Skinny Turkey’s Escape From Christmas
By
John David Jordan
Published by John David Jordan at Smashwords
Copyright John David Jordan 2010
*This work is sold for your personal enjoyment and may not be copied, passed on or otherwise published without prior permission from the author. Please respect the copyright of this book.
For Sharon - a true friend in dark places.
***
Chapter One
THE THREE R’S: RULES, RULES, RULES!
Skinny Turkey flounced to the floor like a landed pike, and there, with a sigh and a gobble, he egged himself deep under his wings - and counted his feet. (Which usually helped when he was feeling stressed.) There were still two, which was at least some good news for once. Actually, there were always two but sometimes he lost count and came to three, or possibly one, and had to start all over again, even more stressed than before; after all, no one wants to lose a foot – and certainly never grow an extra one! That would cause him more trouble even than being un-bigly! But in the end, no matter how stressed he became, there were always two; just like him and his Old Ma – always the two. Only, now that count was about to come one – his dear Old Ma had almost… gone.
The rumble of The Great Parade passed by him like a happy rumour, off to Gob, with Christmas gobbles tumbling from the beaks of overjoyed turkeys like frosted bun-flakes. Those lucky-tuks! They’d soon be with their friends and relatives at the Christmas Party, laughing and eating until they simply burst! Or else until they decided to be re-egged as the biglyest, bestest thing in the Turkeyverse ever – a turkey! (Or, if they hadn’t eaten quite as much as they should of in this life, something smaller - like a spider or an ant. Biglyness was next to Goblyness, after all; but no one remembers their thins at a time like that! Simply everyone was going to have the superest time possible and be re-egged biglyer and better than ever!)
Well, everyone who was going, that was. Which wasn’t him. The old saying was true after all: when you’re a (skinny) turkey, you always find some disgusting soup in your fly! Whatever soup was.
‘I know you went in there!’ said a voice, suddenly, slapping him sharply out of his thoughts and making his blood almost reverse - which is not pleasant for a turkey, and has been known to make their feathers drop off. He’d been followed! ‘Actually, I envy you,’ it continued.
Skinny Turkey poked an eye out from behind a bail, head lopsided like a marionette with a broken string. It was Fregg, one of horrid Senior Goobler’s (the most important turkey in the Turkeyverse) bullying henchmen.
With a shake of his wrinkly face, the long gullet strapped to Fregg’s neck flapped left and right like a loosened ship’s sail, billowing up in a red line to a beaky grimace. Skinny Turkey thought him the ugliest bird ever! ‘I’ve always wanted to know… you know, what’s really in… there, so I salute your courage,’ he went on. ‘I’ve never dared to go in. I’ve always followed the rules to the gobble. Silly really, in some ways, because, well. You know... I’ve always been curious. But the rules are there for a reason!
‘I’ll tell you, though, I don’t believe that people disappear inside The Edge. The flies come in and out, so I don’t see why we shouldn’t. We’re more important than them, after all.
‘I don’t know if you can hear me but I want to tell you that I understand why you are afraid. No one wants to De-part before their time, but, well, this is your time. I know it doesn’t seem fair, what with you having to take Senior Goobler’s place and all that, but that’s how the egg rolls sometimes – up hill, instead of down. Come on now, out you come!
There was no gobble of a reply. Fregg didn’t expect any; it was never going to be that easy to lure a terrified turkey away to his Departure. So, sucking in a deep breath as if he was about to dive under water he stepped forth (actually incredibly bravely) following Skinny Turkey in to the vast unknown – the very Edge of the Turkeyverse itself.
Curiously, he didn’t fall off (as expected). But he didn’t find Skinny Turkey either!
And that was because he’d egged it! - gobbling away, deeper in to The Edge the moment he’d spied that flapping, horridable gullet hanging from Fregg’s lecturing gob! Even though he had one himself, Skinny Turkey couldn’t help but feel that there was something particularly horrid about gullets! Especially on people who wanted to depart you!
But, chance will have its parliaments, and so it was that another bird, and not a turkey, who should not have really been there, yet was, passing by quite by fortune… and hearing the ridiculous gobbling of the two birds… and imagining a double brunch, popped over to investigate - meeting Fregg beak to beak!
Fregg gripped the floor in terror, his wrinkled eyes yawning in to smooth circles. ‘Gob’s knobs!’ came his attempted gasp, but the breath stalled in his lungs, transmuted to a whimper by complete and utter shock. And then he fainted; only, the shock was so tremendous that it actually woke him up again – like a nightmare shudder - before he’d even hit the floor!
It was a wraith! A terrible, horridable wraith of The Edge! The old stories were true. This was what happened when you crossed The Edge! It transformed you - in to this!
‘Hello,’ said the other bird, cheerfully, ‘I’m Eagle!’ But Fregg was already up and off, fleeing back in to his own world, tearing at his feathers as if they were corrupted with the infection that caused the transformation in to a wraith, and might pump it in to him through their hollow quills. (And so he spent the last of his days: bald and crazy, mumbling about meagles so that everyone assumed that that was the name of the illness which he had caught, and anyone after that whose feathers fell out was said to have the same!)
‘Pleased to almost eat you,’ continued Eagle, rolling his eyes for a double six before sitting himself down on a bail with a deep sigh, disturbing a resting fly which flew up like a full stop looking to end his sentence. ‘A self plucking chicken, eh? How tremendous,’ he hummed, to the fly. ‘And they say genetically modified food is a bad thing!’ The fly ignored him.
In the distance the ridiculous turkeys were gabbling like a boiling stream. Their accents were strange but the words were common Birdglish - of a type. He frowned his ear at the sound - there was no doubt about it: they were singing! And about Christmas of all things. We Wish You a Feathery Christmas! Turkeys singing for Christmas! A joyous song of happy Christmas tidings! A tear swelled up in his eye – he couldn’t help it; it was the most awful, tuneless wailing he had ever heard in his life! ‘I think I might have an ear-attack,’ he clicked, to the fly. ‘Possibly self inflicted. If so, don’t try to revive me!
‘Look at them, chirruping imbeciles, delivering themselves by the shopping-trolley full in to that horrible goodbye machine – that’s what my friend Old Eagle calls it. You know - the meat grinder. Not very funny really. Well, not if you’re a turkey. My father used to say ten turkeys are stupider than one, and now I understand exactly what he meant. I bet you couldn’t get one on its own in to that horrible thing, but look at them – as long as they’re all going in together they can’t cram themselves in fast enough! Which is exactly how everyone else will feel about them come Christmas dinner!’
