Catching and Bear
Two round, glowing eyes peered at Joel over his countertop. "Rrr!" the shaggy beast said, his ping pong eyeballs bouncing.
He kept his head down and his butter knife swirling against the RAM chip frosting he'd been slathering on a store-bought layer cake. "Oh hi, Crow."
A whine came from the robot. "Joel! You were supposed to jump back and cower in terror and yell 'eek, a bear' and stuff!"
Joel finally looked up at Crow's injured tone. If a robot could look dejected with his limited range of facial expressions, Crow fit the bill, the stuffed teddy bear he'd tied around his head basket drooping over his right eye, the paw batting just above his nose. Joel finally asked, "watcha doing, buddy?"
Crow took a deep breath and stated, "me and Tom were playing tag with Gypsy but then she found a Richard Basehart movie on TCM and got all distracted so then Mike asked us if we wanted to play with the bottle rockets he brought but Tom said it wasn't in the spirit of Thanksgiving and then he started going on and on about how the Pilgrims weren't nice to the Indians. So I said, 'why don't we play Pilgrim and bear'? And he said 'Crow, there's no way you could scare me with that bear costume!' So I said 'says you!' and he said 'you n' what army' and I said 'your sister's!' and he went 'I don't have a sister!' So I strapped this teddy bear onto my head and went to go and try and scare you."
Joel was used to such outbursts by his robots, but Crow's sudden explosion of verbal anxiety made him put his hand on the robot's shoulder. "Hey, it's not nice to scare your old man," Mike called from the other room.
"I know, Pops," Crow shuffled his knees in that charming, gangly way of his.
"Why you little scamp," Joel nudged Crow, "out you go, or through a window," he recited from his favorite Christmas movie, and Crow laughed wickedly as he ran ahead, already plotting to do some wicked deeds of his own to Tom. Before he went, he called over his shoulder, "can I have a slice of RAM cake first?"
"After dinner, young man," Joel insisted.
There was a soft 'aww', but Crow did as was required of him. As Joel turned back to the cake, Mike pushed his way into the kitchen.
"Boy," he remarked abruptly as he sat at the counter, "I have no idea how you could stand being up there alone on the SOL with them for so many years! "
"The same way you stood it," Joel pointed out.
"Oh...Yeah," Mike shrugged. "It didn't seem as long for me."
"It never does, my friend," Joel said.
Mike frowned thoughtfully. "So...you still practice Thanksgiving down here?"
Joel shrugged. "I go out for fireworks on Victoria Day, but basically it's just like living back in Minnesota."
Mike shrugged. "Tom kept asking me if you cook wallabies."
A fond laugh came from Joel. "Oh. No, no," Joel just shook his head. "I told him so."
"Yeah," said Mike awkwardly.
"Yeah," Joel returned.
Simultaneously, they said, "so how about those Packers?"
***
"Why do I have to be Priscilla Alden?" Tom complained. Joel could hear the skirt on his 'Bot's plainspun dress rustling against the thrust from his hoverskirt.
"Tom, you know the rules - I look bad in dresses. 'Sides, I'll snigger-snag on you if you don't." The stovepipe hat Crow wore drooped over his eyes as he emphasized his anger.
"MOM!" Tom cried out, "Crow's making fun of me."
"Says you, ya spazz!"
"Why I oughta."
"Boys..." Mike rubbed his temples and groaned.
"Yeah, just come over here! I'll introduce you to mister Lefty!" Tom threatened.
"I'll introduce you to Mr. Afterburners!" Tom added.
"Boys, pipe down and have your ram chips."
There was a protracted silence. "He started it," Tom proclaimed.
"Enough. Please," Mike demanded.
"I don't get what the big deal is about Halloween, anyway," Crow complained.
"It's not Halloween, it's Thanksgiving," Tom corrected him.
"Eh, sock it dome head..."
"BOYS." Mike groaned.
"What's so special about Thanksgiving?" Crow finally asked.
"Well," Joel began, in a fatherly tone, "once upon a time - a long time ago - a bunch of people wanted to worship their own God in their own way. They struck out and found their own country - which didn't turn out so well for them the first year. But never mind, because eventually they did all right. Except for the years of social injustice and imperialist rule that followed."
"Oh," Tom remarked quietly.
"But Joel, you left out the best part! What about the football?" Mike asked.
"Yeah, and the stuffing your face 'til you pass out?" Crow wondered.
"And the helium balloons, Joel - can't forget those!" Tom said.
Joel waved his hands. "All right, it's about all of that too."
"And cranberry sauce," Tom finished.
"Oh yeah, LOTS of cranberry sauce."
Gypsy - responsible middle child that she was - finally spoke up. "Is anyone else, y'know, HUNGRY?"
Mike - good Midwestern boy that he was - looked to Joel for approval. Joel shrugged. "Mi casa es su casa," he said.
"That's Spanish for chow down!" Crow shouted, burying his beak in his bowl of squash soup. Mike made a sound of vague disapproval, but his own hunger took prescience at that point. A guest at his own table, Joel made a sound of amused approval before tucking into his own meal.
***
A few hours later, the bots were lying slumped on the couch, their sleep sequences having been enacted, occasionally murmuring and belching.
Joel started in on the soapy dishes. "Turkey gets them every time," he remarked to Mike.
"I know. They're like little gremlins. If you feed them after midnight, they try to kill you."
Joel smiled and shook his head. "You know, pally, as much as you complain about them...if they went away...you would miss them."
Mike lowered his eyes. "Maybe I would."
"You don't even have to tell me," Joel said wistfully. "I know."
"It was a good first Thanksgiving on Earth for them. Thanks...for sharing it with us. For sharing them with me, too."
Mike wasn't good at being grateful. Joel understood that, too. "You're all welcome," he said. "Whenever you want, you can come back."
"Maybe you can come to the States for Christmas. I could use another hand trying to wrangle Tom in when he drinks so much eggnog he goes into Dean Martin mode."
"Okay. Maybe," Joel says.
"Maybe?"
"Maybe."
Mike smiled. "Yes?"
Joel shrugged. "Yes."
A word that summed up their future quite well.