Hey guys - sorry for the major delay in this posting. It seems that those of us who didn't get a break for Thanksgiving had to make up for the working days with some wine...enough wine for if I had been celebrating Thanksgiving. This somewhat stunted productivity. I'm not sure if I'm happy with this part but I hope you enjoy it anyway! Any requests for Fostering Funs leave them in a review/PM and thanks as always for reading (and the reviews so far).
Incidentally - thanks to the Guest who pointed out about the canned pumpkin thing. I can't say pumpkin pies are common here which I have made fun of myself for a little in today's chapter. I will also add though that the main reason for the pumpkin was too make up the market - thanks for the tip though. Maybe I'll try make one for Christmas now I know I don't have to gut any pumpkins.
Right - on with it...
"Pass! Pass ...watch out for - damnit! You should have passed!" Stef exclaimed.
"Are you peeling potatoes in front of the football?" Callie asked bemused on her return from upstairs.
Stef turned to her slightly embarrassed.
"So? As long as they get done..." she looked back to the TV.
"I'm gonna get on with the pie. I'll put it in the top oven, OK?" she asked through a laugh to an unresponsive Stef, deeply absorbed.
Callie smirked before stopping suddenly as Jude emerged from the kitchen. They had formed a makeshift pen in the garage in hope that giving the turkey some food, water and a boundary may keep it there.
"Callie!" He exclaimed guiltily as Mariana fell into him slightly after his sudden stop.
"You two OK?" she asked as they both nodded.
"Oh pumpkin, right?" Mariana smiled.
"Right! Pumpkin." Jude looked across at her as they both realised they had left it in the garage.
"Wait...why did you...?" she began to ask having been ignorant to the fact there hadn't been any in the first place.
"I'll get it!" they both shouted in unison before running back nervously. Callie creased her brow in confusion.
"Was that weird to you?" she asked turning to Stef but the only response she got was the potato peeler being flung in the air shortly before a shout and Stef's hands.
"Stef?" Callie asked slightly louder as Stef snapped round.
"What's up sweets?" she asked feining interest before shortly looking back.
"Did you send Jude out for a pumpkin?"
"Yes...I didn't realise we didn't have one in..."
"Do you usually? I figured I'd be using a can..."
Stef stuttered and gawped slightly."A can. Right. Is it becoming clear that Lena is the only person in this house who's made a pumpkin pie before?" she replied with a hint of guilt.
Callie widened her eyes with a laugh. "I guess Jude will enjoy carving it anyway..." she sighed and made her way into the kitchen as Stef threw her another apology before distracting herself again.
Brandon and Jesus immediately sprung up and dived in front of the broken bowl.
"OK - what's going on?" Callie asked suspiciously remembering Jude and Mariana's strange behaviour as well.
"Nothing..." Brandon replied with a smile as Callie peered over them.
"You're gonna have to be more convincing than that when Stef comes out of her football coma. That bowl isn't gonna fix itself..." she smiled exposing that she had sussed their secret.
"How can we do that?" Jesus asked stepping away to reveal the pieces.
Callie winced. "Dana's bowl? Wow - that's gonna hurt. Glue or the truth is your best option."
"We better get this to another room before Mom comes in." Jesus suggested as he and Brandon collected the pieces and made for the door. They were swapped for the other guilty pair as Jude and Mariana came scurrying in through the back.
"One pumpkin! Here, we'll help you!" Jude offered as they got to work.
"Is Mom in a good mood?" Mariana asked nervously as Callie raised an eyebrow.
"That may depend on the football score..." Callie replied. "What happened?"
"it's probably best you don't know..." she admitted before getting stuck in with the pie.
"OK - at least it hasn't crumbled. I reckon we can fix this...they'll notice one day though." Brandon evaluated holding the various bits together to check there were none missing.
"Well then we can just say it happened years ago or something and they won't be as mad." Jesus suggested trying to help.
"We'll need glue..." Brandon asked with a clear hint that he didn't know where it was.
"Garage!" Jesus chimed proudly. He had clearly been in this situation before. "I'll get it." he bolted in, his mind in the clouds without realising the new resident. He grabbed the glue from the drawer and dashed back in.
"It takes hours to dry..." Jesus read nervously.
"Well..." Brandon thought. "As long as we have it on the table with the stuff in it no-one need know it hasn't dried..."
The boys set to work and pieced the bowl back together. They located the pot-pouri that Lena liked and filled it up placing it as the centrepiece in the hopes that no-one else need disrupt it. After they had completed their task their freedom was shortlived before Stef shouted them through more errands.