He wondered if flies had sensitive hearing – not that this one was choosing to use hers right now; she was far more interested in someone else’s business. ‘What a dreadful existence,’ he continued, ‘sharing a room with a hundred thousand terrible singers, all full of the joys of Christmas! I know what I’d want from Santa – a mallet!’
The fly considered him carefully through the fractal lens of her kaleidoscope eye. Funny looking fellow… talks a lot of nonsense… nice eye-juice though…
Which was the last thing ever to go through her mind – apart from a turkey’s beak; Skinny Turkey’s head flashed out from between some nearby bails and in one snap she was gone!
Eagle shuffled his wings in surprise. Did he really just see that? His instincts took over - one or two seconds late - flapping him up to a higher, safer perch where he landed primly in a flurry of straw-drops.
‘Is that you, my dinner?’ he clicked.
Nestling in his hidey-niche, Skinny Turkey was rattling like a, well… like a terrified turkey! Stupid, stupid, stupid! Stupid fly! Fancy flying in to range and forcing him to eat it just when he was hiding from a reality-challenged person! Typical stupid fly!
Slowly, wobbly and gobbly, he wound out his long, feathery neck to the edge of the bails and telescoped one, black Cornish pasty eye at Eagle. But he’d never seen an eagle before; or any other type of bird for that matter, so his brain decided, much like Fregg’s had before, that this was obviously a turkey that had gone bad, living in The Edge beyond the border of the world.
Pale - and clearly starved to little more than a feather - its face had gone all deformed and horrid – probably from grief and loneliness. After all, chances were it had fled there like him - to avoid the De-parting - and had never been able to find its way back and off to the Christmas Party like it was supposed to. If there was a way back. (And even if it could go back, well, who’d want that disgusting sight at their party? No one! It’d put you off your food, and that would spoil the whole point of a party.)
He wondered how long it had dwelt here, wandering the lonely corridors of its dreadful isolation. Probably years by the looks of things - which would explain its giant feet – clearly swollen with mad pacing as it mentally feuded with all other turkeys, blaming them for its plight, and of course, planning its terrible revenge. Driven to madness by a diet of flies and… well, there wasn’t anything else to eat here (he was almost going mad with starvation himself and he’d only been here half an hour!) no doubt it had succumbed at the last to ghoulish, horridable desires; feeding off lost or other fleeing turkeys, or slurping out the insides of abandoned eggs rolled in to The Edge by unwanting mothers! Gobble… turned cannibal… gobLE… only, probably by now it would much prefer some fresh food! GOBBLE! Revenge and a meal all in one! GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE!
‘Well,’ hummed Eagle, ‘I do like fresh food but I had a nice breakfast not so long ago. You were probably related to him. Anyway, that being by the by, calling people deformed is exceptionally rude.’
Oh my goodness! It can read thoughts!
‘No, it can’t. You’re actually saying all of this out loud. You only think you’re thinking it. Mental incontinence - a dreadful condition at the best of times. I recommend the silent treatment.
‘And yes I can actually see your head. Yes, you. No, there’s no point winding yourself back in. I already know where you are… okey dokey, carry on regardless! Well, there you go - gone! Completely de-turkeyalized! You know, that just goes to show that one turkey can actually be more dumber even than itself. Which is quite a turn up for the old rule. Oh, I’m sorry – did I say that out loud? I meant to just think it!’
He hopped over to the quaking bails, widening his already enormous, grey eyes on to a dreadful scene – a reversing turkey, feathers splaying apart as if it were attempting to give birth to itself! ‘Ugh! Feathers above! It’s either a miracle of nature and a bail of hay is giving birth to a turkey, or else it’s the world’s most en-dumbened creature exercising the worstest escape plan known to bird!’
‘Well if you’d egg-off I could come out without being eaten!’ snapped Skinny Turkey, stuttering the words with beak-wobble.
Grasping a plastic bail bond, Eagle dipped over the edge of the bails until he was completely upside down, peeking in through the little crack where the hay corners met. ‘How would coming out stop you being eaten?’ he hummed.
Skinny Turkey gauped at him, his black, oval eyes quivering like pools of oil in a minor earthquake. ‘I…’ he gobbled, but eagle shtummed him, lifting a wing to his beak.‘But…’
‘Shh!’ demanded Eagle.
Skinny Turkey shtummed – at least, he closed his beak; but despite himself whistley half-gobbles were still escaping through his nostrils - as if he had recently boiled.
‘Now that’s better,’ laughed Eagle. ‘Play us a tune! Do you know My nostrils only whistle when it’s Christmas?’
‘Mm m mm!’ shook the turkey, eyes wide with some emotion – Eagle couldn’t tell which, but he hazarded a guess at dumblyness.
‘What?’
‘MM M MM!’
‘Say again?’ clicked Eagle, shaking his head.
‘Well I’m not allowed to speak, am I!’ gobbled the turkey.
‘Oh. Well you may, if it doesn’t involve insulting, gobbling, or most especially singing. Don’t you turkeys get taught your manners? Never sing if you can’t!’
‘Well then politely please egg-off!’
‘I see.’
‘I don’t want to be eaten, thank you very much, so please, with a feather on top, go away!’
‘Did you mean to say that out loud, or did you just spill? Anyway, I’m not going anywhere. Why should I? I’m just hanging around and having a goosey. There’s no rule against that, is there?’
‘Yes!’ bit Skinny Turkey. ‘There’s rules against almost everything. Which you should know! And there’s especially one against being a cannibal!’
‘I see. Well, fortunately for me the rules where I come from say that I don’t have to follow the stupid rules of stupid places – or people - when I go there, or meet them. Especially if they’re insulting to cannibals! That’s a very good rule for life generally – never insult a cannibal! Unfortunately, by the time you’ve learned it it’s usually too late as you’re already stewing it over sat in a pot! But now that I’ve told you it should be a no-brainer - which you’re uniquely qualified to understand.’
‘The only sound I care about is the one of your big, ugly, horridable feet, egging off!’ hissed Skinny Turkey. ‘Then I can get back on with hiding!’
‘Hmm…? And how is that going to solve your problems? You’re hiding already, and I found you without even looking. Guest in the nest! What’s that ridiculous look on your face?’ His head twitched to the side, eyeing the turkey with one giant, circular pupil which narrowed like a magnifying glass pulling away from a slug.
‘I haven’t any ridiculous look on my face!’
