The following
story first appeared in Witpunk
, edited by Claude Lalumiere and Marty Halpern (Four Walls
Eight Windows, 2003).
Links to this
page (as well as any other page on BradleyDenton.net) are
welcomed. But please don't post or publish this story
elsewhere without the permission of the
author.
Timmy and Tommy's
Thanksgiving
Secret
by Bradley Denton
Timmy and Tommy were best friends. They lived on a farm in
the Great Midwest with Daddy Mike, Mama Jane, Buster and Scotty the
Farm Dogs, several pigs, a few chickens, and Maybelle the Moo Cow.
Timmy was five years old and belonged to Daddy Mike and Mama Jane,
but Tommy was younger, and an orphan. Even worse, he couldn't
talk.
But Timmy didn't feel sorry for
Tommy, because Tommy was just like one of the family. Mama Jane
called him Timmy's adopted brother. Tommy even went out with Timmy
every morning to watch Daddy Mike milk Maybelle the Moo Cow, and
Daddy Mike would surprise them both with squirts of milk in their
faces.
"Ha ha!" Daddy Mike would laugh.
"Look alive, there!"
Then Timmy would laugh too, and
Tommy would do the best he could.
And even though Mama Jane had said
that Timmy didn't have to share his room with Tommy, Timmy was glad
to do it anyway. At night after they went to bed, he and Tommy
whispered secrets that they promised never to tell anyone else --
secrets about all the adventures they'd had together.
And oh! What adventures!
They fought pirates on the banks of
Muddy Pond . . .
They chased buffalo across Grassy
Meadow . . .
They explored deserts that looked
just like Rocky Pasture . . .
And best of all, they scaled the
dizzying heights of Towering Grain Silo.
That is, Timmy did. Tommy always
refused to climb the shaky ladder. So Timmy would go up alone, and
when he reached the very tip-top, he would look down and shout,
"Tommy is a chicken! Tommy is a chicken!"
At this, Tommy would always look
very indignant, and sometimes he would even stalk off in a huff. A
chicken, indeed! What an insult!
But by bedtime, all would be
forgiven, and Timmy would lie awake in bed and whisper secrets
across the room to where Tommy slept on a pallet on the floor. And
although Tommy couldn't talk the way normal people did, sometimes he
would jabber nonsense in response to Timmy's whispers. At least,
Daddy Mike said that it was nonsense, but Timmy knew better. After
all, Tommy's jabbering sounded just like Mrs. Krunholtz at Sunday
Church when she rolled around on the floor and spoke in tongues. And
no one ever said that Mrs. Krunholtz was jabbering
nonsense.
One November morning while it was
still dark, Timmy woke up to the sounds of the kitchen door banging
shut and Daddy Mike's boots clomping into the barnyard. Timmy was
surprised. Daddy Mike got up early every morning to milk Maybelle,
but never this early. Timmy didn't know what to make of
it.
"Come on, Tommy!" Timmy cried,
throwing off his blankets and grabbing his pint-sized coveralls from
the bedpost. "Let's go see what Daddy Mike's doing! Maybe we can
help!"
Tommy jabbered in agreement, and
together they hurried downstairs, almost tumbling over one another
in their excitement.
When they reached the kitchen, they
found that Mama Jane was up and about, too. She was putting a big
pot of water on the stove.
"Oh good," Mama Jane said when she
saw Timmy and Tommy. "I'm glad you two are bright-eyed and
bushy-tailed! There's a lot to do today!"
"Why?" Timmy asked. "What's
today?"
"Well, my goodness, child!" Mama
Jane said. "It's Thanksgiving! Now, run out and help Daddy Mike. The
sun's coming up, and my whole family will be here before you can say
Jack Robinson -- so hop to it!"
Timmy and Tommy hopped outside, and
then Timmy saw Daddy Mike, along with Buster and Scotty the Farm
Dogs, standing in the barnyard beside the old oak stump that Timmy
and Tommy used as the deck of their battleship. So Timmy dashed out
to the stump with Tommy hurrying close behind.
"Why, there you are!" Daddy Mike
exclaimed when he saw Timmy and Tommy. "I thought you were going to
sleep the day away!" And with that, he grabbed Tommy by the feet and
slammed him onto the stump.
"Daddy Mike!" Timmy cried. "Is Tommy
in trouble?"
"In a manner of speaking," Daddy
Mike said. Then he picked up a hatchet that had been hidden on the
far side of the stump, and with one quick stroke, he chopped off
Tommy's head. Tommy's head flew away and tumbled to the dirt, and
Tommy's blood spurted from his neck onto Daddy Mike's
hand.
Then Buster and Scotty the Farm Dogs
began making quite a ruckus. They were fighting over Tommy's
head.
"Timmy, take Tommy's head and put it
in the trash barrel down by the barn," said Daddy Mike. "If Buster
or Scotty got hold of it, they could start choking, and then I'd
have to get the gun."
So Timmy picked up Tommy's head and
went down to the barn with Buster and Scotty nipping at his
heels.
"Tommy?" Timmy said to Tommy's head.
"What did you do to get in trouble?"
But Tommy's head didn't even jabber.
It just gazed up at Timmy with one glassy black eye.
"Timmy!" Daddy Mike cried then.