"Why does Mom get to watch the football and we're stuck putting on the veg and potatoes? What happened to everyone chipping in?" Jesus moaned to Brandon as they returned to their crime scene a little later. Callie and the others had finished preparing the pie and it lay waiting to be put it in the oven.
"We just have to boil a couple pans of water Jesus...it's not exactly torture."
"It is when you're being forced to do manual labour with delicious turkey smell." Jesus replied causing Brandon to pause.
"Wait a minute...why isn't there a turkey smell?" he wandering over to the oven as Jesus grabbed a pan.
"Oh crap..." Brandon dropped down to his haunches and looked in the oven.
"Jesus the temperature dial is way down...the football must have knocked it before. There's like no heat!" he looked over to his brother in horror who came running over.
"We could always blame Mom?" Jesus shrugged. "She put it on..."
"Right, that'll end well if the truth comes out...and we'd still have no turkey!"
"Well what can we do?" Jesus panicked as Brandon stood up.
"It's got like another hour right - can we just whack it up to compensate?" he suggested as Jesus shrugged unsure of any reason it shouldn't work. They grabbed the recipe book that Stef had out and flicked over to the right page.
"OK it's been what? An hour. It says to do it by size...how big is it?"
"I dunno - large..." the two boys mused over cluelessly trying to do the arithmetic before exchanging a worried glance.
"We could just put it to full?" Jesus suggested as Brandon shrugged and turned it up.
"What the heck are you two doing?" Lena entered signalling her return and seeing them ramp up the dial. Brandon jumped back dropping the book as Jesus turned to block the oven.
"We...uhm..." the two exchanged desperate looks as their Mom stared over to them.
"Maximum? You trying to cremate the poor thing?" she turned it down before also observing the lack of browning and cooking smell.
"Why hasn't it been cooking? where's your Mom? she swung back round to look out of the kitchen as a yell of "touch down!" was heard.
"Stef!" Lena yelled angrily as the two boys gawped.
"Honey, you're home...great we can get the last bits cooked up and...shouldn't we be smelling turkey?" she asked quickly jumping to attention upon hearing Lena's attendance. Her tone swiftly changed to confusion observing the nervous looks all around.
"What did you two do?" she barked, clocking the two guilty faces.
"We...you know Mom are you sure you actually put it on to cook?" Jesus panicked and immediately regretted it as her eyes flared and she stepped towards him.
"Wait a second - are you trying to tell me the turkey hasn't been cooking at all?" Lena looked across the three of them as Brandon backing into the island.
"What?" Mariana asked as she, Jude and Callie returned amid the ramping tensions..
"That is an excellent question..." Stef grabbed a springing Jesus by the collar to halt his escape.
"And one I could just as easily be asking you..." Lena turned to her wife crossing her arms as Stef panicked. "I was...I put it on ages ago..."
"Were you too absorbed in the football to turn the dial?" she accused as Stef got defensive.
"Woah - hold on a second" she shot back raising her palms. "I'm not the one who ran off to hide in the office all morning..."
"No but you appear to have left dumb and dumber in charge of our thanksgiving meal."
"Hey I was doing my bit - I prepared the turkey."
"She even peeled the potatoes in front of the TV..." Jude attempted to put forward for Stef's defense as Lena threw her an unimpressed look.
Stef bit her lip turning to him. "Sweetheart, don't help me..." she said as nicely as she could to try and avoid any further incriminating evidence to be offered up.
Callie took the opportunity to slip away as the voices continued to raise.
"You have been preparing dinner in front of the TV while the kids are in charge of the oven?" Lena added.
"Nuh-uh - all hell breaks loose - can't blame me remember?" Stef shot back before quickly changing the subject. "and while we're on that what exactly did happen to the oven?" she folded her arms and stared down a tip-toeing away Jesus and Brandon who froze in their tracks.
"It was his fault.." they replied simultaneously pointing at each other before there was a blood curdling squawk and a mess of feathers came bursting through the door, flapping, flailing and screeching through the room.
"Uh-oh..." Jude and Mariana whispered to each other as the bird had clearly awoken to its unfamiliar surrounding. Both Moms swapped their anger for utter confusion and Brandon and Jesus swapped their fear for vague, albeit bewildered, relief. The family ran through as the bird hopped up onto the table crashing through the badly glued bowl as pot-pouri scattered. Stef launched at the bird to try and contain it before it did any more damage.
"Put it back in the box! It goes to sleep!" Jude shouted dashing through with the retrieved box while also admitting his guilty as they shoved it back in, breathless and held it there briefly.
Stef looked between him and Mariana who laughed nervously.
"Well...we have a spare turkey," she shrugged as Stef stuttered in confusion.
