Turkey Monster Thanksgiving (3 page)

Dad stood up, too. “That’s not true.”

“It’s a good thing we’re not having Thanksgiving dinner,” I shouted. “How can anyone eat next to … that!” I pointed at Tyler. “He has peanut butter up his nose. I’m going to throw up!”

Tyler looked at me, surprised. He stuck his finger up his nose, checking for peanut butter.

“We’ll talk about this later.” Dad sat back down.

“Mom would make sure he ate right. And she’d make dinner, and we’d have company.” I scraped my plate into the garbage.

“Your mother hated to cook,” Dad said. He tapped his plate with his chopsticks. “By the way, she called this morning.”

I stared at him. “You talked to her?”

He nodded. “She’ll call you and Tyler this weekend. She called me because she just got a really good manager. He’s booked her in Branson, Missouri. It’s her big break.”

“Will she be able to do Christmas?”

“She’ll be able to do Christmas.” Dad wiped Tyler’s face with a paper napkin.

I went to my bedroom to hug my pillow and listen to Mom’s CD. Hearing her sing only made me realize how far away she was. How busy she was with her new life—a life without me, and Dad, and Tyler. Dad said she hated to cook. I didn’t remember that.

But I knew one thing. If Mom was here, she’d want company. I remembered her parties. They were always music jam sessions. Instrument cases stacked in the living room. People singing backup, telling her how good she was, how she ought to go to Nashville.

“Soon as I get my figure back, I’ll try it,” she’d said. She’d patted her tummy where it still stuck out from having Tyler.

And Dad? Where was he? Then I remembered him jiggling up and down, burping Tyler in time to the music. His face looking as if he already knew she’d never come back.

T
UESDAY MORNING, CLAIRE WORE
blue sunglasses. Pretty dumb since it was pouring down rain. “I have to wear these,” she said. “I look terrible. I cried all night.”

“How come?” I asked.

“Ms. Morgan called us last night. She can’t come to our house on Thanksgiving. She got another invitation first.” She lifted the sunglasses, and I could see her eyes were a little bit pink. She dropped the blue sunglasses back onto her nose. “I’m going to wear these all day,” she said with a sigh. “It’s okay. They match my tights.”

At school, every time I looked at Ms. Morgan I thought about how she was going to be at somebody else’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. It was almost time to go home when she called me up to her desk. “Thank you very much,” she said.

I stared at the top of her desk in confusion. What was she thanking me for?

Her silver bracelets clinked together as she smoothed a piece of paper. “You wrote a very nice invitation,” she said.

I stared at the note I wrote yesterday. I’d stuffed the wrong paper into my pocket. I’d turned in the invitation instead of the thank-you note! No wonder she’d winked at me.

“Anyway,” she continued, “I wanted to be sure your dad knows you invited me?” Her voice was a question.

My mind flew in a hundred directions. Ms. Morgan got my invitation first? Well, yes, she did. “Oh, yes,” I heard myself say. “We were talking about it just last night.”

“I’m so glad,” Ms. Morgan said. “Will there be many of us? A big group?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “For sure, you and Dad and me and Tyler.” Disgusting, gross Tyler. We would have to fix his manners. We definitely wouldn’t serve peanut butter.

She glanced up at the clock. “Time to put things away, class,” she announced. She squeezed my hand and then bent close to me. Her dark hair smelled like vanilla pudding. “We need to keep this a secret,” she said. “Sometimes the other children think it’s not fair if the teacher goes to one child’s house.”

She squeezed my hand again, and I raced back to my desk. Soon as I got home, I had to get my lists out of the trash.

After supper, I curled up with
Beautiful Living
magazine. Every page had great ideas. “She’s coming,” I whispered. I added strings of cranberries and popcorn to my decorations list.

As I turned the pages, I heard commercials on my radio. “You’ll want the very best for your Thanksgiving company,” the announcer kept saying. “For Ms. Morgan,” I whispered. I looked one more time at the magazine cover. For Ms. Morgan, I thought, maybe we should have turkey.

The radio also said I needed mums from Francie’s Florist. Extra chairs from Party Rents. Mrs. Shaftoe’s frozen pies. Birdover’s cranberry candies. Plampton’s coffee.

I wrote down everything. Just in case.

Ms. Morgan was going to love Thanksgiving at our house.

