"It's Christmas, it's Christmas!
The Jolly, fat man is coming.
Bring out your beer,
And your very close dear.
Cause it's that time of the year again!" Duo joyfully sang as he pasted the tinsel to the kitchen wall.
Meanwhile, in another corner of the room, Heero had finally given in to hammering the festive plastic babbles to cover the places where the tinsels were joined together. Trying his best to get the job done as fast as possible before his ears burst from Duo tasteless and tone-deaf yammering.
"It's a pity they don't let us get the Christmas tree," Quatre sighed deeply as he struggled to get the lights up around the window while untangling himself from Trowa.
"Hn," came the noncommittal answer from Heero. In his hands, the plastic red and gold babble broke from too much force, all thanks to Duo suddenly hitting a C-high note in his song. Out of the corner of his eye, Heero spotted a couple of earlier pasted babbles dropping innocently to the ground and wondered what method he would use to murder the long haired idiot that night as a Christmas present.
"I mean, even if the real thing can cause a problem like withering and shedding dead leaves, they always have those plastic ones . . ." Quatre continued on as if his eardrums weren't given a earful at all.
"What'll make you think we will get to use it next year?" Wufei sudden rebuttal from the door attracted all eyes. And they saw the scrawny, Chinese pilot struggling with a huge, enormous plate of turkey.
"Woah!" Duo commented on behalf of the ogling pilots.
"Woah is right. Now help me here!" the Chinese pilot commanded as he staggered under the massive weight of the turkey.
With ease from years of practice, Duo jumped off his ladder and landed in front of the struggling boy, just in time to catch the tilting end of the plate before the turkey slid right off.
Just then, the kitchen door, which led into the hallway, opened.
"Woah!" Jess exclaimed as she came through the door.
"I'm getting that a lot so you better explain yourself," Wufei said as he glared hard at her as she breezed past them.
"Fine," the girl answered, feeling indulgent since it was the season of giving. "What did you marinate that turkey with?"
"Honey and mix vegetable stuffings."
"So which one expired?"
"What makes you think that one of the ingredients expired?"
"That turkey skin is green. And there are icky, grayish-brown spots all over."
"The grayish-brown spots are courtesy of the oven over baking. The green skin . . ." and the Chinese boy paused to place the turkey on the table center, "unfortunately, is natural. Considering the feather-plucking job was dished out to me by a certain someone." And the glare shifted from girl to the happy-go-lucky brunette.
Quickly, Jess stole over to the side of the only other cooking expert around: Quatre, who likewise couldn't stop staring at the turkey too.
Giving the blond a small nudge in the side, she asked: "Are turkeys suppose to be that color when plucked?"
"I always thought their skin are grey and they are definitely a lot smaller than that size. I mean . . . that one takes up half the table!"
"Well don't look at me," Wufei retorted, backing away from the suspicious object. "I didn't choose the turkey."
"Then who did?"
"Who else could get you a turkey this huge and this color?" came the quick question and everyone followed direction in which the accusing look was aimed at. They all were given a good eyeful of an innocent, violet-blank, sweet look.
"Maxwell . . ." Heero began, a strange, sinister aura starting to glow around him, "you didn't happen to conduct . . . experiments on this turkey, did you?"
"Me? Nooo . . . That one was fresh, alive when Wufei dealt it the three-finger death blow."
"It's Shen-yi-ren," came the immediate correction.
"Whatever. What matters is that I didn't do anything to that turkey. Honest."
"Fine. Where did you buy it?"
"Buy it?"
"Yes. Buy . . ." and Heero abruptly broke off his sentence as a sudden, horrific idea struck his mind. Meanwhile, each of the other pilots' faces were registering horror as the same idea crossed their minds, except for Jess and Duo. Probably because one was too empty-headed to understand where else the pin-head could have gotten it from, and probably because the other was equally curious to see the effect of eating a strange turkey on humans.
Heero's mind immediately started hatching a solution to protect everyone or at least, himself.
"Everyone!" he quickly spoke, latching onto the first workable idea he could think of, "In favor of letting Duo have the first bite of the turkey, say I."
"I!" Four voices instantaneously responded.
"Majority wins," Wufei triumphantly announced, and popped a fork into the sulking boy's hands. "Enjoy."
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Meanwhile, Doctor G looked up from his clipboard in surprise. The cylinder, which was once occupied with a turkey, was empty.
'That's funny,' he thought, inspecting every inch of the machine, trying to find the loophole where the turkey supposedly escaped. 'It was just here yesterday. And this machine isn't intelligent enough to dispose of dead things on its own.'
But his detailed inspection did him no good. No clues as to where the turkey mysteriously disappeared to.
'What a pity,' he sighed as he got up, a hint of sadness hovering above that thought, 'And he was doing much better too. So much for steroids. Now I'm never going know if it will recover from that X829 bird flu.'
AN: Hoped you enjoyed that chapter. More to come tomorrow or the day after. :