‘Yes you have - it’s your face! Have you ever seen a head being boiled?’ Skinny Turkey’s eyes widened in to deep balls. ‘Yes! That’s the look… boiled head!
‘Hey, boil-head, I can hear another gobble-box approaching who sounds a lot like he’s on the scout-about for someone who’s playing hide-and-peeky. Hear him?’
‘No.’
‘Well I’m not surprised if you have to listen to that awful singing all year long. Your ears have probably divorced you. I should act quickly on who gets custody of the brain if I were you. But mine are still at home and I can hear a very agitated fellow getting louder and louder by the gobble. He’s saying something about… hold on…do you have an Old Ma who’s having to go to a leaving party without you, by any chance? Because that’s what he’s saying.’ He shook his head like a school teacher. ‘How could you do that? Leaving your own Ma to go to her own leaving party on her own! How uncaring. She’s crying, apparently.’
‘Shut up! You’re a mean-bag to say that!’
‘I’m not saying it; I’m just repeating it. I didn’t even say it was definitely about you. But now that you’ve accidentally confessed… Well hold on, now he’s saying you’re a coward and that everyone will be in trouble. Especially your Ma – Gob’s – is it Gob? How curious. Gob’s going to be mad at her and no mistake…’
Skinny Turkey wrinkled his eyes in to grumpy walnuts, then in a fit of feathery pique threw his wings over his ear-holes to block out all the stupidness. Unfortunately, most of it wasn’t on the outside, so that didn’t help.
Soon – although he didn’t know how - he could hear two voices, both chanting the same horrible things; the insane bird’s, mocking him from the bail above, and another, like an echo that came first - stupidly! Then the echo grew louder and louder until it overwhelmed the other completely, making it the echo. And then he knew – it was Goobler! He’d found him at last despite everything! All that effort of running off and getting behind a bail – all wasted!
‘Your Ma, your poor old Ma,’ gobbled Goobler’s crackly voice. ‘Look! I can see her! I can see her red feather, clear as long-light. She only has a few paces left before you’ll never have a chance to say goodbye to her again. She’s looking for you. Desperately looking! Hold on Ma, he’s coming. Don’t cry!’
Skinny Turkey’s head wound out forlornly from between the bails, single tears falling from his dark eyes like he was a little rain cloud that had gotten separated from a storm.
‘Don’t listen to him,’ whispered Eagle. ‘I can’t see anybird looking around from the parade, and everybird is firmly in black and white – not a red feather in sight. And they’re all, what do you call it? Oh yes – singing. No ears, sorry, I mean tears, that I can see.’
‘No need to whisper,’ sobbed Skinny Turkey, reversing out of the bails, back-combing his tail feathers so that he looked like a fat shuttlecock. ‘He can’t hear you. Not unless he crosses The Edge.’
‘Really? How does that work? He’s only standing over there.’ He motioned with his head to where, just out of Skinny Turkey’s sight, another, much older – and astoundingly uglier – turkey was pacing a small patch of sawdust, waving his wings about like a tin-pot dictator giving a speech on the importance of improving potato yields.
‘I don’t know how it works. Why would I? I don’t make the rules; I just get picked on by them. You’ve been here longer than me. Haven’t you worked it out?’
‘Actually, I’m not from around here. I’m not a turkey – not even a deformed, thin, horridable cannibal one. I’m an eagle. You may have heard of us.’
‘I haven’t and I don’t even want to!’
‘No? Well now you have! By the by, he’s coming in now, that agitated fellow. I don’t know if you can hear that? Us eagles are tremendous at multi-tasking our senses; I can listen to him, ignore you, and think about something that’s actually interesting, all at the same time…’ He flipped his head to the side to look at both birds at once, one on either side of his head – a neat eagle trick – but by the time he’d done it one eye – the eye nearest this turkey – was staring at hay!
‘Oyp! Where the dreadful have you gotten to?’ he clicked. ‘Haven’t climbed back in the bails have you? No? Well, not quite as stupid as you are, then - which is an improvement on your self, at least!’
‘Over here!’ whimpered a gobbly voice. ‘And get down! If he comes in you’ll attract him!’
Eagle frowned, curdling his beak at the dreadful thought. ‘Why ever should I? I’m not afraid of some Christmas dinner dodging codger!’
‘No, but you’re insane,’ gobbled the turkey, sticking his head out from a sack. ‘You’re not afraid of anything.’
‘How the dreadful did you get in there so fast?’
‘I’ve got my whole life to look forwards to. You haven’t.’
‘Oh, you’re wrong there. I’m looking forwards to yours tremendously.’
‘Please,’ begged Skinny Turkey, ‘pleeaassee get down!’ And his little black eyes were so very sad - like a teddy bear that had been loved so much that its face was falling off - that it was all Eagle could do not to burst out laughing. But against his better amusement he relented, hopping to the floor with a giggle. ‘Are you coming out, or expecting me to get in?’ he asked, kicking the sack with his talon. ‘Self plucking chickens are one thing – but self bagging? Marvellous!’
‘I’m backwards!’ replied Skinny Turkey, shuffling about inside the bag.
‘Too true,’ answered Eagle, ‘and refreshingly honest.’
‘I…’ gobbled the turkey - but the rest of his words were bitten off by Goobler’s croaking voice.
‘I’ll find you! You know I will. It’s better for you if you don’t make me have to!’
‘Gobble!’ exclaimed Skinny Turkey, swallowing himself back in to the sack.
Eagle furrowed his brow, giving himself ear-feathers. ‘Well leave me to deal with old Uncle Walnut-Neck, why don’t you?’ he clicked. ‘Is there room for two in that sack?’
‘No! Find your own hiding place!’
‘I didn’t mean for me.’
A moment of silence curled up and rolled by.
‘Has he gone?’
‘I think so. At least, he’s gone somewhere else. Not got terribly good senses, you walking breakfasts, have you? I mean, we’re only stood here, and he’s gone in the opposite direction!’
Skinny Turkey’s head popped out like a periscope, eyeing his surroundings suspiciously. Eagle kicked the floor in idle irritation, chaffing up flecks of straw which framed the dumb turkey like a cheerless scene in a cheap snow-globe.
‘It’s so mean and stupid,’ he gobbled, squirming out of the bag like a worm escaping from a sinking apple. Then he flopped down next to a bail and egged himself. Goobler’s voice, thankfully fading, was summoning him desperately by his real name (which wasn’t Skinny Turkey), a bail or three away.
‘Is that really your name?’ laughed Eagle, resting his slender back against a sack of grain. ‘Very funny!’
