Funny Business Read online

  Mom gasped downstairs. Apparently she’d been spying on them, too. The hairs on the back of my neck shot up.

  “Did everyone just see that?” Dad called out. He lightly passed the ball back to the turkey, careful not to kick it too hard, and hit the turkey with the ball. The turkey paused a few seconds, again staring at the ball, then took two hops and once again nudged the ball back to my dad with its foot.

  “We’re going to be filthy rich,” he said. “Honey, bring out the camera. We’re going to film this for America’s Funniest Home Videos.”

  I watched my dad have a soccer pass with the turkey for ten minutes while my mom frantically searched for the camera downstairs. She couldn’t find it, and at first Dad was angry.

  “Well, we can film another time,” he finally said, and looked up at me. “Sam, come down and join us.”

  “No, thanks,” I said.

  “Oh, honey,” Mom said, joining Dad outside and looking up at me. “You can do it!”

  “Hey, I have an idea; let’s play a game of soccer,” Dad suggested. “Me and Travis on one team, you and your mother on another. Here, we’ll use extra shoes as goalposts.”

  I couldn’t believe I was about to play a game of soccer with a turkey. I ambled downstairs and stood in the doorway to the backyard. “First of all, I don’t want to play soccer, and second of all, I don’t want to play soccer with a turkey,” I said, and they sounded like two reasonable statements on my part.

  “You’re nervous you can’t guard Travis, huh?” Dad said.

  My pop was a master of psychology, at least to an eleven-year-old, and of course I couldn’t help but feel jealous.

  “Let’s do this,” I said to Mom.

  “That’s the spirit!” Dad pumped his fist.

  For the first time in my dad’s life, he saw his only son successfully kick a soccer ball. But the triumph was short-lived. A second later Mom stole the ball from Dad and passed it up to me for an easy open-net goal, but the turkey suddenly bum-rushed me and I freaked out, remembering the time it bit my hand, and I ran blindly away from the ball and ran headfirst into a tree. Next thing I knew, I was staring up at the red and yellow leaves above me with a throbbing headache, as Mom screamed and rushed over to me. I turned to my side and saw my dad trying to high-five the turkey, shouting, “Great D!” Then he looked over at me and bragged, “You know why Travis is so tough? It’s because turkeys descend from velociraptors.”

  “Aren’t those the smaller carnivores in Jurassic Park? The ones who eat humans?” I asked, instantly alarmed.

  Mom and Dad laughed, thinking I was being funny. And for a flicker, the turkey kind of looked over at me and made eye contact, and I swear it licked its beak.

  Two days later. After school I walked home from the bus stop and went into the backyard. I slowly opened the back gate, making sure it didn’t creak too loud. I could see the back of Tracy’s head through the window in the baby’s room on the top floor. I stole across the yard toward the pen. I put my hands on the top of the fence. The turkey walked out of the pen, right up to the fence. I got on my knees.

  “Hi, turkey,” I said.

  The turkey mumbled something, leaning its head toward the fence, almost touching it. I fell back with wide eyes.

  “What?” I asked.

  The turkey spoke louder this time, and there was no mistaking what it said.

  “DIE,” it croaked.

  I ran inside.

  “I don’t know, Martin,” Mom said into the receiver with her back to me as I passed silently through the kitchen. “Sam doesn’t seem to like the turkey…. Give it time. Maybe he’s just not into this as much as we are…. Thanksgiving’s just around the corner…. Linda’s not sure if she can make it…. Martin! It isn’t nonsense…. He’s just a child….”

  That night Dad tucked me into bed. Usually Mom did, but he insisted on bringing me upstairs himself. “Sam,” he said, tucking and patting the comforter against my neck. “Thanksgiving’s only a week and a half away, and I want you to feed the turkey in the mornings, before school. Do you think you can handle that?”

  “But it talks, Dad.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “It does!” I raised my voice. “It said it wants me to die!”

  Dad sighed.

  “That’s just your imagination,” he explained. “It’s because you’ve spent two years talking to Mr. Elizabeth all the time, so you’re messed up now.”

  “You’re wrong,” I whispered. “I don’t think it likes me.”

