Agatha Parrot and the Thirteenth Chicken Read online

  Contents

  * * *

  Title Page

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  The Gang!

  Frontispiece

  The Little New Things

  The Big New Thing

  Chicken Crazy

  Motley’s Box of Great Mystery

  The Potato-Headed Monster

  Who’s in the Box?

  Chicken Soccer

  What’s Tocking the Bloob Up?

  A Sad Goodbye

  The Magic Cactus

  The Lump of Doom

  Don’t Count your Chickens Before They Hatch!

  Who Did It and How?

  The Odd Street Miracle

  The Chicken Puzzle by Agatha Jane Parrot

  Read More from the Agatha Parrot Series

  Middle Grade Mania!

  Agatha Parrot Mania!

  About the Author

  About the Illustrator

  Connect with HMH on Social Media

  Clarion Books

  3 Park Avenue

  New York, New York 10016

  Copyright © 2013 by Kjartan Poskitt

  Illustrations copyright © 2017 by Wes Hargis

  Text originally published in the United Kingdom by Egmont UK, Ltd.

  All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [email protected] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

  Clarion Books is an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

  www.hmhco.com

  Cover design by Lisa Vega

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Names: Poskitt, Kjartan, author. | Hargis, Wes, illustrator.

  Title: Agatha Parrot and the thirteenth chicken / typed out neatly by Kjartan Poskitt ; illustrated by Wes Hargis.

  Description: Boston ; New York : Clarion Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, [2017] | Originally published in the United Kingdom by Egmont in 2013. | Summary: “Agatha Parrot and her friends babysit a flock of newly-hatched chicks for a back-to-school project”—Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016016156 | ISBN 9780544509092 (hardback) Subjects: | CYAC: Chickens—Fiction. | Animals—Infancy—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. | Humorous stories. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / School & Education. | JUVENILE FICTION / Humorous Stories. | JUVENILE FICTION / Girls & Women. | JUVENILE FICTION / Social Issues / Friendship. | JUVENILE FICTION / Animals / Birds. | JUVENILE FICTION / Mysteries & Detective Stories.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.P65 Ai 2017 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016016156

  eISBN 978-0-544-50911-5

  v1.0617

  This book is dedicated to Gilbert, for making Ivy’s mom SO happy. xxx

  No chickens were hurt during the course of writing this book, because chickens are good and we LIKE chickens.

  The Little New Things

  Hiya!

  I hope you like books written by somebody who once tipped a whole box of cornflakes over her head. That’s me!

  Don’t worry—I’m not completely crazy. I had a very good reason for the cornflake thing: I thought a giant ghost chicken had burst out of a lump in the wallpaper. If you were me you’d have done exactly the same thing, honest! You’ll understand why when you’ve read the story, so let’s start at the beginning.

  My name is Agatha Jane Parrot, and I go to Odd Street School, which is at the end of Odd Street, where I live. And even though the cornflake thing makes perfect sense, there’s one thing about me that I have to admit is pretty embarrassing.

  I just LOVE the first day back at school after vacation.

  I know that’s weird. School is full of lessons, rules, being quiet, tests, old lady teachers, multiplication tables, and freezing cold bathrooms—shiver shiver YUCK!

  But the reason I can’t wait to get back is that there’s always a NEW THING.

  Sometimes it’s really obvious, like when they built a jungle gym with a slide on the playground! It was just so awesome. EVERYBODY slid on it including our new teacher, Miss Pingle, even though she says she didn’t. Miss Pingle is super cool because her hair changes color every week, and we ALL saw her taking a quick turn on the slide when she thought nobody was watching. She didn’t know we were looking out the library window. She came sliding down, waving her hands in the air, and went WHEEEE really loud, and we heard her—ha ha!

  But the last time we got back to school after a break, there wasn’t a big new thing like the jungle gym, so me and my friends went around looking for little new things. Here’s what the others found, and I can tell you that one of them is very important in the story later on! See if you can guess which one it is.

