Free Charlie Bumpers vs. the Perfect Little Turkey by Bill Harley Page B

lunch, you turkeys!” Dad yelled.
    “No problem,” Uncle Ron answered. “We never miss a meal.”
    We climbed in the truck and put on our seat belts. Uncle Ron looked over at me. “This will give us just enough time to shoot off rocket numbertwo,” he said. “I built it last night. It’s in the back of the truck, already filled up with water.”
    “Stupific!” I said.
    “Stupific,” he agreed. “Whatever that means.”
    I liked riding in Uncle Ron’s pickup—I got to sit in the front, since there were no backseats.
    Uncle Ron was whistling to himself and started slapping the steering wheel in time.
    I looked out the side window. From way up here in the truck, things looked different.
    I thought about everything that happened yesterday. About Ginger not eating the brussels sprouts and the rocket flying sideways into the house and Grandma’s yeast rolls and Buck Meson and Team Bumpers.
    And Chip, the Perfect Little Turkey.
    I wondered if Matt and the Squid and I would laugh about all those things when we grew up, like Dad and Uncle Ron laughed about the whipped cream, or Mom and Aunt Sarah laughed about green hair. Maybe someday I would even laugh about thebroken transport module and Chip would laugh about throwing up the Swedish Fish.
    And then, I thought of Mrs. Burke again. And my assignment. Right then, I knew what my definition of family was going to be.
    “Uncle Ron,” I said, “do you know what I think a family is?”
    “What, Charlie?”
    “People who love you and accept you, even when you’re a bozon.”
    “Are you talking about me?” he asked with a grin.
    “Yeah. And me, too. And Matt. And Mabel. And everyone.”
    “Everyone in this family is a bozon?”
    “I think so,” I said. “At least some of the time.”
    He laughed. “Works for me.”
    It worked for me, too.

16
B-A-R-P-H
    I headed out of the room with the doorknob in my hand. Just as I got to the stairs, Uncle Ron came running down. He blew by me and I heard the back door slam as he went outside. I figured he was going to his truck to get his tools.
    When I got upstairs, I found Mom, Dad, and Matt standing by the bathroom door. Chip was screaming and sobbing on the other side.
    “It’s okay, Chip,” Mom was saying. “We’ll get you out in a jiffy. Uncle Ron can get the door open.”
    “I want Mom!” he wailed.
    I squeezed between them, shoved the doorknob in the hole in the door, and gave it a twist. Thedoor opened and there was Chip in the bathroom, standing by the toilet.
    In his hands was the Buck Meson Transport Module.
    Broken in half.
    “You broke my model!” I yelled.
    “Not now, Charlie,” Dad said.
    Not now! When? Chip had destroyed my perfect transport module!
    “I don’t feel good!” Chip moaned. Neither did I.
    Mom gave me a cold look, then took Chip by the hand and led him into my room.
    “I don’t feel good,” he kept saying. “I want my mom.”
    I heard my mother say, “You’re fine now. You just need to calm down.”

    “I can’t,” he said hiccupping and sobbing. “I feel bad, I feel—”
    And then I heard the unmistakable sound of someone throwing up.
    I ran into my room.
    I sure didn’t want to sleep in my own bed that night.
    Or maybe ever.
    Mom helped Chip off the bed and back into the bathroom. I stood there looking at Chip’s Thanksgiving dinner. The rolls and the whipped cream.
    And the Swedish Fish. A lot of them, swimming around in everything else.
    And my broken model of the Buck Meson Transport Module.
    Buck Meson! The special was still on downstairs! I ran out of my bedroom. Right into Dad.
    “Charlie, Matt, Mabel, come with me,” he said, in his very serious voice that I never wanted to hear.
    “But
Buck Meson
’s on downstairs!” I said.
    “I don’t care where he is, we need a talk.”
    “I didn’t do anything!” Matt said.
    The Squid’s mouth was shut in a tight line.
    “Come with me,” Dad said. “All of you.”
    “Let me go pause the show,” I