Today, of course, we celebrated Thanksgiving at the mansion. We had quite a large group to feed, as when Exodus arrived yesterday from the Brotherhood's base in Avalon to take Blob, Toad and Magneto back with him, he decided to spend the night.

A crew was assigned randomly to prepare the feast for all the students. The cooking team consisted of Storm, Rogue, Shadowcat, Gaia and Polaris. Immediately after being given the assignment, the entire crew came bursting into my office.

"What is the meaning of this?!" Storm demanded, indignation high in her voice.

"Yeah!" offered Rogue in support.

"What do you mean, ladies?" I asked. As Leech was still in the mansion blocking everyone's powers, I had the opportunity to pretend I couldn't see where this was going.

"Making the cooking team all woman!" yelled Shadowcat, in that shrill voice of hers. I think she has a bit of Banshee's powers. I'll have to remember to check her with Cerebro.

"Yeah!" chimed in Rogue again.

"I can assure you, ladies, that the lottery for drawing cooking duty was completely random. The fact that the crew wound up being just women was totally coincidental."

"That's crap!" Storm shouted. "Do you have any idea what the odds of that happening are?"

"Well, no I don't actually. Math was never my specialty. If it's any consolation, everyone has been given a chore to do also. You have actually gotten off easy. Believe me. Wait until you see what Wolverine has to do."

They didn't leave happy but at least they left. The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. That is, if you don't count Mystique's assassination attempt against Magneto. Someone, I really can't imagine who, hired her to eliminate Eric. Fortunately for Magneto, her first move upon entering the mansion was to knockout the power-nullifying child Leech. He was the only thing keeping Magneto's powers in check. With Leech out of the way, he was easily able to defend himself.

With that disturbance over, we were able to get on with the meal. As is our annual custom, a student was chosen, again at random, I promise, to wear the Thanksgiving Turkey suit and recite the mutant prayer of thanks. This is quite an honor. The lucky X-Man to be selected this year was Wolverine.

He tried to get out of it when I informed him that he was the chosen one. "This is humiliatin'!" he yelled with that guttural voice.

"Now Logan, you know how important this is to all the children. They are here, far from home and family. It's these kind of little things that let them know they belong. I implore you, think of the children."

He let out a reluctant sigh and said, "But it ain't even a turkey suit. This is a damn chicken."

"I'm sure no one will notice," I said.

Just before dinner was served, Jean Grey arrived at the mansion, returning from her trip overseas. It was certainly nice to have her back in time for the festivities. Eventually the food was served and everyone ate until sated. Except, of course, for the Blob. Fortunately, Leech had recovered which put a bit of a limit on the obese one's appetite. But not much. As we ate, Wolverine recited the mutant prayer.

"Thank you, oh mighty Darwin, for discovering evolution. Praise to you in the highest for outlining the system that will let mutant kind someday take over the Earth. Thanks to you for ensuring our inevitable domination over Homo Sapien. Amen."

All those gathered joined in a chorus of 'Amen.'

And to all those mutants who couldn't be with us - Happy Thanksgiving!

(And a Happy Thanksgiving to the humans, too!)