by Douglas Cobb
And now,'twas the night before Christmas, and there was a knock at the door. Who should appear, with a jolly "Ho, ho, ho," but Santa himself! He came to our very door, somehow finding us, with a humongous bag of presents slung over his shoulder!
"Merry, Merry Christmas!" he shouted, and laughed. "Ho, ho, ho! You didn't think I'd let a tiny thing like a fire stop me from coming, did you?
"Let's see, I believe I have something in my bag for everyone in this room. You are the Quinces, right? And this is Celeste, and if I'm not very much mistaken, there is Lily, the dog who saved everyone's life, right?" Santa asked, handing out gifts to us. "And I have one for Clare, and one for Quentin! Ho, ho, ho!"
"Can we open them now, Mom, or do we have to wait until the morning?" Celeste asked .
"Hmm...I don't see why we can't open them tonight, do you, Quentin?"
"No, none whatsoever!" Triple Q answered. "Thanks, Santa! Let's open the presents all at the same time!"
Clare's package was fairly small, but her eyes lit up when she saw that inside the glittering wrapping paper and box was a diamond tennis bracelet. Triple Q's gift was a new Rolex Oyster watch to add to his collection--there's no such thing as having too many of them--Celeste's present was a pink ski jacket, and she had a second gift that was a similar size as Clare's. When she tore open the wrapping paper and looked inside the box, she squealed in delight as she pulled out a diamond and ruby bracelet and excitedly put it on her wrist. My gift contained a leather collar with rubies and my name on it. Woo-hoo!
We thanked Santa again, and he said: "I better get back to my sleigh--I have lots more stops to make before the night's over! Ho, ho, ho!"
Later, after Celeste had dozed off, I heard Clare whisper to Triple Q: "Quentin, that was a nice gesture for you to have that man dressed as Santa Clause come to our room! It meant so much to Celeste!"
"Me? I thought it was you who had arranged for him to come! I would not have given myself such an expensive gift! Well, I do like blue sport cars, but generally speaking, I wouldn't get myself something that expensive!"
"Well, if it wasn't me, and if it wasn't you, then--who could have sent him over here?" Celeste asked. Quentin didn't have an answer for her. I fell to sleep with a smile on my face.
****
Christmas dawned, and we all woke eager to greet the brand-new day and open up the other presents. Personally, I was also eager to water the lawn, and relieve myself. So, Triple Q donned his heavy black Duster clipped to my leash (after putting my new bling-bling collar on, tre chic!), and held me in his arms until we could get on the elevator, go to the lobby and out the doors, and then he set me down. There was a very light snow falling, to join the snow that had practically melted on the ground.
"Come on, Lily!" Quentin said. "Let's get back to our room so we can see what's inside those other presents, girl!" And, so we did.
In the room, Celeste said jokingly: "It's about time you two got back! Come on, come on; these presents won't open themselves, you know!"
"Patience is a virtue, Celeste!" I roared to her. "One I, for one, don't have!"
"Calm down, Lily!' Clare said. "You'll get a present soon!" She had misinterpreted what I said, but no biggie.
I don't want to bore you with the minute details of everything that was given and all the gifts that were opened, but by the time we were through, there was wrapping paper and empty boxes all over the place. Clare and Celeste got more jewelry, though, and Clare liked the DVDs and the Blu-ray player I had bought online for her. Celeste really loved her DVDs, also, and I had bought her some games for her Wii and her XBox 360. Triple Q seemed to also like the collected Johhny Cash CDs I'd purchased for him, and the Martin guitar, a reproduction of Cash's, except newer-looking, of course.
What did I get? Not that it matters--I'm not one to show off my material goods or bling- but, I got several sweaters, three scarves, two warm jackets, lots of squeaky toys--the next best things to noshing on cats--a couple more jeweled collars, and a year's subscription to Cat Fancier's Digest. It was worth it, for the delectable recipes that came with each issue alone.
"We'll grab breakfast at a drive-through window," Quentin said, "then take these other presents to Dexter and Nicole, and Paris. Hmm...there are even some gifts that have the names of Scruffy, Tito, and Ursa Major and Minor Larkin here, whoever they are--well, I know who Scruffy is, of course--the little pee machine--but, who are these other gifts for?"
