Rote slowly turned his head to look at the clock on the nightstand, cheek feathers rustling against his pillow loudly in the stillness of the early morning. The ticking of the brass alarm clock, also, seemed louder than it should have been. It was 5:28. A sigh of disappointment blew through his nares, and he reached up to move the little hook on top of the alarm clock to lock the bell striker in place. There was one loud sound dispensed with. He lay still for a bit longer, enjoying the comfort of the bed he was in, listening to more morning sounds as he became aware of them. He heard a far-away rooster crow. He heard a plate clink downstairs. He listened to Paco's breathing just behind his head. Two minutes went by, and the alarm clock made a disturbing clunk sound. It would be ringing if Rote hadn't prevented it. He sighed again.
"Time to get up," Rote said, turning his head towards the roadrunner whose bed he was sharing.
Paco pretended he was still asleep.
"Hey... Paquito... Gotta get up," Rote chided, tapping his wingtip on the roadrunner's slender beak, which was resting between his cheek and shoulder.
Paco wrapped his wings around Rote and spooned him tighter, sweetly rebuffing the notion of getting up.
"Paquito!" Rote protested. Come on. We'll miss breakfast."
Paco eventually relented, and the birds slid out from under the blankets into the un-cozy world waiting beyond them. Rote stood by the dresser and shook his feathers out while Paco, clad only in his feathers as well, looked around on the floor for some clothes to put on. He found his favorite kaftan under a chair and draped it over himself, and the pair went down for breakfast.

Had they missed breakfast, they wouldn't have missed much. Mrs. Guilford was doing the best with what she had, but there simply wasn't much of it. A pile of hash browns, a mostly empty bottle of ketchup, a pepper mill. That was all that was safe to eat. No one dared touch any eggs, or milk, or whatever unseasonable vegetables might be popping out of the cursed soil today. Nestor was already at the table, trying to make his portion of hash browns with no butter last for more than a few bites.
"Sorry boys, this is it," Mrs. Guilford said, wiping her wings on her broad apron. "Someone will have to go to town and pawn the radio so we can eat dinner." The large, matronly bald eagle had a downcast look on her hooked, yellow beak.
"Where's Mr. Guilford?" Paco asked, settling into a chair beside Nestor.
"He went to dig for worms, stubborn old mule," Mrs. Guilford replied. "I told him to just ask the neighbors for something to eat, but he's too proud."
"Well, best of luck to him. I'm not too proud for a plate of worms," Nestor said, scraping his empty plate.

The sun was creeping over the horizon when the farmhands ventured out the back door to confront the day's uncertainty. Rote looked around, wings akimbo on his hips.
"Well, Buckshot's stall needs cleaning out," Rote said distastefully. "Nestor, you and I can do that. Paco, you feed the chickens."
Paco nodded, even though he didn't really care for feeding the chickens since they had become so much bigger than him.
"Hey, what's that?" Paco asked, pointing a wing at the cornfield.
The others turned to look. Poking up above the mowed brambles of dry corn stalks was an emerging orange dome like the rising sun behind it. The birds went to the fence for a closer look.
"It's a pumpkin," Nestor concluded curiously.
"We didn't plant any pumpkins..." Rote answered suspiciously.
Paco ducked through the fence and cleared some of the dry, husky plant matter away from the side of the orange mass, revealing a pumpkin that was as tall as Nestor. The stocky, six-foot-three seagull climbed over the fence and approached the pumpkin, rapping his wing on it. It thumped densely.
"Feels like a regular pumpkin," Nestor said over his shoulder, a little doubtfully.
Rote slid through the fence to join the others in examining the mystery gourd, the little blue parakeet contrasting sharply with the bright orange of the pumpkin as he made a trail all around its considerable circumference. When he came back around he looked happy.
"It hasn't got any eyeballs, or teeth, or nothin'..." Rote said, rubbing his wings together. "It ain't moving, or howling or trying to grab anybody..." He smiled. "Fellas, I think something finally grew that we can use!"
Nestor and Paco traded a glance.
"I don't know," Nestor said. "Remember what happened to Paquito when he tried to eat that eggplant?"
Paco shuddered.
"We don't have to eat it!" Rote said excitedly. "We can sell it!"
The others' eyes lit up. It had been a month since they had any salable produce; they had almost forgotten that's what they were supposed to be doing. Now they realized what it meant, and they looked as gleeful as Rote.
