Crooked Hills Read Free Page B

chopping block! But I wasn’t sure I wanted to watch. I swallowed hard, even though my mouth was bone dry, and my stomach started feeling queasy again.
    Uncle Shorty opened the cage. The chicken squawked and flapped its wings. Feathers flew everywhere. Shorty wrapped one of his large hands around both of the fowl’s legs, hoisting it out and holding it upside down as he carried it to the stump.
    He held out his hand for the axe. The late afternoon sun beat down on the back of my neck, and my face felt hot. My muscles felt frozen, though, stone cold. I thought I might lose my lunch.
    “Don’t worry.” Uncle Shorty took the axe. “It’ll be quick.”
    With one hand, Uncle Shorty held the chicken by the feet and laid it on the stump. The chicken didn’t move much, like it was paralyzed or something. Maybe it accepted its fate. With the other hand, Uncle Shorty hefted the axe above his head. The bloody blade gleamed.
    Alex covered his eyes. I did the same—only I peered out from between my fingers. I saw the whole shocking thing from beginning to end.
    There was no joy in Uncle Shorty’s face—thank goodness! If I thought for an instant he enjoyed what he was doing, I might have run for my life all the way back to Chicago. Instead, he pressed his lips tightly together, gritting his teeth through a few moments of unpleasantness.
    The axe seemed to hover above the chopping block for an eternity. I saw my own reflection in the blade, blurry and twisted and horrified.
    The chicken clucked curiously.
    The axe fell with a chop!
    I flinched.
    Uncle Shorty pulled his hands away, leaving the blade of the axe embedded in the wood. The chicken scrambled off the chopping block and ran across the yard—without a head! The decapitated bird ran in circles, wings flapping wildly, until at long last it fell over and lay still.
    I’d heard of jumping around like a chicken with its head cut off, but never put much thought into the origins of the expression.
    “Gross!” Alex said, even though he had missed most of the event.
    “What’s so gross about it?” Uncle Shorty asked. “Don’t you like fried chicken?”
    “Yeah, but I never saw anyone kill a chicken before.”
    “Well, you didn’t think we breaded and fried them while they were still alive and kicking, did you?”
    “Do they always do that?” I asked. “Run around without their heads.”
    “Not always,” Shorty said, “but sometimes.”
    “But how do they live without their heads?”
    “Well, they don’t, not really. The running around is really a sort of involuntary action. The muscles are convulsing, making the chicken flap around and look like its still alive, but it’s not.”
    My brother and I both stared at the dead bird, half-expecting it to jump back up and attack us like a headless zombie chicken.
    “Now—” Uncle Shorty clapped his hands together in anticipation. “—who wants to help me clean these birds?”
    “No, thanks.” I’d had enough of chickens for one day. I figured if I helped pluck and gut the carcasses, I’d lose my appetite forever.
    Alex still watched the chicken as if he feared taking his eyes off it.
    “Come on.” I nudged him. “We better unpack.”
    We unloaded the car and hauled the luggage into the house. Aunt Mary took a break from her conversation with Mom long enough to show us to our room. Our room. Mom never bothered to tell Alex and me we’d be sharing a room during the vacation. Pretty smart on her part. If my brother and I had known we would be cooped up together, we might have staged a full-scale revolt. Now that we were here, there wasn’t much we could say or do except grit our teeth and bear the close quarters until the vacation drew to a merciful end.
    We would be bunking downstairs, right next door to our cousin Marty—who was nowhere to be found. The room itself was kind of plain, with cinderblock walls (like a prison, I thought) painted light blue, and a thin brown carpet over the floor. On each