"Dad, those are the presents Lily bought for Scruffy and the three 'dogs' next door," Celeste told him. "She didn't want them to feel left out at Christmastime!"
"Oh, right--Lily bought them--I understand!" he said.
We had to get our rears in gear, because we had to grab a quick breakfast and head to Dexter and Nicole's place next. I was still devouring my last sausage link from the MacSwinester's "Swine-All-The-Time" breakfast menu. As their commercials stated, it was "Lip-Smackin' Good Food," and "Swine-tacular!"
"Mom! Dad! Celeste! And Lily!" Dexter and Nicole said, coming outside to meet us as we pulled up. "Let us help you with those presents!" They each took an armful, and we carried the rest into their house. It was beautifully decorated for the season, and their Christmas tree was almost as nice as ours was, which we had to leave at our house.
"We've already opened our presents to each other," Dexter said. "I hope you don't mind."
"Nah, we just got done doing the same," Triple Q said.
"Would you like some coffee and biscotti from our bakery while we unwrap gifts?" Nicole asked. Triple Q said yes, but both Clare and Celeste didn't drink coffee. They agreed to the offer of some warm chocolate chip cookies, though.
Soon, we were once again digging into a pile of presents, and gave Dexter and Nicole the ones we got for them. I had bought, as I mentioned earlier, all of the Blue Man Group DVDs for Dexter, and a couple of XBox 360 games, and his face lit up when he opened them up. I think he really liked them. Nicole was also happy to get the Batman graphic novels I bought her, and as she likes Star Wars, I'd in addition gotten her a R2D2 robot that moves that I saw at the bookstore, of all places. Dexter thought it was pretty cool, too.
Their presents for us were awesome, also. For Triple Q, they got the BBC series The Prisoner on DVD, for Clare, some wildlife reference books and the fourth season of The Big Bang Theory (which had just come out), and for Celeste, they had bought three Nintendo 3DS games. We had a fun time, but we were kind of in a rush, as we next were going to Paris, Arkansas, and were supposed to be there by noon for dinner and to open up more presents.
We piled back in the car, with our loot, and Dexter and Nicole got in theirs, and we took off. I was wondering how Scruffy was doing, and how well his attempts to start up a new branch of PAWS had been going so far. Somehow, I didn't have the highest level of confidence in him, but who knows? Maybe the Scruff-meister would surprise me!
****
At Celeste's grandparents' house, we could detect the delicious odors of turkey and ham cooking almost before we left the car. My poor figure would never be the same...but, you only live once, they say, so you need to grab the brass ring and take the smorgasbord by the plateful and carpe the turkey leg and pumpkin pie while you can!
Everyone was in the livingroom, the television was on to football, and the Christmas tree was in the corner, looking wonderful with thousands of twinkling lights and decorations on it. The tradition had been to draw names out of a hat at Thanksgiving, and then buy just the person whose name you drew out of the hat a present for Christmas; now, with so many kids and teenagers in the house, the tradition had changed to drawing the name of one of them for each child a family had from a hat, and just buying the people whose names you chose one present, at around twenty-five dollars. This year, we had picked TayShawn's and Lauren's names, and had got TayShawn a Razorback football jersey and Lauren a CD she'd wanted.
Lonnie and Daisy always had a contest for their grand- and great-grand children for an additional present of money. They
would be given clues to where the money was hidden in the house, and they would then have to solve the clues in order to locate where the money was. Clare would sometimes use her computer to make up crossword puzzles containing the clues as to where the money was hidden. The contest was a fun way for the teens and kids to get cash they could use to then buy whatever Santa might have forgotten or not had room enough in his sleigh to bring them.
Scruffy seemed to enjoy the gift I got for him, an elephant brush (elephants loved to be brushed, just like horses loved it when you used a curry comb and brush on them, or so I've been told). He gave me a baseball glove, which wasn't a very good sign that he'd completely understood what his role as the leader of the Paris branch of PAWS actually entailed. Celeste had the gifts for the neighboring PAWS members in a festive holiday bag, and held onto my leash with her other hand.
