still cradling the phone close, Alex leans toward the wire bars. “Okay.”
“Make eye contact with the turkey. Do you have it?”
Alex follows Henry’s instructions in his ear, planting his feet and bending his knees so he’s at Cornbread’s eye level, a chill running down his spine when his own eyes lock on the beady, black little murder eyes. “Yeah.”
“Right, now hold it,” Henry says. “Connect with the turkey, earn the turkey’s trust … befriend the turkey…”
“Okay…”
“Buy a summer home in Majorca with the turkey…”
“Oh, I fucking hate you!” Alex shouts as Henry laughs at his own idiotic prank, and his indignant flailing startles a loud gobble out of Cornbread, which in turn startles a very unmanly scream out of Alex. “Goddammit! Did you hear that?”
“Sorry, what?” Henry says. “I’ve been stricken deaf.”
“You’re such a dick,” Alex says. “Have you ever even been turkey hunting?”
“Alex, you can’t even hunt them in Britain.”
Alex returns to his bed and face-plants into a pillow. “I hope Cornbread does kill me.”
“No, all right, I did hear it, and it was … proper frightening,” Henry says. “So, I understand. Where’s June for all this?”
“She’s having some kind of girls’ night with Nora, and when I texted them for backup, they sent back,” he reads out in a monotone, “‘hahahahahahahaha good luck with that,’ and then a turkey emoji and a poop emoji.”
“That’s fair,” Henry says. Alex can picture him nodding solemnly. “So what are you going to do now? Are you going to stay up all night with them?”
“I don’t know! I guess! I don’t know what else to do!”
“You couldn’t just go sleep somewhere else? Aren’t there a thousand rooms in that house?”
“Okay, but, uh, what if they escape? I’ve seen Jurassic Park. Did you know birds are directly descended from raptors? That’s a scientific fact. Raptors in my bedroom, Henry. And you want me to go to sleep like they’re not gonna bust out of their enclosures and take over the island the minute I close my eyes? Okay. Maybe your white ass.”
“I’m really going to have you offed,” Henry tells him. “You’ll never see it coming. Our assassins are trained in discretion. They will come in the night, and it will look like a humiliating accident.”
“Autoerotic asphyxiation?”
“Toilet heart attack.”
“Jesus.”
“You’ve been warned.”
“I thought you’d kill me in a more personal way. Silk pillow over my face, slow and gentle suffocation. Just you and me. Sensual.”
“Ha. Well.” Henry coughs.
“Anyway,” Alex says, climbing fully up onto the bed now. “It doesn’t matter because one of these goddamn turkeys is gonna kill me first.”
“I really don’t think— Oh, hello there.” There’s rustling over the phone, the crinkling of a wrapper, and some heavy snuffling that sounds distinctly doglike. “Who’za good lad, then? David says hello.”
“Hi, David.”
“He— Oi! Not for you, Mr. Wobbles! Those are mine!” More rustling, a distant, offended meow. “No, Mr. Wobbles, you bastard!”
“What in the fuck is a Mr. Wobbles?”
“My sister’s idiot cat,” Henry tells him. “The thing weighs a ton and is still trying to steal my Jaffa Cakes. He and David are mates.”
“What are you even doing right now?”
“What am I doing? I was trying to sleep.”
“Okay, but you’re eating Jabba Cakes, so.”
“Jaffa Cakes, my God,” Henry says. “I’m having my entire life haunted by a deranged American Neanderthal and a pair of turkeys, apparently.”
“And?”
Henry heaves another almighty sigh. He’s always sighing when Alex is involved. It’s amazing he has any air left. “And … don’t laugh.”
“Oh, yay,” Alex says readily.
“I was watching Great British Bake Off.”
“Cute. Not embarrassing, though. What else?”
“I, er, might be … wearing one of those peely face masks,” he says in a rush.
“Oh my God, I knew it!”
“Instant regret.”
“I knew you had one of those crazy expensive Scandinavian skin care regimens. Do you have that, like, eye cream with diamonds in it?”
“No!” Henry pouts, and Alex has to press the back of his hand against his lips to stifle his laugh. “Look, I have an appearance tomorrow, all right? I didn’t know I’d be scrutinized.”
“I’m not scrutinizing. We all gotta keep those pores in check,” Alex says. “So you like Bake Off, huh?”
“It’s just so soothing,” Henry says. “Everything’s all pastel-colored and the music is so relaxing and everyone’s so lovely to one another. And you learn so much about different types of biscuits, Alex. So much. When the world seems awful, such as when you’re trapped in a Great Turkey Calamity, you can put it on and vanish into biscuit land.”
“American cooking competition shows are nothing