The Chicken Liberation Army

By Melanie Ifield

If chickens have no Geneva Convention to save them, then Bella may have the answer. Welcome to the CLA!

What is happening to the chickens behind the wire at the local hen farm? Bella is determined to find out in this adventure story full of action and mystery for ages seven and up!

Eleven year old Bella, Casey, Taylor and Jamie are stuck babysitting Bella’s eight year old brother Rhys, but Bella has other plans brewing!
Bella’s natural curiosity and sense of the dramatic makes her see conspiracies where there are none, but when her brother is upset by the condition of some chickens he finds at the Farmers’ Markets, she is determined to discover why they appear to be so ill.
Attempts to talk to the owners of the new hen farm just out of town are rudely knocked back and Bella is sure there is more going on behind the closed doors and high fences. Her friends are afraid that her crusading spirit will get them into trouble, but won’t say no to a new adventure. Rhys is determined to help out, even though he’s worried about what Bella might get up to next!

Come on a camping trip that leads to a frightful discovery and a confrontation with scary consequences. Read aloud to the whole family or delight in older children discovering a love of reading for themselves by getting your copy today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Melanie Ifield
• Release date: Jan 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9780646834337

Melanie Ifield

Melanie Ifield writes novels for all ages. After years exploring the written word from a young age, culminating in a degree in journalism, Melanie now writes full time. Melanie loves the idea of loosing yourself in new worlds or new experiences through books and hopes her stories will provoke that love in others.She has been self publishing since 2013 with a fantasy series for everyone over the age of eleven called the ‘Chronicles of Novarmere’ where Daniel and the little dragon Nilofar set out to save a Kingdom; a children’s adventure story where the determination and strength of the eleven year old protagonist saves the lives of mistreated chickens in ‘The Chicken Liberation Army’; and a romantic thriller with action and adventure for adults called ‘The Age of Corruption’.Melanie has taken some time out due to long term chronic illness. However, for now and forever, her passion is writing. Her dream is for her books to find their audiences and to write as often, and as much, as she can while she can. She’ll change tone, voice and genre. She’ll write in novels, in journals, on her blog, in notebooks and on post-it-notes if she has to.Then one day, one very fine day, all her dreams will come true. She hopes yours do too.

Book preview

TCLA_Cover_EPUB.jpg

The

Chicken

Liberation Army

Melanie Ifield

Melanie Ifield

The Chicken Liberation Army

Second Edition

Print ISBN 978-0-9944198-9-7

Ebook ISBN 978-0-646-83433-7

Copyright © 2022 by Melanie Ifield

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced in any way, in any form, mechanical, electronic or otherwise, without expressed permission from the author.

All characters are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

www.melanieifield.com

Book Design: Petya Tsankova

Acknowledgements

As with most things to do with writing a book, nothing is done in isolation and there are always people to thank for their help along the way.

I’d like to thank Petya Tsankova for all your patience and endurance putting together these books for me. Your cover is inspired and I just love the detail of the interior. I can’t thank you enough.

I’d also like to thank my family and the friends who put up with me muttering about chickens.

And thank you to my young readers. Bless you. I love hearing from you all.

ing from you all.

Chapter One

HOLIDAYS BEGIN!

I stood up and stretched. We had to be at the stall in twenty minutes and we’d only just finished loading the last packing crate.

‘Are we done yet?’ Rhys was doing the least amount of what could be loosely termed as ‘helping’.

‘We’d be done if you’d stop paddling in that puddle and help us,’ I snapped at him. Mr Chanes had watered the seedlings and that was invitation enough to Rhys. He couldn’t swim but it didn’t stop him playing with water.

I’d always thought he was a slow learner myself but the idea is never to tell your parents that. I got no dessert and sent to my room for implying my brother was a nitwit. I was stuck protecting the worst pest ever and my friends all thought it was hilarious. Casey, Taylor and Jamie were the youngest of their families, all of us eleven, so what did they know? Sometimes he picked his nose at the dinner table!

‘Leave him alone, Bella.’ Jamie sidled by and pretended to push Rhys into the puddle, which earned him a giggle from the snot-monster and a glare from me.

‘All aboard!’ Mr Chanes swung himself up into the cabin of his ancient truck and we scrambled onto the flatbed. It was stacked high with crates, but there was room enough for us to squeeze between the cabin and the first row, where the toolbox sat.

After a few misfires, the truck lurched into gear and chugged its way down the hill, and out the gate. I turned around, kneeling on the toolbox. The sun was peeking around a few low lying clouds, and a flock of crows cackled in the gum trees lining the road.