  1) Bianca Bayuss noticed that the rubber plant in our class had grown a new leaf. Oooh . . . Could this be important in the story? Maybe the plant grows more and more leaves and turns the whole school into a jungle with tigers and elephants? Actually, it doesn’t, but it would be neat if it did.

  2) Martha Swan saw that Miss Pingle had a new bag exactly the same color as her hair. How cool is that? We had a big argument about what color Miss P.’s bag/hair was. I said purple, but Martha said dark red, and Bianca said it was maroon. So we asked Miss P. The answer was Damson Dream—we’d never have guessed that in a million years.

  3) Ivy Malting spotted that Miss Wizzit had gotten her ears pierced! Miss Wizzit is the school receptionist, and her main job is guarding the photocopier. She HATES when anybody uses it, and there’s no way she would have left it while she snuck off to get her ears done. Ivy says that Miss Wizzit probably pierced her ears herself with the stapler. Ugh! Sorry, you’ll have to block that thought out. Think about daisies and doughnuts and happy things. La-la la-la lah . . .

  4) Ellie Slippin said Motley the custodian had grown a green mustache! It turns out he’d had a mug of pea soup and some of it had gotten stuck to his top lip. It’s not surprising that it fooled us, though, because it was there for three days, until our principal, Mrs. Twelvetrees, told him about it.

  So which new thing do you think comes into the story? Is it the rubber plant, the bag, Miss Wizzit’s ears, or the green mustache? And what new thing did I find?

  If you want to know, keep reading!

  The Big New Thing

  I didn’t find my new thing until the Monday after we got back. I was going past the reception desk when the door buzzer rang. Miss Wizzit pushed a button and spoke into the intercom.

  “Wizzit?” asked Miss Wizzit.

  “Greetings,” said a voice. “We are the Eggs Experience company.”

  “Kitchen deliveries go to the kitchen door,” snapped Miss Wizzit.

  “It’s not for the kitchen,” said the voice. “The children are going to hatch the eggs.”

  Miss Wizzit made the sort of face that you can only make if you’re Miss Wizzit imagining lots of kids sitting on nests full of eggs.

  “Don’t be silly,” said Miss Wizzit, but then Mrs. Twelvetrees came dashing out of her office.

  “Is that the egg people?” she gushed, all excited. “Let them in, Miss Wizzit.”

  Egg people? WOW! What an exciting new thing. It was even better than Motley’s green mustache.

  The egg people were two men with bushy beards, and they were wearing long hairy robes and sandals. One of them had an old basket covered with a red towel, and the other one had a big plastic box with a wire coming out of it.

  “Here are the fruits of our feathered community,” said the one with the basket. He pu
lled the towel away to reveal a bunch of eggs sitting on some straw.

  “And here is the electric mother,” said the other one.

  “The what?” asked Miss Wizzit.

  “It’s the incubator to make the eggs hatch,” said Mrs. Twelvetrees.

  The egg people put the eggs and the incubator on the desk, and one of them passed an envelope to Mrs. Twelvetrees.

  “We leave you in peace,” said the egg people, then they both bowed polite little bows and left.

  “Aren’t the egg people just wonderful?” said Mrs. T. “They live in a cave and grow their own clothes. It’s a mystery how they survive!”

  “What izzit?” asked Miss Wizzit, pointing at the envelope.

  Mrs. Twelvetrees looked inside.

  “It’s a bill for five hundred dollars,” she said.

  “Mystery solved,” said Miss Wizzit.

  Chicken Crazy

  It was going to take a day or two for the eggs to hatch, so the incubator was set up in the little kiddies’ class, where old Miss Bunn teaches. You wouldn’t think there would be much excitement about a plastic box full of eggs sitting on a table doing nothing, would you?

  WRONG!

  All the kiddies went chicken crazy.

