Christmas at Stony Creek
Page 3
The room was empty.
Pip ran along the molding under the cabinets. Will had told her that was where she would find the most crumbs. Sniffing and running, sweeping her whiskers across the floor, she ran the length of one wall.
There was nothing.
She ran up and down the cracks between the floorboards.
Nothing.
She scrambled up onto the kitchen counter.
Nothing.
She squeezed in behind the stove and jabbed her stick into the greasy darkness.
Still nothing.
Will couldn’t have been wrong. He couldn’t.
Pip ran faster and faster, searching. Again and again she ran under the cabinets, her ragged breath echoing in the night.
It was no use.
There wasn’t a single crumb. The wonderful things Will had told her she would find were gone.
The rats must have gotten there first.
Pip huddled in the middle of the empty floor and cried. She was a tiny mouse in a huge, empty house, alone.
She had failed.
chapter 11
It Might Just Work
The full moon moved slowly across the windows. The faucet dripped rhythmically into the white sink. Pip didn’t know how long she had been lying on the floor. It was so strangely peaceful she felt as if she could lie there forever.
Suddenly her nose twitched.
What was that?
Pip sat up and sniffed the air.
What was that? she wondered. Then she saw it, tucked into the murky corner on the far side of the room beneath the windows. Hidden in the darkest shadows, waiting.
The trap.
Pip moved slowly toward it, as if in a dream.
It was bigger and more awful than anything she had imagined. Its powerful jaws were open wide, terrifying and patient.
She knew she should run now. But she couldn’t. Pip had seen the intoxicating prize the trap held for her, if only she were brave enough to grab it.
It was a piece of cheese.
The most magnificent piece of cheese Pip had ever seen. The closer she got, the more the smell of it filled the air like perfume.
Beads of fat twinkled on its waxy surface like stars.
It was huge.
Huge enough to feed her entire family for weeks.
All the promises Pip had made to Will disappeared like the cloud of her own breath in the chilly air. She couldn’t go home without it.
She circled the trap slowly.
Will had told her how it worked. How, if you lifted the cheese, the platform it was sitting on would move, making the vicious jaws slam shut with a speed no mouse could outrun.
Pip closed her eyes. She wouldn’t see Uncle Hank’s body trapped there; she wouldn’t.
There had to be a way.
If only she could stop the trap from springing. If only there were some way she could stop its jaws from snapping shut.
Think, Pip, think.
She rapped the end of her stick angrily against the floor.
Suddenly she stopped.
That was it.
You won’t find any wood stronger than hickory. Hickory’ll hold up anything.
Pip held her stick out in front of her as if she were seeing it for the first time. She looked at the trap, then back at the stick.
The trap. The stick. The trap. The stick. Her mind raced as her eyes moved thoughtfully back and forth between the two.
She leaned the stick to the left.
To the right.
She traced the path of the steel jaw in her mind again and again.
It just might work. As terrifying as it was, she had to try.
Then the most terrifying thing of all happened. Night became dawn.
Its pale light streamed through the windows and moved slowly across the floor, as unstoppable as the tide. If Pip didn’t act now, she would be caught in the house in the clear light of day. Would have to make her way back across the field. Anything could see her and catch her.
Pip felt strangely calm.
Moving slowly, taking care not to jiggle the trap, she rested the end of her stick on the spot where the jaws would hit. She twisted it slowly until the Y was in the right position.
There was nothing more she could do.
If it didn’t work, she would die.
If she waited another minute, she would lose her nerve.
Pip took a deep breath and flicked her long, delicate tail around to tap the platform holding the cheese.
Whap!
The steel jaws slamming shut filled the room with a mighty roar. The stick held.
It stood there quivering in the early-morning light under the weight of the steel jaws, and it held.
Pip had done it.
Quickly Pip dragged the cheese off the trap and pushed it across the floor. She threw the weight of her body behind it, squeezing it through the crack onto the porch.
“Pip!” Will’s cry was joyful. “You’re all right!”
“Look, Will,” she said. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
Her eyes opened wide.
Will was standing on the porch of Land’s End.
He’d come back.
“I had to,” Will said, as if reading her mind. “You were gone for so long. I thought you were dead.”
They looked at each other without speaking. Then Will grinned his old grin. “We’d better get going. We’re going to catch the dickens when Ma finds out.”
Will reached into his jacket and pulled out a piece of vine. He and Pip tied it around the cheese and dragged it to the top of the stairs.
