The Pepper Thief

In hindsight, the extended family should not have been invited to Sunday dinner. It’s not that they weren’t enjoyable in their own individual ways. It’s just that most of them were utterly insane and should probably have been under regular, professional supervision.

Still. Tradition was tradition.

Evidence of the theory of family insanity had piled up quite heavily in recent months. There was the crayon fiasco with Aunt Clare, the wax-fruit mix-up with little Lenny, the cotton ball mishap with Great Uncle Roy, the marble trauma with Ricky the poodle, and the forever-infamous pudding incident with Cousin Steve, whose motor functions really couldn’t possibly be that bad, no matter how awful his accident with the badger had been. And, of course, there were others, but many of them could be (and were) played off as minor incidents and mistakes. But that particular Sunday, it became very clear to Marsha Canfield that she had to either start committing her family members to the asylum or get busy committing herself.

Most of the day had gone smoothly, and by the time dinner was served, Marsha had felt foolishly optimistic about the chances of finishing the monthly ritual with minimal problems. This illusion did not last long.

“Where’s the pepper?” she asked, scanning the table. “Has anyone seen the pepper?”

Asking this question was a mistake.

Aunt Clare looked up from her turkey and eyed Marsha suspiciously. “You lost the pepper?” she asked harshly.

“I wouldn’t say it’s lost,” said Marsha, her face flushing with heat. God, here we go… “It’s just not on the table. Not to worry, I’ll go get it.”

“Well,” huffed Aunt Clare. “I would certainly take more care if it were my table being set.” This was a typical comment made by Clare, whose favorite pastime was to criticize others for the actions she had no intention of carrying out herself. Marsha shook it off with a roll of her shoulders and was about to return to the kitchen in search of the wayward pepper grinder when a gnarled old finger thrust itself into the air at the other end of the table. 

“Ah ha!” shouted Grandpa Joe, who had read far too many Agatha Christie novels in his day. “Missing pepper, eh? Missing pepper, you say?! Something’s… afoot!” He closed his outstretched finger into his palm, making a fist, and slammed it down on the table. Silverware went scattering across the cloth, and little Lenny’s glass of milk tipped over, spilling its contents onto his full plate. Lenny, who was a very slow child indeed, thought perhaps his turkey was bleeding white blood and began screaming at the thought of being served a freshly killed, raw piece of bird flesh. He jumped back from his chair and fled, screaming and flailing, from the room in terror. He crashed into the wall of the living room adjacent to the dining room and thumped to the ground, unconscious. 

“Oh, for crying out loud!” said Marsha. “It’s not missing! There’s nothing afoot! It’s in the kitchen!”

“Don’t you try to pacify me!” screamed Grandpa Joe, wagging a finger at her. “I know when something’s afoot! And something is definitely afoot!” 

“Stop saying that,” said Cousin Steve, sloshing a spoonful of potatoes into his mouth. “That’s not even a word.”

“What isn’t a word?” asked Great Aunt Bernice. 

“Afoot.”

“It most certainly is a word!” shrieked Grandpa Joe. “It’s the best word, and I shall continue to use it until something is no longer… afoot!” He slammed his fist down on the table again. The gravy boat tipped over, and steaming hot sausage gravy spilled onto Great Uncle Roy’s crotch. He didn’t seem to notice. 

“Look, everyone just calm down,” said Marsha in a very practiced tone. “I’ll get the pepper. Everything will be fine.”

“No! It’s not fine! The case must be solved!” Grandpa Joe pushed himself from the table, knocking over his chair in the process and sprawling to the floor in a flash of limbs and corduroy. “Who did that?” he yelled from the floor, swinging his fists up at an invisible adversary. “Who tripped me?”    

Marsha shook her head, sighed deeply, and went into the kitchen to search for the pepper.

Meanwhile, little Lenny, who was still quite unconscious, was in the process of dreaming about a newborn kitty named Herbert. In his dream, little Lenny loved Herbert very much, and Herbert loved little Lenny, too. Lenny found that he was able to communicate his deepest wishes to Herbert by speaking in the small kitten’s native tongue. Unfortunately, stupid little Lenny, who was never very good with animals, dreamt that Herbert, and indeed all cats, spoke in quacks instead of meows. 

Out in the waking world, Grandpa Joe, who was still on the floor, pricked up his ears as the sound of quacks came from the next room. “Wait! Everyone! Be quiet!” he cried. The sound of a duck was very clear. “Son of a—it’s a duck!” he yelled. Grandpa Joe had come out on the wrong end of a bad run-in with a duck not three weeks ago in one of his addle-brained hallucinations, for which he’d stopped taking his medication, and he had looked forward to revenge ever since. He rolled himself onto his stomach like a frenzied turtle, then pushed up from the ground and ran into the living room, carving fork in hand, ready for round two with the devious little water fowl. When he reached the room, however, the duck had fled, probably in terror, and all he saw was his nimrod little grandson, napping in the corner. 

Marsha came back into the dining room, pepper grinder in hand, to find Grandpa Joe’s overturned seat empty. “Where’s dad?” she demanded of Cousin Steve. 