W
EDNESDAY MORNING, I TOLD
Dad I wanted to make decorations after all. I gave him a list of what I needed.

“Fine,” he said. “The house will look very nice.”

That day our class had a field trip to the Fire Department. The fire chief let us hold the big hose while water whooshed out at a pretend fire. She pushed a button in the truck and turned on the siren. We all covered our ears. The best part was after that when we got to practice escaping from a little house the Fire Department had built there.

“My mom burned the carrots last night,” Sierra told the fire chief. “We didn’t have to eat them.”

“We don’t burn food at our house,” Claire said.

Sierra and I moved away from Claire to stand on the other side of the circle. “Are you on Claire’s guest list for Thanksgiving?” Sierra whispered.

I shook my head. “Not any more. How about you?”

“We’re going to Grandpa Jack’s,” Sierra whispered.

Ms. Morgan shook her finger at us. We hushed. But now I knew Sierra and her parents couldn’t come to my house.

After school, I let Tyler wear the Fire Department badge one of the firefighters had pinned to my jacket. I gave Dad our handouts about smoke alarms and fire extinguishers.

“We’ll get new batteries for the smoke alarm next time we go to the store,” Dad said. “And a fire extinguisher, too. I hope we never have a fire, but if we do, we’ll be prepared.”

“Did you get the cranberries for me?” I asked. “And the popcorn?”

“Sure did,” he answered.

“I’ll make them into those strings,” I told him. “The kind you hang up.”

“Festoons?” he asked.

“I’m going to put festoons over every window and every door. First, I have to pop the popcorn. Then I have to find a needle and thread.”

“If there’s popcorn,” Dad said, “Thanksgiving can’t be all bad.”

“What do turkeys eat?” Tyler asked Dad.

“They love corn,” Dad told him. “Corn, the way it is before it’s popped.”

All at once I knew how to fix Tyler. “They eat little kids who spill at the table,” I whispered as soon as Dad went back to his office.

“No, Katie!” Tyler hollered.

“Especially if there’s company,” I said.

“Don’t let him get me,” Tyler said. He made me pull the drapes in the living room and lock the front door. He worried about that turkey monster right up until bedtime.

Thursday morning before school, Claire stood under her blue umbrella, gazing at her house. “Isn’t our porch beautiful?” she asked.

I had to say yes. Enormous pumpkins marched up the corners of steps. Little pumpkins and gourds snuggled between them. Cornstalk trees stood on either side of the front door, tied with floppy orange bows. More orange bows perched at the corners of the door and windows. A wreath of greens and straw and tiny gourds filled the center of the door.

“We’re going to make a stuffed Pilgrim lady to sit in the porch swing.” Claire twirled her umbrella. Raindrops sprayed off it into my face.

I stepped back, out of the way.

“I took pictures of my front porch,” Claire said. “I also took one of your porch.”

I turned to look. All at once, Tyler’s stroller, the wading pool, the water toys, and Dad’s old bicycle really showed. “It’ll be just as nice as yours,” I said. “We’re going to use festoons.”

“Only seven more days,” Claire said.

That afternoon after school, I listened for Mom’s songs on the radio while I strung popcorn and cranberries. The Thanksgiving commercials were louder today. “Don’t be caught short for the holidays,” someone shouted. “Check your candle supply.” The next ad was for something to ease that stomachache that “is sure to follow your bountiful Thanksgiving dinner.”

Bountiful? I had to get Dad used to the turkey idea. I also had to get started on the other food.

I found my grocery list and went into Dad’s office. “Are we by any chance out of something?” I asked.

“Bread,” he answered.

At the store, we filled our cart with cans of sweet potatoes, green beans, and fruit. Tyler sat in the middle of the cart, singing a quiet song to the cans. “Don’t you cry. Don’t you cry,” he sang. “We’ll open you up so you can play.”

All the ladies in the store thought he was cute.

“Are you sure you can make these dishes without my help?” Dad asked me.

“I’m pretty sure,” I said. “The magazine said these were for the time-stressed woman. This week I’ll keep making decorations. And then, I’ll make Sweet Potato Brûlée, Green Beans Deluxe, and a Cranberry Tower.”

“She is very organized,” Dad said to the woman behind us in the checkout line.

It was time to tell him. “And you’ll do the turkey,” I said.

Dad’s grin went away. “We’re not doing a turkey.”