  To start with, Miss Bunn gathered them around the plinky-plonk piano and taught them one of the greatest songs in the world. You must know it—it goes:

  Chick chick chick chick

  CHICKEN!

  Lay a little egg for me.

  Chick chick chick chick

  CHICKEN!

  Lay one, lay two, lay three!

  (Did you sing that out loud when you read it? If you did, then you are a STAR! Have a round of applause—clap clap clap.)

  The next day, Miss Bunn had all the kiddies make chicken hats out of yellow paper, completing them with orange cardboard beaks. Of course none of the kiddies could wait for the glue to dry, so they all put the hats on, and the hats got stuck to their hair. AWESOME!

  But that wasn’t the best part. The BEST part was the giant chicken picture they drew to cover their classroom door. It was supposed to be one big chicken, but all the kiddies had taken turns drawing on the wings and legs and other parts. It ended up with seven feet, thirty tiny wings, five beaks (most of them with teeth), three hands, sunglasses, a pirate flag, and a flower growing out of its tail.

  Recess was crazy. We were all outside surrounded by chicken-headed little kiddies who were running around and screaming, “Chick chick chick chick CHICKEN!”

  It was all completely fabulous except for one thing, and that one thing was called Gwendoline Tutt. Gwendoline is in a different class from us, THANK GOODNESS. She’s the scrawny one with the pink bike who lives in the biggest house on Odd Street, and she’s far too snotty for anything.

  “Give it a rest!” shouted Gwendoline. “Honestly! A few eggs and the whole school gets stupid.”

  We all knew why Gwendoline was in a mood. Gwendoline had wanted the eggs to be in her class, and Gwendoline doesn’t like it when Gwendoline doesn’t get what Gwendoline wants. But if she thought she could spoil the fun, she was wrong. Miss Bunn came to the door and called the kiddies over.

  “One of the eggs is moving,” said Miss Bunn.

  “Oooooh!” said the kiddies.

  “That means the first chicken is getting ready to come out!” said Miss Bunn.

  The kiddies all shouted, “CHICK CHICK CHICK CHICK CHICKEN!”

  After recess, me and Martha went to Miss Bunn’s classroom and looked in the door. All the kiddies were around the table, and Miss Bunn had taken the lid off the incubator.

  “Let’s see if any chickens can hear me,” said Miss Bunn. She clicked her tongue a few times, then said to the eggs, “Hello, little chickens!”

  Everyone listened carefully. Sure enough, a small squeaky noise came from one of the eggs! Me and Martha even heard it from over by the door.

  “That is so cool!” said Martha.

  “Would anybody else like to say hello?” asked Miss Bunn.

  Immediately every single kiddie started screaming at the egg. “CHICK CHICK CHICK CHICK CHICKEN!”

  The egg got very quiet. I don’t blame it. I bet the chicken changed its mind about hatching and decided to stay inside. Imagine being born and the first thing you see are all these giant kiddies with orange beaks growing out of their heads, screaming at you. Scary!

  The next morning was Wednesday, and as soon as Motley opened the school doors, all the kiddies charged in, still wearing their chicken hats. WOO-HOO! They ran down the corridor tossing their coats and lunch bags everywhere, then burst into their classroom to see what had happened.

  Miss Bunn was staring at a few yellow blobs in the incubator.

  “We’ve got four so far,” said Miss Bunn.

  “OOOOOH!” said the kiddies.

  Nobody in school could concentrate for the whole day. Every so often a huge shout of “Chick chick chick chick CHICKEN!” would echo from Miss Bunn’s class as another chicken appeared. By recess there were seven chicks, by lunchtime there were eleven, and by afternoon the last two eggs had hatched, which made thirteen chickens altogether.

  All the other classes took turns going to see the chicks in the incubator. When we went in, Miss Bunn was clearing some pieces of shell away. The chicks looked a little wet from being inside the eggs.

  “They need to stay in the incubator tonight,” said Miss Bunn. “By tomorrow they’ll be dried out and fluffy, and then they’ll need somewhere bigger to live.”