‘It’s mean and stupid!’ repeated Skinny Turkey with a sigh.
‘Well, it’s unusual, but it’s not that bad,’ shrugged Eagle.
‘Not my name. This stupid world!’
‘Oh, that. The stupid old world, eh?’
‘They hate us because we’re thinners. Freaks! Just because we can’t be all nice and bigly. Horridable, disgusting freaks!’
‘Yes, well I noticed the we word being used a couple of times there,’ hummed Eagle, scratching his head and accidentally giving himself a fringe. ‘I’m not a freak, I’m an eagle. But there again you’re not a freak either – you’re more, well, aesthetically-challenged, I suppose. But it’s what’s on the inside that counts.’ He eyed him thoughtfully - not much on the inside in his case.
‘Thinners!’ gasped Skinny Turkey, feathers bubbling up above him in exasperation.
‘There’s some other people coming,’ said Eagle, suddenly sitting to attention. ‘They’re calling for a… Goobler? Now that’s a worse name than yours!’
‘That’s him. The F.F. - the First Feathers - are looking for him now. He’s in trouble as well if he leaves here – for breaking the Three R’s – rules, rules, stupid rules! That’s if we can leave here. We’re all trapped forever and ever and beyond! Gobble! ’
‘What egg-heads you turkeys are,’ laughed Eagle. ‘You couldn’t trap an elephant in this giant shed if you filled it with treacle! The shed I mean, not the elephant. Filled it with treacle that is… the shed… Oh well, you get the picture. What I mean is don’t be backwards. If it’s just a stupid rule that says you can’t go home, well then tell them that you heard another, sensible rule that said you could! Any rule that says you can’t go home doesn’t deserve to be obeyed!’
‘They’ll kill us if we go back,’ sobbed the turkey. ‘And it’s death, death, living death if we stay. It’s all stupid!’
‘Yes, you are,’ hummed Eagle, accidentally. But being an eagle he didn’t bother to correct himself – that only ever drew un-wanted attention to your mistakes. ‘But I’m not. I’m going out the way I came in.
‘You know, I do believe you – that the local imbeciles might actually kill me because I’m thinner than them. Thin-rage! It’s understandable. Honestly, with a physique like mine I have to face it wherever I go. No, I don’t. That’s a total lie. Turkeys are uniquely bananas. We should bring some flamingos here. Seriously, a bunch of them can peck a crocodile’s eyes out in ten seconds flat. Pink is nature’s extreme danger sign of course, not that you’d know, living in this dreary hollow. I should imagine grey alert is about as dangerous as it gets here. Point being that they are very, very skinny – flamingos - and I don’t think they’d listen to too much of this thinful nonsense before they ate your eyeballs out. Well not yours specifically,’ he corrected himself, as the turkey egged down even tighter.
Somewhere beneath his feathers Skinny Turkey let out a deep sigh. Much to Eagle’s disappointment he seemed to grow smaller with the sound, as if he was deflating. Of all the fates – of all the stupid, pointless ways for everything to finally wrap itself up in to one big unwanted, stupid present, here he was un-wrapping it with a stupid, half-starved, gob-waffling, deformed freak! Who stunk!
‘You said all of that out loud,’ hummed Eagle, thoughtfully. ‘That’s an area of inter-personal development where you’re blessed with a wide capacity for improvement.’
‘I’m sorry,’ grumbled the turkey, hatching at last. ‘I know you’re only trying to help - in your insane way - and you’re probably so lonely that all you want to do is talk about pink turkeys and eggs on legs coming to save you.’ Eagle frowned. ‘But none of those are going to help us now. They hate us! And what’s to even go back for? If I never hear biglyness is next to Goblyness ever again I’ll be happy enough.
‘Not that being bigly even helps – even if you are bigly they still pick on you! Gerald, that’s my arch-eggnemy, or at least he was until…’
‘You’re waffling.’
‘Well, he was the fattest turkey I ever saw – and they never stopped teasing him about how the Gerraff-Atens were going to come and take him away. They always take the biglyest, that’s what they meaned him with! Even though it’s true – I saw them. They came and sacked him, and now I know how they got called that because that’s what they were saying – gerra fat ‘un! They didn’t even look twice at me!’
‘Well, every cloud has a silver swine in it.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘I have no idea. Funny old saying…’
‘And my Ma…’ he gobbled, before unexpectedly - and somewhat socially embarrassingly for Eagle - bursting in to tears. ‘She’s gone! Gone forever! Until she re-eggs, but I’ll be dead by then. She won’t come back for years – she didn’t before, when she was Aunt Eggnus – not for years and years! Everyone hated Ma because she had a red feather. Only one. How stupid is that?’
‘Very.’
‘They made her go, you know? She wouldn’t of, but she had to – the wretched F.F.! Although it’s all my fault. I was the stupid rule-breaking egg. I was born out of egglock!’
‘Oh. I’m starting to get the picture,’ clicked Eagle. ‘I’ve travelled back through time, to the Dim Ages.’
Skinny Turkey ignored him. ‘And then they had a vote which I wasn’t invited to – of course - and everyone decided that I could go on the De-parting with her! Well that’s not fair is it? Goobler was very happy to let me go in his place!’ He wrinkled his brow in to a head-shrug. ‘Well I don’t want to – why should I? I don’t want to De-part!’
‘Understandable. I’m fond of all my parts myself.’
‘Mean-bags! And I eat – I eat as much as anyone – I can’t help being thin. I’m just small boned that’s all. It’s a stupid rule that says it’s a thin to be thin! Well why should I have to go on the De-parting early, just to save stupid Goobler’s stupid feathers?’
‘Well, you sho…’ began Eagle, but he was interrupted by a drip on his head. ‘What in the Great Eyrie?’ he gasped, shaking it off in a shower. Skinny Turkey’s eyes widened, and deep in their corneas Eagle read a picture – a hideous bird (possibly its inner turkey).
‘Got you!’ screeched a voice. Eagle’s head shot up, and there above him, as if summoned by the mention of his ridiculous name, was Goobler himself – dripping saliva from his grinding beak! ‘Oh, Great Eagle - don’t tell me you just turkey-gozzed on my head!’
Goobler’s reply was a lunging foot that snapped at Eagle’s face in a black flash! For a terrible second Skinny Turkey thought Eagle had been decapitated (terrible because he was next in the queue!) – but then his head sprang up again like a trampled daisy – he’d only ducked.
‘Crap on a sandwich!’ gasped Eagle, jumping to his talons. ‘You nearly had my eye out!’
