It all really started when the chicken showed up in my room. I was at my desk, trying to finish my English homework, when there came a tapping at my window. That night’s assignment was to analyze “The Raven,” so I just thought I was hearing the raven from the poem. I mean, it was late at night. But then the tapping kept happening. Finally, I walked over to my window and opened it. There was nothing there, besides my backyard.

     “Okay, high school is officially driving me insane,” I whispered to myself, watching the autumn leaves being lifted by the cool night air. I was about to close my window, until I heard, “Bawk!” I jumped and stared out of the window.

     “If this is a joke, I’m going to kill you!” I yelled. My school was filled with annoying pranksters that dedicated all their time to the immature activities of teepeeing a house or gluing someone to a chair. I pretended to reach for my window, but I was really preparing to punch whoever was outside. A flash of something appeared and I threw a punch. My fist made contact with something soft and a poof of feathers fell towards the ground.

     “B--bawk,” something cried, weakly. Wide eyed, I looked down at the ground. That was my first encounter with the chicken.

     “Oh my god, I just punched a chicken. Wait, why is there a chicken? I live in the suburbs, we don’t have chickens!” I paced my room, trying to calm down.

     “What if that was someone’s pet? No, who has a pet chicken? What if it was Arlo’s pet? He seemed to know a lot about chickens when we learned about them in biology. Plus, he’s weird enough to have a pet chicken. Oh my god, I just punched Arlo’s pet chicken!” I shouted, hoping my neighbors were out to dinner like my parents were. I didn’t need them thinking I was a crazed teenager. When I frantically turned my attention back to my window, the chicken perched on the window sill. It was actually quite pretty; amber and golden feathers framed its body.

     “Bawk!” the chicken cried, angrily. It started to flap its wings, causing feathers to fly everywhere. It jumped down from the window sill and began pecking at my carpet and the occasionally at my homework. Getting closer to where I was standing, the chicken pecked at my toes.

     “Hey! Alright, alright. I get it, you’re hungry or something. Follow me, I think I have some leftover rice somewhere,” I said, walking out my door. I turned around and saw the chicken following me.

     “Hm, maybe it understands me?” I thought. The chicken seemed to cluck to answer my thoughts.

     “Okay, I punched a mind-reading chicken,” I said. The chicken continued to follow me to the kitchen. Going through the pantry, I found my mom’s plain, whole wheat cereal that she loved. Personally, I think it’s gross. I grabbed a dish to put the cereal in and a small bowl with some water. The chicken shot towards the food as soon as I put it down. As it ate, I looked for a cage to put the chicken in. It needed somewhere to sleep at night, and I needed something to put it in when I brought it to school. We used to have a cage for our dog, Theo, until he passed away. He was a medium sized terrier mix.

     “Aha!” I exclaimed, finding the cage hidden under piles of old clothing that my mom always meant to bring to Goodwill. I grabbed some old blankets and went back to the kitchen. The cereal was gone and the chicken seemed quite content. I placed the blanket covered cage down and motioned to it. The chicken stared at me.

     “You want me to go in that?” the chicken seemed to ask.

     “You are a chicken. Don’t you normally sleep on hay in a barn? This is a step up,” I said. The chicken tossed it’s head towards the ceiling.

     “Jeez, did I have to punch such a snooty chicken?” I asked, sighing.

     “Bawk!” the chicken clucked. I raised an eyebrow as I stared at the chicken and motioned towards the cage again. Ruffling its feathers, the chicken slowly walked into the cage. I locked it up and carefully carried the chicken back into my room. A blanket of tiredness covered me. After tonight’s crazy events, I was ready for sleep. I started to pack my backpack as my hand rubbed my copy of “The Raven”.

     “No,” I muttered. I groaned as I realized that I never finished my poetry assignment. The chicken incident happened and I completely forgot about it. I still had the other half of the poem to analyze and three short answer questions to answer. I looked over at my clock, which read 11:40.

     “Damn chicken,” I muttered, going to prepare a cup of coffee.

