Don't Call Me Christina Kringle

by Chris Grabenstein

  Thirteen

  “They got an elf nailing shoes in the window!” said the tougher of the two brownies. “Looks like our kind of place.”

  “It’s a dummy,” said the smart one.

  “I know. You have to be dumb to sit in a window where everybody can see you doin’ your elfly duty!”

  “I meant to say that the overgrown elf is a motorized mannequin. He isn’t real.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well, people say that about us all the time. And are they right?”

  “Well, no …”

  “I rest my case. Come on, Professor. We’re goin’ in. We’ll use the mail slot there. …”

  “Perhaps we should knock first!”

  “Fugghedaboutit! Jump!” He leapt up from the sidewalk and sailed through the narrow trap door. A stack of mail—mostly bills, catalogs, and junk mail—padded his landing on the other side.

  His scholarly friend, still outside on the sidewalk, paused. Adjusted his spectacles and top hat. Tapped his knuckles gently on the door.

  “Good evening. I say, is anyone home?”

  “Yeah,” came a voice from the other side of the door. “Me. Would you jump already?”

  “I’m afraid I’m not all that athletic. …”

  “Jump!”

  “Indubitably.”

  He jumped. About an inch. After three more attempts, he was able to hop up high enough to use his cane as a grappling hook and grab hold to the bottom edge of the mail slot. After much tugging and struggling, some huffing and puffing, he hauled his skinny legs up and kicked at the flapping mail slot flap with his boots.

  “Would you hurry up already?”

  “Indeed.” The skinny one tumbled sideways. Slid through. Fell down. Landed with a thud.

  His friend, who was something of a practical joker, chuckled because, during the long wait, he had slid the cushy stack of mail off to one side.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, watching his smart friend rubbing the seat of his pants, which also smarted. “That’s gotta hurt.”

  “Indubitably.”

  Fourteen

  Delores D. Dingler, who was very blonde, and went through several bottles of hair dye every month to stay that way, was the proprietress of Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe, the store next door to Guiseppe’s shoe repair store.

  Proprietress meant that she owned the place but proprietress sounded fancier than owner and Delores D. Dingler was a very fancy lady, indeed. She always wore fancy, flowing, New Age dresses made out of colorful gauze or some other fancy fabric that sure looked like gauze. Either that or fancy burlap. The dresses hung on her like loose but classy sacks. Her earlobes hung low, too, because they had been elongated over the years by fancy dangly earrings that usually weighed as much as most door knockers.

  On Saturday morning, two days after Thanksgiving, she had earrings that resembled sparkling snowflakes swinging below each ear. These were the size of hood ornaments. Maybe hubcaps.

  Ms. Dingler’s Shoppe was packed. New Age music tinkled from the speakers hidden in the ceiling, a CD featuring the Trans Hibernian Symphonique. They played the best tinkly-tinkle music of the season and made “Jingle Bells” sound like tinkle bells. Their CD ($19.99) was available near the cash register. Right next to the peppermint-stick incense ($15.99) and mistletoe lip-balm tubes ($9.99).

  “This is the Angel Tree,” Ms. Dingler said to a customer admiring the Shoppe’s gigantic all-white Christmas tree in the hushed tones other people use in churches. The Angel Tree was decorated with a flock of elegant, all-white angels fluttering off the tip of every branch. Ms. Dingler carefully took down an angel, folded open its lacy white wings, and pulled out a fancy scroll of white parchment paper tied with curled ribbon, which was, of course, also white.

  “Here’s how the Angel Tree works,” Ms. Dingler said, her voice taking on the mystical lilt of a Gypsy reading tea leaves. “We write down the name of our dearly departed loved one here on this paper scroll. We roll up the scroll and tuck it back under the angel’s wings in this satin angel pouch. We hang our memory angel up on the tree and our loved ones are with us once again for Christmas. Forever and always.” She always touched both hands to her heart when she did the “forever and always” part of her spiel.

  “How precious,” gushed the customer.