‘Ugh!’ gasped Goobler, throwing a look of disgust away on him as he recoiled in horror. ‘Away, away, wretched wraith! This is no business of yours. Off, back to your lair! By the power of Gob, I…’ At which, Eagle, having about as much tolerance for speeches as all other intelligent animals, kicked the bail from under him, sending him almost flying.
‘Egg it!’ gobbled Skinny Turkey, making to shoot off in to the shadows - but instead finding himself rudely grabbed by the foot and held to the spot.
‘This way,’ commanded Eagle, jutting his great beak in the opposite direction.
‘Why?’
‘Because I say so.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I do!’
‘Why?’
‘Well don’t then!’
‘I’m not! Never go anywhere with a cannibal – that’s a lesson I’m learning before it’s too late! I’m sure my Ma mentioned it too!’
‘And what about never stay anywhere with an idiot?’ hummed Eagle, eyeing the fallen, twitching Goobler narrowly. ‘Did your mother never tell you that? Or let me guess, that’s why she’s going away and leaving you here!’
Skinny Turkey’s beak almost fell over itself, leaving him cross-beaked in horror! And then his eyes grew massive, almost like a bird of prey’s; they’d filled with tears and were magnifying through the liquid.
‘Well stay here then!’ snapped Eagle.
‘I’m going to!’
‘Good. Then you won’t learn something that’s to your advantage to know…’
‘I don’t care. What is it?’
‘I’m not telling you. If you don’t want to know then, goodbye!’ at which he stomped off, deeper in to The Edge.
‘Wait!’ gobbled Skinny Turkey. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Learning the lesson about stupid people before it’s too late!’
‘That’s mean.’
‘I know. I am mean.’
‘I don’t believe it. Insane isn’t mean.’
‘I’m insanely mean!’
Skinny Turkey flapped behind him like a mad scientist’s apprentice, pecking at his patience to tell him where he was going.
On the feather of it, Eagle refused to say, simply walking on with the stupid walking breakfast following behind. But if the turkey showed even the slightest hint of giving up he teased him with a ‘Well you won’t find out then…’ which drove the turkey bonkers because he simply couldn’t stand secrets!
And like that they passed by dusty bails, dirty hay piles and great heaps of bags filled with hazelnuts and corn, deep in to areas of The Edge that were so strange and frightening that Skinny Turkey couldn’t even bear to look at them! But he kept bumping in to things - so he had to open his eyes in the end.
On they went, picking their way through a city of sky-scraping boxes which trembled as they passed, threatening to tumble at any moment and crush them in to eggshell; then round what appeared to be rubbery turkey hats piled so high that they formed a mountain - protected by a sleeping snake that dribbled water – before quietly and terrifyingly sneaking through a snoozing pride of metal animals that grinned at them in their sleep with long, sharp teeth as if they were dreaming of eating turkey for supper!
Eventually they came to a large pile of empty sacks, many frayed and worn through long years of use, and Eagle halted, inspecting them carefully.
‘What are you looking for?’ asked the turkey.
‘Oh, you’re still here are you?’
‘Of course I am – I want to see what it is that’s of interest to me to know.’
‘I thought you said you didn’t want to know?’
‘I don’t! I just do, that’s all.’
‘I see. Well, it’s here somewhere, in one of these sacks.’
‘What is?’
‘The thing that’s to your advantage to know!’
‘Which sack?’
‘Hold your eggs in! I’m searching… Hold on… no… wait, no… yes! This is the one!’ He plucked an old, well used sack from the pile and spread it on the ground, puffing up hay-dust beneath it so that for a brief moment it looked like a magic carpet floating on a cloud. ‘Hold on, I’ll go in first and check that this really is the right sack,’ he said, opening the mouth and sticking his head inside.
‘Goodness me! This really is it!’ he gasped. ‘Amazing! Even better than I remembered it.’
‘What is it?’ gobbled the turkey, comb inflating on top of his head with all the excitement.
‘Oh, nothing. You probably won’t even be interested in it.’
‘I am!’ he insisted, trying to climb in it with Eagle.
‘Hold on – one at a time only! I’m coming out.
‘Right, in you go then, if you really must,’ he hummed, once out, smoothing down his feathers casually. ‘But it’s not of the slightest interest to me whether you do or you don’t.’
‘I must, I must!’ gasped Skinny Turkey, lifting up the opening with his beak, throwing it over his head like a hat, and diving in.
There was a long gasp, as if he really had found something interesting.
‘Where is it?’ he gobbled at last, voice muffled through the burlap.
‘Where’s what?’ said Eagle, gathering up the opening in to a scrunch and grasping it firmly in his talon. (Getting a turkey in a bag twice must certainly be some kind of record - and this way he’d not even had to carry it for most of the journey – it was a self delivering take away!)
‘The food.’
‘The food? Well, what food is there is in the bag!’
‘I can’t see it.’
‘Can’t you?’
‘No.’
‘Are you looking hard enough? I assure you, dinner is in the bag!’
‘I don’t know how hard I’m looking because I can’t see anything. It’s all dark! Hold on – is this it, this tiny grain of corn?’
‘Great Batsby! How did you find a tiny grain of corn in there?’
‘I don’t know. I just did. Hold on, I’ve found something else.’
‘What?’
‘This really is interesting.’
‘Really? What? What is it?’
‘I don’t know – it’s like a glowing light, like… like a tunnel – a tunnel of golden light. I… I think I know what this is… I think I’ve died…’ His head popped out of a tiny hole at the other end of the sack, flaked in straw dust. ‘Oh, I’m still here!’ He blinked stupidly, shaking his head.
‘Crap Apples!’ gasped Eagle. ‘Where did that hole come from?’
‘I don’t know, but there’s one on the inside of the sack just like it. So, where’s the food?’
‘Go back in the sack and it’ll be in there, where it’s supposed to be!’
‘No it’s not. I’ve looked. Where’s my food – the food you promised me?’
‘What food? I didn’t promise you any food!’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What do you mean you don’t know? You don’t know what food you’re talking about? Or what promise?’
‘No. I certainly don’t! I just thought that it was about food.’
‘What was?’
‘What we’re doing here, in out of space.’
‘Out of space? Whatever are you gobbling on about you preposterous chicken?’
‘I don’t know. I just thought there would be food. What’s the point in going on a dangerous journey if it’s not to find food?’
‘Well… I mean… Crud butties! Don’t look at me like that!’
‘Like what? Hunnngrrry?’
‘No, not hungry! Dumbly… if anything!’
