Christmas Beyond the Box

by Josh Langston

  The old man shakes his head. "I told her I would be here," he says, as if that explained it all. "I have to be here."

  "You're meeting a flight?"

  He nods, yes.

  "Do you have a Gate Pass? Otherwise, you can't be here unless you're a passenger."

  He digs out the paper they gave him when he arrived.

  The cop examines it and hands it back. "Ah. I see. You're okay, then."

  The old man shrugs. Worry is not "Okay."

  "You're sure you're all right?"

  The old man shakes his head and moves to the periphery.

  Christmas music plays in the background, though largely obscured by the sounds of a busy airport -- announcements, voices, the incessant beep of a golf cart used to shuttle VIPs from one gate to another. Through the windows he sees the tropical foliage of Florida beyond the runway and then is distracted by a child singing along as "Jingle Bells" pours from hidden speakers. The child knows most of the words but few of the notes.

  People in the main corridor scurry by, searching for other gates and other flights. They are the world: a menagerie cloaked in noise and anonymity.

  The old man ignores them as they ignore him. They look away, as if they don't see the skinny legs protruding from his running shoes or the sweat sock slipping down around one ankle. The image of the old man, his belly pushing against the waistband of his rolled-up walking shorts, is easy to catalog, easy to forget. Aged. Weak. Frail.

  The neck of his T-shirt is stretched and reveals a tuft of thin curls on his chest, the same wet-newsprint grey as the few strands on his head. Centered on the shirt is a printed color photo of himself with his arm around a smiling, dark-haired woman. His face bears a few less wrinkles. A caption beneath the photo proclaims:

  "I've got everything!"

  He moves on, traversing old ground.

  Cautious footsteps carry him through the overheated air by a huge window and deliver him into cooler shadows where his image is reflected on the glass. His strongest feature, a fiercely patrician nose, angles down steeply above an unlit cigar. Trailing behind is the faint odor of tobacco -- unsmoked -- he's been told he cannot smoke. His rheumy eyes drift neither left nor right, but stay locked on the carpet as if his stare alone will part the masses all around him.

  It doesn't work. Instead, he must maneuver between them and does so in silence.

  An hour passes.

  A heavy man in a flowered shirt stands in the middle of the aisle talking to a woman of similar size wearing a dress with the same floral pattern. "They never tell 'ya nuthin'," he says, and the old man turns away.

  A child lands at his feet, dumps a mound of building blocks on the carpet, and begins to play. The old man turns again.

  The flower-shirted passenger is still talking to his female counterpart. "Remember the crash they had a couple years back? Horrible. Terrible tragedy. And they never said a word about it. Sure, it was on the news, but nobody at the airport found out 'til later." Shaking his head, the big man shifts his bags from seat to floor, then drops into the vacated space.

  With his hands clenched and jaws set, the old man moves on.

  Another hour passes.

  "The Midwest? I'd never fly out of there," says a woman whose jewelry and nail polish match the trim on her velour jogging suit. She talks into her cell phone, but her voice seems so loud she doesn't need it. "Storms are so bad, they knock planes right out of the sky."

  "They should have extra planes standing by," mutters a mother of three little ones in need of naps. The old man could use a nap, too, but that's not possible -- not yet, not until she's safe. He drifts on through the restless crowd.

  The gate agent returns and approaches him as if they know each other. "Maybe you ought to go home. It's getting late and there's nothing--" A phone at the desk rings. The agent answers it and holds up a hand. The old man walks away.

  "Ladies and gentlemen," the agent announces over a loud speaker, "flight 373 has just been cleared to land. We'll have the aircraft ready for boarding as soon as possible."

  Against a background of scattered whistles and cheers, the old man raises his head. The cigar disappears. His hands, no longer clenched motionless behind him, come forth. Like the rest of him, they become animated, suddenly alive.

  The crowd pushes past him and presses toward the door. Ropes on either side of it define a canyon of bodies risen on cue. The portal is lost to him. He can't see it; he's too far back, but he knows where it is. After another eternity, the door swings open and bodies spill out, singly at first, then more and faster until they pour through -- in plaids and hats, with garment bags, stuffed bears, holiday packages, briefcases, skinned knees and shopping bags.