  Ms. Dingler nodded solemnly. “It is. Very precious. The spirits of Christmases Past can permanently hover above the merriment of Christmas Present.”

  “How much? For an angel?”

  “Well, much like snowflakes, no two angels are alike.”

  “Of course.”

  “They’re custom-made. Handcrafted. Hand-sewn.”

  “They’re magnificent!”

  “They’re seventy-nine ninety-nine.”

  “I’ll take three!”

  Ms. Dingler escorted her happy customer with her fistful of Memory Angels to the doily-draped cash register and rang up another sale.

  She was making a fortune.

  Of course, she could make an even bigger fortune if she had a bigger store, more room for the suckers, er, shoppers who flocked to her doors.

  She needed the shop next door.

  She needed to talk to Mr. Bailey, the banker.

  Because she needed Giuseppe Lucci to be evicted!

  Not that Ms. Dingler would ever forget the dear, dear old man.

  Of course not.

  Next Christmas, she’d scribble his name on a slip of paper and shove it up under an angel’s wings.

  Fifteen

  Mr. Bailey, the banker, who had a thing for fancy women with brittle bubbles of artificially blonde hair, came running to Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe the instant Ms. Delores Dingler called him on his cell phone.

  “Don’t worry,” he said reassuringly as he attempted to maneuver Ms. Dingler underneath one of the clumps of mistletoe dangling from the ceiling. “Old man Guiseppe will need a Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanza miracle to pay what he owes before his note comes due. He’ll default on his loan, we’ll issue an eviction notice and, voilà—his store will be yours.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Bailey!” said the relieved shopkeeper.

  “You’re welcome,” said the banker, puckering up his lips and closing his eyes.

  Nothing happened.

  “Is everything all right?” Ms. Dingler finally asked.

  When the banker opened his eyes, he saw his blonde bombshell batting her eyes confusedly.

  “Well,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows up and down, “we are standing underneath the mistletoe.”

  Ms. Dingler looked up at the ceiling. “No, we’re not. That’s holly. The red berries are LEDs. They light up.”

  “Oh.”

  “Interested?”

  “Not in the holly,” said Mr. Bailey, as suavely as he knew how.

  “It’s only $19.99 per clump.”

  “$19.99 for three flashlight bulbs and a sprig of plastic leaves?”

  “Batteries included.”

  “What’s your profit margin?”

  “Ninety percent, same as everything else in the store.”

  “Delores?”

  “Yes, Harry?”

  “You’re my kind of woman.”

  She gave him a wink and lightly touched her hard helmet of golden hair. “Call me after the holidays. We’ll talk. And here …”

  She tore an angel off The Angel Tree.

  “Take this over to the kid next door. Christina. Might soften the blow when you give her grandpa the boot.”

  “My pleasure, Delores.”

  “Wait. Hang on.” Ms. Dingler rooted through a basket of angel hats and halos on the counter. “You can personalize the Memory Angel to better memorialize your lost loved one. Accessorizing helps people remember who it is they’re trying to remember.”

  She found the miniature costume piece she’d been searching for.

  A fireman’s hat.

  She pinned it on top of the lacy white angel’s head.

  “Isn’t that sweet?” she said.
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  “Just like you, Delores,” said Mr. Bailey, still wishing the holly had been mistletoe. “Just like you.”

  Sixteen

  Christina and her grandfather sat on stools behind the counter of the empty shoe repair shop.

  They had no customers, even though a mob of holiday shoppers was bustling briskly up and down the sidewalk.

  “Busy out there,” Christina said.

  “Busy, busy,” said Grandpa sounding sad.

  “Grandpa—when you were going through all the Christmas stuff down in the basement this morning, did you happen to …”

  Guiseppe shook his head. “Sorry, Christina. I no find it. But one day—you will. I promise. …”

  The string of bells jingled over the front door. A customer stepped into the shop. It was the man in the tan trench coat.

