Turkey Monster Thanksgiving (5 page)

“He’s just scared of the Plummers’ turkey.”

“And who got him scared?”

I looked away.

Dad finally took his hand off the phone. He got a stern look on his face. “Okay. I have one rule. If you do this, you have to do it with Tyler.”

“With Tyler!”

“He can help you decorate.”

“He doesn’t know how.”

“You have to make it as much fun for him as it is for you.” Dad rubbed his forehead. “I can’t believe I’m saying yes to this. It’s insane.”

All at once, I realized he’d said yes.

“It’ll be so easy,” I said. “You’ll see.” I gave him a big good-night hug and ran to my room before he could change his mind.

O
N TUESDAY, CLAIRE TOLD
the whole class about her Thanksgiving plans. “My father says it will be a wonderful dinner,” she said. “Just like when my mother did it.”

Ms. Morgan gave Claire a hug. “You miss your mom, don’t you?” she said in a soft voice. All at once, Claire’s eyes were red and her face got puffy. It stayed puffy until Ms. Morgan chose her to take the attendance list to the office.

After school, Dad came into the kitchen when I was getting a snack. “Remember,” he said, “if you’re going to work on Thanksgiving stuff, I want Tyler to be a part of it.”

“I have to cook.”

Dad blew out a worried breath.

“It’ll be fine,” I told him. “He can stir.”

Tyler pushed a chair up to the counter and climbed up.

“We’re making Green Beans Deluxe, Tyler.” I opened the cans and handed him a wooden spoon. “There’s a recipe, and we have to do everything right.”

Tyler loved stirring. Green beans flipped across the counter and stuck to the wall. They spilled on the floor. They crawled up his shirt. They looked like green worms.

“Enough stirring,” I said. When I poured what was left into a baking dish, the dish was only half-full. “There’s not enough,” I said.

Tyler beat the wooden spoon on the counter and mushroom soup splattered into the toaster. “Put popcorn in,” he said.

I ate a green bean, and then I ate a piece of popcorn. They went together fine. With popcorn mixed in, the green beans filled up the dish.

“A good idea, huh,” Tyler said. “About the popcorn.”

“We wouldn’t have needed it,” I answered, “if you hadn’t spilled.”

“You’re crabby,” Tyler said. He went off to play with his trucks while I strung festoons as fast as I could. So much to do.

“I can make the Cranberry Tower tonight,” I told Dad after dinner. “But I have to borrow a dish from Claire.”

“Ask nicely,” he said.

At Claire’s house everything sparkled. Her dining room table was already set with a white cloth and real goblets. Blue and white china. Real napkins. A golden centerpiece of gourds. “It’s so pretty,” Claire said with a sigh.

Mr. Plummer came into the room rolling up his shirt sleeves. “Tonight we wrap chocolate truffles in foil,” he said. “We’re having a truffle treasure hunt just before Thanksgiving dinner.” He glanced at his watch and went into the kitchen.

When I went back home, I noticed all the porches on my street. Almost every one had decorations. All the real families were celebrating. Would I get it together? Would our Thanksgiving be good enough for Ms. Morgan?

As soon as I opened our front door, I saw big trouble. Trucks and building blocks, Legos and Tinker Toys. Our dining room table bristled with old food and Tyler’s newspapers. I saw popcorn and cranberries and Egyptian mummy toilet paper. In the kitchen, green worms crawled across the vinyl.

Too much! Too much to do!

The Cranberry Tower took forever. I wanted it to be better than the magazine one, so at the last minute I dumped in good things like chocolate chips, little marshmallows, and raisins. When I finished, I showed Dad the refrigerator. Every shelf held bowls of red stuff. “It’ll be thick in the morning,” I told him. “Then I get to stack it up.”

“Time for bed,” he said. He was looking at the green worms on the floor.

First thing Wednesday morning, I ran to check the bowls. I touched one with my finger. My finger went right in. “Soupy!” I yelled. “It’s still soupy.”

“My head hurts,” Tyler said. “I think that turkey came over and bit me.”

Dad fed every other bite of his cereal to Tyler. “Don’t get sick, my boy. This is the last day of my report.” He leaned his cheek against Tyler’s cheek and closed his eyes. Testing for fever.

“Something else to worry about,” I said. “We’ll never be ready for tomorrow.” I went to check the red stuff in the refrigerator. My finger went right in again.

I was too worried to eat. I dumped my cereal into the garbage. I brushed my teeth and put on my jacket. Acting like a real family was impossible for us.

