He stood at attention, and from the look on his face, you’d think that at any moment he expected her to shout “Off with his head!”
“We’re having a little family dinner on Christmas Eve,” she said. “A sort of midnight supper, because of how many of the family will be either appearing in or watching the show. If you’re not otherwise engaged, we’d be delighted if you’d join us.”
Haver’s jaw literally fell open, and it took him several seconds to pull himself together.
“I’d be honored,” he said. “Truly honored. Thank you!”
Mother clinked her plastic glass again his, and then against mine and sailed off.
“I’m overwhelmed,” Haver said.
“Don’t be too overwhelmed,” I said. “Mother’s idea of a little family dinner means only a hundred people or so.”
“But including me as one of the hundred is so kind of her,” he said. “Wonderful. People here can be so nice. I wish things had been like this the whole time I was here. I know it’s all my own fault. Damn planes anyway.”
“Planes?” I wasn’t sure I understood what planes had to do with his behaving like an utter jerk for the first several weeks he was in town, but I was curious to hear his explanation.
“They give me migraines,” he said. “Ghastly migraines. And I guess I take it out on other people when I feel bad. By the time I felt better enough to be civil to anyone, I’d been typecast as … well, a real-life Scrooge.”
“May I suggest something?”
“Does your dad also have a lot of natural remedies for migraine?” Haver sounded skeptical.
“He probably does,” I said. “And we have several migraine sufferers in the family, so he keeps up with the cutting edge of what conventional medicine is doing in that area. But actually, what I was going to suggest was that next time you arrive someplace with a raging migraine—just tell someone.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “I just hate having people think I’m weak.”
“If they think you’re weak because of a medical issue, shame on them, but even if they do—isn’t having people think you’re weak better than having them think you’re a complete and utter jerk?”
“Good point.” He lifted his plastic cup in salute. “I will definitely take it under advisement.”
“Hey, Malcolm.” Cousin Max strolled up, holding Haver’s coat, hat, scarf, and gloves. “Time for me to drive you over to the theater.”
“So soon!” He didn’t sound pleased. For a moment, I found myself worrying that he might be one of those actors who suffered from horrible stage fright. He must have seen my anxious look.
“Oh, don’t worry,” he said. “I’m like an old fire horse when I hear that ‘places, everyone.’ I’m just sorry to leave such a lovely party. But there will be other parties! In fact, I’m going to check with the Inn and see if I can throw one tonight, after the show. Or perhaps tomorrow—soon, anyway!” He threw his scarf over his shoulder for emphasis as he spoke, nearly smacking Max with it. Then he trotted over to say good-bye to the Haverers before he left. And the ladies tending the buffet table. And Robyn. And Chief Burke.
I was relieved when we finally dragged him away from the Weaseltide festivities and got him installed in his dressing room.
Backstage would have looked like chaos to an outsider, but with my newfound and hard-won insider status I could see the order and purpose of it all. Actors struggled into their costumes, did their vocal warm-ups, and performed whatever superstitious rituals they believed would ward off stage fright and ensure a good performance. The tech crew did last minute checks and double checks on all the sound and lights. The set crew went around testing to make sure nothing was about to fall apart. Rose Noire, who’d volunteered to wrangle the child actors, was leading them through a calming yoga routine.
I peeked out from behind the curtain to see the audience. The Haverers formed a small block in the middle of the second row, surrounded by Mother’s family. Should I tell the boys how many aunts, uncles, and cousins were here to watch them, or would that make them more nervous?
No time anyway.
“Places!” called the stage manager. Haver and Bob Cratchit took their places in Scrooge’s counting house. I slipped back into the wings as Michael, representing Charles Dickens, strolled onstage, carrying a quill pen and pretended to be writing on a sheaf of paper as he spoke the play’s opening lines.
“Once upon a time—of all the good days in the year, upon a Christmas Eve—old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting, foggy weather; and the city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already.
As he spoke, the curtain rose to reveal Bob Cratchit, bent almost double over his ledger, shivering in spite of his overcoat and scarf, while behind him Scrooge slowly counted a stack of shiny gold and silver coins, glancing up occasionally to make sure his clerk was still hard at work. The door flew open and Scrooge’s nephew entered, carrying with him a gust of fake snow.
“A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!”
“Bah, humbug!”
Haver was good. Not better than Michael would have been, of course—I don’t think it was bias making me think so. But maybe as good, though in a very different way. He was quite definitely a “squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner,” but underneath it all, even in the first scene, you could see something—a hint of vulnerability? Or maybe just a thread of wry, self-deprecating humor—that would make his eventual repentance believable. He barked out “are there no prisons? No workhouses?” with a savagery that made a few in the audience gasp. And yet I could tell that they were starting to feel sorry for him when the clanking noise that heralded Marley’s ghost resounded through the theater.
Mother joined me in the wings to see how the audience reacted when Marley’s ghost entered. She’d had his costume and makeup done in fish-belly-white and streaked with a repellent yellow-green luminescent paint, making him look like a cross between Boris Karloff as The Mummy and an extra from The Walking Dead. Mother beamed with pleasure at the audience’s collective gasp.