  It all sounded so simple, didn’t it?

  It wasn’t!

  Motley’s Box of Great Mystery

  On Thursday we were all in class when the door burst open and Motley came in walking backwards. He was carrying one end of an old recycling box, and big Mrs. Potts the lunchroom lady was carrying the other end. The box had some old chair legs sticking out of the top of it, and dangling between them was a shiny metal lampshade that was banging into everything. Motley and big Mrs. Potts managed to squeeze their way past our chairs without killing anybody, and then they plunked the whole thing down on the table by the window.

  Motley straightened it up and gave it a wipe with his cloth, then stood back and grinned at us proudly.

  “It’s very nice,” said Miss Pingle, trying to be polite.

  “Yes, it’s very nice,” we all said, and then we were all quiet.

  Poor old Motley. I think he’d expected us to give him a round of applause. He looked a little sad.

  “All right, then,” he said. “There it is. We’ll leave you to it.”

  Big Mrs. Potts obviously felt sorry for him. “I thought they’d be pleased,” she said.

  “Me too,” said Motley.

  They were shuffling their way back to the door when Ivy blurted out, “What is it?”

  “It’s a brooding box for the chickens, of course,” said Motley. “It’s too big to fit in Miss Bunn’s classroom, so the chickens will have to come in here.”

  “WAHOO!” we all cheered, and Motley beamed.

  “Mr. Motley has fixed up this heating lamp,” explained big Mrs. Potts. “It used to hang in my kitchen to keep the food warm.”

  “But what if the lamp makes the chickens too hot?” asked Miss Pingle.

  “Mr. Motley thought of that,” said big Mrs. Potts. “Didn’t you, Mr. Motley?”

  “Of course,” said Motley. “That’s the clever part of my invention.”

  He pointed at the side of the box. There was a switch, and next to it was a control knob with numbers around it.

  “If you want to make it hotter or colder, you turn this knob,” he said.

  “He’s so clever,” said big Mrs. Potts.

  Then big Mrs. Potts took Motley off to have a cup of coffee, I think, but I don’t know for sure, because it’s not like I followed them or anything.

  The Potato-Headed Monster

  As soon as we had Motley’s box, we wanted to put the chickens in it, but we didn’t dare go and g
et them from Miss Bunn’s class while the kiddies were watching. There would have been a kiddie riot! That’s not funny, either—my sister, Tilly, is in that class, and she says that some of her sweet little friends BITE. Eeek!

  We had to wait until after school, when all the kiddies had gone home. In the end, the only people left were me, Ellie, Martha, Bianca, Ivy, and Miss Pingle, but at least we’d had time to get Motley’s box ready.

  There was a great big bag of chicken food, and Martha loves food, so she took charge of it. If she’d been a chicken she’d have eaten all of it at once, so she wasn’t too impressed when she was only allowed to put a little bit onto a tiny plastic saucer.

  “That’s not enough for thirteen chickens!” said Martha. “I’ll go home and get a cereal bowl.”

  “No!” said Miss Pingle.

  Ivy filled up a little water bowl, and me and Ellie put some paper towels on the bottom of the box, because that’s what little chicks like to walk on.*

  (*Interesting fact! Chickens don’t like to walk on newspaper because it’s too slippery for their feet, and they can get dirty from the ink, too. And newspapers are covered in words, but little chickens can’t read, so it’s unfair to them. And that’s true.)

  Miss Pingle had gotten some wood shavings to put in the box so the chickens could snuggle up and keep warm, and Bianca made a big sign with a picture of a chicken on it. Bianca makes really good pictures, but I wanted her to draw a flower growing out of its tail just like the one on the kiddies’ picture! I was dying to ask her to, but I thought she might get annoyed, so I didn’t.

  Everything was ready when Mrs. Twelvetrees came in carrying the incubator. Inside were the little chickens.