The pair didn’t need to be told twice. They scuttled off into the crowd in search of someone who’d given them cider on tick. After about a hundred yards, Clara paused and patted her voluminous coat pocket. She put her hand in and pulled out a small rag bundled. Opening it carefully on her palm, she found herself looking down at all eight brass buttons. The smile on her face nearly reached both ears. She looked up to thank Iona, but she had already gone.
Gone for Christmas
Michael R. Stern
When I was seven years old, I only wanted one thing for Christmas. That was the year that Mom and Dad were taking us all skiing for the holidays, starting December 23, and we wouldn’t be home until the day before school started again. Dad kept telling me how much I would love our trip, and that I would learn to ski, just like him. I was worried because how would Santa know where we were if we weren’t home?
Right after Thanksgiving, Mom took my sisters and me to the mall to see the fake guy who wears the fake Santa suit and the scratchy fake beard. I knew he wasn’t really Santa because he smelled funny, like cookies. But I went anyway. It always made Mom happy to get those silly pictures. I said to him, “I know you’re not the real Santa, but could you get him a message?”
I told him what I wanted and why. I told him I’d been pretty good, not coal-in-the-stocking bad, but well, not a perfect kid either. It’s a bad idea to lie to Santa. I promised that I would try harder next year. When I got off his lap, before the elf girl led me away, I asked if he could do it. He said he’d take care of everything. I wasn’t so sure.
Christmas used to be a big deal in my house. Decorations on anything flat, or anywhere Mom could hang a hook. Right after Thanksgiving, Dad and I, mostly Dad, put up lights outside. We always had to go to the store to buy new ones because twinkle lights only twinkle for a couple of years. Dad swears it’s a conspiracy. And he really does swear. He does it ‘cause Mom loves it, but he’d rather be doing almost anything else. Last year, he didn’t buy new twinkle lights.
When Thanksgiving ends, and all the pilgrims go back to the attic, down come the boxes. Not this year though. Mom said no one would be home to see so there was no point. I asked about our tree. She just shrugged. I asked about Christmas cookies. She said ‘maybe.’ I asked why we were going away. She said I should do my homework.
To make matters worse, my dog ran away, two weeks before Christmas. He loved to run. And steal golf balls. He did that a lot, but he always came home. Always. Except this time. In my room, I looked out the window, and called his name to myself. My oldest sister, Eileen, disappeared, into her headphones. My next oldest sister, Caitlin, never wanted to play with me. But my dog always would play. He would walk me, chase anything I threw, sniff strangers to protect me, and he even shared my dinner. I didn’t like broccoli, but he did.
When school ended for the holiday vacation, I walked home instead of riding the school bus. Eileen found me and said Dad was going to paddle me when he got home. She said that Mom was frantic—I didn’t know what that meant—because I hadn’t come home on time. I told her I was looking for the dog. All she said was, “gone again,” and she laughed.
Having an older sister is hard. I already got bossed around by Mom and Dad. When she reached twelve, Mom said now she was grown up, and she thought that meant she could boss me around too. But that day, it hurt worse that she laughed. She told me to hurry up. But there was no school the next day, so I told her I wasn’t in a hurry. She shook her head and walked faster. As we crossed the street, I thought I saw my dog running through someone’s backyard. I yelled at Eileen and started to chase him. She pulled me back, from in front of the approaching car. The driver shook his head too, and then waved us across.
“I want to go look,” I told her.
“He’s gone again,” was all she said, and grabbed my arm. Too tight to pull away, I thought if I kicked her, I could get away. Nope. She kicked me back. It’s hard having an older sister.
Mom told me to go to my room. When I told her why I walked home, she shouted me to my room. No one seemed to care that my dog was missing. After five minutes, I went downstairs. Mom wasn’t happy to see me. I said I wanted to look again. She said she had called the pound, the animal shelter and the police.
“The police?” I asked.
“If he was hit by a car, the police would know,” she said.