It was time to face the facts.

It was time to uninvite Ms. Morgan.

A
LL DAY, I WATCHED
for a chance to talk to Ms. Morgan. At morning recess, she helped Ben with his science project. At afternoon recess, she met with some other teachers. Finally, it was time to go home, and I still hadn’t uninvited her. I went to stand by her desk as the other kids left.

“Ms. Morgan,” I said. “Something very bad—”

“Katie,” she said with a big smile. “I want to tell you how excited I am.” She stacked our spelling papers together and pushed them into her briefcase. “Holidays are hard when you’re all alone,” she said, taking her green and pink jacket off the hook and putting it on. “Here I am in Oregon, and my whole family is back in Minnesota.” She bent down to look into my eyes. “I’m so happy you invited me.”

I smiled back at Ms. Morgan. I wanted to tell her everything. But how could I? I couldn’t make her be all alone on Thanksgiving. “See you tomorrow,” I said. I ran outside to find Dad and Tyler.

All the way home, Tyler was a singing recycle collection truck. “Clang, clang, clankity clank,” he yelled. “Roar, bam, bam, boom. Ding, ding, ding. The
ding
part is for when I back up,” he told us.

“He doesn’t have a fever,” I said.

“He’s fine. He spent most of the day at day care.” Dad speeded up and, of course, Tyler’s song got louder.

“Did the Cranberry Tower get stiff?” I had to run to keep up.

“Not yet,” Dad said. “It’s delicious though.”

“You weren’t supposed to eat any.”

“You made plenty. I think we should call it Cranberry Swamp. Or maybe Cranberry Lakes.”

“That’s not funny,” I told him.

After a quick dinner, we ran around getting ready for Mr. Flagstaff, picking up trucks and toys from the hallway.

At seven o’clock, the doorbell rang. I opened the door.

Mr. Flagstaff was very tall. “Hello, young lady,” he said. He snapped his big black umbrella closed and stood it against the porch wall.

Dad came into the hallway with the stack of reports in his arms. “I think you’ll like it, sir,” he said.

“I’m sure I will,” Mr. Flagstaff said. He turned and looked into the living room. Tyler had started a new bridge there with his big Legos. “My wife took that toy to my grandson,” he said. “Stanley is three. He and I were going to play with those this weekend. Here I am, stuck in tomorrow’s meeting. Not much of a Thanksgiving for me.”

“Too bad,” Dad said.

“Meeting starts at eight
A.M.
It’ll last quite a few hours. No way I can get to Boise to be with my family. I’ll be alone.”

“Mr. Flagstaff,” I said. I swallowed hard.

“Would you like,” I swallowed again, “to come to our house for Thanksgiving dinner?”

Dad’s face looked like he was counting up glasses and napkins again. “That meeting might go all day, don’t you think?”

“Not at all,” Mr. Flagstaff said. “They fly back to Japan in the afternoon. Perhaps I could come. Perhaps I could.”

Mr. Flagstaff handed Dad the reports and went into the living room. “The end of this bridge needs better support, young man. Engineers know these things. We need a thick book.”

Mr. Flagstaff slid a dictionary under the Legos while Tyler held the bridge for him. “We can make these bridges even better tomorrow,” Mr. Flagstaff said.

“All right!” Tyler yelled.

As soon as Mr. Flagstaff left, Dad turned to me. “I want the whole truth. WHO ELSE IS COMING TO DINNER?”

“All the others couldn’t come,” I said. “This is good, Dad. Mr. Flagstaff and Ms. Morgan can talk to each other when we’re too busy.”

He rubbed his eyes and shook his head. Then, he went to get his lists.

Later that night, Dad bought a huge turkey and more groceries. Even later than that, I went to bed. For the first time in ages, I went to sleep happy.

Tyler wasn’t sick. Dad’s report was done. We had our turkey. Now, everything would be fine.

T
HE NEXT MORNING, I
woke up early and ran to the kitchen. Dad was there looking at the turkey. He tapped it with his finger. “It’s still frozen. Hard frozen. I don’t know much about turkeys,” he said. “But I think you aren’t supposed to cook them until they thaw. And I think thawing takes a long time.”

“Oh no!” I wailed. “The turkey is the most important thing!”

Dad picked up the phone. “We need a turkey expert.”

A few minutes later, Claire and Mr. Plummer and Dad and I crowded around the turkey. We stared at it in silence.

“Expecting a crowd?” Mr. Plummer asked.

