Pupils Beat Goal . . . Principal Pays

Neither cold, nor wind, nor even rain could stop Linda Vista Elementary School Principal Jim McMillen from keeping a promise made to students seven weeks ago: If they would read 7,000 books by the beginning of this week, he would dress in a chicken suit and spend the night on the roof of the Orange school. Before McMillen was hoisted up via a hook-and-ladder firetruck Thursday, students gave him a flashlight, a stuffed Beanie Baby chicken to keep him company and a load of El Pollo Loco chicken dinners. Second-grader Samantha Burkett grips another kind of chicken at right--the rubber breed--while cheering. To even out the reading challenge, students tied up a bunch of their favorite books for McMillen to enjoy while he was up there. Makeshift bathroom facilities, he told the inquiring children, were his own secret. McMillen was due to make the trip back down off the roof about 9 a.m. this morning.