a balloon), though this doesn't stop Cole and his friends from pouring water in Vanessa's mailbox as a joke.

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 the three begin fighting 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 profusely. Crystal and Cole stay as Vanessa angrily looks at them and whispers, "Chicken, chicken" repeatedly. Scared, the siblings 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 and brush off the incident.

The next day, Crystal and Cole find feathers growing out of their skin. They try to pluck them off, but stop when they discover that the feathers are leaving behind bloody holes on their skin. Cole's voice is the next to go, as his singing voice during choral practice slowly devolves into nothing but clucks. At Lucy-Ann's birthday party, Crystal's lips turn hard and form into a beak. She locks herself in the bathroom, panics, and sneaks away from the party. At home, Crystal and Cole try to explain to their parents what's happening, but (in typical Goosebumps fashion) they don't believe their children. What's worse, Crystal and Cole soon become afraid of the fact that their parents are serving chicken at a barbecue they're throwing for the neighbors. During the barbecue, Crystal and Cole soon find themselves in the yard, clucking and interacting with the chickens, making them the laughingstock of the town.

Crystal's and Cole's ongoing transformation continues to ruin their lives, especially Crystal's, whose chances at playing on the school basketball team are dashed after making a fool of herself by acting like a chicken, tripping because her legs were becoming hard to bend, and,suddenly growing feathers on her legs. Crystal and Cole visit Anthony, thinking that he may be cursed too since he was there when the trio bumped into Vanessa. Anthony tells Crystal and Cole that nothing has happened to him after the incident, except for the fact that Anthony is now an exceptionally good golfer. On their way home, Crystal's and Cole's hideous mutation into chickens worsens as their eyes move to the side of their heads, their teeth sink into their gums, their fingers become bony like claws, their legs stiffen, and their feet turn to talons. The two decide that the only way to break the spell is to apologize to Vanessa in person. They break into her house after seeing that Vanessa isn't home. 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 return to the house and find a real spell book, but the spells only succeed in turning Crystal and Cole into 20-foot tall chickens and finally baby chicks. Crystal is almost eaten by Vanessa's cat, but the cat spits her out and plays around with her like a ball of yarn.

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, explaining how she's dedicated her life to etiquette and uses her magic to punish those who don't show it (which explains why Anthony was never cursed—he apologized to Vanessa as he ran away while Crystal and Cole did not). Crystal the baby chick leaps out of Vanessa's palm and lands on a 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 over the gesture that she uses her magic to revert Crystal and Cole into humans. She offers them soda, as they are probably parched from everything that's happened. Cole drinks his soda and belches. Crystal and Cole laugh, but Vanessa stares stone-faced at them and whispers, "Pig pig."

Trivia

 * While printing the first editions, Scholastic accidently flipped over Tim Jacobus' cover illustration, causing it to be printed backwards. You can see this if you pick up a first edition and locate his backward signiture, to the right of the right chicken foot. However, on the reprints, the problem was corrected, and the image above is what it looked like when Jacobus originally illustrated it.