"Scruffy, old pachyderm!" I said to him in the yard after a splendidly grand belly-busting feast fit for a king. "How're things going with Paris PAWS?"
"Well, we're in first place in our division!" he replied. "I got five other animals to join the team, and we're hittin' 'em out of the ballpark! We may be on our way to an intercity championship!" he replied.
"I thought I'd made it clear. Scruffy, that I wasn't making you the leader or captain of a baseball team, but of a crime-fighting organization!"
"Yeah, you did. But, I had a problem with that."
"What sort of a 'problem'?" I asked.
"It cut into our baseball season too much. Oh, we do have meetings, are 'Ever Vigilant," solve crimes, and whatnot; we only schedule our games every other weekend on Sunday afternoons, so don't all snippy with me. It's Christmas, you know--and, whenever you're in town when there's a game, you can play second base! Bailey Hotchkiss, the Lhaso Apso/Hoot Owl we currently have doesn't see too well anymore, anyway, though her night vision is still excellent, so--"
"Your primary concern as the leader of PAWS is supposed to be not to 'baseball' but to keeping the public safe and secure from danger!" I said.
"Which is, like I was tellin' you, what we do!" Scruffy replied. "But all work and no play makes Scruffy a dull boy! But, what is it that Celeste has in her bag, there? More presents for your best-est pal, Scruffy?"
"No, Scruffy--you got your present--these are for your neighbors!" I said. "Let's go over and hand them out, and wish them a Merry Christmas."
Tito, Ursa Major, and Ursa Minor were ecstatic to see us, especially the bag in Celeste's hand. She unwrapped the gifts (seeing as how the animals were OTC, or "Opposable Thumb Challenged") and gave each animal his or her present from me. Tito got a black leather jacket with "TITO" stitched on it, and the two Ursas got pink jackets with their names on them. Also, there were squeaky toys and rubber balls for them to play with, and a magnifying glass each, for them to check out clues.
"Have any of you seen the scarlet Macaw, Frankie, around, or the red panda General Yao Xing, or a red Egyptian fox, called Omar Khalid Ali?" I asked.
The all answered in the negative. "I did find strange tracks in the yard that looked like they might belong to a fox, though," Tito said. "and there were some bird tracks next to them."
"You all have to be very careful!" I said. Omar was responsible just two days ago for setting a fire that burned down Celeste's bedroom, and which would have burned down the entire house and possibly killed us, if I hadn't alerted everyone. He could strike here next!"
"If he showed up here, I'd strike him out!" Tito said. "Him and his whole baseball team!"
"Tito," I attempted to explain, "I'm not referring to baseball. Omar is the head of the Guild of Assassins, and--"
"Ohhh, the head!" Ursa Major interrupted. "Sort of like Scruffy is the leader of Paris PAWS and the captain of our baseball team!"
"Yeah," I said (ignoring the comment Ursa Major made about Scruffy being the "captain" of their baseball team), "but not at all like that, really. Being the leader of the Guild of Assassins, Omar is himself an assassin, and he's the deadliest of them all. He unleashed the Blue Scarab Beetle Plague on Centralia, and if I and Celeste hadn't stopped him, the whole city would have had a very blue Christmas, indeed! First, their skin would turn blue, and if they didn't get an antidote within 24 hours, the symptoms would have become worse and they would only have a week to live. Fortunately, our quick thinking and action saved the day!"
"Lily, Scruffy!" Celeste said to us. "I'm starting to get cold standing out here, and we will probably need to leave soon to get back to Centralia in time to wish Fuzzy Wally MacGee, Lucy Marmoset Higgins, and Prince Alphonse Saed a Merry Christmas a give them their presents before it gets too late!"
"Merry Christmas, and remember to watch out for strangers, anyone who is scarlet or red, criminals, members of SNURFLES (or the Guild of Assassins), suspicious-looking mailmen, deliverymen, door-to-door-salesmen--"
"Lily, we need to go; come on!" Celeste urged me, but I wasn't through.
"Ummm...Girl Scouts, hoboes, clown on unicycles--"
"LILY! That's enough--I think they have the idea!" Celeste yelled. I wished them a Merry Christmas one more time, and we all went inside.