  The flow seems relentless, an inexhaustible supply in never-ending variety. He waits for it to end, knowing it must, knowing he has no choice, and knowing she will be the last in line. Wheelchairs always come last.

  Finally the numbers dwindle until the door stands empty; the passageway is vacant, and the ropes become tracks across a prairie. He waits, resisting crazy, stupid, scary thoughts of flights denied and missed connections, until he sees a flight attendant pushing her chair. She, too, is anxious, though her fear passes when she sees him. Her name on his lips becomes a grin as he moves toward her, his step more sure, his stride no longer humble. Reaching her, he leans and swaddles her in his arms.

  A tiny liquid jewel sparkles from the corner of her eye.

  The embrace lasts a long time, but eventually he must stand.

  She smiles. Her hair matches his now, and a wisp of it has come loose. She tucks it behind her ear and pats his hand as he steps behind the chair and nods good-bye to the flight attendant.

  They are on their way home -- together again -- in time for the holidays. She leans her head back and to the side as if trying to get closer to his hand. He squares his shoulders and draws in his stomach. Now it's much easier to read the caption on his shirt.

  ~End~

  "Do one thing every day that scares you." ~Eleanor Roosevelt

  Two weeks before Thanksgiving, Casey Bolen's old teacher, the round and amiable Miss Emry, was replaced by an angular woman whose lipstick and fingernail polish always matched. She wrote her name on the whiteboard in a flourish of bright purple: Ms. Chantre. She even underlined the Ms.

  Casey couldn't understand why no one else noticed how she maintained order. After all, none of the other teachers turned their unruly students into hamsters. Yet, whenever he tried to tell anyone, they just gave him The Look and walked away.

  Casey and his two best friends, Ray and Marybeth, sat at a small table preparing to play "Phonics-opoly," which, despite being the world's stupidest game, was vastly more interesting than memorizing multiplication tables. Casey ignored Marybeth as she dumped out colored tokens and cardboard squares. He concentrated instead on the drama near the teacher's desk.

  Billy Garber, who spent more time out of school than in, had been busted for calling Simon Smithers a bag of snot. "That's neither nice, nor accurate," Ms. Chantre said. "He's a human."

  "Are you kidding?" Billy laughed. "He's a snot machine. Just look at him!"

  Ms. Chantre escorted Billy to the back of the room where small animal cages crowded the wall-length countertop. She sat Billy between the hamsters and an overweight rabbit, then stood between him and the rest of the class, hiding him from view. When she returned to her desk, Billy was gone -- bad attitude and all.

  Casey was still staring at the cages when Ms. Chantre tapped a ruler on her desk to get everyone's attention. "The school board and the PTA require that you do an art project," she said. The students perked up. Art was cool. Best of all, it meant they didn't have to do any work.

  "There are materials on the front table for your use. Your parents would probably prefer you do something related to the holidays. I don't care what kind of art you commit, just do something. And please, do it quietly."

  During the rush to grab materials, Casey slipped to the back
of the room to look for his classmate. Sadly, Billy was nowhere to be found. Casey did, however, find an extra hamster. It looked pretty much like the other four except it had orange fur--exactly the same color as Billy Garber's hair.

  "She did it again," he told Marybeth when he returned.

  The girl's normally friendly features quickly shifted into The Look. "You are so weird," she said. "Ms. Chantre is the coolest teacher we've ever had."

  "I liked Miss Emry."

  "She was fat," Ray said.

  Marybeth chimed in quickly, "And Ms. Chantre never makes us do anything but phonics and multiplication tables. When Miss Emry was here, we had to do hard stuff."

  "But haven't you noticed that every day, somebody disappears? Today, it was Billy. Tomorrow, it could be us!"

  "Billy didn't even come to school today," Marybeth said.

  "Yes, he did! Don't you remember? He called Simon a snotbag."

  "So? That's what he is," Ray said.

