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Timmy and Tommy were best friends. They lived on a farm in the Great Midwest with Daddy Mike, Mama Jane, Buster and Scotty the Farm Dogs, several pigs, a few chickens, and Maybelle the Moo Cow. Timmy was five years old and belonged to Daddy Mike and Mama Jane, but Tommy was younger, and an orphan. Even worse, he couldn't talk.

  But Timmy didn't feel sorry for Tommy, because Tommy was just like one of the family. Mama Jane called him Timmy's adopted brother. Tommy even went out with Timmy every morning to watch Daddy Mike milk Maybelle the Moo Cow, and Daddy Mike would surprise them both with squirts of milk in their faces.

  "Ha ha!" Daddy Mike would laugh. "Look alive, there!"

  Then Timmy would laugh too, and Tommy would do the best he could.

  And even though Mama Jane had said that Timmy didn't have to share his room with Tommy, Timmy was glad to do it anyway. At night after they went to bed, he and Tommy whispered secrets that they promised never to tell anyone else – secrets about all the adventures they'd had together.

And oh! What adventures!

They fought pirates on the banks of Muddy Pond . . .

They chased buffalo across Grassy Meadow . . .

They explored deserts that looked just like Rocky Pasture . . .

  And best of all, they scaled the dizzying heights of Towering Grain Silo.

  That is, Timmy did. Tommy always refused to climb the shaky ladder. So Timmy would go up alone, and when he reached the very tip-top, he would look down and shout, "Tommy is a chicken! Tommy is a chicken!"

  At this, Tommy would always look very indignant, and sometimes he would even stalk off in a huff. A chicken, indeed! What an insult!

  But by bedtime, all would be forgiven, and Timmy would lie awake in bed and whisper secrets across the room to where Tommy slept on a pallet on the floor. And although Tommy couldn't talk the way normal people did, sometimes he would jabber nonsense in response to Timmy's whispers. At least, Daddy Mike said that it was nonsense, but Timmy knew better. After all, Tommy's jabbering sounded just like Mrs. Krunholtz at Sunday Church when she rolled around on the floor and spoke in tongues. And no one ever said that Mrs. Krunholtz was jabbering nonsense.

  One November morning while it was still dark, Timmy woke up to the sounds of the kitchen door banging shut and Daddy Mike's boots clomping into the barnyard. Timmy was surprised. Daddy Mike got up early every morning to milk Maybelle, but never this early. Timmy didn't know what to make of it.

  "Come on, Tommy!" Timmy cried, throwing off his blankets and grabbing his pint-sized coveralls from the bedpost. "Let's go see what Daddy Mike's doing! Maybe we can help!"

  Tommy jabbered in agreement, and together they hurried downstairs, almost tumbling over one another in their excitement.

  When they reached the kitchen, they found that Mama Jane was up and about, too. She was putting a big pot of water on the stove.

  "Oh good," Mama Jane said when she saw Timmy and Tommy. "I'm glad you two are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed! There's a lot to do today!"

"Why?" Timmy asked. "What's today?"

  "Well, my goodness, child!" Mama Jane said. "It's Thanksgiving! Now, run out and help Daddy Mike. The sun's coming up, and my whole family will be here before you can say Jack Robinson – so hop to it!"

  Timmy and Tommy hopped outside, and then Timmy saw Daddy Mike, along with Buster and Scotty the Farm Dogs, standing in the barnyard beside the old oak stump that Timmy and Tommy used as the deck of their battleship. So Timmy dashed out to the stump with Tommy hurrying close behind.

  "Why, there you are!" Daddy Mike exclaimed when he saw Timmy and Tommy. "I thought you were going to sleep the day away!" And with that, he grabbed Tommy by the feet and slammed him onto the stump.

  "Daddy Mike!" Timmy cried. "Is Tommy in trouble?"

  "In a manner of speaking," Daddy Mike said. Then he picked up a hatchet that had been hidden on the far side of the stump, and with one quick stroke, he chopped off Tommy's head. Tommy's head flew away and tumbled to the dirt, and Tommy's blood spurted from his neck onto Daddy Mike's hand.

  Then Buster and Scotty the Farm Dogs began making quite a ruckus. They were fighting over Tommy's head.

  "Timmy, take Tommy's head and put it in the trash barrel down by the barn," said Daddy Mike. "If Buster or Scotty got hold of it, they could start choking, and then I'd have to get the gun."

  So Timmy picked up Tommy's head and went down to the barn with Buster and Scotty nipping at his heels.

  "Tommy?" Timmy said to Tommy's head. "What did you do to get in trouble?"

  But Tommy's head didn't even jabber. It just gazed up at Timmy with one glassy black eye.

  "Timmy!" Daddy Mike cried then. "Come look at this!"

  Daddy Mike sounded excited, so Timmy dropped Tommy's head into the trash barrel and ran back to the old oak stump as fast as he could. When he got there, he saw Tommy staggering toward the house, leaving a squiggly trail of blood behind him. Before long, though, Tommy flopped over and lay there twitching.

"Did you ever see the like?" Daddy Mike asked.

  But Timmy didn't have a chance to answer, because Buster and Scotty the Farm Dogs came running back from the trash barrel, snarling and biting at each other all the way.

  "Quick, Timmy!" Daddy Mike said. "Pick up Tommy and take him to Mama Jane while I have a talk with Buster and Scotty!"