  He raised his voice. “You don’t exactly give Travis a chance; why should he like you? You stay here in this room when I play catch with it. You stay in the kitchen when your mother and I play with it in the yard. How’s this, from now on, I want you to spend a good hour each day with the turkey!” He forced himself to take a breath. “Just please try to get to know it a little better, okay? For me, Tiger?”

  “Okay, Dad.”

  The wind pressed against the window, which was webbed with a layer of frost.

  “Maybe we’ll let it sleep inside tonight, in the den. It’s almost freezing outside.”

  He switched off the light and closed the door behind him.

  On Saturday afternoon my dad asked if anyone was interested in watching his old college, B.C., play football.

  “Sam and I are watching a movie,” Mom replied, not taking her eyes off the TV. We were midway through a really sad movie about this woman whose husband leaves her, so she moves to a new town and meets a really nice farmer and gets a job at the local library.

  “Sam, how can you be interested in that? It’s a chick flick!”

  “And what exactly is a chick flick?” Mom asked, staring at him.

  “Um, one where nothing happens and the main character’s a woman,” he said. “Come on, they’re playing Miami; it’s a big game.”

  “There’s another TV upstairs. You know where it is,” she said, staring at the TV. “Pass the popcorn, Sam.”

  “Son, do you want to watch football with me? I could try explaining the rules again.”

  I squashed the frown forming on my face and said, “Maybe after the movie. I think she’s about to get proposed to by the—”

  “Oh, brother,” he said, and went upstairs.

  Mom and I didn’t think anything of it until a couple of minutes later, when we heard heavy steps down the staircase. It didn’t sound natural. I leaned back in the sofa to see. Dad was lugging the upstairs TV out into the backyard. Mom was really into the movie, so I quietly got out of my seat and went over to the kitchen and peeked out from behind the flour bowl on the counter. Dad plugged the TV into an outlet on the side of the back porch. Then he went and got two beach chairs from the shed. Then he went over to the coop and let the turkey out. My dad picked it up and set it down in one of the beach chairs before sitting down next to it. He cracked open a can of beer, and then he and the turkey began watching football together.

  “What’s your dad doing out there?” Mom asked during commercial break.

  “He’s watching football with the turkey.”

  “That’s nice, dear,” she said, her nose stuffed in an old issue of Good Housekeeping magazine.

  I continued staring out the window at the two of them. When Dad freaked out over a great play, the turkey got all riled up and flapped its wings. Dad tried to teach it to high-five, and he even held the can of beer out to it at one point to see if it wanted a sip. It passed. My ears reddened. I was about to join him when Mom called out from the living room.

  “Sam, her ex-husband showed up a few minutes ago,” she said.

  “Why the heck didn’t you tell me?” I shouted, sprinting back into the living room.

  I woke suddenly. It was two a.m. The room was blue and the night-light lay useless on the floor. Silence. I slowly panned the dark room: the desk in the corner, the Legos on the carpet, a half-finished hair salon. My legs were sweating. I closed my eyes.

  Thump, thump.

  The sound of
footsteps on the second landing, down the hall. I sat up in bed, then immediately sank back under the covers. I peeked out at the door. The light in the hallway was on, a thin line of yellow under the crack in the door. Footsteps heading toward my room, a black shadow breaking the line of light under the door. The door slowly creaked open.

  I felt feverish. The turkey stood at the edge of the room, its face silhouetted, its wings slightly askew. It stared at the bed, at me. My voice was caught in my throat. I held fistfuls of green sheets. I finally managed to whisper, “What do you want?”

  “DIE,” the turkey said.

  “You’re the one who’s going to die,” I cried. “We’re going to eat you.”

  The turkey stared at me for a few seconds, then said, “DIE.”

  “What are you talking about? Dad’s going to chop your head off, not mine.”

  Dad at this point was running up the steps.

  “DIE,” the turkey repeated.

  “I swear I heard the turkey squawking—Hey, what the heck are you doing here?” Dad exclaimed. He scooped up the turkey; a feather fell to the floor.

  “Sam, are you awake? Sam?”