I was relieved when the Ghost of Christmas Past’s torch worked as it was supposed to, but I tensed up during the scene between Scrooge and the ghost, because I could see Josh waiting on the opposite wing to make his entrance. His cue came, and he slipped onstage, ready to be revealed when Scrooge and the ghost approached him
“The school is not quite deserted. A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still.”
Josh looked appropriately solitary and neglected. But he also managed to look uncannily like a much younger version of Haver. It was the facial expression, I decided—that, and the way he lifted his chin and extended his neck, as if already rebelling against the stiff collar his older self so resented.
I hardly breathed during the whole scene, and let out a long—but silent—sigh of relief when young Scrooge’s sister Fran came to fetch him home and Josh made his triumphant exit.
And then I could breathe again, at least until the Ghost of Christmas Present led Scrooge to the Cratchits and Jamie, as Tiny Tim, made his entrance on Bob Cratchit’s shoulder. I’d been a little skeptical about casting him as Tiny Tim, since he was tall for his age—taking after both Michael and me—and as healthy as a little horse, but he managed to appear so frail and wan that I hoped no one from Social Services was in the audience. And yet when he uttered his quavering “God bless us, everyone,” I was sure they could hear him just fine in the back row.
Chips off the old block, both of them.
I thought I could breathe now, with both of the boys’ main scenes successfully completed. But I found myself caught up in Haver’s performance. Not better than Michael would have done, and I could definitely see areas where Michael had influenced him—but still. Very different from Michael. And very compelling.
Especially the scene where Scrooge, after seeing the tombstone with his name on it, falls to his knees before the Spiri
t of Christmas Yet to Come and begs for a reprieve.
“Am I that man who lay upon the bed? No, Spirit! O no, no! Spirit! hear me! I am not the man I was. Why show me this, if I am past all hope? Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me by an altered life. I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. O, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!”
I could hear sniffles from the audience, and I was willing to bet there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. I felt a little choked up myself, and not just from how moving his speech was: bless his heart, he’d fallen to his knees to repent in the absolute dead center of his spotlight. I glanced up at the tech booth to see that the crew member who ran the lights was doing a fist pump and silently cheering. After that the show seemed to race to its conclusion. Scrooge sending the Cratchits the prize turkey. Scrooge dropping by to wish his estranged nephew a merry Christmas. And in a departure from the book that made for a more theatrical ending, Scrooge showing up in time for dessert at the Cratchits’ house, giving Jamie a chance to reprise his “God bless us every one!” And then as Scrooge and the Cratchits reveled silently in the background with cups of punch and slices of pie and plum pudding, Michael stepped back on stage to close the play.
Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him; but his own heart laughed, and that was quite enough for him. And it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!
The audience was on its feet even before the curtain closed. They applauded through seven curtain calls, and then kept applauding while Haver dragged the backstage crew on stage—Mother and her costume crew, Jake and the set crew, the lighting and sound crew, the stage manager … even me and Cousin Max.
The Haverers began a cry of “Speech! Speech!” and before long the entire audience took it up. Michael gestured to Haver, who stepped forward, blew kisses to the crowd, and made hushing gestures.
“Damn,” Jake murmured. “He called their bluff.”
For a moment I was worried. Haver looked a little like his old self, proud and irascible, and I braced myself to see what he’d say. But just as he was opening his mouth, he happened to glance over at Josh, who was imitating his stance, his facial expression—even the haughty way he arched his neck. He burst out laughing and threw up his arms in a gesture of surrender.
“For once, I’m speechless,” he said. “God bless us, every one! Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”
ALSO BY DONNA ANDREWS
Gone Gull
Die Like an Eagle
The Lord of the Wings
The Nightingale Before Christmas
The Good, the Bad, and the Emus
Duck the Halls
The Hen of the Baskervilles
Some Like It Hawk
The Real Macaw
Stork Raving Mad
Swan for the Money
Six Geese A-Slaying
Cockatiels at Seven
The Penguin Who Knew Too Much
No Nest for the Wicket
Owls Well That Ends Well
We’ll Always Have Parrots
Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon
Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos
Murder with Puffins
Murder with Peacocks
About the Author
DONNA ANDREWS has won the Agatha, Anthony, and Barry Awards, an RT Book Review Award for best first novel, and four Lefty and two Toby Bromberg Awards for funniest mystery. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and the Private Investigators and Security Association. Andrews lives in Reston, Virginia.
Visit her Web site at www.donnaandrews.com, or sign up for email updates here.
Thank you for buying this
St. Martin’s Press ebook.
To receive special offers, bonus content,
and info on new releases and other great reads,
sign up for our newsletters.
Or visit us online at
us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup
For email updates on the author, click here.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Also by Donna Andrews
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A THOMAS DUNNE BOOK FOR MINOTAUR BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.
HOW THE FINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS. Copyright © 2017 by Donna Andrews. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.thomasdunnebooks.com
www.minotaurbooks.com
Cover illustration by Maggie Parr
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-11545-4 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-11546-1 (e-book)
eISBN 9781250115461
Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at [email protected].
First Edition: October 2017
How the Finch Stole Christmas! Page 26
