Saying Yes To Christmas
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The next morning I woke up and decided to stop thinking. My mother said that thinking about things never solved anything.
I got up and put on my warmest clothes. I took the keys to the car, which had been left in the kitchen, and drove down to the garage. As soon as I was outside it snowed heavily. The road was thick with snowdrifts, and the trees stood all around in their heavy snowfall, white against the sky.
The garage door was standing open. Someone had stolen the car while we were asleep. I walked into the yard, and then suddenly something caught my eye—a little piece of paper on top of the snow that covered our garden wall. I picked it up. It was a shopping list for Christmas dinner, written in my mother’s handwriting.
I folded the list carefully and slipped it into my pocket. Then I went into the house to tell my parents what had happened, but when I came downstairs there was no one around. The front door stood wide open, and the living room looked like a battlefield.
There were crumbs on the floor, and the rug had been pulled back. There was broken glass on the table, and on top of the TV set was a small wooden figure. I knew straight away what had happened: Father Christmas had come during the night.
The door to the garden had been locked and bolted. Mother and Father wouldn’t have opened that door without first having an argument. And they hadn’t just forgotten to close the front door; they’d smashed it off its hinges.
I ran over to the kitchen and found a small hammer hidden under the sink. I picked it up and took it upstairs, where I tried to smash through the window into our bedroom. But when I lifted my foot off the ground, the window frame gave way at the top. It seemed that someone had been prepared for everything. The window stayed firmly stuck to the wall.
I looked out into the garden. All the windows had been smashed, and the doors to the garage were gone too. Whoever had done this must have been strong as well as clever.
It was just starting to get light when I noticed the car. It was parked right in front of the house. Someone had stolen it too, while we were asleep. My mother was nowhere to be seen. I walked into the garage. It smelled of petrol and smoke.
I couldn’t work out which vehicle was my mother’s—there were two different makes of the car there. I ran upstairs and shouted for my mother. “Where have you got to, Mum?” I asked, but there was no answer. The bedroom door stood wide open.
I went into the living room and saw the Christmas tree standing there, waiting for me, just as I remembered it from last night. But my mother wasn’t there either.
The presents were all piled high under the tree. There were even some presents for my father and for myself, which I hadn’t given Mother. I found my own present: a football. And next to it was the little wooden figure of Father Christmas, with his little bag of presents.
I picked it up and put it on the mantelpiece. I could see how excited Father Christmas must have been when he saw all those presents under the tree. But then, instead of just giving the presents to my family, he’d taken them all away with him again.
“We’ve missed the bus,” said one of the other children, looking out of the window. “It’s snowing very hard. The school will be closed.”
I didn’t believe him. The snowflakes were so soft that they melted as soon as they hit the ground. And it was still early—not time to go to school yet.
But Mother wasn’t in the kitchen or the living room. Nor could I find her in our bedroom.
When I went downstairs into the hall, I saw that the Christmas presents had been piled high here too. They hadn’t been smashed and thrown around. Whoever had taken them must have known what he was doing.
It looked as though my mother had gone somewhere else during the night after she’d come home from the supermarket and got out the presents. I went through the house, but she wasn’t there either.
All the lights were off. Only the Christmas tree was lit, and that was with electric bulbs. It didn’t look as though anyone would be home for a while.
“Look!” said one of my friends. “Santa’s coming.” He pointed at the television set, where Santa was climbing down a chimney. “He’ll be here in a moment.”
There was no one sitting on the sofa, watching Father Christmas. It was just my friend and me.
The TV screen was all blurred, and the picture was flickering.
I pressed the stop button and turned the volume up to full. There was an advert about a Christmas toy fair at the local shopping center, and the children had already bought all kinds of things. A voice came over the loudspeakers: “Come along and buy your presents today!” And then the toy fair was shown again, but this time from the inside, with lots of noisy children running around.
I could hear Father Christmas in the background, his sleigh bells ringing as he came flying out of the sky. All of a sudden, he appeared in front of us. He had his bag of presents with him, and he gave me a wink. “Ho, ho, ho,” I heard him say to himself before he disappeared.
It sounded as if someone was standing behind me. I looked around and saw the figure of Mother. She’d come back again.
“Did you have a good sleep?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
My mother was wearing her usual clothes, the ones she went out in every day. Her face was all shiny and wet, as though she’d been crying. She said nothing more, but held out her hand.
“Can you take me to the supermarket? I’ve forgotten something.”
I got up and walked over to the sofa. The little wooden figure of Father Christmas was lying there, in the place where my friend and I had put it. I picked it up and looked at its little bag of presents. Then I looked into my own bag. It didn’t feel the same anymore.
There wasn’t a single present for me. I hadn’t been good enough to deserve them.
“We haven’t even got a tree this year,” I said to Mother.
She laughed, but there was no joy in it. She took my arm and led me upstairs.
“What are we going to do?” she whispered.
“I don’t know,” I replied.