  He left the room, shutting the door tight. I shivered beneath the sheets.

  The sound of the town fire alarm wailed in the distance.

  My dad invited his boss, Mr. Berrian, and another coworker over for a dinner party that Friday. Mr. Berrian and his family arrived first. His son Josh was in my grade, and groaned when he saw me. Josh was the best kickball player at school, and all the guys (except me, of course) worshipped him. He was exactly the type of kid my dad wished he’d had. Naturally he hated my guts. He went straight into the living room to watch TV by himself while my dad led Mr. and Mrs. Berrian out to the backyard to meet the turkey. I stayed behind in the kitchen, feeling trapped. Then the Goldmans showed up. Dad immediately ushered them through the house to the backyard. I didn’t want to be alone with Josh, so I followed them outside.

  “And this is our turkey, Travis,” Dad said, opening the pen. The turkey stayed put, intimidated by the strangers crowding over it.

  Mr. Goldman looked at me and smiled.

  “And you are?” he asked.

  “I’m the son,” I said softly. “Sam.”

  It was one thing not to get introduced to people by my parents and for them to instead introduce the turkey as if it was their son, but that weekend things got even weirder. We took the annual family photo for our Christmas cards Mom sent out every year, and Dad actually made us pose with the turkey. When the cards were ready at CVS, my mom picked them up. The card read, “Happy Holidays from the Wheatons: Martin, Grace, Sam, Baby Angie, and Travis.”

  In the picture, the turkey wasn’t facing the camera. It had its head turned away; it was staring at me.

  In the morning on Monday the grass in the backyard was layered with a film of white frost. My hands were shaking as I dragged the bag of seed over to the fence. I couldn’t tell if they were shaking because I was scared of the turkey or because the bag was heavy. Probably both. I dug my hand in the cool, dusty bag and grabbed a handful of seeds. I sprinkled the grass on the other side of the fence. The turkey hopped out of the pen.

  “DIE,” it squawked.

  I wondered if it was maybe my imagination, like Dad had said. Maybe it was just squawking and the creative part of my brain was turning it into words?

  “Did you say ‘die,’ or are you just a dumb ol’ turkey?” I asked.

  “DIE,” it repeated, taking a step toward me. There was no mistaking it; the turkey was threatening my life. I backed up slowly.

  “You’re not going to kill me,” I said, glaring at the turkey with glazed eyes. There were bags under my eyes—I could feel them—because I’d barely slept the night before.

  “DIE,” it repeated, softer this time. It turned its head to the house, and seemed to sniff in the air. It could smell the eggs and bacon cooking in the kitchen. Then it looked at me again.

  I gasped, realizing it wanted me to eat because it wanted to eat…me! I now knew its master plan. It was trying to be friendly with Dad and impress him like the pig in Charlotte’s Web so he could trick Dad into keeping him as a pet or something, and then when the timing was right, the turkey was going to kill and eat me. I turned and quickly jumped up the steps to the porch. I reached the back door, turned to look at the turkey once more. Its head was buried in the cold grass, picking at the seeds. It looked up, its beak covered with frost and blades of green grass.

  That morning at school my class drew turkeys to hang on the walls of the room. The substitute teacher handed out to the students pieces of paper with the outline of a turkey in blue ink on each sheet, along with half-used nubs of crayons. This was the type of thing we did in second grade, not fifth, but subs tended not to know how to really teach anything, so they had us draw and do little-kid things like that all the time. The girl next to me drew green wings, a purple belly. Two hearts for eyes. Josh Berrian was drawing an M16 rifle tucked under one wing. I took a red crayon out and began scratching the plastic red across the page, across the turkey’s heart. I pressed the crayon against the paper so hard it ripped.

  “What the heck are you doing, kid?” the substitute teacher asked. She picked up the piece of paper, examined it for a moment before balling it up and throwing it in the trash. She handed me a fresh paper. She headed to the chalkboard at the front of the room, shaking her head.