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     “Callie! If you don’t wake up now, you’re going to be late. It’s seven o’clock. We have thirty minutes to get you to school. Callie!” my mother screamed from the kitchen. Groaning, I slowly got up. I had finished my homework around two and fallen asleep at the desk, as soon as I finished. I had a horrible crick in my neck from sleeping hunched over.

     “Callie, are you up yet?” my mother asked.

     “Yes!” I replied. I stumbled into the bathroom and looked at the mirror.

     “Oh my god. I look like a damn panda,” I whispered, examining my dark circles and eye bags. I quickly washed my face and brushed my teeth. Drying my face, I found the concealer and my other make-up. I covered my face with the concealer, giving the illusion that I slept perfectly last night. After I applied a bit of blush and mascara, I looked at my clock. It was 7:15 and I still needed to get dressed. I practically jumped into my high-waisted skinny jeans and white tank top.

     “Callie? Can you just eat something in the car? It’s time to go,” my mother said.

     “Yeah, I’m cool with that,” I replied. I grabbed a flannel, my white converse, and my backpack. I nearly closed the car door when I remembered the chicken.

     “Shoot!” I screamed, rushing back into the house.

     “Callie!” my mother screamed. As soon as I had the cage in my hands, I started to run back to the car.

     “Bawk!” the chicken clucked, confused.

     “Just shut up and deal with it, I’m late because of you!” I yelled. I threw the cage into the car, which resulted into angry squawks from the chicken.

     “So, why did you bring Theo’s old cage, Callie?” my mother asked. I looked at my mother’s calm face and then back at the chicken. Were we just going to ignore the live chicken in it?

     “Um, it’s for a classmate. He needs it and since we had it, I offered to give it to him,” I said.

     “Why does he need an empty cage?” Okay, we were going to ignore the chicken.

     “He wants to raise a chicken or something like that,” I mumbled.

     “A chicken? That’s strange,” my mother said, pulling to the front of the school.

     “Yeah, that’s totally weirder than you ignoring the chicken,” I muttered.

     “What, sweetie?”

     “Nothing, I was just saying bye. Love you, Mom!” I called out, putting on my flannel shirt. I had the cage in one hand and my backpack in the other. Closing the car door with my hip, I tried preparing myself for the long day ahead.

     “Bawk!” the chicken clucked, trying to peck my fingers.

     At first, I planned on putting the cage somewhere until the end of the day to give to Arlo. Unfortunately, time would not allow this. The bell had already started to ring when I was walking to the front doors. I had hoped to rush past and get to English in time, but the security guard stopped me.

     “Is there a reason why you’re late?” she asked me.

     “No,” I said, shaking my head. The choice to blame the chicken was tempting, but after the interaction with my mother and the chicken, or rather the interaction that didn’t happen, it didn’t seem like the wisest idea. The security guard handed me my tardy slip, and I sprinted to English.

     “Oh, I really hope that no one questions the chicken,” I hoped to myself.

     As I opened the door, everyone looked at me. Instead of seeing Ms. Higgins, my English teacher, there was a man at the board.

     “Oh, hello. I’m assuming you’re... Kallie Evans?” the man said, pronouncing my name with a ‘k’ sound. I tried not to make a face as I responded, “Yes. Callie Evans.” It was a common mistake that I would be okay with if it weren’t for Kallie Smith, the most popular girl in school. The jerks at my school loved to tease me and drop invites to parties for Kallie into my locker.

     “Ms. Higgins is out today and I’ll be subbing for her. My name is Mr. Wright and I’ve assigned the class to work in pairs or groups of three to discuss “The Raven.” So, please take out your notes and the poem,” Mr. Wright said. I nodded and quickly walked towards Beth, my best friend. I could hear the curious whispers of my classmates about the cage.

     “Um, Cal?” Beth asked, using my nickname. I took a seat and got out my notes.

     “I can’t be the only one wondering about this, but why do you have that cage?” she asked.