‘But I am hungry. And you said there’d be food here.’
‘I did not! When did I say that?’
‘Before.’
‘I didn’t!’
‘So there’s no food?’ His long neck wilted like a dying flower.
Eagle sighed. ‘Great Eagle preserve me! Look here, there’s no food…’
‘But… I’m hungry…’
‘I know. So am I... Don’t eye-wobble at me! I said stop it!’
‘So there’s really no food?’
‘No, blast it! Wha…? Are you going to cry? About food?’
‘No… sob…’
‘Pigs in bits! Look, there’s probably some food around and about if you go on a scrounge – but I’m not going to find it for you. Eagles don’t do scrounging. I’m going back to where I came from, and you can go back to where you belong because… well, I can’t eat... not now, like this. You’ve totally put me off!’
Skinny Turkey’s eyes scrunched up in to mean little balls. ‘Well what was the stupid point in coming on a stupid journey to stupid out of space then?’ he spat.
‘Three stupids in one go, eh?’ hummed Eagle. ‘Let’s go back and find your friends, Gobbler-bobbler, and the other one - Running Chicken - and you can start a circus act – that can be your stage name: The Three Stupids!’
‘Well I didn’t insist that we come here. I’m the innocent victim in all of this. I’m the one being picked on by stupidness, again!’
‘Ever heard of being responsible for your own decisions? I told you not to come.’
‘No you didn’t! You said I’d learn something interesting and to my advantage to know if I did! And I’m not crying. I just have something in my eye, that’s all. I just wanted a snack, and to know something to my advantage. Like you promised.’
‘Right! And so you darn well shall! Come on, I’ll show you!’ And with that he grabbed the turkey by the wing and dragged him to the very edge of The Edge: the very Out of Space itself!
‘What is it?’ snapped the turkey. ‘What’s interesting about space?’
‘It’s my escape route, back to my home – the astounding, amazing Realm of Eagles, where my people await their dinner!’
‘Where is it?’
‘What?’
‘Your stupid escape plan!’
‘Oh well snap out of it why don’t you? It’s there,’ griped Eagle, raising his wing to a wall. But Skinny Turkey couldn’t see walls. No one from the Turkeyverse could – it was against the rules to see walls. He could see some hay, propped up on a bail, but nothing at all beyond.
‘This is it?’ he gobbled, almost laughing (the way that people do when still deciding whether it might be better to cry instead.) ‘This is your amazing escape plan? What are you going to do? Jump on some magic hay and ride it through space to Christmas land?’
Eagle pursed his beak – which is not easy to do when you have a beak, and is reserved by eagles, generally, for signalling to people of the utmost annoyingness that they are very close to becoming dinner. Then he rolled his eyes so far up that for a moment he actually did look deformed, and Skinny Turkey thought he might be about to have some kind of fit, and possibly devolve in to an even more wretched state; like an insect gladly shedding an ugly shell only to find – with a gasp of self-disappointment - that it was an even more disgusting earwig underneath!
With a sweep of his wing he brushed away the straw to reveal a hole – a real, magical hole in space itself! A pale light was shining through it, speckled with fragments of hay. Skinny Turkey’s beak dropped open like the hinge had broken.
‘My Gob! It’s full of straws!’ he gasped - and then collapsed and died.
Chapter Two
A MERRY CRISIS TO ONE AND ALL!
‘Wake up, you dumb-feather!’ grumped Eagle, prodding at Skinny Turkey with his talon. ‘I don’t believe for the length of a fly’s fart that you’re actually deceased!’
There was no reply. ‘Oy yoy! Well, at least it was an aviane way to go.’ He shook his head solemnly. ‘Nest in peace. But waste not want not!’ And with that he picked him up from the floor and began stuffing him through the hole.
‘Gob’s bits and bobs!’ squealed Skinny Turkey, coming round. ‘I’m being turkeynapped! Fire and foe! GOBBLE… HELP!’
‘Oh, stick a trout in it, will you!’ frowned Eagle. ‘I thought you’d departed, that’s all. So I was just…well… borrowing you, as a bung, for the hole. You know, seeing if you’d fit, so I could stopper it up when I go through. Stop any other idiots from your realm coming through to mine. You know…’ Skinny Turkey’s brow furrowed furiously, like a plate of angry earthworms, pursing his eyes in to little black slashes. ‘Well, you are thin at one end and fatter at the other; that’s bung material if I ever saw it!’
‘You’re as insane as the rest of them!’ snapped Skinny Turkey, backing away. ‘Even more than them. You’re bonkers and mad! I don’t want to be a stupid bung!’
‘Well be a smart one then,’ half-chuckled Eagle, idly dribbling a stray hazelnut with one of his toes. ‘Isn’t that that Gobbly bobbly fellow over there? He must have followed us.’ He jutted his beak vaguely in to the distance.
‘I’m not falling for that stupid trick!’
‘You know, everything else but you being stupid is a lot like everyone else but you being out of formation!’
‘I don’t care!’
‘Clearly.’
‘Your Ma – she’s crying,’ came a horrible, familiar voice, suddenly interrupting him. It was Goobler!
‘I didn’t hear that!’ insisted Skinny Turkey.
‘How do you mean, you didn’t hear it?’
‘I don’t care!’
‘Great Eagle! Turn the rest of your brain off when you leave, will you? Save energy!’
‘It’s the last chance. The egg’s rolling!’ cackled Goobler. He’d followed their trail, but he hadn’t spotted them, yet – they were too near to the wall, and therefore to a turkey the next best thing to invisible! ‘Do it, do it for me, I mean, for her, for all of us! You’ll like going to Christmas Dinner! You’ll see!’
‘He’s losing it,’ laughed Eagle. ‘If he ever had it. Anyway, you won’t be falling for that stupid old throwing my voice trick, of course, so I’ll leave you with him. Or to him – whichever fluffs your feathers.’
Skinny Turkey’s eyes rattled like marbles in an empty marmalade jar, rolling from one danger to another. Goobler was one stray glance away from spotting him; meanwhile the insane eagle-bird was climbing in to the escape thing and abandoning him! Which was incredibly mean. And, actually – incredible; its foot had already dematerialised in to nothing! ‘Wait!’ he gobbled. ‘What is it? And where does it go?’
‘It’s a hole, obviously,’ hummed Eagle. ‘And there’s one just like it on the other side too! And it doesn’t go anywhere – it stays right here. Which is the worrying part.’ He threw a disgusted head-shake at Goobler who was kicking at a bail. ‘Your friend thinks you’ve turned in to a bail of hay, I think. When he gets to the last straw, I’m sure you’ll have lots to chat about. I’ve certainly gotten to mine!’ And then with a wave of the wing he lifted his other foot in to the hole and half disappeared.