  “Good morning!” he said, sounding very chipper and jolly. “Thank you so much for the loaner shoes. I was the hit of the party! Danced up a storm. And there wasn’t even any music; just me and my happy feet. Please express my sincerest gratitude to the prince.”

  “Who?” Christina had forgotten the story she had spun when the man was so angry about his mis-soled shoes.

  “Prince Oboe Longato?” said the man in the trench coat.

  “Oh. Right. Medulla.”

  He handed Guiseppe the shoe box. “Are my own shoes ready?”

  Guiseppe’s eyes went wide in panic. “Er, well, uh …”

  “You did fix them didn’t you?” said the man, not sounding half as jolly or chipper as he had two seconds earlier.

  “Well, uh,” stammered Guiseppe, “we have been so busy, busy.”

  The man scanned the empty store.

  “Busy?”

  “Busy, busy, busy.”

  “Listen old man—”

  “Please, sir,” said Christina, who didn’t like it when people called her grandfather an old man even though, technically, he was one. “Let me check in the back.”

  “Fine.”

  Christina disappeared behind the curtains.

  “So what did you do this time, pops?” She heard snarky Mr. Trench Coat say to Guiseppe. “Glue the shoelaces together? Paint the leather pink? Gouge out the eyelets?”

  “You know what?” said Guiseppe. “I think maybe I took your shoes home to work on them in my special room. I’m gonna go check across the street. I’ll be right back.”

  Christina heard the scampering of feet, the jingle of bells, the slamming of the front door.

  “Hey! Wait! Come back! I want my shoes!”

  Christina came in from the back room.

  “Here you go,” she said.

  “Oh, my!” exclaimed the man.

  “These are yours, right? I remember the tassels.”

  The man in the trench coat couldn’t speak. He looked awestruck.

  Christina glanced down at the pair of shoes she held in her hand. In the light of the shop, they shined so brightly they seemed to sparkle. The leather looked smooth and velvety—brand new, without a single crease. They even smelled wonderful. Like fresh-baked bread slathered with melted butter.

  “They’re magnificent!” gasped the man.

  “Yeah,” said Christina. “Grandpa’s good. Got that old-world craftsmanship thing going on. When he concentrates, that is. Sometimes he just needs to focus. …”

  As the man reached out to take his shoes, his hands trembled the way they would if he were about to be handed a crown of the most precious jewels imaginable.

  Just then, Guiseppe, who had only walked up the block and back to muster his courage, stepped back into the store.

  “Okay,” he said boldly, “I tell you the truth. I no fix—”

  “How much?” the man gushed.

  Guiseppe was confused. “I no fix none of it.”

  “How much?” The man sounded desperate. He pulled a fat wad of money out of his pocket.

  “You need change?” asked Grandpa. “For the bus?”

  “He wants to pay you for fixing his shoes,” said Christina. “You still got it, Grandpa!”

  Now Guiseppe was beyond confused. He was befuddled. Baffled.

  “I got what?” he asked.

  “A gift, sir,” said the man, bowing slightly. “I feel honored to be in the presence of a master craftsman.”

  “Where?” said Grandpa, looking around for the master craftsman. “Where is he?”

  “It’s you, Grandpa!” said Christina with a laugh.

  “Really? Me?”

  The man in the trench coat nodded like an eager puppy.

  Giuseppe puffed out his pigeon chest. “Well, you know, I work with the shoes many, many years.”

  “You are a genius!”

  “True, true …”

  “Would you consider fifty dollars to be sufficient recompense?”

  Guiseppe didn’t understand what recompense meant. “Huh?”

  “I’m sorry. You’re right. Here. Take a hundred. No—two hundred dollars!”

  The man slapped a thick pile of cash into Guiseppe’s hand.

  “And here!” The man hopped around the store so he could take off the shoes he was currently wearing. “I want you to fix these, too!”

  While he danced around the room in one stockinged foot and struggled to pull off the second shoe, Giuseppe turned to Christina.

  “Thank you!” he whispered.

  “For what?” she whispered back.