“All those Christmas trees at the shopping center.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll tell you what,” she said. “If we go down there now, maybe they’re just putting up the lights, or setting up the stalls, and they haven’t even had time to set out the decorations.”
“You think so?”
She didn’t answer. But when we got to the shopping center, there were lots of cars outside. The lights were on inside too. They shone from the roof, as well as from the windows.
My mother went to the car park first. I followed behind her, while she opened the boot and got out our carrier bags. There was a lot of snow around. We trudged across the car park until we reached a big, wooden sign that had been put up near one of the entrances. It said: CHRISTMAS SHOPPING CENTER.
My mother went over to it and read the words carefully. Then she turned around and looked at me.
“Let’s go home,” she said quietly. “We’ll get a real tree tomorrow, in town, after school. That’ll be better.”
***
A week later, I came down for breakfast.
The room was freezing cold, and everything in it felt strange. The light seemed dimmer, somehow. Even though the curtains were all shut, and the fire was burning, the room still felt as if it was covered in thick fog.
I sat down at the table next to the window and stared out through the glass. Outside, there was no sign of any life. The only sound was the ticking of the clock in the kitchen.
There were people standing at the bus stop by the station. They had their coats and scarves pulled tight against the cold, but they didn’t seem to be moving. Their mouths were wide open, as if they’d been screaming, but there wasn’t a sound.
I couldn’t see very clearly through the thick glass, and the figures moved in a blur. I tried to count them, but it was difficult, because they kept jumping about, and changing direction.
And then I noticed something else.
It was a little further along the road, behind some bushes. And it was lying on its back.
“Mother,” I called out. “Come quick!”
She hurried over to my chair, looking worried.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Look.” I pointed to the side of the road. There was something lying on the ground, surrounded by piles of snow.
“What is it?” my mother repeated.
“I can’t see very well. It looks like a dead animal.”
My mother went and peered out through the window. Then she came back and looked at me.
“Let’s go out and have a look,” she said.
So we got ready and stepped outside together. The air was cold and dry, but the sky was clear, and it was bright enough so that I could see everything. As we approached the bushes by the side of the road, I could see something on top of one of the white piles. A little black shape.
“What is it?” my mother asked again.
I picked up the first shovelful of snow and threw it onto the ground.
It was a cat.
It had been run over, and the front half of it was flattened out against the ground. The fur was gone from the end of its nose. It was a tiny thing, with a face only slightly bigger than a button. Its eyes were open, but there was no sign of any life in them.
The snow had covered its whole body except for a long, narrow strip along one side. It didn’t look as if the snow had melted or settled over it, because the strip was still dry, and the color hadn’t changed at all. I was afraid to touch it in case I broke it.
We carried it back inside and put it down on the carpet next to the fire.
“Can you get Father to come?” my mother asked. “He’ll know what to do.”
But Father wouldn’t come. He didn’t like going outside unless he absolutely had to.
“Maybe it’s dead,” he said. “We’ll just leave it here until morning.”
I started to cry. I couldn’t stop myself.
“It’s a cat!” I sobbed. “What are we going to do?”
I turned around, and there was my mother, crying too. She put her arms around me.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m sure Father will have some ideas.”
She was right. He did. But I can’t tell you what they were. All I remember is that I spent the whole evening sitting by the fire, hugging the cat and saying how sorry I was over and over again.
The next day, my mother woke me up at 6:00 a.m., so that we could go out and buy our tree. We had to hurry because it was freezing cold outside. But when we got to the car park there were no people waiting for the bus, and the buses weren’t moving.
As we came towards town, I saw people running along the street, and shouting.
“What are they doing?” my mother asked.
“They’re running away from something,” I replied.
There was a thick layer of snow on the pavements. I knew it wouldn’t be easy to walk in it, so I had my mother lift me up onto one of the benches in the square so that I could see better. It was a busy place. Lots of people were walking about, looking nervous, and talking loudly.
And I could see quite far. I saw the buses stopped at the traffic lights, and people jumping off them. And I could see a crowd running along the pavement, shouting and waving their hands in the air.
“Mother,” I called out. “What’s happening?”
My mother was staring right at me, but she didn’t answer. She just stood there, with her arms folded across her chest.
Then I saw it.
Ahead of us, on the road, there were lots of people gathered around something. I couldn’t see exactly what it was. They were pointing at it and shouting. But the only thing I could see clearly was the person lying on the ground.
It was a young man. He wasn’t very big. His whole body was covered with white powder. He looked as if he’d been hit by the snow plow.
“I think he’s dead,” I said quietly.
My mother glanced sideways at me and shook her head. But she turned back towards the front.
“We’re nearly there,” she said. “Let’s go and have a look.”
When we got there, there was already a huge crowd around the man. There were three policemen standing next to him, holding him down with their legs. People were shaking the snow from his face, trying to wake him up, but there was no response. Then one of them touched the back of the young man’s neck. He felt the pulse. He tried again. And a third time. He shook his head.
The young man looked even more dead than before.
