Chapter 3

I got through guard with nothing stranger than Becca managing to face plant happening. But one of the girls had asked me a question that I couldn't figure out how to word the answer. This happened a lot, and so I do what the question was about. In this case so- taes; she asked why I can get so high off the ground and she can't. So I was in my backyard doing so- taes across the lawn. When we are in the air we have to make sure that our arms are level, our head is up and straight, our chest is out, our hips are tucked, our legs are separated and our toes are pointed. We have to focus on every single muscle in our body while we are in the air. I stopped dancing for a second. That was the answer to her question. You have to focus on everything at once. The plea before the jump, the form during, and the extension after.

Now that I had my answer I could just have fun dancing. I put my headphones in and when to one of my old winter guard show songs, and went through the routine. While I let my muscle memory take over, I let my eyes wonder around the yard. I was over by the chicken coop when the solo I had in the show started, I put more effort than just the muscle memory into my solo and right when I jumped for the so- tae, Tonks, my yellow chicken, ran out in front of me. "You stupid-"

My sentence what cut short by the fact that I was now looking eye to eye with Tonks. I looked down and squawked. Literally, there is nothing figurative about that sentence. I had turned into a yellow chicken. And let me tell you I could have just about laid a square egg right then and there.

Tonks cocked her head and stared at me, no longer interested in whatever she had been chasing a couple seconds before. She crooned softly in the back of her throat, and then pecked my toes. Usually, when I'm human, I just shove her away with my foot when she does that. So not fully realizing the drastic size difference in my body right now, I tried to do that. I don't know how chickens can balance with their awkward shaped bodies. To say the least, I fell over. Then my other three chickens decided to come see what was happening. So instead of looking up at four rather lethal looking beaks, I just closed my eyes.

I woke up some time later to find myself in my bed. Now how did I get here and what form what I in when they found me? Not good, bad actually, yeah I would go as far as to say bad. I laid there trying to think of what happened. The last thing I remember is being a chicken. Not as promising of a memory as you might think, trust me. I didn't know how long I had been out. But I did know that the sun was coming through my bedroom window so it was morning. And I knew that whatever had happened had wiped me out, the whole incident with the chickens had happened after guard so it had to be around 8:30. I rolled over to look at my clock. 9:00. I had been out for over twelve hours if it had happened yesterday.

I threw off my covers and while avoiding looking at my rats and my fish, just in case, I shuffled out of my room. To my left was my dad's office and then to my right was the hall way leading to our stairs and the game room. I went right after seeing that my dad wasn't in his office and went down the stairs.

"Well there she is."

"Yes, well there I am," I said to my dad groggily.

"How ya feeling Kiddo?"

"Like I just rolled out of bed after how many days?"

"Two days. The doctor said you had a concussion and to just let you rest and that you would wake up soon," he said as he got up from his chair at the table. "So what happened out back?"

"I, um, tripped over a chicken while I was practicing. I guess I hit my head when I fell." Hey, it's true, I did trip over the chicken. I simply left out the part about me becoming one.

"Which one was it?"

"Tonks, she was chasing something, a bug probably.

"Gotcha. I called your guard teacher to let her know that you would be out for a couple weeks."

"What?! No, I can't miss guard! I've already missed enough. Crap, I have to get ready to go." I started going back upstairs to get my work out clothes on.

"Jamie, you have been asleep for the past two days-"

"And so I need to get some exercise. I'll sit down if I start feeling bad but I can't miss any more."

"At least let me drive you," he offered.

"It's OK Daddy, I can drive. I'll call you when I get to practice."