KIDHOOD HAUNTS
Southern California 1982, November
The day is bright and crisp. A yellow headed girl toddler is doing what toddlers do best, toddling around the daycare play yard. It is mid morning just after snack time. Thanksgiving is a few days off and the teachers are busy helping kids make paper turkeys and feathered Indian head gear.
The teachers round up the mix of small children for a special type of show and tell. The live animal kind. Excited chatter has broken out as the wee ones try to guess what animal can't come inside to the circle rug, where traditionally show and tell takes place.
Herded into a broken line the children quiet down and patiently wait in the pale winter sunshine. Yelps and shouts of glee erupt from the kids as a GIANT turkey trots around the corner of the building! Bobbing its head and casting off loose feathers the turkey stops to survey his new surroundings. His beady bird eyes dart back and forth counting the number of children (well only up to 11, turkeys can't really count much past that) and correctly measuring that he (the turkey) is indeed as tall or taller then most of the kids.
Gradually the turkey struts closer to the group of extremely small, but loud, humans. The larger, more recognizable humans are talking and pointing, in general keeping the little ones in check. However there is one tiny girl who stands out.
She stands out because she is last in line, the fringe if you will, set apart by a few feet from the group. She also stands out with that sweater. Splashes of color form shapes the turkey does not recognize. What he does know is that the sweater is sporting, wonderful, fabulous, salivation inducing, shiny buttons. He must have them! Turbo Turkey is born.
With a head nod and a puff of dust he is off on the quest of his life (remember that turkeys have terrible memories, so he may have already been on that same quest twice this week, but no matter for the purposes of this story). He must reach those amazing buttons. The sound track to Chariot's of Fire is playing in his turkey head and the world has fallen from view. There are only the buttons, and the sweater that they are attached to.
Now let us revisit the small owner of this magical (to the turkey, but not really magical) sweater. She is an introspective child. More prone to paints and puppets than rough housing and dodge ball. So naturally she is day dreaming a story loosely based on a boy and his pet turkey in a far away land called La Verne, when disaster strikes.
Suddenly she is going down, hard. There are dirt clods and feathers everywhere. How is it that she is lying on the ground? What on earth is making that noise? And why does her little chest feel so heavy? Well reader, it is because the turkey is upon her! Absurdly driven to the point of attack by those most flirtatious of buttons!
She starts to scream (more out of surprise than pain - though that is one heavy turkey pecking away at her) and the teachers move in. But they have no plan for how to separate a possessed turkey from his button treasures. No one wants to hurt the turkey, he is a pet afterall (no matter how poorly behaved), but they need to save the girl. And yes, I mean save. Her little arms are beginning to bleed and her face is streaked by tears and sand and turkey scratches.
Finally someone manages to wrestle the bird to the side and they roll the girl out of the way and whisk her inside. Now sniffing but safe, the little girl eats a cookie and glares at the boy peeking around the doorway. It is Alexander her best friend and owner of the turkey!
That was the day it all changed. No longer could the little girl trust boys or birds. Alexander had failed to keep her safe from his own bird! How could he protect her from the wild birds outside the fence of the daycare yard? Sadly she knew then at 3 years old and under 3 feet tall, that the call of her destiny would not sound like a bird.
* I still don't like birds.
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