Taylor pushed her way beside me, dislodging Rhys, who tended to velcro himself to either me or Jamie. Or both – if he got the chance.

‘Mum’s coming down later with sandwiches. What are we going to do tonight? And do we have?’ She nodded her head towards Rhys.

Unlike Jamie, who keeps his statements brief, Taylor crams as much as she can into every exchange. She’s the youngest of five and makes every time she opens her mouth count.

‘Where are the others?’ I said, ignoring her questions. I loved helping out at the stall and was always amazed that Taylor’s older sisters never wanted to.

‘Studying, with boyfriend, gone into town and going to a mate’s place in the city for the whole break,’ she ticked off the list. Two of them were at University, so I could imagine they were the ones with the boyfriend and heading to the city.

‘Who’s studying?’ Casey wanted to know.

‘Tina. She’s decided she wants to be a doctor like Dad – but make lots of money and work part-time. Dad doesn’t have the heart to remind her that he works in the local clinic for the under-privileged and that we need the veggie sales to buy her books.’

Taylor grinned. She never minded that her father worked for next to nothing.

‘So she’s studying while we enjoy our break,’ continued Taylor. ‘At least I don’t have to put up with her for the day.’ Tina was the closest in age to us and sometimes came along, which annoyed Taylor almost as much as Rhys annoyed me.

‘No, we don’t have her, but we have a Rhys.’ I glanced down at my brother, who was predictably picking his nose. I nudged him with my knee. I didn’t want him embarrassing me today.

‘He’ll be fine,’ said Jamie.

‘You take care of him, then.’

He shrugged.

‘Okay.’

I grinned at Cas and Taylor. Jamie would take Rhys around the stalls, and we’d get to talk to customers and sell things. Rhys was only eight and when my parents were busy, my friends and I tended to babysit.

‘So ... about tonight. What are we planning?’ Taylor reminded me that I hadn’t answered her question.

‘We’ve got permission to camp out. I was thinking we could try that flat patch just behind your dam, Jamie. Pitch the tent and have a bonfire. We’ve got the snot-monster because Mum’s going to be away.’

Though why she insisted on lumping me with him was a mystery. Especially considering the boy I had a crush on would be at the markets. What with Matthew Chambers turning up at some point, and selling all Taylor’s Dad’s vegetables, looking after Rhys was the last thing on my mind. Somehow I had to do it without resorting to locking him in a pig pen.

Mum hadn’t quite recovered from the last time I did that.

There were murmurs of sympathy for me (they knew how hard I tried to dislodge my brother from our group), and then we turned into the driveway, headed for the markets.

While I loved early mornings, the idea of actually being there by six didn’t appeal. Luckily, Mr Chanes felt the same. The earliest we’d ever made it was seven. Today wasn’t one of those days and we were quite late.

Mrs Chanes never got up before seven on weekends because she watered the vegetables early in the mornings during the week, and sometimes had to go into work early to pounce on unsuspecting environmental bandits. She worked as an office manager and sometimes as a ‘field agent’ for a group of eco warriors. ‘Saving the planet, one tree at a time’, or so their motto read on the door of their offices. My dad thought it was a ‘hoot’, because she was always getting lost if we ever went on picnics. He said she was the least outdoorsy person he knew.

We helped set up, Taylor and I doing most of the heavy work because we were the tallest, and Mr Chanes needed someone on the other end of the tarpaulin.

‘Go on then, get yourselves something.’ Mr Chanes handed out coins and we raced off.

The best part was after set up and before our first customers. Mr Chanes gave us money and we bought a hot chocolate, and bacon and egg rolls for each of us. Then it was back to work.

‘I’ll take Rhys for a walk, yeah?’ Jamie managed a whole sentence.

‘Sure.’ I wasn’t paying much attention, there were three people checking out broccoli heads.

‘We can do a deal. Three for the price of two,’ I said to them, already forgetting Jamie and my brother.

Mr Chanes gave us strict instructions about the fixed price for some goods, and ones for which we could work deals. It was fun to wangle people into taking heaps more than they had first planned. The city people, especially, seemed to think eating something grown just down the road would make them extra healthy, and were easy to convince to buy more than they needed.

A few hours later I glanced up. There was a breathing space between eleven and two. People who had come early were already gone and the next lot were either indulging in the lovely snacks available, or wandering around the craft stalls, buying woollen caps or other knickknacks that they didn’t need.

‘Can we take our break now?’ Taylor asked her father. ‘We’ll be careful. We won’t take candy from strangers (we shared a smirked – as if!), we’ll eat slowly, and be back by two.’ We knew all his rules.

Mr Chanes nodded