  At the end of the school day I got off the bus with a headache from the chill air mixed with exhaust fumes as the bus pulled away. The Benson twins, giggling, ran off in the opposite direction. I began to walk up the street toward my house at the edge of the cul-de-sac, then stopped. I was scared to go home. The house on my left had a stone driveway. Blue chips mixed with white stones. I bent over and picked up a handful, stuffed them in my pockets for protection. I picked out a thick, jagged stone and rubbed it with my fingers.

  I stopped when I got to the side of my house. Smoke rose from the chimney. The stone felt heavy in my hand. I stepped lightly over to the back entrance. Through the kitchen window, I could see my mother with her back to me, the cord of the phone wrapped around her waist. I tried to sneak in unnoticed, but the turkey stepped out of the pen. Immediately I hurled the stone at it. The stone harmlessly glanced off the roof of the pen.

  It started laughing at me, I swear. Maybe to others it would’ve sounded like excited squawking, but it was staring at me and I knew in my heart that it was making fun of me. I was suddenly overcome with rage, something I rarely felt. My hands were shaking. I took out another stone and ran toward the fence, then threw it as hard as I could. It hit the fence and fell harmlessly to the grass. The turkey looked up at the place in the fence that I’d hit with the rock, as if to mock how off I’d been with my throw, and I seized the opportunity. I took the remaining handful and launched it at the turkey. Two or three stones pelted its belly. The turkey screamed. Mom must’ve seen this, because a second later she ran out the back door and collared me, lifting me off the ground with that superhuman strength you get when you find yourself trapped under a helicopter or something, like they talk about on TV.

  “What on earth is your problem? I was just on the phone with your teacher. She said you ripped up everyone’s Thanksgiving drawings during recess! Get inside. Your father will deal with you when he gets home from work,” she snapped.

  She opened the fence gate and knelt beside the turkey, cooing softly, examining its belly. She held it.

  “Poor Travis. We’ll fix you up, I promise.”

  She brought it inside the house.

  “You are in a lot of trouble, son,” Dad said. I shifted in my seat. The TV was on mute; the puff of smoke from the rifle without the sound looked strange to me. “Can you please tell me why you are acting like this?”

  “Dad, the turkey wants to kill me,” I pleaded, tears in my eyes.

  “Seems like it’s the other way around.”

  “You don’t understand. It talks
; it threatens me. I don’t have much time. It’s planning on eating me. We have to get rid of it.”

  “Now that’s enough. You’re making your mother cry. Do you actually enjoy making your mother cry? Is that what you want?”

  “Don’t you see what it’s doing? It’s trying to get on your good side because it’s planning on killing me. Doesn’t that mean anything to you at all?”

  “You’re being ridiculous. Now listen here. Your mother and I have decided to keep the turkey.”

  My stomach fell. Dad went on.

  “We’re having ham for Thanksgiving. Travis is a special animal, Sam, and you will learn to treat your brother—I mean, new pet—with respect. He just might win us some money at the state fair this spring. Now we’re not going to argue about this one. You’re going to have to do some growing up. If I hear about you torturing the turkey anymore, I’m going to have to really punish you. Now go to bed, and don’t let me catch you with the light on.”

  Tracy came back on Thursday night because my parents were going out to a party. Dad searched for his keys in the family room. Tracy sat with my mom at the kitchen table, examining the beads on Mom’s dress.

  “They’re not in the bowl, Grace,” Dad said, pulling up the cushions on the sofa. He rechecked the bathroom. He came back out. The turkey squawked. The keys were resting by its clawed feet.

  “Good boy, Travis!” Dad said, scratching the top of its head.

  My ears boiled. The turkey smiled at me. Mom stood in the doorway and looked at me. “You can watch TV until eight thirty—that is, if you finish your homework—and then up to bed, okay, Tiger?”

  They left.

  Upstairs in my bedroom I tried to think of a solution to my problem, but nothing came to me. Then it dawned on me that, besides Tracy, I was basically all alone in the house with the turkey, and I felt a chill shoot down my spine. Tears rolled down my cheeks, tired tears that tickled my face. On the carpet next to me were a few feathers. I held one up above my head, let it fall. It floated down, got caught in my sweater. There were more feathers behind the chair. Suddenly I got an idea. I gathered them up, placed them in my pocket, and headed downstairs.