"Come look at this!"
Daddy Mike sounded excited, so Timmy
dropped Tommy's head into the trash barrel and ran back to the old
oak stump as fast as he could. When he got there, he saw Tommy
staggering toward the house, leaving a squiggly trail of blood
behind him. Before long, though, Tommy flopped over and lay there
twitching.
"Did you ever see the like?" Daddy
Mike asked.
But Timmy didn't have a chance to
answer, because Buster and Scotty the Farm Dogs came running back
from the trash barrel, snarling and biting at each other all the
way.
"Quick, Timmy!" Daddy Mike said.
"Pick up Tommy and take him to Mama Jane while I have a talk with
Buster and Scotty!"
So Timmy went to Tommy and tried to
pick him up while Daddy Mike had a talk with Buster and Scotty. But
Tommy was big and heavy, so Timmy had to grab him by the feet the
way Daddy Mike had done, and then drag him to the house.
This was hard work, but Timmy
finally got Tommy into the kitchen, where Mama Jane was waiting. Her
big pot of water was boiling now.
"My goodness, child!" Mama Jane
exclaimed. "You've left a bloody smear all across my kitchen floor!"
Then she scooped up Tommy and dropped him into the boiling water.
Tommy's feet stuck up out of the water and wiggled.
"Why are you doing that, Mama Jane?"
Timmy asked. "And why did Daddy Mike chop off Tommy's
head?"
"My goodness, child!" Mama Jane
exclaimed again. "How you do go on!" With that, she put on a pair of
heavy rubber gloves, pulled Tommy from the water, and plunked him
onto the sideboard. Then she started yanking out all of Tommy's
feathers.
"Doesn't that hurt?" Timmy
asked.
"It would if I wasn't wearing
gloves," Mama Jane said.
After all of Tommy's feathers were
gone, Mama Jane used a cleaver to cut off Tommy's feet. Then she
took a shiny knife, sliced Tommy open, and yanked out his guts. She
put most of the guts into a pan and gave the pan to
Timmy.
"You can take these to Buster and
Scotty if you like," Mama Jane said.
So Timmy did just that. He watched
Buster and Scotty play tug-of-war for a while, and then he went down
to the barn. He found Daddy Mike milking Maybelle the Moo Cow, and
while he sat in the corner to watch, Daddy Mike sprayed him in the
face with milk.
"Ha ha!" Daddy Mike laughed. "Look
alive, there!"
Later, Grandma Eula, Uncle Augie,
Aunt Pearl, and Cousins Fred, Earl, Cookie, and Poot all came over
for Thanksgiving dinner. Tommy had been cooked all golden and crispy
on the outside, and when Mama Jane placed him in the center of the
table, Daddy Mike cut him up into juicy, steaming chunks.
"Give me a drumstick," said Cousin
Fred. "That's the best part."
"No, no," said Cousin Cookie. "The
neck is the best."
"You're both wrong, children," said
Grandma Eula. "There's nothing better than a nice plump
thigh."
"It's a slice of breast for me,"
said Aunt Pearl.
"I'd prefer a wing, myself," said
Cousin Poot.
"You're all loopy," said Uncle
Augie. "I dibs the gizzard. That's really the best part. Did you
remember to fry up the gizzard, Sister Jane?"
"I surely did," said Mama Jane, and
she brought Tommy's gizzard to Uncle Augie on a special silver
plate.
"Yum!" Uncle Augie exclaimed, and he
gobbled up Tommy's gizzard in three quick bites. Then he leaned back
and gave Timmy a big grin. "And now," he said, "it's wishbone
time!"
"What's that?" Timmy
asked.
So Uncle Augie showed him. He held
one side of the wishbone while Timmy held the other, and then they
both pulled. The wishbone broke in two.
"You got the big half!" Uncle Augie
cried. "You get your wish!"
"What did you wish for, Timmy?"
Grandma Eula asked.
"I wished for rattlesnakes to bite
all of you until you swell up and stink like Maybelle's calf Pansy
did," Timmy said.
So Mama Jane said it was all right
if Timmy went outside to play, and he did just that. After a while
he wandered down to the trash barrel by the barn and pulled out
Tommy's head.
Timmy walked across the barnyard
with Tommy's head cupped in his hands, thinking that perhaps he
would take Tommy to the top of Towering Grain Silo at
last.
But then Daddy Mike came down from
the house, calling, "Timmy! You can come back now! We have punkin
pie!"
Timmy didn't want Daddy Mike to know
that he had pulled Tommy's head from the trash barrel, so he did the
first thing he could think of, which was to pop Tommy's head into
his mouth, chew it up as best he could, and swallow it. By the time
Daddy Mike reached him, Tommy's head was all gone.
"It's time for dessert," Daddy Mike
said. "And then we're each going to say what we're thankful for. Can
you think of what you're thankful for, Timmy?"
"Yes I can, Daddy Mike," said Timmy.
"I'm thankful that I'm not adopted."
But as they walked back to the
house, Timmy realized that there was something he was even more
thankful for. He was thankful because he and Tommy now had one more
secret, the biggest one ever, that only the two of them
shared.
The secret was this:
No matter what
anyone else thought, the head was the very best part of
all.
The End
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