One of the policemen shouted into the man’s ear, then let out a shout of triumph and put his hand over the young man’s mouth.
“It’s not working!” someone called out. “He must be unconscious.”
Another man went to the police car. He started to rummage around in the back of it. A moment later he came back carrying a long stick with a metal rod at the end. He held it in his hand like a policeman’s nightstick.
“We can’t carry him inside,” he said. “It will take too long. So I’ve brought this to help us get him back inside.”
The other policemen took the young man’s arms and legs, while the man with the stick held him steady. Then they all walked away from the body. The policemen followed them, walking backward so that the men on the ground wouldn’t fall. It didn’t seem to matter whether the man was dead or alive, he couldn’t get any closer to the buildings than the policemen did.
The snow was coming down hard now and falling steadily. By the time we had finished, my feet were numb from being out in it for so long. When we got home, I could hardly feel my fingers. But the house was warm and cozy, and it didn’t take long for me to thaw out.
And when I looked outside at the thick layer of snow covering everything, I felt happy because I knew how lucky we were that none of it had fallen on our roof and made the tiles collapse.
When I woke up in the morning, the sky was already overcast, and it rained hard all day. The next day, the rain changed to sleet and then to snow. All the roads and pavements became slippery ice rinks so that nobody could get out of their houses. The whole city seemed to be trapped, and I couldn’t remember ever feeling so much like an Eskimo in my life.
I was bored. My mother and father were stuck in bed with the flu. They both had temperatures up to 103°F, which is as hot as a volcano.
“How are you feeling?” my father asked. “Do you have any fever?”
My mother smiled weakly. “Yes, dear,” she said. “I feel terribly sick. But I don’t think I’m going to die.”
“That’s good news!” my father shouted. “It means I won’t be lonely. If you were to die, I’d have to put myself into the care of the state, and they wouldn’t be any fun at all.”
My mother laughed.
“But you’ll be able to watch TV together,” she added.
They were talking about the satellite TV receiver, but I knew what they really meant. They wanted to share their misery.
My father turned on the television. It was snowy and grey outside. It didn’t seem real. Everything looked too dark and gloomy.
“It’s so boring,” he complained. “There’s nothing to watch!”
He switched it off again. Then he got out some crosswords and began to fill in the answers.
My mother sat up in bed, looking out through the window.
“Where are you going to look for the snow?” she called.
“In my mind,” my father said.
The sleet turned into hail.
“I’m going to call my friend on the phone,” my mother said.
She picked up the telephone and began to dial. She paused after a while.
“I don’t want to do it,” she said. “He’ll be in bed with a cold!”
My father nodded. “I know,” he said. “I feel the same. We shouldn’t talk to people when we’re ill. That’s how germs are spread.”
“We don’t have time for this,” my mother said. “You’ve got to get well soon if you’re going to be at the opening of the new office next week. You can’t afford to take the risk of getting any worse.”
“I suppose not,” my father admitted. He looked down at his chest. “I really feel like death,” he said. “I’m lucky I don’t have a fever.”
My mother put the receiver back on its base.
“I’m sorry I disturbed you,” she said.
My father smiled. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just that this weather is so depressing. There’s no point in sitting here being miserable all day.”
“But the telephone bills,” my mother said. “We haven’t got a telephone bill for several months now! What about them?”
“Don’t worry,” my father said. “I’m going to sort it out.”
My mother gave him a long look, then sighed and lay back on her pillow.
“Well, good morning, Mum,” my father said brightly.
He turned the television on again. My mother let out another sigh.
“Good morning, Dad,” she said. “Are you going to make me watch this?”
“Not if you don’t want me to,” my father replied. “It’s your turn to choose what we’ll watch.”
“All right,” my mother said grudgingly. “What do you fancy seeing today? I’ve got a feeling that when we have watched everything that’s on at the moment, we’ll be stuck with nothing to watch!”
“How about the news?” my father suggested.
My mother nodded. “Yes, that would be good,” she said. “That’s something.”
I went into the bathroom to take a shower. When I came out, my father was reading a newspaper.
“Do you know what’s happening to us?” he asked.
“Not a thing,” my mother replied. “Nothing at all.”
The news was about how the snow had started on the other side of the world. The reporter was standing outside a department store. The weather was dreadful, with sleet coming down so thick that the man couldn’t see his hand in front of his face, but it didn’t seem to bother the shoppers. They were still pushing their way into the shop.
“I don’t care,” one woman shouted. “Just tell me what it’s selling!”
“What does she mean?” my father cried. “She can’t see anything!”
“I’m sorry,” the reporter said. “This weather is bad for everyone.”
“But that’s not important now,” my mother said. “What about our TV?”
“Oh, look at that!” my father exclaimed, pointing at the newspaper. “They’re talking about the snow! It’s worse than ever!”
The snow was so deep that the reporter was struggling to keep upright. He was trying hard to dig his way through it, but he seemed to be having more and more difficulty.
The End