"I-it's gotta be worth a fortune!" Paco said. "A pumpkin this big has to fetch at least thirty dollars! No worms tonight!" The joyful roadrunner hugged the pumpkin.
"Steak for me," Nestor said, already drooling.
"I'll get a saw!" Paco chirped, and dashed off towards the tool shed.
Rote chuckled, watching the roadrunner sprint off as fast as he'd ever seen him go. "Come on, let's get the chickens fed, and then we'll help him roll it," Rote said, taking Nestor by the wing happily and heading towards the barn.

Paco sat on top of the pumpkin alone, working a frame saw enthusiastically on its thick stem. As he sawed, he daydreamed about food.
"Chapulínes... Pozole de lagarto... Tortillas and elotes, made out of normal corn..."
He was lost in a culinary fantasy land and didn't realize how far through the stem he was. The saw finally went through it, and he tumbled forward, falling off the pumpkin and landing in a heap of corn husks on the ground. He stood up, a little shaken, and as he was brushing the dust off his clothes an opening appeared in the side of the pumpkin behind him. The rind was opening outward like a door, and a weird figure was slowly emerging. Paco glanced over his shoulder at the spindly creature and fell to the ground again, squawking in alarm.
"Do not fear," the entity said gently, pumpkin guts dribbling from its mouth. "I bring only good tidings."
The creature had a tall, lanky humanoid body made of twisted vines, with floppy yellow flowers here and there. Its arms were too long, which gave it a slightly unsettling appearance. Its head was a pumpkin, with hollow eye sockets and a jagged crack of a mouth that coincidentally resembled a Jack O' Lantern.
"Good tidings? Who are you, pumpkin Santa Claus?" Paco asked, cowering nervously in the dry corn stalks.
The pumpkinish imp chuckled. "No, but I bring gifts!" He held out an armload of pumpkin seeds, each one as big as a ham sandwich.
"Pepitas!" Paco gasped, eyes widening at the delicious and tempting offering. He grabbed one and nearly sunk his beak into it before realizing what a mistake it might be. He froze, and tilted his eyes up at the looming vegetable man.
"Go on, eat them all!" the pumpkin head persuaded in a honey-sweet voice.
"Uhhh, no thanks, I'll spoil my dinner," Paco said, and dropped the seed on the ground.
"Very well. There are others who will accept my seeds..." the pumpkin man said, sounding airy and unconcerned. Paco wasn't frightened any longer, but he was still decently creeped out.
"So uh, who are you exactly?" Paco asked, standing up.
"I am the envoy of the pumpkins," the envoy of the pumpkins replied.
Paco looked confused. "Oh... kay. That's neat. Say, you mind if I sell your pumpkin over there?" He pointed at the giant pumpkin, square segment still hanging open like a cat flap, strings of pumpkin innards trailing from its inner side to the dark interior of the fleshy gourd.
"You may do with it as you wish. It is only the vessel through which I arrived and has served its purpose to me."
"So I can take it to the market and get a few sawbucks for it?"
"Yes, by all means! To market! Where it can be partaken of by all and my seeds may spread!"
Paco stared at the bizarre pumpkin thing, visibly disturbed. "Yeah... Spread the seeds..." he repeated hesitantly. "You uh, wanna help me load it up in the car, amigo?"
"But of course!"

Rote tossed a wingfulful of chicken scratch to the big, lumbering poultry in the coop. They gobbled it up voraciously, pecking at the ground with a violence that seemed unwarranted for a bunch of grain. He wouldn't want to be inside the coop while feeding the chickens. Tossing feed in from outside was a lot safer. Nestor leaned back on the chicken wire fence just to the side of Rote.
"Sometimes I think he's kind of handsome," the seagull said, looking at the massive rooster pecking the dirt.
"I don't think you're his type," Rote replied, and tossed another wingful.
Nestor snickered. "Not remotely. And he'd make a terrible dinner date. But just look at those hackles, and that tail. Wouldn't you like to have plumage like that?"
Rote looked over the towering cockerel. He had such voluminous neck feathers that it seemed like his plump body tapered right down to his head. They were a speckled gold, transitioning to a red body. They were the rich, lustrous colors of a Persian rug. His tail, black and shiny like a beetle, really was gorgeous.