     “Okay, I was doing the homework last night and I heard something by my window. Long story short, I have Arlo’s pet chicken in the cage,” I whispered.      Her puzzled look and raised eyebrow didn’t reassure me.

     “You didn’t get enough sleep last night, did you?” she asked. I shook my head.

     “And wait, what? Chicken? Arlo has a pet chicken? Actually, that’s not that strange considering the guy, but how do you know that?”

     “I actually don’t, I’m just--” I said, but then Mr. Wright walked towards us.

     “Kallie, I know that you were late, but that gives you no excuse to not get started on the class work. This is strike one, two more and it’s a detention for you,” Mr. Wright said, still using the incorrect form of my name. I felt my cheeks heat up, while the popular kids were snickering.

     “Look at the wannabe Kallie getting in trouble,” someone whispered at me. I was not in the mood for this today.

     “Ignore them, Cal. Let’s just talk about the poem,” Beth said, glaring at the populars.

     I would like to say that the day went quickly and accident free, but it didn’t. Although, no one asked about the chicken. Was this a prank? Was everyone just going to ignore the fact that I had a chicken in a cage? The chicken also stayed quiet for most of the time. Maybe it noticed how embarrassed I was in English. I mean, if it could read my mind and give me a snooty attitude, why would the chicken sparing me embarrassment be strange?

     Finally, it was lunch and I could find Arlo to give his chicken back. I needed the chicken out of my sight. I scanned the cafeteria for Arlo’s messy brown hair. His hair wasn’t perfectly messy, it was just messy. I looked around twice and didn’t see him. Then, I remembered that there was some weird card game meeting today in room 305.

     “Please let him be in there,” I thought to myself, walking up to room 305 with the chicken in the cage.

     I opened the door and sure enough, there was Arlo with his weird friends.

     “Boom! I totally crushed your tree spirit with my fire mage!” Arlo yelled, smiling. This was the first time I could actually hear Arlo’s voice. He was normally off in the corner, furiously writing something in his notebook. No one in the room had noticed me, so I knocked.

     “Um, Arlo?” I asked. His friend that just got his tree spirit destroyed stared at me.

     “Woah, it’s a girl.”

     “Shut up, James. You make it seem like you’ve never seen one,” Arlo said. As I looked around the room, all the guys seemed as shocked as James.

     “What’s up, Callie?” Arlo asked.

     “Wait, you know my name?” I asked.

     “Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?”

     “I mean, we don’t really talk.”

     “Just because we don’t talk, doesn’t mean you don’t exist,” he said, smiling. I felt bad for always treating Arlo like he was weird; he was really sweet.

     “Anyways, what did you need?” he asked.

     “Um, this is kind of strange, but do you have a pet chicken?” I asked. I had left the cage outside the room, just in case it wasn’t his. The room seemed to fill with an awkward tension. Arlo’s smile faltered and he didn’t look directly at me anymore.

     “Are you okay, Arlo?” I asked.

     “Yeah, it’s just... I do have a pet chicken, or rather had a pet chicken. Mags went missing about a week ago and no one’s seen her. I mean, I know it’s stupid; she’s just a chicken, but she’s actually not. She was a part of my science fair experiment in fourth grade. You know, the whole incubator thing? She was one of the five I tried hatching. My little sister was six at the time and she didn’t really get the project. One day, she tried looking at the eggs, so she took them out of the incubator. She just sat there staring at them for a while. I was out at a friend’s house and my mom was in the kitchen. By the time I got back, it was too late for the four other eggs. I guess they were out of the incubator for too long and they died, because they were dead when I came back home. For some odd reason, Mags didn’t die. When she hatched, she was really weak and it took her a long time, but she got out. I was worried that something would be wrong with her, but nothing was. She grew up and had these beautiful amber and golden feathers. It sounds weird, but she’s one of my best friends. Whenever I’m down, she’ll come into my room and just sit in my lap. She understands everything and she’s really smart. I just miss her and I really want her back,” he whispered, turning around. For a bit, all I could hear was Arlo sniffling.

