Authors: F. T. Bradley
Double Vision
F. T. BRADLEY
To Jason
PROLOGUE
IT ALL STARTED WITH A FIELD TRIP. AND BEFORE
you start expecting stuff about Greek gods or me being bitten by a spider that turned me into some kind of superheroâsorry to disappoint you. This isn't one of those stories. At least my field trip wasn't to a museum, but it wasn't anywhere cool like Universal Studios either. I go to Lompoc Middle School in California, where expectations are high, but the budget is low. So for our field trip, we went to a chicken farm. Which actually turned out to change my life.
I wouldn't even start with my field trip to the Johnson chicken farm, but it's how it all began. How I got to be in deep trouble, the kind that gets you grounded for a lifetime, and how I had to go to the other side of the world to fix it. How I got to be Benjamin Green for a week. You won't know who he is yet, but I'll tell you all about him soon.
PLACE: THE JOHNSON CHICKEN FARM IN LOMPOC, CALIFORNIA, MY HOMETOWN.
TIME: FRIDAY BEFORE THANKSGIVING BREAK.
Here's how it all went down.
FRIDAY, 8 A.M.
THE BUS DROPPED US AT THE CHICKEN
farm at o'dark thirty, or at least it felt that way. I'm not sure who came up with seven in the morning starts for middle schoolers, but they should be forced to get up at six for a while when it's foggy and dark out. And smell chicken poop by eight.
“Now remember, kids,” Mrs. Valdez said as the bus driver pulled onto the gravel driveway, “no horseplay. Listen to Mr. Johnson. Make notes in your fieldwork journal.” She wagged her finger in the air.
Daryl jumped up next to me. “Yes, ma'am.” He saluted Mrs. Valdez. Daryl is the kind of guy who always acts like he's had one bowl of Lucky Charms too many for breakfast. He's also one of my best friends.
“All right, let's go,” Mrs. Valdez announced. She gave me a frown. “And Lincoln.”
That's me. “YeahâI mean, yes, Mrs. Valdez?”
“Can I count on you to behave?” She gave me one of those death-ray looks. Mrs. Valdez had reason to be worried. On the last field trip when a kid from another school called Daryl a name I won't repeat, I started a tomato food fight. It was loads of fun, but my parents had to pay for the lost fruit (apparently tomatoes are a fruit, not a veggie) and cleanup. At the grocery store field trip, I set off the Code Adam alert when we couldn't find my other friend Sam, so customers were trapped for an hour (the Code Adam alert thing works great, in case you're wondering). As it turned out, Sam was just taking a bathroom break, so he wasn't actually kidnapped. But he could've been! So anyway, I'm Mrs. Valdez's field trip nightmare.
“I'll be good,” I said, and I really wanted to be.
The class gathered on a small field in front of a white house with a saggy front porch, with a whole bunch of huge barns to our right, a silo to the left. And a pungent stink, with the faint noise of chickens in the background. The promise of another great sixth-grade field trip.
“All right, kids,” Mrs. Valdez called. “This is Mr. Johnson.” She pointed to this huge guy in overalls next to her, with thinning brown bed-head hair. He just nodded. “He's going to show us around his farm.”
“Bawk!” That was Daryl. He was really nailing the whole chicken impersonation, let me tell you.
Mrs. Valdez didn't think it was so great, because she tossed Daryl a death-ray look. “And you'll all be silent, because we don't want to scare the chickens.”
“Shut up, or they don't lay eggs,” Mr. Johnson said, obviously not happy that we were there. “And no one goes near the chickens.”
This confused even Mrs. Valdez. “But aren't the chickens part of the farm?”
Farmer Johnson shook his head. “The agreement was a tour of the business. No going near the barns!”
It was pretty obvious that the guy wasn't going to change his mind. So we moved along, listening to the farmer drone on about feces (this would be poop) of the not-to-be-seen chickens, the egg storage temperature, blah, blah. If this tour got any more boring, I think we all would've turned into zombiesâin fact, most of the class looked sort of undead when, at eleven thirty, we took a break for lunch on the wet grass.
“Man, I think I aged a year listening to that guy,” Sam complained. “Did you hear how he barked at Mrs. Valdez?”
“The guy should just marry his chickens,” Daryl joked as he stole the apple from my lunch box.
I was itching to move. “Let's check out these famous chickens,” I said, pointing to the giant red barns.
“Is this going to be one of your Linc disasters?” Sam asked. “After the whole tomato mess, Mom told me to stay away.”
“
Linc disasters
? That's what she called them?” I was actually hurt.
“I'm out, too, man,” Daryl said, chewing my apple. “I don't need any more detention.”
“Don't you want to see the chickens?”
Both Daryl and Sam shook their heads.
“Fine.” I took off on my own, feeling their eyes on my back. It was almost a dare nowâyou get that, right? I had to go see those chickens.
I made my way over to the first barn and looked in through the narrow window. The place was stacked with cages full of chickens. They were crammed in so tight, you could barely tell where one hen ended and the other began. A conveyer belt ran underneath and behind, where eggs rolled down, away from the cages, and into a dark space I couldn't see from where I stood.
This was just wrong. No wonder Farmer Johnson didn't want us to get near the chickens. Look how he was mistreating them!
I heard a woman's voice come from behind the house. Mrs. Valdez appeared, deep in conversation with Farmer Johnson. Trying to stay out of sight, I moved around to the far side of the chicken barn, where these giant double doors were open just about an inch or so.
“If they could see the chickens, it would really make this excursion worth it,” Mrs. Valdez said. She sounded way too close for comfort.
I pried the barn doors open with my fingers, and sneaked in. The poop smell was plain overwhelming, so I tried holding my breath, but that only worked for so long. A person does have to breathe. One of the chickens made a noise and pooped. Then another did the same: chirp, then poop. Chirp, poop.
I backed away, only to feel something jam into my spine. It was some giant lever.
“No,” I heard Farmer Johnson say. “Nobody gets near my chickens.”
One of the chickens looked at me, all ticked off, like it was my idea to put it in a cage. I looked at the big lever I'd backed into. You didn't need to be an expert on egg farming to know that it opened all the cages.
“Well, I suppose we'll be on our way, then, Mr. Johnson,” Mrs. Valdez said in a sour voice.
The class was leaving
. I watched Mrs. Valdez pass by the little window and walk to the field. She clapped her hands, then said something I couldn't make out.