  Casey laughed. "I'll ask Simon. I bet he remembers." Casey crossed the room to where Simon sat alone drawing a sky full of flying pogo sticks, each of which appeared to be releasing an impossibly large load of bombs on a broad square blob labeled "skool."

  "I heard what Billy called you," Casey said.

  "Kaboom! Chuka-chuka!" Simon said, furiously rubbing the acreage in his drawing with a flat, brown crayon.

  "And I saw what happened to him."

  "Budha-budha-budha, pow!" Simon said. He paused to wipe his nose on his sleeve, then grabbed crayons in both hands. Streaks of red and yellow Crayola fire pierced the brown layer.

  "Did you see it?"

  "Blamo!"

  Casey gave up. If only he had a hidden camera, he could prove Billy had really been there. His dad had a camera, but it was way too big. It'd be easier to hide a pony. Walking back to his seat, he wondered what it would feel like to be a hamster.

  ~*~

  At the dinner table, Casey struggled to explain what he'd seen to his parents.

  Mrs. Bolen, Casey's Mom, was a permanent member of all the PTA committees, including the Winter Holiday Task Force, which despite a name change to protect the overly sensitive from hearing the word "Christmas," was still the organization's most prestigious work group. She listened patiently before leaving the room to retrieve a well-worn paperback book. "Let's just see what the experts have to say."

  Casey slumped forward until his head rested on his crossed arms. It had been just a week since she'd last used the book--when he announced that the only thing he wanted for Christmas was a ferret. She had thumbed through several chapters before announcing: "The experts say ferrets are terribly expensive. And, they bite."

  Case closed.

  Casey almost cried. He'd never wanted anything so much in his life.

  "What's it say about hamsters?" Mr. Bolen asked.

  She scanned the index. "Nothing, but there is an item about hallucinations."

  "Hala-what?" Casey asked.

  "Seeing things that aren't there," she said. Her left eyebrow inched upward. "What did you have for lunch the day you claim your little friend turned into a rodent?"

  ~*~

  The first few times trouble-makers were sent to Ms. Chantre, everyone paid attention, but almost immediately, they all lost interest. All except Casey. He watched as victims were marched to the back of the room where they were hidden from view while Ms. Chantre turned them into small animals. Stranger still, no one else ever seemed to notice.

  Casey offered to take care of the small but growing zoo, and he had no idea who would provide that care during the Christmas break. He counted heads every day before and after class and kept track of the changes on the inside cover of his spelling folder since it wasn't being used for anything else.

  He also took notes on who went missing, and when. Billy Garber, for example, came back to class after a one-day absence, but some kids stayed gone much longer. And for reasons he couldn't understand, everyone else explained those absences the same way.

  One busy morning in early December, three older boys arrived. Well-known bullies, none of them had or wanted other friends. The rest of the students in the school merely represented a steady supply of lunch money.

  Ms. Chantre made them wait in the hall while the custodian retrieved a big cage from storage and put it with the others in the back of the room. He had to stack several of the smaller cages to make room for it. When the custodian left, she brought the three villains into the room, one by one, and carried out their sentences.

  At lunch, Casey found three guinea pigs in the new cage. Once again he alerted Ray and Marybeth to what he had seen.

  "If you keep saying such crazy things, they'll put you in a cage," Marybeth said.

  Casey looked at Ray. "Do you think I'm crazy, too?"

  "No," he said. "Only, sometimes I wish you'd talk about something else."

  "If I could just take movies of it or--"

  "Use a tape recorder? My dad gave me one," Ray said. "It's small enough to fit in your pocket."

  Casey felt a ray of hope. "Could I borrow it?"

  "You're both crazy," Marybeth said.

  ~*~

  After school, Casey took care of the animals, including a new one he hadn't seen before. Ms. Chantre called it a hedgehog. Casey thought it looked liked a pygmy porcupine. And even though it was covered in prickly spines, he wondered if a hedgehog would make a better pet than a ferret. He decided he'd have to do some research before he made up his mind. Moving on, he filled the water bottle on the guinea pig cage and fed the chubby rabbit. It seemed to like him a great deal.

  "Thanks, Casey," Ms. Chantre said. "You're a good worker. I'm sure our little friends appreciate all you do for them."