"OK - what the hell is going on here?" she eventually broke her silence as the four kids still in the room quaked nervously.
"Look at what the turkey did to Grams' bowl!" Jesus yelled a little too obviously as Lena walked over to it. Brandon threw him a look as Jesus shrugged hopelessly.
"Right...the turkey." she said holding up a piece. "Did he badly glue it together too?" she ran her finger down the sticky edge as the two boys looked to each other.
Stef shook her head in confusion.
"OK once again - what the hell just happened?" she turned, exasperated to a stammering Brandon who couldn't help but flick his head between family members.
"Brandon?" Stef shot at him, seeing he was bending.
"We...well...sorta maybe threw the ball in the kitchen just once and it sorta maybe ricocheted off the temperature dial and into the bowl..."
"we didn't notice the dial because we were too busy fixing the bowl and well..."
"You were gonna try and hide it by ramping up the temperature? You do realise cooking doesn't work right?" Lena replied sternly.
"Idiots." Mariana mumbled to herself before pulling back as Stef turned to her.
"Right - Miss Thing. incidentally, care to explain why the hell do I have a live turkey running amok in my house?" Mariana gulped suddenly regretting drawing attention to herself
"He...well..." she stuttered gripping the work surface behind her back in the hope it may absorb her.
"It's my fault!" Jude spoke up. "I couldn't bear the thought of them killing him so I bought it...Mariana knew nothing about it till I got him home..."
"And how exactly did you manage to buy a live turkey without your sister noticing?" Stef interrogated further as Lena tried to piece things together and have some grasp of the bizareness that was unfolding.
"I...well...maybe I took my eyes off him for like a few minutes..."
"Like how many?" Lena asked firmly.
"Maybe twenty when I got coffee with Kelsey?" she winced.
"Let me get this straight?" Stef slapped her hands onto her forehead, unable to hide the frustration.
"You left your brother unattended while he bought a live turkey for us to keep as a pet while you two tried to do a DIY fix-up on a bowl smashed doing the one thing I specifically told you not to do while also managing yo uncook the dinner I put on?" Stef relayed, flustered and swapping her pointing finger between children.
"While you..." Lena began before Stef cut her off with the same finger.
"Don't even go there..." she ordered as Lena snapped her mouth shut. Stef wasn't taking accountability.
"And what exactly is your role Cal...wait. Where did Callie go?" She asked suddenly realising her absence just before Callie re-emerged.
"I ordered the Chinese food." she replied to a mixture of baffled looks
"The what?" Lena asked.
"The Chinese food." she repeated.
"It's our first thanksgiving as a family, right? We're all hungry so I figured better have something to share around the table. It's easier to argue with a full stomach." she smiled.
The family tried to process the statement against the backdrop of the bombardment of insanity that had just occurred. Stef began to laugh, followed shortly by Lena and the kids.
"I guess we can be thankful that at least one food joint stays open on thanksgiving." Mariana remarked.
"Well - it's all about making the most of what you've got right and sharing it round?" Jesus quipped hopefully as Stef put a hand on his shoulder.
"Oh honey, you guys are absolutely right...which is why when that turkey's finally cooked you kids are gonna be making enough sandwiches to do the homeless shelter until next thanksgiving." she squeezed his shoulder as he groaned.
"What about the turkey?" Jude asked sheepishly as Stef sighed.
"I'll see if we can find a turkey farm somewhere..." she replied rolling her eyes. The sudden turn of events seemed to have drained her energy for anger. After being so nervous about having a perfect thanksgiving for the family she realised that nothing was more fitting for their family than utter mayhem...and somehow struggling through.
"Right...let's get this place cleaned up." Lena instructed as the kids made their way to the table.
"How long is the food gonna be?" Stef asked Callie.
"He said at least 40 minutes - but it's better than 2 more hours..." she shrugged.
"In that case..." Stef looked at Lena.
"Wanna see the last 20 minutes of the football while they do?" she suggested as Lena lifted an eyebrow
"Why? So you can ignore me?" she whispered back with a hint of intrigue
"Well...you were gonna make up for your abandonment. I don't want to make it easy for you..." she replied seductively as Lena crossed her arms.
"My Mom's bowl gets smashed, a turkey runs riot through the house and the boys ruin dinner playing ball in the kitchen...you want me to reward you for watching football all day?"
Stef puffed out her bottom lip in thought for a moment.
"Even?" she asked with a shrug.
"Even." Lena said with a hi-five as the two of them retreated to the living room.
It may not have been a "normal" thanksgiving - but one of the things they could all agree on was being thankful that "normal" wasn't really their style.