How, you might ask, do I find myself falling down a hole while riding a giant chicken? It seems like I’d have better odds of being struck by lightning on a sunny day while wearing clown shoes. I mean seriously, what are the chances of riding a gigantic chicken into a huge hole? I’m no mathematician, but there’s no doubt the likelihood is low.
I’ve given this question quite a lot of thought while falling into the hole, because it turns out the hole is pretty deep. By my calculations, falling in a hole while riding a forty-foot chicken is a seven-part process. As part of my ongoing effort to do a better job of avoiding disaster, I will now catalog the events leading up to my current situation.
THE SEVEN EVENTS THAT LED TO BARKER MIFFLIN FALLING INTO A HOLE
PART ONE: I snuck into an abandoned chemistry lab
Looking back now, this was the moment where it all went wrong. Like that thread you pull on your favorite pair of socks and it unravels a hole the size of a golf ball. Sneaking into Colossal Chemistry was my idea, not Jenny Kim’s or Fen Stenson’s. And why would I want to sneak into an abandoned chemistry lab in the first place? Why not act like a normal kid and play basketball after school or go home and make a sandwich? If I’m being honest with myself, which is something I tend to do when I’m falling down a hole riding a chicken, I snuck into Colossal Chemistry because I was sure something terrible had gone on in there. As a certified protector of humankind, I wanted to make sure my town of Nevermind wasn’t in any trouble. My mistake was taking Jenny and Fen with me.
Survival Nugget Number 216: Never bring untrained nitwits on a dangerous mission. They have no idea what they’re doing, and it will only lead to trouble.
Boy was I right when I wrote down Survival Nugget Number 216. Jenny touched something she shouldn’t have, then she wiped her hand in her armpit, and the rest is history. Really there’s no excuse for wiping an unknown substance off your hand in your armpit. It’s wildly unprofessional. If you want to know more about this situation, go back and read the first book of Bonkers—The Terror in Jenny’s Armpit—it’s all in there.
PART TWO: I helped Jenny with the terror in her armpit
On the surface, this seemed like the right thing to do. Jenny had something growing out of her armpit and it was getting bigger. Before we knew it, she was carrying that thing around in a wheelbarrow. We did eventually detach Jenny from something called a Snerb, but only with the help of Doctor Vexler, who lives underground in a place called Snerbville. For a doomsday prepper such as myself, knowing a place like Snerbville exists was like hearing someone say “That building over there is filled with zombie giraffes; wanna go check it out?”
PART THREE: I went to work at McFadden Farm
The funny thing about this one is I had already decided I was going to take the summer and hike into the mountains outside of Nevermind searching for Big Foot. I had it all planned out and everything, but then Fen Stenson stopped me in the hallway and tried to make me listen to music out of one ear bud. Fen has terrible taste in music, plus there’s no way I’m putting someone else’s ear bud in my ear. That’s almost as dumb as wiping your hand off in your own armpit.
“Hey, Barker!” Fen said. He was always in a gleeful mood. It was annoying.
I tried to keep walking but he followed me.
“I hear you’ve got the record for fastest strawberry picker at McFadden Farm,” Fen said.
It was true. I was incredibly fast. Like lightning.
“I’m not sure if I ever mentioned this before, but back home in Sweden I was a speedy picker myself. Not to brag or anything, but I probably picked faster than anyone in Scandinavia.”
Fen started explaining that Scandinavia was made up of three countries—Norway, Sweden, and Denmark—but all I could think about after that was having this bozo beat my world record. So, of course, I had to postpone my Big Foot hunt and go back to the farm. I would later discover that Fen Stenson was the single worst strawberry picker in the known universe, but by that time it was too late, because—
PART FOUR: I got promoted!
Promotions, as a general rule, are a good thing to get. Like if your title is President of the United States and then you get promoted to Master of the Universe, that’s a move in the right direction. My promotion at McFadden Farm was not what you’d call a career move. All I got was a pay cut, a new last name (McMifflin), and a chance meeting with a crew boss called Commander McMegan. I realize this is all very confusing if you haven’t read the second book of Bonkers, Attack of the Forty-Foot Chicken. Go back and read that book before you read this one! I mean I can’t stop you from reading this book if you haven’t read the first and second books of Bonkers, but I would if I could.
PART FIVE: I followed a strange kid into the night
“Commander” sounds like a bigger deal than it actually is. It’s not like she’s in charge of a starship or a planet. Commander McMegan is really just Megan, an eleven-year-old kid like me. The difference is that Megan is also the daughter of the owners of the farm, and her parents have some strange stuff going on. I can’t blame Megan for asking me to help her, given my status as a trouble-solving expert extraordinaire, but this was a very complicated situation, even for me. In the past few hours alone, the following things have happened:
- I met Megan’s mom. She’s roughly the size of a Barbie doll.
- I defeated a complicated security system and entered a secret barn.
- Inside the barn, I saw a lot of fruit, vegetables, and animals that were the wrong size.
- A tractor crashed into the barn and a giant chicken escaped into the wild. It was heading for downtown Nevermind.
You can read about all that stuff in the second book of Bonkers, Attack of the Forty-Foot Chicken, but all you really need to know is—
PART SIX: I climbed up a tree
Climbing trees is one of my specialties, so it didn’t take me very long to get up there. I was climbing the tree for a very specific reason and it wasn’t so I could get a closer look at the moon. Nope, I was climbing the tree so I could jump onto a giant chicken as it ran past.
PART SEVEN: I jumped on a giant chicken
If you’ve ever ridden a horse, I can tell you from experience, it’s not the same as riding a very large chicken. First of all, poultry don’t like being ridden. They like to shake their heads and bounce around like they’re at a rodeo, plus those feathers are slippery. It’s a real trick staying on a giant chicken for more than a few seconds, and it probably would have been better for me if I’d fallen off before the chicken fell in the hole. But that’s not what happened.
As you can plainly see, it was a very unlikely set of circumstances that led to falling in a hole while riding a giant chicken. But isn’t this the way life is? So many points along the way, I could have made a different choice, but I didn’t make different choices. I made these ones. And now I’m about to land somewhere far underground. If I have guessed correctly, that means I’ll arrive somewhere extremely unsafe, where danger lurks around every corner.
Hey, wait a second, I love dangerous and unsafe places!
Maybe I made all the right choices after all.