  Casey shrugged. It wasn't the first time he'd been alone with Ms. Chantre, but she still made him nervous.

  "Sadly," she said, "they won't be able to remember."

  "Remember what?"

  "You, of course. When they return to human form."

  Casey swallowed, hard. The windows were all locked, and Ms. Chantre stood between him and the only door out of the room. Trapped!

  "I know you know," she said. As Casey backed away, she pointed at him, the sharp nail of her index finger tinted blood red. "It's okay. I don't mind. In fact, you can do it, too."

  "What?"

  "Don't play dumb, Casey. Unlike the others, you've seen what I can do. Would you like me to show you how it's done?"

  "You'd teach me how to turn people into animals?"

  "Sure."

  "But, I'm just a-- a kid. I can't do magic!"

  "Stuff and nonsense," she said. "Here, I'll show you." She walked to her desk and took a small, silver box from the bottom drawer, then reached into her huge handbag and pulled out a set of note cards bound with a wide rubber band. She tossed the cards to Casey. "Go through those and find the one marked 'White Mouse.' Pull it out."

  Casey stared at the cards. They were blank.

  "Oops! Wait. You can't read them without these." She slipped a dainty pair of spectacles from her nose and handed them to him. The lenses appeared to be plain glass, but when he looked through them, words hovered above the cards like special effects in a 3D movie.

  Though the cards were all different, a line of text floated across the top of each. Near the middle, in English, was the name of an animal. Casey guessed the word was repeated in other languages. A series of symbols and partial words appeared on the body of the card. He knew many of the words since they were simply the names of common critters, but one card stumped him. It bore the word Esrever, but he couldn't imagine what sort of creature that might be. However, since there were other exotic animals like Manticore and Gryphon, he assumed it was something like that.

  "You don't need to memorize them," she said, her voice snarly. Patience was not a word one used with Ms. Chantre.

  Finally, Casey found the white mouse card. "Got it! Now what?"

  Ms. Chantre opened the silver box and took out
a pinch of green powder as fine as talc. She put the box on the counter, reached into a terrarium, and captured a plump frog. It squirmed in her grasp, its eyes bulging and its front and back legs making swimming motions. "Now, now," she mumbled and dusted the amphibian with powder. In moments, it quit wiggling and lay limp in her fist like a sock full of sand.

  "Is it dead?" he asked.

  "Of course not. It's merely--" she groped for a word "--suspended." She flicked the index card with her finger. "Now, read the card out loud. All of it."

  Casey stumbled at first, but then took his time, pronounced each syllable according to his best phonetic guess, and got all the words right. He looked up in time to see the frog sprout fine white hair as its limbs became shorter and furry. In moments the last traces of the frog vanished, replaced by a tiny mouse with an extremely busy nose. Ms. Chantre held it in her hand and rubbed it between the ears with a crimson fingernail. "See how easy that was?"

  Casey realized his mouth had fallen open. "Are you saying I did that?"

  "Of course! Anyone with The Sight can do it, and you obviously have it. As long as you know what a creature is when you start, the words on the cards determine what it will become."

  "And how do you change 'em back?"

  "There's a spell for that, too. It's in there," she said, pointing at the cards in his hand. "I can't give away all my secrets, but I will share one: none of this works without the powder, and I'm the only one who knows how to make it." She held up the silver box and chuckled. "You've probably heard people say, 'take a powder,' but I'll bet you never knew where the expression came from."

  He not only didn't know; he didn't care. "That's all there is to it?"

  "Don't be ridiculous. There's much, much more -- enough to keep you busy for years. The training takes a long time, but you could do it. And, you're smart enough not to say anything about it to anyone." Though she held his shoulder lightly, each of her sharp fingernails dug into his skin. "We can always use new blood."

  "I should talk it over with Mom and Dad."

  "Suit yourself. They're down there." She nodded at a pair of pale blue parakeets sharing a perch in a cage at the end of the counter. "Cute, aren't they?"

  Casey turned slowly in their direction. Breathing became difficult. Mom? Dad! He turned to look at the teacher. "What did they do wrong?"