‘Wait!’ wailed Skinny Turkey. ‘Don’t abandon me! Pleaaassseee! I’ll… I’ll cry!’
Eagle’s beak ground like two millstones running short of corn. Skinny Turkey could actually hear it, like the very sound of annoyance. ‘This hole leads to a very dangerous place,’ replied Eagle, solemnly. ‘Out of your world. Honestly, you’re better off here.’ And then he added, in a whisper: ‘Safe in the basket with the other nuts.’
‘I don’t understand,’ gobbled Skinny Turkey, scratching his head with his clumpy, black foot. ‘How can we go out of the Turkeyverse?’ He knew it was stupid and didn’t make any sense, but feather the less there was the sick, insane bird, half invisibilised!
‘There’s that we word again,’ hummed Eagle. ‘We’re not leaving anything – except each other. But for your technical information this hole is astounding eagle technology; a gateway of sorts, which sort of lays people from one area to another - if you’ll excuse the vulgar term.’ Skinny Turkey frowned. ‘It transports you – no, not you, me - to the awesome and quite terrifying, dangerous and all round no-go-for-turkeys Realm of the Tremendous Eagles!’ He raised his wings dramatically, before adding ‘…and stuff,’ as if that explained everything much more clearly.
But some part of him must have felt pity for the dumb bird because like a man lending money to a plea-beggar who needs fifty pence to get a bus home he found himself climbing back out again against his better meanness.
The turkey’s over-worked neurons projected images across his brain like a random game of don’t drop the egg, flashing from broken futures without his Ma or with F.F. thugs, through to the heres and nows of life as an outcast in the Edge, with mad Goobler, dead bodies, and black, gooey eggs as his only companions, or indeed lunch. ‘Can I go through the hole?’ he asked, suddenly, and quite to his own amazement, like a man listening to an idiot talk when drunk, only vaguely aware that the idiot is himself.
‘There you are!’ came Goobler, cutting him off.
He’d been spotted!
‘Stop the Parade! I’ve got the replacement!’
Eagle breathed in heavily like he was sucking up dust; but by the breath out, as was the custom with eagles, he’d made his decision: ‘Good-bye then!’ he chirruped, as Goobler raced towards them gobbling and waving his wings like he was on fire.
‘No, don’t leave me!’ squealed the turkey.
‘I’m not,’ replied Eagle. ‘I’m saying good bye to Gooblybobbly.’ And with that he flicked up the hazelnut he’d been dribbling earlier, caught it in his talon and bowled a googly right at Goobler’s lolloping head, knocking him for sticks! ‘He’s out, but he’ll be back in soon,’ he said, helping the turkey to his feet. ‘If you want to come with me you can – it’s your choice, and there are no border-guards - but there’s no guarantee that it will be any safer or betterer - good grief I’m beginning to speak turkey-ish I’ve been here that long – than here.’
‘I don’t care,’ gushed Skinny Turkey.
‘Well, it might be seriously damaging to your health.’
‘It doesn’t matter. I’ve got nothing left here. Nothing.’
‘All right, keep your beak on - but remember: the feathers are always thicker on the other wing.’ Skinny Turkey looked at his wings. None of it made any sense.
Eagle helped him up on to the bail (almost straining his back in the process), and guided the awkward turkey feet – which seemed to have a mind of their own (probably smarter than the one in its head) – in to the hole. And then he let go so that the big bird was suspended magically in fat air!
‘What’s happened?’ gasped the turkey, amazed and afraid.
‘You’ve bunged it,’ replied Eagle, apparently annoyed - if his twitching beak-end was anything to go by.
‘How do you mean, bunged it?’
‘I mean, as in you are fat!’
‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’
For the next few, awkward minutes Skinny Turkey wiggled and squirmed, attempting to maggot himself through, but all that did was stopper him up tighter, cutting off the circulation to his legs so that they felt like they were disappearing. He wanted to ask if they still existed on the other side of the hole or if he was just dissolving in to nothingness - but he never got the chance; the eagle, losing patience, and seeing Goobler twitching back to consciousness, lunged at him, delivering a mighty shove with his eagle shoulder (such as eagles have) launching him through the gateway like a cannonball!
Taking one last look at the turkey shed, and the waking Goobler, Eagle clambered through the hole himself, only turning back to pull some straw over it as a disguise. (Turkeys being so dumb he figured that he’d gone rather over the top with a few strands of hay. But, better safe than turkeyed!)
***
Skinny Turkey tumbled forwards in to the unknown like a feathery ball, only stopping when his clumsy great feet slapped down on to the floor in front him like two big bunches of dropped sausages. And then, like a new born chick blinking in the light, he opened his eyes on to the awesome Realm of Eagles. It wasn’t particularly impressive.
‘Woah!’ exclaimed another deformed bird who was lounging on a perch nearby. ‘What’s with the fat eagle?’
‘It’s a turkey,’ explained Eagle, landing gracefully behind. ‘I’ve busted it out from next door. It was, you know… Christmas time!’
‘Oh!’ smiled the other eagle, raising its eagle-brows. ‘I get you! Heh... Well you can’t keep it. Its mother will be looking for it!’
Eagle shook his head. ‘That’s a sore point for it, I’m afraid.’
‘Great!’ interrupted Skinny Turkey from a haze of dust and debris. ‘In there I’m a skinny turkey; out here I’m a fat eagle! Super!’
‘Not a fat eagle,’ hummed Eagle, ‘Fat Eagle! It’s our tradition that the first thing that’s said about you here becomes your name.’
‘Oh,’ replied Skinny Turkey, shaking his head, ‘what a strange custom. What do they call you?’
‘Eagle will suffice,’ replied Eagle, dusting his feathers.
But no sooner had he spoken than a particularly old and grumpy looking eagle that had been fast asleep, disturbed by the commotion, shifted on its perch and woke up with a fart. Its gnarled eye fell disdainfully upon Skinny Turkey, quivering as the odour of its own emission made its presence smelt (which he clearly blamed Skinny Turkey for) and then with a jut of the head it speared its gaze towards Eagle and barked, grumpily: ‘Hey, Crap Eagle! What’s with the fat, ugly, stinking, pig-bird?’
‘Okey dokey, I’m cool with Fat Eagle!’ blurted Skinny Turkey immediately.
