Zoe was the one who picked him out.  He looked like an ordinary bald, packaged chicken in the refrigerated section at the market.  Medium sized, nothing special.  Mom said, “Grab one,” and so she did.  She placed the leaky carcass into a plastic bag, set it beside the other groceries in the cart, and went off to find her cereal for the week—not giving the dead bird another thought. 

 Outside, a dusting of snow fell like rice.  “Race ya!”  Zoe yelled as she bolted across the icy parking lot toward their car.   Her dad got a late start—she heard him scrunching somewhere off in the snow behind her.  “Be careful!”  Her mother shouted wildly from an even further distance.  Zoe made it to the car first and climbed into the front seat.   The car was already on, the heater blasting keeping the inside toasty while they shopped.  Her parents loaded the groceries into the backseat and her dad assumed his position amongst the provisions.   The car rolled out of the parking lot as her dad found a comfy spot to lay his head amongst the groceries.  Zoe realized it was an easy win.  Her dad liked to nap in the backseat during car rides—and grocery trips with paper towel rolls were the best.  

At the stoplight, her mom synced her phone to the car and bobbed her head to her favorite song.  A man kept singing, “Her name is Anna Banana, oh yeah!”  A cacophony of fluted and stringed instruments played alongside his screeching voice creating a jumble of noise that had Zoe convinced the band was comprised of preschoolers and cats. “Anna Banana,” was Zoe’s least favorite song on the album and her mother had it set on repeat.  She was in one of those moods again.  Maybe Dad really did win the race Zoe thought as she stared past the swirling snow through her window.

And then Zoe heard it: soft gurgling clucks rising from the backseat.  

It sounded like a chicken.  She shook her head, told herself she was hearing things. The chicken they had bought for dinner was wrapped in plastic—displayed alongside other plastic-wrapped meats—pale, bald, and dead as can be when Zoe plucked it out of the freezer.  She swallowed hard and peered over her shoulder.  In the dim light, Zoe made out the silhouette of a chicken head.  She turned back, her breath caught in her throat.  It made no sense—the chicken they had bought had no head. 

In a feathery bolt a bright white chicken sprang out of the grocery bag and darted to her dad, cooing and hugging against him.  He didn’t notice, and stayed asleep with his mouth agape.  “Dad, Dad!” Zoe shouted, frantically.  By the time her dad opened his eyes, the chicken was no longer a chicken, but had turned into a nude elf-like creature with a long crooked nose.  He buried himself into her father whimpering, trying to hide from his sudden vulnerability.  Zoe was horrified.  The poor thing had been skinned, starved, wrapped in plastic, flash frozen and had lived through all of it.  Her dad woke up and looked down at the shivering creature against him, disgusted as though it was a booger.  Zoe gazed over the heap of grocery bags in the car. 

“Dad, it’s cold and starving. Give it something to eat. ”  Zoe begged.  Her dad reached into a bag and pulled out some grapes and chucked them hard at the creature, laughing as they bounced off its body like rubber balls. 

“Don’t!  You’re hurting it.  Why are you being so mean?” 

“What’s it matter?  We’re cooking it as soon as we get home,” he smiled.

“No, you can’t!  Mom, the poor thing is helpless.  Tell Dad not to hurt it!”

“I think stuffing it with grapes is a marvelous idea, dear.  It’ll make the meat extra sweet and juicy.”

“No, I won’t let you do it!”  Zoe yelled, as they rolled into the driveway.

By the time they got home, the chicken that had turned into an elf, now began to take on the appearance of a toddler.  He wore a cloth diaper, and with each step, looked more and more like a pale, malnourished child.  The feathers had turned into a shock of blond hair.  If he was human, Zoe figured he needed a name.  

“Is Jonathan an okay name?” Zoe asked him while her parents unpacked the groceries.  The little boy smiled at her and his shrunken, pointed elf nose transformed into a childish snub.  He opened the fridge and pointed to some left over mush in a glass container and said, “Num, num.”  Her parents ignored them as they prepared for dinner.  Zoe pulled out the Tupperware, popped open the lid, and fed Jonathan leftover mashed potatoes.  He gratefully sucked the cold potatoes from her fingertips and then fell asleep in her lap.  Zoe wouldn’t let her parents eat him.  She would never let anything harm him.  Jonathan was now her brother. 

Zoe snuck Jonathan to her bedroom and closed the door behind them.  She laid him on her bed then set to move her dresser in front of the door to keep her parents out.  She heard them laughing in the kitchen, corking open a bottle of wine, taking out pots and pans.  Soon they would come banging on the door.

Jonathan sat up in her bed.  He looked older now, maybe five-years-old.  His cloth diapers had turned into ragged pants.  “Were you really going to eat me?” he asked.

“No I would never eat you.  You’re my brother.”

He smiled as he jumped off the bed and flayed his arms across her desk, scattering all of her books and papers across the floor.  He then ran over to her dresser, pulled her socks and underwear out of the drawers, and dumped them out of the window.

“Stop it!  Stop it!”  Zoe yelled.  “What are you doing?”  Zoe jumped on his back as he threw her canister of markers and pens up in the air.  He fell to the ground with a thud.

“I’m getting the portal ready.”

“Portal, what portal?” 

“The portal back home.  Don’t you wanna go?”

Zoe didn’t know what to say.  She had no idea her parents could be so mean.  Their laughter scared her, but now Jonathan was acting weird and he kept changing.  “Are you going to turn back into a chicken?”  Zoe asked.

“Nuh-uh.  Promise.”  He shook his blond hair from side to side.  Zoe climbed off his back and sat beside him. 

“Zoe!”  Her parents yelled from the kitchen.  Jonathan took her hand and they scurried across the bedroom to her closet where he pulled her clothes back and revealed a round, diamond-studded porthole in the wall.  The porthole was the portal.  Zoe never even knew it exited.  He pulled on a metal lever across the window, popped it open, slinked through, and disappeared.  Her parents began to pound on the bedroom door, shaking the cheap, particleboard dresser in front of it.  The portal suddenly blinked in and out of existence.  Zoe pawed at the wall in front of her.  “Jonathan!  Where are you?  I can’t find the portal!”   The pounding on the door grew louder.  The clothes around her swirled in a haze of color.  Zoe felt as though she was falling down a deep, dark pit.  She closed her eyes tight.  And then opened them.