"He's got me beat; I'll say that," Rote admitted. "But I don't think I envy him for being so..." Rote held out his wings to pantomime a fat ball shape and puffed out his cheeks.
"What? You mean you don't want to be a humongous blimp like he is?" Nestor laughed, and the rooster crowed, as if in response.
"No, I'm perfectly happy being small and twiggy," Rote replied, setting the nearly empty burlap sack of feed on the ground. As he did so, a loud growl came from his belly. He clasped a wing to the fluffy white feathers on his naked front.
"Your tummy doesn't sound too happy about it."
Rote made a whimpering noise and sat on the ground. "I'm so hungry it's driving me up the wall. I tried eating June bugs under the porch light last night."
Nestor nodded sympathetically. "I've been eating the chicken feed."
Rote looked aghast. "What? That's crazy! You saw what it did to the chickens!"
"I know, but I was starving and it was so good and it hasn't done anything to me yet."
"How much have you eaten?" Rote asked with growing interest, scooping some feed out of the bag.
"A wingful here and there. Kind of a lot, actually..."
Rote nibbled a little. "By gum, it is good." The parakeet stuffed his beak with it and masticated happily, packing a nice lump of the stuff into his crop. "It's filling, too," he said with satisfaction, rubbing his chest.
"Now you're in on the secret," Nestor said. "I guess I could'a told sooner, but it's kind of embarrassing."
"More embarrassing than being attracted to a rooster?" Rote teased, standing up.
"Who's attracted?!" Nestor shot back. "I just said he was handsome." They laughed.
"We should see how Paquito's getting along," Rote said. He reached out for Nestor's wingtip and they started back towards the house, wing in wing.
"What do you think anyone would buy that pumpkin for? It's too big to eat," Nestor said.
"I dunno. Cut it in half and make a pair of fishing boats?" Rote answered.
"Dog house?" Nestor chortled.
"Mrs. Greeble might need a new dress form..." Rote and Nestor both snorted laughter at that.
"Say, you sound even hungrier now," Nestor observed, poking at Rote's belly. It had become rather noisy again.
"I don't feel that hungry. Actually, I'm stuffed." Rote felt his chest again. Despite the loud rumbling in his belly, his crop felt packed and bulgy. He stopped walking. The feeling of fullness was getting worse. Nestor leaned closer, examining Rote's face with concern.
"Rote, is that a... comb?" He touched the spongy red protuberance on Rote's forehead. With horror, Rote brought a wing to his face and felt it as well, along with the beginnings of a wattle under his beak. He brought his other wing to his chest, and he could feel not only his crop but his whole breast start to swell.
"You said that the chicken feed didn't do anything to you!" Rote exclaimed, clutching at his chest as if he could hold it back from expanding.
"I-it didn't!" Nestor replied defensively, gesturing to himself.
"Oh, I knew I shouldn't've..." Rote whimpered, and a loud gurgle rumbled up from his core, pushing his chest and his belly out further. He was growing swiftly now, and they hadn't even time to comment further before Rote had burgeoned into a barrel-chested ball of lard taller than Nestor. The seagull looked up, following Rote's ascension, stepping back to make way for his widening, rounding body. Rote fluttered his short wings against his bloating body, puffy comb and wattle almost obscuring his beak, which was lengthening into a point that nestled into his fluffy haystack of a neck. Spurs protruded from the backs of his legs, and his tail bloomed into a thick, droopy frond. The gurgling stopped, and with it the growth. Rote was now a gargantuan blue chicken, a particularly plump and thick-breasted rooster.
"Are you all right, Rote?" Nestor asked nervously.
"Bok bok," said Rote.
"Oh dear," Nestor said, shaking his head.

Paco and the mysterious pumpkin entity had finished loading the pumpkin into the back seat of the touring car which served as the farm's only roadworthy vehicle. A truck would have been far better suited to the task, and they had one, but it was currently flattened at the bottom of a crater shaped like a cow. They were casually strolling back to the barn to find Nestor and Rote when they encountered the seagull and a gigantic blue rooster.
"These must be your friends. How do you do?" the pumpkin fiend said pleasantly, extending a vine for Nestor to shake.
"Nestor, what happened?" Paco asked incredulously.
"What happened with you?!" the seagull replied, pointing his beak at the frightening creature whose vine he was shaking.
"Yes Paco, do introduce us," the pumpkin thing said.
"Oh, yeah," Paco said. "This is Nestor. And Nestor, this is, uh... Señor de la Calabaza."