I was shook up. Hit by a car? I said he couldn’t have been, he’s too fast. She said cars go very fast sometimes. Then she told me to gather my toys and whatever else I wanted to take on vacation. “And bring a good book,” she said.
“I’m not going,” I said. “I’m staying. At least Santa will know where to bring my stuff. And maybe he’ll come home. If we’re not here, he’ll starve”
“Someone will feed him, someone must be feeding him now,” she said. “And you are coming whether you like it or not.”
“I’m not,” I said, and went back to my room. When you’re seven, it’s okay to cry, so that’s what I did. All I could say was, “Gone.”
The next morning, Dad loaded the car early, and finally found me under the bed. He told me we would have a good time, but I didn’t believe him. Nothing was going to be good about Christmas. I looked out the window, and asked Dad, “Are we there yet?”
“Twenty minutes,” he said. It took a lot of twenty minutes before we got to the place. It was a gigantic log cabin. Dad said it was a resort. I didn’t care, but at least I had my own room. Eileen and Caitlin had to share.
On Christmas Eve day, Dad took me to ski school. I thought I was done with school for a while. But after spending more time lying in snow than I ever had before, at least they gave me good hot chocolate. It had tiny marshmallows and a miniature candy cane. But then, after dinner, it was Christmas Eve. Every seven-year-old knows what that means. Go to bed, or Santa won’t come. But Santa didn’t know where we were. I hadn’t told him. I went to bed and cried until sleep climbed in next to me.
When I woke up, it was Christmas. Usually I run down and look. Mom said that I can’t open any presents until we all have breakfast, but this year, I didn’t care. There was no tree. Eileen and Caitlin were already dressed in their ski stuff, and Dad was putting on his ski pants. I complained that we weren’t even having breakfast.
“Of course we are,” Mom said. “Now go get dressed. Your lesson starts in an hour.”
All I could think of was how could this be a vacation? School on Christmas?
“Now,” she said. When you’re seven, it’s not a good idea to argue with your Mom when Dad is standing, waiting. But I missed my dog.
We went to the resort food court. They called it a lodge. They had a whole table with breakfast in different pans. The man said I could eat all I wanted from any of them. He called it a smoky something bored. Dad said I should have pancakes to give me energy for the day. I thought, “Who cares? No Santa, no presents, what do I need energy for?” The man handed me my plate, and Mom put some bacon right in the syrup. Since that day, I have bacon on a separate plate.
I can still see that morning, clear as the day. I’ll never forget how miserable I felt. While I was putting on my coat to go to school, a man walked in. He had on a red and black plaid coat, wire-rim spectacles and he had a beard, white and scratchy-looking. He scanned the room and walked toward us.
“Remember me?” he asked me.
“I think so,” I said, but not really sure.
“I told you I’d take care of everything.” He reached out to take my hand.
I looked at Mom and Dad. They didn’t say no. They just followed behind. When we got to the door, sitting, panting, waiting to lick my face was my dog—Gone.
The Woods
Ann Harrison
Lacy sprawled across her bed, reading over the poem that she had been assigned in English class that morning. One particular line jumped out at her: ‘He will not see me stopping here. He will not see me stopping here. He will
not see me stopping here.’ These words raced through her mind as she finished her homework.
Lisa swooped in the front door. “Woo boy! What a wonderful day I’ve had. I got the part of the Virgin Mary in the Christmas play at church.” Her bubbly mood carried her all the way to her sister’s room. “Hey Lacy, wake up. Didn’t you hear what I said, I get to play Mary in the Church Christmas program.”
“Congratulations.”
“Hey sis, what’s wrong? You’re miles away.” Lisa perched on the edge of the bed.
“Do you remember reading a famous poem by Robert Frost in English this morning?”
“Yeah, what about it?”
“There is one line that I can’t seem to shake. I don’t know why, but ‘he will not see me stopping here,’ goes round and round in my head, as if that very line should have some significance, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.” Lacy picked up her literature book and handed it to her sister.