‘It’s a turkey,’ explained Crap Eagle, half-giggling, before whispering under his breath so that everyone except the half-deaf old eagle could hear: ‘Budgie Trapped In Eagle’s Body!’ The faces of all the other birds (of which there appeared to be quite a few; more than four at least, which was as far as Skinny Turkey could count) blew up in to round feathery balls of silent laughter.
‘What? What did you say?’ grumbled the old eagle, lifting a wing to his ear-hole.
‘Nothing, Old Eagle’, replied Crap Eagle, smiling. And then he turned to Skinny Turkey and explained: ‘Old Eagle was here and already very old when the first of us arrived, so we just call him Old Eagle. He won’t say what his real name is, so we tease him about it a little.’
‘Oh,’ sighed Skinny Turkey, rather bemused by them all, and not really interested. ‘I have a real name…’
‘Hello young-feather,’ interjected another bird. ‘I’m Falcon.’
Skinny Turkey nodded a polite hello. Not that interrupting was polite. ‘Don’t you have an eagle name?’ he asked.
‘No. I’m not an eagle I’m a falcon. So when I got here I just said Hello, I’m Falcon. Make the first thing that is said about you something you say! And not a stupid thing either.’
‘Good thinking. And what’s your name,’ he said, turning to a strange, green person sat nearby, in a pot.
‘That’s a cactus,’ hummed another eagle, who had part of his beak missing.
‘It’s the age old story,’ added yet another eagle, shuffling his head. ‘The bird that ran away to join the cactus!’
‘Shouldn’t that be circus?’ corrected Crap Eagle.
‘I don’t know. Should it? No wonder it never made any sense before.’
‘What’s with that cactus, anyway?’ hummed the eagle with the broken beak. ‘I don’t get the point – oh, so to speak!’
‘It’s an ambient cactus, I suppose,’ answered Crap Eagle. ‘To make us feel more at home.’
‘I used to live on a mountain - I never saw a cactus there once!’
‘An ambient cactus! I like that,’ interjected another bird. ‘I suppose it’s more for them than for us.’
‘Who? For the cactuses?’ griped Old Eagle, shaking his feathers. ‘Do you mean that really this whole set-up is a cactus display and they just put ambient eagles in here to make it feel at home?’
‘Could be,’ laughed the bird, ‘but I meant them as in the Hoomons.’
‘I know you did. I was being funny. And talking of Hoomons, It’s nearly time for the dreadful drones to waddle in. Start thinking about getting your feathers together!’
‘Hoomons? What are they?’ asked Skinny Turkey, glancing around him nervously. The Eagleverse was such a small place, sharing it with yet more people would squish them to almost free-range!
‘Oh,’ hummed an eagle sat on its own in the corner, ‘They’re these big ugly long things. Disgusting! They have horrible skin – no feathers at all. Ugh!’ A shudder of disapproval echoed from bird to bird, each fluffing out their feathers with disgust in turn.
‘I think they are like the spirits of dead eagles,’ added another eagle. ‘When we die, our feathers all fall off and we can’t fly away anymore, so the dead souls are trapped and keep coming back to look at us.’
‘That’s a bunch of horse poop, Eagle Who Talks Constant Crap!’ snapped Old Eagle. ‘Hoomons are horrible pig-like things. They’re related to pigs for sure – not eagles; no way eagles!’
‘Old Eagle was free for a very long time,’ whispered Crap Eagle under his wing. ‘Much longer than the rest of us. He tells us lots of stories about his adventures.’
‘Free?’
‘Yes, sounds crazy I know.’
‘Hoomons aren’t the souls of dead eagles,’ continued Old Eagle, shifting on his perch. ‘What a disgusting thought. Hoomons are pains in the rear-end, though. Everyone knew that back in the desert where I used to live.’
‘You used to live in a dessert?’ gasped Skinny Turkey, suddenly perking up. Living in a dessert sounded super!
‘Not a dessert you dumb-feather,’ snapped the old bird, grumpily, as if he was talking to an egglet, ‘a desert. With sand, and cactus – fifty times the size of this cactling - and pain in the butt Hoomons! Hmmph! Pluck feathers out of an eagle ass and stick them in their hair! That’s some crazy stuff right there that those Hoomons do. Looks crazy stupid if you ask me, and doesn’t do an eagle ass much good either!’ Some of the other eagles laughed as if the story was too whacky to be true. ‘To Hoomons that's a big deal,’ insisted Old Eagle.
‘What is?’ asked Skinny Turkey, more confused than ever.
Old Eagle shuddered, rolling his eyes up towards the sky of the Eagleverse as if he had just died. ‘Pulling a feather out of a bird's ass and sticking it on their head! That's what. If you don’t believe me, take a look!’ He shuffled clumsily on his perch to face the opposite direction and the room fell quiet with expectation. (Who knew what Old Eagle might do for a laugh? Some days there was no limit!) And then he hitched up his tail feathers and splayed them apart to show everyone his wrinkly, old backside.
An immaculate looking bird named Funny Eagle had a moment – as he occasionally did – appearing to almost faint - before Eagle Who Talks Constant Crap caught him with a kick. The rest of the eagles swayed forwards like hypnotized stooges, some curdling their beaks, others narrowing their eyes, but all generally murmuring their disgust. There was no denying it - Old Eagle had a small but quite pronounced bald patch around his backside!
‘Imagine what they must say when they put the blasted things on their heads!’ he snapped from somewhere behind his feathers. ‘Oh Nigel, you do look the very MOST like a bird’s ass, I have to say!’ He was putting on a hilarious Hoomon voice which made the others laugh. ‘Well done!’
‘Wow,’ whispered Crap Eagle to the other birds as they giggled, ‘I guess you were right Broken Beak; Old Eagle really can talk out of his ass sometimes!’ Everyone fell about laughing, except Skinny Turkey - who didn’t get it at all.
‘What?’ demanded Old Eagle, shifting around suddenly with a look on his face that would have turned a crow to stone in mid-flight. ‘What’s so funny? My bald ass? That’s not funny! Well, maybe a little.’
‘It’s nothing, Old Eagle,’ replied Crap Eagle with a giggle. ‘It’s just something that the turkey said about you!’ Old Eagle speared Skinny Turkey with his gaze. The poor fellow’s eyes blew up so round with fear that all of the other birds ceased laughing for a moment thinking that they might pop out and fall on the floor - where they’d be anyone’s for the taking. When they disappointingly failed to oblige, the Eagles resumed their merriment, even more heartily than before.