"Charmed," Nestor said, releasing the vine from his wing.
"Is that Rote?" Paco asked, noting the unmistakable coloration of the rooster's feathers.
"Yep," Nestor said.
"Is he okay?"
Rote watched the goings-on with an uncomprehending but contented expression.
"I think he'll be a little cross with me when he changes back, but for now he seems happy," Nestor said, patting the side of the two-ton chicken.
"Bok bok," said Rote.
"Even as a chicken he's still pretty cute," Paco said, staring upwards. "Can we leave him here? I wanna get going and sell that pumpkin. There's some tamales with my name on them somewhere."
"I think he'll be all right. You won't get into any trouble while we're gone, will you big guy?" Nestor said, turning to Rote and finding the rooster pecking pumpkin seeds out of the vegetable individual's root-like hands. "Hey, wait a minute..."
It was too late to stop it. Rote had pecked them all up eagerly, much to the pumpkin creature's delight. An ominous rumble came from the fat belly of the rooster.
"What did you do to my friend?" Paco asked angrily.
"Nothing. He has taken my seeds and become one with pumpkinkind."
"Forget I asked..."
Rote rumbled, and hiccuped, and started to grow again. He was steadily expanding as if being filled with something, body becoming more orb-like than it already was. As he ballooned outwards and upwards, his feathers changed from blue to orange. It was a gradual shift, and when the last feather was bright orange he had doubled in size and become almost impossibly, ponderously round.
"Oh no, now he's going to be really sore at us..." Nestor said, slapping a wing on his face.
Rote was so round and swollen that he seemed like he was under pressure. Indeed, some of his contents did force their way out. A couple of green tendrils with leaves snaked out of his beak, but he slurped the vines back and swallowed them again. He didn't seem bothered. He maintained his happy, dopey demeanor through it all, if anything seeming to enjoy what was happening to him. His eyes lidded and his beak curled into a smile, body continuing to grow and expand like ripe produce...
The other birds backed away in Rote's widening shadow, anxiously listening to the creaking and stretching sounds coming from his massive body.
"He sounds like he's gonna blow up..." Paco whimpered accusatively at the pumpkin guy.
"Have no fear. Your friend will most likely remain whole. He has taken well to pumpkin form..." The pumpkin demon stroked a vine on Rote's taut belly.
"Well un-pumpkin him! It's bad enough he got turned into a chicken!" Nestor demanded.
"I cannot do as you ask, even if I would choose to. He will now become host to--" the pumpkin ghoul started to say before Rote's lightning-fast beak darted down and pecked him up. He was swiftly gobbled, but seemed to approve of the idea. Paco and Nestor stared with dumbfounded beaks agape.
"Perhaps that's one problem solved?" Paco wondered optimistically. From Rote's body came a tense creaking sound like tightly twisting roots, and he immediately began swelling larger again, indicating that the problem was not, in fact, solved.
"Now look how big he is!" Nestor exclaimed, throwing out his wings in exasperation.
"He's gonna blow up..." Paco said in a small, fearful voice, watching Rote grow taller and bloat bigger.
At this point, the look of idle bliss on the chicken's face turned to one of active interest. He spotted something he wanted, and with a titanic, thudding step he began waddling over to it. Nestor and Paco realized what it had to be, following the rooster's gaze to the big, bright, candy-sheened pumpkin in the back of the car.
"No no no, Rote, baby, no!" Nestor pleaded, tugging at Rote's leg to no avail.
"Our meal ticket!!" Paco squawked, and dashed for the car with all the characteristic speed of his species. With thunderous footsteps getting closer, the roadrunner braced his foot on a fender and frantically yanked on the starting crank, begging the gasping engine to come to life.
"¡Vamos! ¡Enciende, cubo oxidado! ¡Te vendo por chatarra, hijo de puta de cuatro patas!" The engine stumbled and coughed but came to life, and Paco gasped with delight. He kissed the radiator tenderly. "¡Te quiero, bonito!"