Lisa stared at the line in question. “Do you think the author didn’t want the owner of the land to see him stopping there, or do you just think that the guy would be hidden from view, because he was tucked away in his warm village home?” She handed the book back to Lacy.
“I don’t know about that so much, but what I’m thinking has nothing to do with the poem itself. It’s as if someone is wandering in the woods somewhere. Oh, I don’t know, maybe like he or she has something to hide. Here’s something else that keeps popping in my head. ‘I mustn’t be seen here, he will not see me stopping here. The woods, the woods behind the house.’ It’s weird I know, but something keeps nagging at me.”
“You too? I’ve been thinking about that all day. I wonder if someone is lurking in the woods behind our house. I haven’t seen Marcus hanging around very much here lately. I wonder where he has gotten himself off to.”
~~~~
Lacy lay awake pondering her discussion with her twin sister, as the icy wind howled outside her window. Is there something in the woods that we should know about, or was that line simply a reference to help me summarize the poem? she wondered as she floated away on a cloud of dreams.
She stood bundled in a warm fur coat and woollen scarf at the edge of the woods. A strange man in a horse-drawn buggy stared at the snowflakes falling all around him. The tinkle of sleigh bells caught her ear as the horse shook his head impatiently. The man didn’t notice the agitation of his horse, as he watched the snowflakes flutter to the ground.
She took a few tentative steps toward the buggy, to get a closer look, but when she stepped away from the trees, a blanket of snow covered the ground before her. When she made her way back to her spot on the outskirts of the wooded area, the man and his buggy reappeared.
“Hello? Who goes there?” Lacy called. Her voice echoed back at her. Is the man and his buggy real, or do I only see a mirage?
~~~~
“I hope you have read the poem I assigned to you last night, as it will be our topic of discussion this morning,” Miss Simpson announced to her tenth grade English students. “Now, does anyone have any comments or questions about the poem to start us off?” Lacy raised her hand. “Yes Lacy?”
“In a dream I saw the entire scene that is described in this poem.”
“Oh really, how’s that?” The teacher gave her a curious look.
Lacy described the dream, reciting the line stuck in the back of her mind.
“How interesting. Does anyone else have something they’d like to share?”
Though the conversation about the poem swirled around her, Lacy’s mind drifted back to her dream, as an unusual thought crossed her mind. He will not see me stopping here. He will not, no wait! They will not see me stopping here. They mustn’t see me standing here. What does this poem have to do with the woods behind our house? Throughout the rest of the school day, the answer to her questions eluded her.
~~~~
After stamping snow off her boots, Lacy ran upstairs and tossed her book bag onto her bed. She tiptoed to her window to take a peek at the wooded area behind the house. A thought hit her like a block of ice. The woods, the woods, go to the woods! She ran down the stairs and out the back door.
“Where are you going Lacy?” Lisa called after her.
“Come on, I have something to show you!” The twins sprinted out the back door and around the back of the house.
“Marcus! What are you doing out here all alone on such a snowy day?”
Lacy stepped toward her younger brother, but he waved her away. “Go back to the house! You mustn’t see this, I’m not done with it yet.”
“I saw a light back here. What in the world is going on?” She stepped back.
“You can’t see it now, it’s a Christmas present. Please go so Charlie and I can put the finishing touches on my masterpiece.”
“All right, but you know Mom’ll come looking for you, if you’re not back by supper time,” Lacy chided.
“I’ll be back before dinner, now scram!” The girls scampered back to the house.
“Phew! Man that was close.” Charlie helped Marcus put the finishing touches on his work of art.
“I know. If the girls would’ve seen that, they’d have gone and told Mom. I don’t want anybody to know about this thing.”
“How did she know you were back here dude?”
“I don’t know, but she has a nose for sniffing out a mystery I can tell you that. This isn’t the first time she’s found something out of the ordinary going on either at school, or somewhere else.”