****
Back at Centralia, I flew Celeste and the final load of presents (which she carried in another holiday bag) to each of my friends' houses. We went to Prince Alphonse Saed's house first. I had got a fancy ebony flute for him, and a jeweled turban that seemed to be made special for his head--which it was. He immediately put it on and said he wanted to wear it all of the time. He gave me a bone. Oh, well...it's the thought that counts.
Lucy Marmoset Higgins' house was next on our list. I had bought her a stylish orange jacket to match her fur, with "Lucy" stitched into it. I also got her the latest model Banana computer, because of its yellow color and great appeal. She gave me a curved stick that she said was a boomerang, and that if you threw it the right way, it would come back to you. "Imagine that," I said; "a stick that fetches itself!"
Then, our last stop before going home was at my good friend, Fuzzy Wally MacGee's. He greeted us joyfully, and Celeste helped him unwrap his presents from me. One was a black leather jacket with "Fuzzy" stitched on it, and aviator goggles, so when I took him flying, he wouldn't get bugs or grit in his eyes. I also got him a language translator, which he sorely needed. He thanked me, and gave me a sweater he said he'd knitted from his own super-fuzzy fur.
"Ewww!" Celeste said. "I believe we'd better wash this before you try it on!"
"Make sure you use cold water and the delicate cycle," Fuzzy said, "or it might shrink!"
We again wished him a Merry Christmas, apologized for not getting to see him until late into the day, and then headed back to the Hilton to enjoy the rest of Christmas and play games, and watch Christmas specials on the T.V.
Chapter Fourteen
Dang Ol' Dang
Happy New Year
"Doesn't this just beat all!" Virgil said, as he was trying to locate a stud on a beam.
"What you mean, Virgil?"Horace asked his coworker as they were working on rebuilding Celeste's room.
"I know the dang ol' dang ol' stud is here someplace, but I just cain't seem to find it! If only I had some sort of--some sort of--"
"Stud finder?" Horace said, trying to help his friend communicate what he meant better.
"No, that's not it--more like some sort of a stud finder, or somethin' similar!"
"You have one, Virgil, right there on your tool belt!" Horace said, pointing at it.
"Ah, there it be!" Virgil said. "If it were a snake it would have bit me!"
"And died from gettin' poisoned!" said a third carpenter, Drew Weaver, who'd been listening to the converation.
"Less jaw flappin' and more hammerin' and stud findin'!" their boss, Bryce Gunderson, said. "We got a deadline to meet, and we can't let our important client, Mr. Quince, down!"
"When's that stopped us before?" Virgil responded, thinking he was the epitome of wit.
"I heard that, Virgil!" Bryce said.
> "That's good; I said it loud enough!" Virgil answered. "Ain't it about time for a dang ol' diddley-dang break about now? We been at it for three whole hours! Come on, man; have a heart!"
"Have a heart? Cry me a river, man, as your favorite singer, Justin Timberlake, would say! You may have been here for three hours, but you sure as heck haven't been workin' all three hours! You get a break at lunch, along with everyone else!"
"And when's that?" Virgil asked.
"When's that? When's lunch been every day for the four years since you started workin' for the Gunderson Construction Company that my Pa owns? Noon, like always! Now, get to work!"
"Ouch!" Virgil said. "I have a splinter!"
"You want me to kiss it and make it all better?" Bryce said.
"Would you?" Virgil asked. Then realizing how peculiar that might sound to his buddies, he added: "Just jokin', boss! But, if you got some tweezers handy--"
Horace came up to him and said: "I got a pair of tweezers on my knife. Hold still now--"
"Youch!" Virgil said. "Warn someone when you get ready to do a thing like that!"
I had about enough of listening to this meeting of the minds for the time being. Surprisingly, the frame of the room was already up, despite the workers' seeming best efforts to delay and to do anything other than actual physical labor. They might even have the roof up by New Year's Day, though I wasn't about to hold my breath on that possibility occurring.
I'd roared at the workers at first, and was suspicious of them, but they were too stupid to be members of SNURFLES, so I got used to them. I enjoyed listening to their constant stream of colorful language. I did want them to hurry up too, though, so that Celeste could have her room again, and I could sleep beside her in her own new bed.