“Everybody’s doing a turkey,” I said. “Look!” I waved my hand at the magazines in the rack next to us. Every magazine had a turkey on the cover!

“You can do it,” said the woman.

I patted Dad’s arm. “You have me to help you,” I said.

T
HE NEXT MORNING, CLAIRE
started again about Thanksgiving. “I’m going to dress up like a Pilgrim,” she said. “My dress will be blue, of course.”

“We have to hurry,” I said, speeding up. I’d completely forgotten to look for my dress. I couldn’t think up a good centerpiece for the table. The festoons were taking forever. And I had to invite more people. But then I’d be in bigger trouble with Dad.

“Is everybody on your list coming?” I asked.

“Twenty people said yes,” she said. “My father says that’s a perfect number.”

I had one. One guest was not okay. Worries prickled at me all day at school. Finally, the bell rang to dismiss us.

Since it was Friday, with no ballet or piano lessons, Claire and I had to walk home from school together. “Tomorrow, you’ll be able to see our stuffed Pilgrim lady,” Claire said as she started across the street to her house. “Her hair is blond and curly, just like mine.”

“Too bad,” I said.

“That’s not either too bad, Ms. Smarty.” Claire stabbed her umbrella into the curb. “Most of tomorrow, I’ll be taking pictures.”

“You better not take any more of my house,” I said. I ran down the block to meet Nancy, the mail delivery lady.

She peeled our mail off her bundle and handed it to me. “Hope I brought you some riches,” she said. She always said that.

Could I ask Nancy to my dinner? I couldn’t decide. “What do you do for Thanksgiving?” I asked.

“Cook for all my in-laws,” she said. “And they want their turkey a particular shade of brown.”

My guest list had just gotten shorter.

I carried the mail inside and got ready to string some more cranberries.

Saturday morning, Claire phoned. “Take a look,” she said.

“I’m too busy,” I said. I hung up.

I ran to the living room to peek through the drapes.

“Is it alive now?” Tyler asked, tearing himself away from
Sesame Street
and sticking his thumb into his mouth, something he hadn’t done in ages.

“Not yet,” I said. “But now they’ve got a stuffed lady. She’s sitting in their porch swing.”

Tyler climbed up beside me to look. “Wow,” he said. “She is so beeyootiful.”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“There’s Claire,” he said. “What’s she doing?”

“Taking a picture,” I answered. “Of our house.” Something had to be done about our front porch.

Later, while Tyler napped and Dad worked on his report, I pulled the wading pool off the porch and stashed it under the house. I found a place out of the rain for Dad’s old bike and all the toys. The fence between our house and the Andersons’ was covered with green leaves—some kind of vine. Instant festoons!

I cut off long pieces with scissors. After that, all I needed were thumbtacks and my box of old shoestrings. With green vines draped over the railing and around the door, my porch looked wonderful. Claire Plummer could snap all the pictures she wanted.

Next door, the Andersons were stepping out for their daily walk. Surely, Dad wouldn’t mind if the Andersons came to Thanksgiving dinner.

But before I could ask them, Claire and her dad brought out more pumpkins for the steps. “Your porch is the talk of the neighborhood,”

Mrs. Anderson hollered across the street to Mr. Plummer.

“We’re having fun over here,” Mr. Plummer called back. “Got lots more ideas, too.”

“We’re looking forward to Thanksgiving dinner with you,” Mrs. Anderson yodeled.

It took a minute before I realized what I’d just heard. The Andersons were going to the Plummers. Nancy would be cooking for her in-laws. Sierra would be with her Grandpa Jack.

Ms. Morgan was my only guest.

C
LAIRE SAID THANKSGIVING DINNER
was supposed to start with appetizers. On Sunday morning, I leafed through the pages of the magazine till I found a picture of a cracker with a dab of cream cheese and tiny green leaves on top. “What is p-a-r-s-l-e-y?” I asked Dad. “Do I hate it?”

“Parsley,” he answered. He tipped his glasses up on his forehead and put his finger on the computer screen so he wouldn’t lose his place. “It’s sort of like grass. Nobody hates it.”

“Should I use grass?” I asked. “Or can we buy this stuff?”

“Parsley is at the store. Next to the spinach.”

“Great!” I told him. “We’ll have this at the beginning of Thanksgiving dinner. As soon as …” I stopped, just in time.