     “Well,” I said, gingerly, “then I have great news for you.” Arlo looked back at me.

     “What do you mean?”

     “Last night, I was working on homework and heard something at my window. I checked it out and it was a chicken. Same amber and golden feathers and everything. Like, the chicken I found is extremely smart and seems to understand me,” I said. Arlo’s blue eyes twinkled with excitement and a smile started to grow on his face.

     “Really?” he asked. I nodded and walked out the door. Picking up the cage, I brought it into the room. I held the cage towards him and his face slacken. He seemed to just stare at the cage.

     “What is it, Arlo? Is this not Mags?” I asked. His eyes left the cage and stared into mine. He walked closer towards me. His face was turning red and I think I saw tears forming.

     “Is this some kind of sick joke?” he muttered.

     “What?”

     “Is this funny to you?” he shouted. My eyes widened?

     “Haha, let’s all laugh at Arlo. He has a pet chicken, haha,” he said, sarcastically.

     “Arlo, I don’t understand--”

     “I don’t understand either, Callie! I thought you were a nice person. When did you join them, huh? When?” I stood there, confused.

     “Join who?”

     “The assholes! The ones that ruin my life and my friends’ lives on a daily basis for fun. Just to get some stupid laugh. When did you join them? Answer me! Don’t just stand there like you’re innocent!” By now, angry tears were falling from his deep blue eyes.

     “I don’t understand what you’re talking about, Arlo. I just wanted to return your chicken to you,” I said, motioning towards the cage. He slapped the cage out of my hand and it went tumbling towards the wall, resulting in scared squawks from the chicken.

     “Arlo, you’re hurting Mags!” I shouted. He let out a bitter chuckle.

     “It’s all just fun and games for you people, isn’t it?” he asked.

     “I don’t get it. I’m just trying to reunite you with Mags,” I said.

     “No, you don’t get! You don’t understand how much she means to me. You don’t understand how much I care for her. You think it’s okay to prance into this room and pretend like we’re friends and tell me that you’ve got Mags. But you don’t. All you have is an empty cage and you think it’s funny to say that you’ve got Mags. Just stop with the prank already! Can’t you see it worked? Go ahead, take pictures of the tears running down my face to laugh at later, just stop!” he shouted, his voice getting hoarse. I didn’t understand. There was a chicken in the cage. Why did everyone think it’s empty?

     “Arlo, what are you talking about? There is a chicken in the cage--”

     “Leave!” I turned towards the voice. It was Hung, the quiet Asian kid from my Calculus class.

     “You’re hurting my friend with your dumb prank and I won’t stand for it. If you don’t leave now, I’m going to report you to the principal and get you suspended,” he threaten. I turned towards the door to leave.

     “And take your damn empty cage with you,” he said, tossing the cage towards my feet. Although scared, the chicken remained silent in the cage. I slowly picked the cage back up and walked out the door. The last thing I saw was Arlo on the ground, sobbing, and Hung’s angry face, softening to comfort his friend.

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     I walked out towards the courtyard. I just didn’t get it. Was I the only one who saw the chicken? I sat down against the fence and opened the cage door. The chicken timidly walked out of the cage and into my lap. It sat there, nuzzling its head into my stomach. I stroked the chicken’s feathers.

     “I just don’t understand. You seem so real, why am I the only one who sees you?” I asked, looking at the chicken. It looked back at me and gave a weak cluck. Suddenly, a football hit the fence.

     “Bawk!” the chicken shouted, scared. Flapping its wings, it managed to get over the fence. It continued to walk into the street. A car was driving down the road.

     “No!” I screamed, running towards the opening in the gate. I got through, just as the car’s upper left wheel crushed the chicken. The squawk that came out from the chicken stopped my breathing for a second. It sounded so twisted and painful. Disregarding everything, I ran towards the chicken’s remains. But instead of meeting blood, bones, and feathers, there was nothing. The asphalt remained black just like it always was. Mirroring Arlo, I found myself on my knees, crying. But there was no one to comfort me.