  “You took his shoes over to Shoe World, eh? They fixed, yes?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “Nope,” said Christina. “I thought you …”

  Guiseppe shook his head. “No. Not me.”

  Okay, this was seriously weird, thought Christina.

  Who fixed the shoes?

  She eyeballed the electric elf in the window display who was still hammering away, over and over, at that one stupid nail.

  Nah. He couldn’t have done it.

  His extension cord wasn’t long enough to reach the back room.

  Seventeen

  Guiseppe stood on the sidewalk outside the shoe repair shop watching Christina lock the front door.

  “Lock it good,” he said with a laugh. “We don’t want nobody else sneaking in and fixing more shoes!”

  Christina twisted the key in the lock. “Maybe you fixed his shoes in your sleep, Grandpa. Maybe you were sleepwalking.”

  “Maybe you take the shoes over to Shoe World but you don’t want to tell me this is what you do.”

  “Whatever. We made two hundred dollars. We do that every day for a month or two, we’ll be able to pay the rent … this month.” She realized what she’d just said made no sense and they were still, basically, doomed.

  “I’m going to go grab some hot chocolate,” she said. “Do you want anything from the coffee shop?”

  “No, thank you,” said Guiseppe. “I am going home and crawling into bed. Maybe I fix more shoes in dreamland. Do not work too late.”

  “I won’t. I just have some homework to finish up.”

  “Maybe you will also write your letter to Santa Claus so I know what you want for Christmas?”

  “That’s okay, Grandpa. I don’t really—”

  “Christina—we have two hundred dollars! You can ask Santa for anything you want. This year, he can afford it!”

  Christina smiled. “Go home, Grandpa. You need your sleep.”

  “Good night, Christina.”

  He crossed the street. She headed up the block.

  “Where are you going?” her grandfather called after her. “Shoe World is the other way.”

  “Grandpa, for the last time …”

  He held up his hand. “Is okay. We play the games. We pretend you no fix the shoes. But, I tell you true—you are the most wonderful granddaughter in the world! Bless you, Christina! Bless you!”

  Christina shook her head.

  Grandpa still thought she was the one who fixed the shoes.

  He was still wrong.

  Eig
hteen

  As soon as the front door to the shop was locked, a lamp snapped on to illuminate the worktable directly behind the drapes.

  “Very well, my friend,” said the professorial brownie, “what’s on our agenda this evening?”

  “Another pair of shoes, natch. And this.” The tough brownie shoved a textbook across the table. “Homework. Mathematicals. The stuff with numbers and whatnot.”

  “Very well,” said the thin brownie, pushing his wire-rimmed spectacles up the bridge of his pointy nose. “Which task do you prefer to undertake?”

  The gruff brownie, with a toothpick of a nail perched between his lips, put his hands on his hips. He was wearing a carpenter’s tunic with pockets for hardware and loops for hammers. He also wore fuzzy brown tights and a pointy hat because it was more or less part of the brownie dress code.

  “You’re kidding, right? Like I even want to know what an isosceles triangle is. …”

  His dapper friend smiled and tipped his top hat. “Touché.” He straightened out the tails on his natty-looking waistcoat. He had on sleek black tights and black boots with curled toes, and looked like he was dressed for somebody’s wedding.

  He used the tip of his cane to pry open the math book.

  “Look, Nails!” he gushed to his friend. “Quadratic equations and polynomial fractions!”

  “Enjoy, Professor Pencilneck. Enjoy.”

  And with that, the two brownies set to work.

  Nineteen

  A little while later, Christina came back from the corner coffee shop with a steaming cup of hot cocoa.

  Her friend the alley cat was waiting for her at the front door. Wispy snow had just started falling when Christina placed her order with Nick at the coffee shop. Now it was tumbling down in frosty clumps.

  “You must be freezing,” she said to the shivering cat. “Come on. Grandpa went home. You can sleep inside and help me do my homework.”

  The cat meowed.

  “Yes. There’s more milk.” She tapped the pocket of her coat. “And I picked up a tin of tuna down at the deli.”