Story Hour
JENNY'S SHRINKING THANKSGIVING
Written by Gene B. Williams
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Jenny was very excited. Thanksgiving was always a wonderful time – almost as good as Christmas. This year she was old enough to be a real part of it. Mom had even asked her.
Weeks before, plans were being made. A guest list was written. Jenny’s handwriting wasn’t the best, but you could read the names. Aunt Sophie, Uncle Ben, Uncliver (she meant Uncle Oliver), Cousin Susan, Grandma Caroline, Grandpa Lois (she fixed that later – it was Aunt Lois and Grandpa Louis) …. Jenny did her best and filled a whole page. Mom told her the names of the people who would be coming and helped her fix the mistakes.
Then Jenny got some colored paper and carefully traced her hand to be a turkey tail and cut them out. Very carefully – VERY carefully, so there were no more mistakes – she wrote the names of each person coming on their own turkey tail.
As the day got closer, she got more and more excited. Of course there was all the extra cleaning. Jenny was able to help quite a bit with that. Then came the crowding. Regular things had to be moved around to make room for what was to come. What was to come meant extra tables, and extra chairs, and extra dishes, and extra pans, and extra pots – and of course, extra food. The kitchen was full. The living room was full. Tables and chairs were crowded everywhere. The refrigerator was crowded, even a second refrigerator in the laundry room. People would be coming from all over, even from as far away as Iowa! Then the whole house would be crowded.
At the center of it all was the biggest turkey that Jenny had ever seen – not that she’d seen all that many. Anyway, it was huge. It took up the entire middle of the refrigerator. “Plenty for twenty,” her mother said, “and more.”
“And leftovers,” her brother David said. If anything, Jenny loved leftovers even more than David did. Her other brother, Jim, was well known for sneaking plates of leftovers to his room. With a turkey that big, even with so many people coming, there was bound to be leftovers. Leftovers for turkey sandwiches and turkey soup and turkey this and turkey that. Of course there would be the other leftovers, too – dressing and potatoes and gravy and green bean casserole and cranberries and black olives to put on your fingers and rutterbeggers and several kinds of pie and … well, Jenny could hardly wait.
At last the day came. Everyone was up early. Everyone was moving in their own directions, but only rarely crashed into each other. The giant turkey went into the oven. The house began to fill with all those wonderful aromas of Thanksgiving.
Her brothers David and Jim finished setting up the extra tables and chairs. Jenny put out the napkins. Dad raced off to the store to get just a few more things. One was in a brown paper bag. Mom asked what it was. Jenny didn’t hear it when Dad said, “It was all David’s idea.” Then he tucked the bag into the refrigerator and he and Mom went to the side.
Mom was laughing and said, “That’s a TERRIBLE idea.”
Dad said, “It’s already roasted so there is no extra work. ”
Jenny had no idea what was going on. She didn’t think to even ask what was in the bag. She was too busy. And then the guests began to arrive, and she was even more busy. Everyone seemed to be talking at once. One thing they all said was how wonderful the house smelled. One thing Jenny kept saying was, “Wait until you see the TURKEY. It’s the biggest in the whole world, I bet.”
Oh, my, it was so hectic. Everyone was talking and laughing all at the same time. Mom and Dad and David and Jim and a few relatives were scrambling to get everything just right. Every now and then Dad would look in the refrigerator at that mysterious brown bag and ask Mom, “Isn’t it almost time?”
Finally Mom said, “It’s almost ready. Jenny, go quick and get those wood turkeys that Grandpa Gordie carved. They are in the hall closet.”
As Jenny raced to the closet, her father and two brothers were on another race. And the doorbell was still ringing. More people were coming in with big smiles and pots and pans and dishes of their own. In all the excitement, Jenny missed something.
She didn’t see Dad take that huge turkey from the oven and move it to the laundry room then close the door.
She didn’t see David open that little brown bag and take out a very small roast chicken.
She didn’t see Mom set it on a roaster pan and slide it into the oven.
What she did see, just a few minutes later ….
Her heart was beating fast and hard. It was TIME! The giant turkey was about to be taken from the oven. Then Dad would begin to carve plates and plates and plates and plates of food for all those people.
Mom opened the oven. With the hot mitts, she reached inside and pulled out … one of the tiniest birds Jenny had ever seen. It was about enough to feed two people, with no leftovers. It certainly wouldn’t feed twenty!
Mom said, “I don’t know what went wrong. It shrunk!”
Oh, poor Jenny. She didn’t know what to do. All those people! All those place mats she’d made. All the work she had done. It was the first Thanksgiving when she had been a real part – other than just eating. The air was filled with all those delicious smells. All those people were laughing and talking … and waiting for a huge feast.
And there on the counter was this … this … this … Jenny couldn’t think of a word for it.
Mom said, “Oh, well, we have plenty of broccoli.”
Broccoli? BROCCOLI??? What kind of Thanksgiving is BROCCOLI???
Jenny stared at the tiny, shrunken bird. She wanted to run and hide. Thanksgiving was ruined. Why was Mom smiling? First she said, “Don’t worry. Your Dad can fix anything. Has anyone seen the bicycle air pump?” But … who could fix a shrunken turkey? Then Mom put a gentle hand on Jenny’s shoulder and said. “I had nothing to do with this. It was Dad.”
Dad said, “Don’t blame me, it was David’s idea.”
David said, “Jim was the one. He did it. Jim shrunk the turkey.”
Jim stood there just as puzzled as Jenny. The two looked at each other, at the tiny bird, back at each other. You see, they didn’t know about the joke, and that the real turkey had been moved to another room. Hiding.
Jim said, “I didn’t shrink it. I don’t know how to shrink a turkey. Besides, I wasn’t even in the kitchen.”
Then they noticed that Mom, Dad and David were all smiling. Who could smiling at a time like this?
Finally, Dad said, “Make room on the counter.”
The tiny, almost useless chicken was set to the side. Dad left and a moment later came back in. “Happy Thanksgiving!”
And there it was. The real thing. The real turkey. The one set into the laundry room while Jenny (and Jim) didn’t see. It WAS the biggest turkey Jenny had ever seen. “Plenty for twenty,” and lots of leftovers.
Jenny started laughing first. Jim was still wondering why he was blamed for shrinking the turkey, which had her laughing even more. There was the huge turkey being carved, with slices put on the huge platter, and people lining up to fill their plates. On another counter was the tiny bird. Jim was still saying, “It wasn’t ME who shrunk it.”
The plates were filled, and not long after, so were all the people. Jenny kept looking at the tiny roasted chicken with a smile. Jim kept staring at it. The chicken was missing both drumsticks. (David got those for his Thanksgiving dinner.)
For Jenny – she had a smile nearly as huge as the turkey. What a wonderful Thanksgiving! Then that smile got even bigger. As everyone was leaving later than evening, her brother Jim was still telling everyone, “I didn’t shrink the turkey, someone else did.”
Most of them had no idea what he was talking about. They had seen – and eaten – that huge turkey! If it shrunk, it was only because so many were eating.
By the way – there WERE plenty of leftovers. Even some leftover shrunken turkey … I mean, chicken.
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