“Well, I got to get home, Mom will have supper on the table in a bit, and she gets her nose out of joint if I don’t come when she calls.”
“Charlie! Supper time!” a voice called from beyond the woods.
“Coming Mom! See ya Marcus.” Charlie sloshed away, leaving snowy footprints in his wake.
~~~~
After church the following Sunday, Marcus sidled up to his cousin Mathew.
“Hey dude, can we talk?”
“Yeah sure, Marcus. What’s up?”
“Listen, I need your help with a Christmas present.”
“Whatcha need man?”
“I need you to help me get the present that Charlie and I made for my folks onto the front porch on Christmas eve.”
“What have you been up too my boy?” Mathew gave Marcus a look of mock horror.
“Come over to my house and I’ll show you.”
~~~~
On Christmas morning, the tinkle of jingle bells mingled with the melody of wind chimes. Mom crept down to the kitchen to make some coffee for dad, and hot coco for herself and the children. She spun around when she heard footsteps behind her.
“Marcus dear, what are you doing up this early?”
“I just wanted to look out the window for a minute.” Marcus tiptoed into the living room. He scurried back into the kitchen at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. “Dad, can you help me?”
“What’s up son?”
“Come with me, I need to bring something inside and I need your help.” They brought a large present inside while the ladies lingered in the kitchen.
Lacy watched in awe as Marcus uncovered the large object standing in the middle of the room. “Surprise! I have been working on this, for the last couple of months. My art teacher taught us how to make things out of wood, and she asked us to work on a large present for our families.”
“What is that Marcus?” Lisa asked as he finished unveiling his work.
It’s a carving of the scene from Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. My seventh grade English teacher read this poem to my class last Christmas, and since then, I found the poem online. I studied it carefully, and this is my interpretation of that scene. See the horse and wagon, and the man stopping to watch the snow?”
“Wow! How creative you are Marcus,” Mom replied. “Thanks for giving us a piece of art that will be treasured for years to come. I’ll put it beside the mantle, so that everyone will see it when they come over for Christma
s dinner.”
CinnaFun Pinecones
Ryan Guy
“Why don’t you try Burger Wizard, Parker? They’re always hiring.”
“Please, tell me you’re joking, Mom. I’ll never be desperate enough to spend my Christmas break flipping burgers there.”
“Where else do you plan to look, then?”
“I’ll just get a job at CinnaFun. They always need teenagers for cheap seasonal labor, right? How hard can it be?”
December 6
CinnaFun Scented Pinecones Inc.
“Any questions?” asked Midge, CinnaFun’s new-employee trainer.
“Do you ever get used to it?” Parker asked.
“Used to what?”
“The smell of stale cinnamon and fake pine trees.”
The other new employees in the room laughed.
Midge glared at Parker. “Let me give you some advice. Never insult CinnaFun’s patented scent. People love it, and because they do, they buy thousands of our pinecones every year. That smell is why you’re here. Without it, there’d be no product for you to stuff into box—”
“Attention all employees. Please report to the cafeteria immediately for a mandatory meeting.” The intercom’s announcement ended Midge’s lecture. “
“What do you think this meeting is for?” Parker asked another trainee as more people crowded into the cafeteria.
“Beats me. Maybe it’s a rah-rah-rah, CinnaFun’s the best, go team! Meeting.”
Parker smiled. “If so, I bet Midge is the head cheerleader.”
An old man in a green tweed suit entered the room. Lively conversations turned to whispers.
“That’s Phil Tarkington,” someone said.
“What’s he doing here?” asked another. “I thought he never left Corporate.”
“It’s him! It’s really him.” Midge started clapping. Others joined in as Phil shuffled his way to the front of the room.
Midge nudged Parker. “You’re not clapping. You should be clapping.”
“Why?”
“Because Mr. Tarkington is here.”
“Who’s he?”