“Look out below!” Will shouted.
The beautiful cheese, huge enough to feed a family, tumbled down the steps. They pushed it to the edge of the hill, and it tumbled all the way to the bottom. Pip and Will ran after it, laughing, and grabbed the end of the vine.
The sky was getting brighter, but a light snow had started. It fell around them like a veil, protecting them.
The cheese glided easily over the crusty snow as they ran across the field. When they got to the stone wall, Pip scrambled to the top. She pulled while Will pushed. They leaped to the ground and pulled the cheese down after them as they ran into the woods.
Something landed on a branch above their heads. A shower of snow cascaded around them. “Good for you!” Squirrel shouted. He chattered and chirped. “Merry Christmas to you and your family!”
“Merry Christmas,” Pip whispered. She didn’t dare shout.
On they ran.
Will was limping now, but they didn’t stop.
Not until they saw the round window snuggled in the roots at the base of the tree, lit by a single candle.
They were home.
chapter 12
The Best Christmas Ever
Mama!” Pip cried, throwing open the door. “Look what we have!”
Her mother appeared in the living room door. Tears were running down her face. “And look what I have, Pip,” she said.
Pip was wrapped in strong arms that smelled of Papa.
“Where were you?” she said, pressing her face into his broad chest.
“I made a foolish mistake and spent a few days in a deep well,” said Papa. He held her out to look into her eyes. “Don’t tell me you doubted me for a minute.”
“Never,” Pip whispered.
“Will, my boy.” Papa slapped Will on the shoulder and pulled him close. “Where on earth did you find such a feast?”
“Pip found it,” said Will. Nibs and Nan were watching the cheese with awe. Kit licked his lips and eyed it greedily.
“No food just yet, Kit,” Papa said. “Let’s go into the living room. These two are soaked through.”
Papa led Pip over to the fire. Mama wrapped her and Will in blankets. Kit, Nibs, and Nan crowded around, as close to their father as they could squeeze.
Mama sat next to him with Finny.
They were all laughing and talking at the same time. Finally, Papa said, “Quie
t now, all of you. It’s time for Pip to tell us her story.”
From the safety of her father’s lap, Pip told them. No one said a word until she got to the end. “Will helped,” she said. “I couldn’t have done it without him.”
“That was nothing,” said Will. “You wait until my leg gets better.”
“But, Pip,” Mama said in a quiet voice, “you lost your beautiful stick.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Pip said. “I’ll make another one. I’ll show Kit and Will how to make one, too. I can make one for everyone, can’t I, Papa?”
“You can do anything in the world, Pip,” he said. “It’s always been so.”
Nibs and Nan leaped up and twirled around the room, giddy with happiness. Nan ran to her mother.
“Are we having the best Christmas ever, Mama?” she asked. “Are we? Are we?”
“I think maybe you should ask Pip.”
Nan threw herself across Pip’s lap. She gazed up into Pip’s face with eager eyes. “Are we, Pip?” she pleaded. “Are we?”
“Yes, we are,” Pip said. “The best Christmas in the world.”
Postscript
The lights in the kitchen at Land’s End went on. Footsteps sounded across the floor.
Then: “Philip?” The woman knelt. “Come, look at this.”
There was amazement in her voice.
The man came over and stood next to her. Then he knelt too. “What in the world…”
Together, they stared at the wondrous thing in front of them.
It was the trap.
Its jaws were held open by a slender, smooth hickory stick shaped like a Y.
The cheese was gone.
About the Author and Illustrator
Stephanie Greene is the author of many acclaimed books for young readers. Her books have been named Best Books of the Year by both School Library Journal and the Bank Street College of Education. She lives with her family in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, near a meandering stream called Stony Creek.
Chris Sheban has illustrated many books for young readers, including The Story of a Seagull and the Cat Who Taught Her to Fly, by Luis Sepulveda; Red Fox at McCloskey’s Farm, by Brian Heinz; and I Met a Dinosaur, by Jan Wahl. His work has received both gold and silver medals from the Society of Illustrators. Chris Sheban lives in Chicago, Illinois.
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Credits
Jacket art © 2007 by Chris Sheban
Jacket design by Paul Zakris
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
CHRISTMAS AT STONY CREEK. Text copyright © 2007 by Stephanie Greene. Illustrations copyright © 2007 by Chris Sheban. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Adobe Digital Edition May 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-195728-4
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