“It was the only one left at the store,” Dad said.

Mr. Plummer knocked on the turkey. It spun round and round on the counter.

“Wow,” Claire said. “Harder than a rock.”

When the turkey stopped spinning, Mr. Plummer peered at its wrapper. “It says it takes three to four hours to thaw if you put it in cold water.” He glanced at the sink. It was full of dishes.

“The bathtub,” Dad said.

Mr. Plummer consulted his watch. “What time is your dinner?”

Dad looked at his watch, too. “Our company comes at three. We eat at four,” he said.

I stared at him in surprise. He sounded as organized as Mr. Plummer.

“Three to four hours in the tub. Five to six hours in the oven. It’s now seven
A.M
.” Mr. Plummer rubbed his chin. “That’s close. Very close.”

“We’ll try it,” Dad said.

“Hard to do these holidays right,” Mr. Plummer said.

At the door, Claire turned back to me. “I’m a little worried,” she said, “about these ivy things on your porch.”

I looked at my festoons. “I like them.”

“They look like poison oak,” she said. I slammed the door. Poison oak—the one thing Ms. Morgan was allergic to. I hated Thanksgiving!

In the bathtub, the turkey bobbed like a big white ship. We threw wet towels over it till it stayed under water. “Three hours,” Dad said, looking at his watch. “Wish we had more time.”

Tyler woke up. “Today is Thanksgiving Day,” I told him. “We’re going to have company. You have to be really good at the table.”

He wasn’t listening. He ran into the living room and peeked out the window. “The turkey monster is still dead,” he said. “When it gets alive, you know what?”

“What?”

“I’m going to tame it!” He shivered and jumped up and down. “Turkeys are really scary, Katie.”

I laughed. “You’re really silly.”

His face got serious. “Will you come with me, Katie? You could maybe hold my hand?”

“No way,” I told him. “If you’re going to be that silly, you can do it all by yourself.”

“You used to be nice,” Tyler said. “Now you’re mean.”

“That’s not true,” I said.

After a quick breakfast, Dad and I cleaned the house. By nine o’clock, green worms no longer crawled across the kitchen floor. The dishwasher had been run. Except for Tyler’s bridges in the living room, the house looked pretty good.

We couldn’t find a tablecloth. Instead, we put a white sheet over the table, and it hung down to the floor. Tyler crawled underneath. While he couldn’t see me, I set my smiling turkey on the table.

“Come in here,” Tyler said, poking his head out. “It’s a hidey hole.”

I rushed to get a duster. “We’re too busy,” I said.

“No, we’re not,” Dad said. He crawled under the sheet and then poked his head out again. “We have time for one story in the hidey hole. Come join us.”

“No,” I shouted. “We don’t have time!”

The phone rang. I ran to answer it. It was Claire.

“Is it thawed yet?” she asked.

“Not yet,” I said.

“I hope your company doesn’t get poison oak,” she said.

“I’ll keep her away from it,” I said.

“Keep WHO away?”

I hung up. While I opened cans of sweet potatoes, Dad and Tyler finished their story. Then, Dad went to clean the bathroom, except for the tub. That was when Tyler noticed the centerpiece.

“Turkeys scare me,” he hollered. He pulled on the sheet. The turkey poster glided toward him.

“Stop it, Tyler!” I ran across the room. Before I could reach him, he ripped my turkey into shreds. I grabbed Tyler’s arm and shook him. He burst into tears. Dad came running.

“This was my favorite turkey!” I shouted.

I stomped around the room, waving turkey pieces in the air. “I hate you, Tyler. Now, our table is ugly.” I hurled the turkey pieces onto the floor and fled down the hall to my room.

A few minutes later, Dad and Tyler crept in. Tyler patted my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Katie,” he whispered. I sat up and glared at him.

“Tyler thought up a new centerpiece,” Dad said. I dragged down the hall and looked at the table. They’d put Tyler’s dump truck on the table. They’d filled it with cranberries and popcorn. The green truck, the red berries and the white popcorn were pretty.

Tyler and Dad grinned at me.

“It’s not the same,” I said. “But thanks.”

I went back to making the sweet potatoes.

After I dumped them into a big bowl, Dad mashed them fast. “This is what practice can do,” he said. “We are terrific cooks.”

I tried to swallow over the lump in my throat. “But we have way too many things to worry about,” I said. “Now I wish nobody was coming.”

He nodded. “Next year …” he said.

“Let’s wear pajamas and watch the game on TV,” I said.