  So Timmy went to Tommy and tried to pick him up while Daddy Mike had a talk with Buster and Scotty. But Tommy was big and heavy, so Timmy had to grab him by the feet the way Daddy Mike had done, and then drag him to the house.

  This was hard work, but Timmy finally got Tommy into the kitchen, where Mama Jane was waiting. Her big pot of water was boiling now.

  "My goodness, child!" Mama Jane exclaimed. "You've left a bloody smear all across my kitchen floor!" Then she scooped up Tommy and dropped him into the boiling water. Tommy's feet stuck up out of the water and wiggled.

  "Why are you doing that, Mama Jane?" Timmy asked. "And why did Daddy Mike chop off Tommy's head?"

  "My goodness, child!" Mama Jane exclaimed again. "How you do go on!" With that, she put on a pair of heavy rubber gloves, pulled Tommy from the water, and plunked him onto the sideboard. Then she started yanking out all of Tommy's feathers.

  "Doesn't that hurt?" Timmy asked.

  "It would if I wasn't wearing gloves," Mama Jane said.

  After all of Tommy's feathers were gone, Mama Jane used a cleaver to cut off Tommy's feet. Then she took a shiny knife, sliced Tommy open, and yanked out his guts. She put most of the guts into a pan and gave the pan to Timmy.

  "You can take these to Buster and Scotty if you like," Mama Jane said.

  So Timmy did just that. He watched Buster and Scotty play tug-of-war for a while, and then he went down to the barn. He found Daddy Mike milking Maybelle the Moo Cow, and while he sat in the corner to watch, Daddy Mike sprayed him in the face with milk.

  "Ha ha!" Daddy Mike laughed. "Look alive, there!"

  Later, Grandma Eula, Uncle Augie, Aunt Pearl, and Cousins Fred, Earl, Cookie, and Poot all came over for Thanksgiving dinner. Tommy had been cooked all golden and crispy on the outside, and when Mama Jane placed him in the center of the table, Daddy Mike cut him up into juicy, steaming chunks.

  "Give me a drumstick," said Cousin Fred. "That's the best part."

  "No, no," said Cousin Cookie. "The neck is the best."

  "You're both wrong, children," said Grandma Eula. "There's nothing better than a nice plump thigh."

  "It's a slice of breast for me," said Aunt Pearl.

  "I'd prefer a wing, myself," said Cousin Poot.

  "You're all loopy," said Uncle Augie. "I dibs the gizzard. That's really the best part. Did you remember to fry up the gizzard, Sister Jane?"

  "I surely did," said Mama Jane, and she brought Tommy's gizzard to Uncle Augie on a special silver plate.

  "Yum!" Uncle Augie exclaimed, and he gobbled up Tommy's gizzard in three quick bites. Then he leaned back and gave Timmy a big grin. "And now," he said, "it's wishbone time!"

  "What's that?" Timmy asked.

  So Uncle Augie showed him. He held one side of the wishbone while Timmy held the other, and then they both pulled. The wishbone broke in two.

  "You got the big half!" Uncle Augie cried. "You get your wish!"

  "What did you wish for, Timmy?" Grandma Eula asked.

  "I wished for rattlesnakes to bite all of you until you swell up and stink like Maybelle's calf Pansy did," Timmy said.

  So Mama Jane said it was all right if Timmy went outside to play, and he did just that. After a while he wandered down to the trash barrel by the barn and pulled out Tommy's head.

  Timmy walked across the barnyard with Tommy's head cupped in his hands, thinking that perhaps he would take Tommy to the top of Towering Grain Silo at last.

  But then Daddy Mike came down from the house, calling, "Timmy! You can come back now! We have punkin pie!"

  Timmy didn't want Daddy Mike to know that he had pulled Tommy's head from the trash barrel, so he did the first thing he could think of, which was to pop Tommy's head into his mouth, chew it up as best he could, and swallow it. By the time Daddy Mike reached him, Tommy's head was all gone.

  "It's time for dessert," Daddy Mike said. "And then we're each going to say what we're thankful for. Can you think of what you're thankful for, Timmy?"

  "Yes I can, Daddy Mike," said Timmy. "I'm thankful that I'm not adopted."

  But as they walked back to the house, Timmy realized that there was something he was even more thankful for. He was thankful because he and Tommy now had one more secret, the biggest one ever, that only the two of them shared.

  The secret was this:

  No matter what anyone else thought, the
head
was the very best part of all.

I was only a lonely leftover on the table of Life. No one seemed interested in sampling me.

  I was alone that day in the company cafeteria when I made the fateful decision which changed my life. If Gladys, the other secretary in my boss's office and my usual lunch companion, had been there, it might never have happened, but she had a dentist appointment. Alone with the day's entree, Spaghetti-O's, I sought companionship in a magazine I found on the table.

  In the first blazing burst of inspiration I ever experienced, I cut out an ad on the back of the W
onder Woman
comic book. "The Insult that Made a Woman Out of Wilma," it read. It showed a hipless, flat-chested girl being buried in the sand and abandoned by her date, who left her alone with the crabs as he followed a bosomy blonde off the page. Wilma eventually excavated herself, went home, kicked a chair, and sent away for Charlotte Atlas's pamphlet, "From Beanpole to Buxom in 20 days or your money back." Wilma read the pamphlet and developed breasts the size of breadboxes. She retrieved her boyfriend and rendered him acutely jealous by picking up a few hundred other men.