“He went after a duck,” said Steve, while trying to cut his turkey with short, choppy movements that resulted in a spray of bird juice splattering everything in a three-foot radius. 

“Oh, dear Lord,” said Marsha. “He didn’t go after the neighbor’s ducks, did he?” Cousin Steve, who was very eager to redeem himself in the eyes of Grandpa Joe after the forever-infamous pudding incident, threw his silverware across the table (the fork ricocheting off Great Uncle Roy’s forehead, which he didn’t seem to notice), and jumped to his feet. “Next door?” he cried. And he bolted from the room, shouting heroic nonsense about honor avenged. These cries came to a brief halt, however, as he misjudged the distance to the front door and smashed directly into it, face-first. He rebounded surprisingly quickly, yanked at the knob, and bounded out the door in the direction of the neighbor’s house. 

Marsha pulled a flask out of her pocket and started swigging.

Grandpa Joe came back into the room rubbing his hands together. “It was the duck!” he said. “The duck stole the pepper! There’s no question.”

“Dad,” said Marsha, pocketing the flask, “the duck did not steal the pepper. The pepper is right here.”

“Well, it may be there now,” said Grandpa Joe. “But you know how ducks are! I think… we all know… how ducks are.” He spat onto the carpet to prove how displeased he was with the imaginary duck. Ricky the poodle crept over to the wet, lumpy spot on the shag and began lapping at it. Grandpa Joe shooed him away with his toe. The stupid dog was ruining his moment.

Just then, the front door slammed open with great force, because it had been kicked in by Cousin Steve, who had no time for doorknobs. The doorjamb splintered, and the glass from the window shattered and crashed to the floor. He crunched over it, oblivious. Under one excited arm he carried a very serene-looking duck. “Here he is, Grandpa Joe!” he exclaimed, presenting the old man with the small, gray fowl. “I got him!”

“Stephen!” shrieked Marsha. “You return Mr. Henderson’s duck right this very instant!” Grandpa Joe’s eyes grew wide at the sight of the duck, and he lunged at it. “Grandpa! No!” But it was too late. Grandpa Joe seized the duck by the throat and started shaking it violently.

“Thought you could steal the pepper, did you?! Thought you could try darning my socks while I was asleep, did you?! I wanted those holes there, you little bastard! I wanted those holes there!” He throttled the duck and swung it up and down, whumping it on the table. More liquids spilled out of more containers. Grandpa Joe brought the duck down on the surface with greater and greater force, until a cracking sound was heard. With one final blow, the duck’s head snapped off in Grandpa’s hand, and its little gray body shot through the air, caught Great Aunt Bernice in the head, and sent her rocketing to the floor, only semi-conscious, with half-chewed green beans sticking out of her mouth. 

“Grandpa! You broke Mr. Henderson’s duck!” Marsha angrily snatched the wooden head out of the old man’s shaking hands. “He carved this himself! It took him weeks!” Grandpa Joe gasped.

“Wooden duck!” he exclaimed. His gaze shifted to Cousin Steve. “You brought me a wooden duck?! What are you playing at here, you nitwit?” He grabbed the wooden duck head from Marsha and launched it at Steve. He opened his mouth to protest, and the head shot into his mouth and hit the back of his throat. He started gagging, choking on the smooth piece of wood. He hammered at his diaphragm with his fist, trying to dislodge the wayward mallard head. Marsha gasped in horror and rushed to Steve’s aid to administer the Heimlich maneuver. The wooden head was successfully dislodged; it shot out of his mouth and rolled across the carpet and under the table. Ricky the poodle, losing interest in the glob of grandpa’s phlegm, padded over to investigate. The smell of turkey-flavored mucus coated the wood, and Ricky scarfed it down. But it caught in his throat, and with a pathetic squeak, the dog fell over dead. Great Aunt Bernice, who had a perfect view of Ricky’s death from her position on the floor, cried out in anguish, having mistaken Ricky for little Lenny in her semi-conscious confusion and began giving the dog mouth-to-mouth. Grandpa Joe, oblivious to the predicament of the dog, hurled silverware at Cousin Steve, whom he had not forgiven since the forever-infamous pudding incident. Steve ducked away from flying forks and knives, ran straight through the dining room, and dove through the closed window overlooking the backyard, sending glass showering down on the rose garden and falling two stories into a particularly prickly hedgerow. Grandpa Joe ran to the window and continued flinging silverware at him from above, losing cutlery in the mess of shrubbery below. 

Marsha retrieved her flask from her pocket and plopped down at the table. She shook the pepper onto her turkey and chased a bite with whiskey. She looked around and surveyed the damage, wondering, not for the first time, if she had been adopted. Only Aunt Clare remained at the table, sitting primly and staring at Marsha with accusing eyes.

“Well,” she huffed, “this rigmarole never happens under my watch.”

Marsha abandoned the turkey and guzzled from the flask. Aunt Clare will be the first to be committed, she decided. If she were lucky, the others would just kill each other off.

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