He jumped over the passenger door and scrambled for the steering wheel, shoving the throttle lever as far as it would go and slamming the stick into first gear as soon as he could get a wing on it. The car groaned and wheezed, struggling to move with the weight of the great pumpkin, and Rote was almost close enough to peck at them. The car turned out the front gate and headed down the road towards town, springs bottoming out, clutch burning odorously. Paco bounced in the seat impatiently, looking over his shoulder. He was barely outpacing the looming rooster's ground-shaking footsteps. The grinding whine of the transmission rose in pitch as the car accelerated, and when it reached an appropriate note Paco whipped the gear selector again. Crunch, grind, and the car bit into second gear with a bounce forward. He was doing almost forty now, and Rote had to jog to keep pace. Thoom thoom thoom, The gargantuan rooster toddled side to side, a ponderous, swaying waddle which seemed comically ineffective but nevertheless couldn't be comfortably outrun. Paco was startled when Nestor slid over the pumpkin and into the passenger seat.
"Wha? What were you doing back there?!" Paco stuttered.
"Pushing!" the seagull replied.
Paco hit third, and the speedometer was trembling just under 50. It looked like they might be able to escape the hungry poultry behind them. Rote was getting tired, and falling back. The birds in the car relaxed a little.
"I'm not stopping 'til we get to town," Paco said, still gripping the wheel tightly. "I'll stop right in the middle of Main Street and unload this damn thing on the first guy with twenty bucks in his pocket!"
"We can get more than that," Nestor said critically. "This thing is a genuine freak of nature. That has to be worth at least thirty-five."
"I don't wanna haggle all day. I wanna eat!"
"Watch out for that cow..."
The wooded lane they were on curved gently before a bridge, which a loose cow was blocking. Paco stepped on the brakes, but not much happened. He pulled the emergency brake lever, but with minimal effect. They were too heavy to stop. The back tires skidded helplessly, and not even down-shifting could slow them up. The cow was unperturbed by the car barreling toward her and paid little attention to its gravelly, bellowing horn. The enormous chicken that came crashing out of the trees right behind it though, that got her attention. She mooed fearfully at the colossal fowl and scampered off the road, bell clanging. It was too late though. The car skidded sideways at the foot of the bridge and nearly tipped over. It teetered up on two wheels, but didn't fall. It lost the pumpkin though. Down into the ravine below the bridge it went, bouncing on rocks all the way to the bottom where it smashed to bits like a gory orange piñata. Rote leaned over the edge of the embankment, stretching his neck disappointedly down at the remains of the pumpkin, which were already washing away in the gurgling water. Nestor stared in horror, totally speechless. Paco looked like he was going to cry.

"More pie, boys?" Mrs. Guilford asked sweetly, taking empty pie tins away from Nestor and Paco.
"Yes, ma'am," Nestor said, a bit muffled.
Paco just nodded. His beak was totally packed.
"Eat all you want! We'll have pumpkin pie for a week!" the giddy eagle said, and pulled four more pies out of the oven.
"All thanks to Rote!" Nestor said, patting his wing on the parakeet seated beside him at the kitchen table.
Rote nodded meekly. He looked much himself again, except that he was bright orange, and had a huge, round belly, and was nearly eleven feet tall. He took a bite of his pie, looking exhausted.
"How did you know making the pumpkins into pies would make them safe to eat?" Paco asked, before biting into another huge slice.
"Pumpkin pie is such a good old stand-by," Mrs. Guilford said with a shrug, as if the answer merely presented itself. "Nothing can go wrong with a pumpkin pie."
Rote suddenly looked uncomfortable, and his fat belly rumbled. "Oof... I think there's another one on the vine for you... Excuse me..." The parakeet stood up slowly from sitting on the floor, hugging his gut as he carefully made his way to the back door and squeezed out of it.
Mr. Guilford looked down at the pie in front of him with the sort of glower eagles are good at. "Where did these pumpkins come from, exactly?" he asked suspiciously, turning his gaze to Nestor and Paco.
"Um, well, we grew them, natch," Nestor said nervously. Paco nodded and stuffed more pie in his mouth so he wouldn't have to speak.
"And Rote's gone to fetch another, has he?" Mr. Guilford prodded.
"Yes, he must have," Nestor replied.
"From the vine..."
"I think so."
"I didn't see any pumpkins on that vine. Never did."
"Oh well, heh, they grow so fast you see..."
"I just bet they do, curious pumpkins such as that." Mr. Guilford forked up a morsel of pie and stared at it. "Most curiously egg-shaped pumpkins I ever saw..."
Paco choked on his pie a little.
"Won't you have some whipped cream?" Nestor asked, offering the bowl to Mr. Guilford with an agitated smile.