Nightmare Fuel / Chicken Chicken

• The protagonist Crystal (and her brother) are both transformed into chickens agonizingly slowly, over several days, in rather graphic detail. This includes lovely paragraphs describing how their human eyes move to the side of their heads, their own teeth sink into their gums, and finally how their fingers become bony claws and talons. Also, Crystal's lips harden into a beak at her best friend's party and she just asks for some chapstick (assuming the change has a natural cause).
• At several points in the book, a rumor is mentioned about a trouble-making kid who got his head mutated into a huge sponge by Vanessa. Troy Steele thought of this as an annoying gag. However, considering what Vanessa did to Crystal and Cole, it probably wasn't just that...
• The sheer amount of fear and humiliation the children go through is horrifying. Crystal grows a beak in the middle of her friend's birthday party while eating cake, leaving her unable to eat (and almost causing her to choke); later, both children grow feathers on their arms and necks, which they have to painfully pluck out (leaving holes). And this is before the extreme physical changes begin. They also start acting like chickens against their will, clucking when they speak (with Cole breaking into clucks in the middle of a musical solo at school) and pecking seeds off the ground in the chicken coop in front of the neighbors (who laugh at and mock them). Finally, Crystal ruins her chance at being the star of her basketball team by running and bobbing her head like a chicken in the middle of a game, and grows feathers all over her legs (causing her to run away in tears). As the icing on the cake, Crystal smells freshly baked doughnuts on the way home and begins to cry, wondering if she'll ever be able to enjoy food again.
• To top it off, Crystal and Cole's parents don't even notice that any of this is happening! When the children try to show their mother the physical evidence that they're changing into birds, she just scolds them for being hysterical and continues preparing roasted chickens for the neighborhood barbeque. When they start acting like chickens at the barbeque, their parents — rather than being troubled that their children are behaving like animals — become angry at the kids for embarrassing them. Then, to top it off, their mother gets upset that they don't want to eat her roasted chicken. It's Adults Are Useless taken to such an absurd level, it makes you wonder if Vanessa had a hand in it.