“Oh, brother,” Lois sighed.
Finally, the reverend got back on track. “ ‘Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We have seen His star as it arose, and we have come to worship Him …’ ”
Suddenly, a voice crackled through the radio. “Lois, Frankincense has passed out!”
“What?”
“The deli guy,” said Oliver. “I think he passed out from fear!”
“Where are you?”
“Outside. We’re just about to come in.” The radio crackled. “Lois, what do we do?”
Lois turned to Alfred. “I guess this is your chance. Your sign. Go out the back door and run around the building. Grab the frankincense and follow the pack!”
Without hesitation, Alfred hurried outdoors. The freezing wind hit him hard, but he raced around the building. Oliver and Martin were hovering over the deli guy. “He’s waking up.”
Alfred yanked the heavy gold necklaces off his neck and grabbed the box he had been carrying. “Come on. We have no time! We must go!” The men hurried through the doors. The audience turned as they entered.
Each man slowed his stride and steadied his hands as the group methodically walked toward the baby.
“The star appeared to them, guiding them to Bethlehem.”
The star popped up over the curtains, fell with a crash, and then popped back up again.
“It went ahead of them and stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were filled with joy!” Alfred smiled. He couldn’t help it, but he didn’t really know why. “They found the child and His mother Mary and worshiped Him.”
The three men walked onto the stage. Oliver and Martin immediately went before the baby and knelt. Alfred followed, kneeling a few feet away. Something strange was happening in his heart. He couldn’t understand it. Maybe it was stage fright, except he wasn’t feeling afraid. In fact, he was feeling hopeful. Joyful. Energized.
What once seemed dormant inside him awakened, like a spring flower popping through the winter’s cold earth. He was reading the sheet music … and understanding it.
He clutched the box he held and listened to the reverend narrate. “Then the wise men opened their treasure chests. One gave Him gold, because He was king.” Martin moved forward, setting the gold—once Scrooge’s—down in front of the baby.
“One gave Him myrrh, because He was man.” Oliver stepped forward and put his box down.
Alfred rose, walked over, and knelt before the baby. He looked at Ainsley and Wolfe, and tears filled his eyes. Was this what Wolfe felt all those years before, what he’d left everything for? This baby that would save the world from their sins?
Tears dripped down Alfred’s face as he gently placed the small wooden box in front of the manger. It seemed inadequate. Behind him, he could hear people weeping. He heard the reverend say, “And one gave Him frankincense … because He was God.”
Alfred clasped his hands together, closed his eyes and whispered, “I’m sorry. Forgive me! I’ve been a fool. I’ve chased after the unimportant things in life, while people suffered needlessly around me. I am a horrible man,” Alfred wept. “I am a horrible man.”
The audience held its breath, and the only sound onstage was Alfred, finally revealing the weak and insecure man that he was. He felt a hand on his shoulder. Alfred looked up, and Wolfe’s gentle eyes locked with his. “God loves you. He sent His Son to save you. To save me. To save all of us from our sins.”
Alfred wiped his eyes. “I have nothing to give but what’s in this box.” He looked down and opened it. A Yankee candle and some incense.
“All God wants you to give Him is you. You are far more valuable than all these treasures,” Ainsley said.
Alfred slowly closed the box. Though the tears would not stop, he felt a freedom in his heart that he’d never known. The kind that let him cry in front of a group of strangers and not care an ounce. He stood up and grabbed Wolfe, pulling him into a hug. “Thank you.”
“Cue shepherds!”
Alfred looked at the tiny child one more time, then at the mother he knew would someday lose Him to a violent death caused by Alfred’s own sin, and walked offstage to roaring applause.
CHAPTER 22
“MOVE IT, PEOPLE! Get out there. Shepherds on the left. Wise men on the right. Get that pig out of the way. Somebody get the pig out of the way! Mary, dear, you’ve got hay in your hair. Mary cannot have hay in her hair!” Lois pointed all over the place. “People, this is the last scene! We cannot blow it! Get into place! Come on! Hurry!”
Lois adjusted Gabriel’s halo as they herded the animals back onstage and erected the star again. “Hurry! On! Go!” she barked at Dustin. She turned to Wolfe and Ainsley. “What are you doing? Get out there! We have to have the nativity scene complete! Animals! Angels! Wise men! Shepherds!” She shoved them toward the entrance to the stage, but suddenly they all smelled something.
“Is that the donkey?” Wolfe asked.
Lois shook her head and pointed down at Ollie. “It’s him. Oh, heavens, no! We cannot have the baby Jesus with a diaper problem!”
Wolfe reached for Abigail, who was being rocked by a woman backstage. They exchanged babies, and Wolfe suddenly wanted nothing more than to rock his daughter in his arms.
“Get out there!” Lois barked. “We can’t have a nativity scene without Mary, Joseph, and Jesus.”
Wolfe stopped and turned to her. “Lois, I know I’ve given you no reason to trust me. I’ve pestered you to death about the way you want your play to go. But you’ve turned this production into something special, and I want to … I mean, I’m asking your permission to do something a little different. After the lights come on, I’d like to walk out with Ainsley and the baby.”
Lois glanced at the stage, then smiled. “You know me. I like a little different. Cue lights!”
The lights came on, and Ainsley looked up at Wolfe. He took her by the elbow and said, “Trust me.”
He let a few seconds go by, then he guided Ainsley and the baby to the center of the stage. He nodded to the reverend, who took his cue to step back. Then he turned to Ainsley and cupped her face in his. “Mary, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? For what?”
“For ever making you feel that I didn’t want you. Or our baby. I was confused for a while. And weary. But I love you. And I love our baby. I know that you are both gifts from God. I promise to treasure you through it all, through the good times and the bad, through the desert and the mountains, and never to take you for granted, no matter what.”
Ainsley reached up and pulled him into a kiss. To a standing ovation, Wolfe led his wife to the stable, where they were surrounded by their friends and family. Ainsley grinned as she set Abigail into the manger. Camera flashes lit the air as cheering ensued. Wolfe raised his hand, quieting the crowd, and in a loud voice exclaimed, “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! God bless us, every one!”
The crowd cheered, and the cast looked for Lois to come take a bow, but she was curled up in a ball near stage right, fast asleep.
It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour.
THE END
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
FIRST I WANT to acknowledge the fans of the Boo Series. Without all of you, Boo would’ve been a single book. But your love for the characters and town of Skary inspired me to dig deeper for more stories. So many more were found! Thanks for your loyalty.
Also, my thanks to Shannon Hill, Laura Wright, and the mighty and creative team at WaterBrook. I appreciate all of you. You are gifted at what you do, and I appreciate all your work on behalf of this series. I’d also like to mention Mark Ford and the design team for coming up with these unforgettable covers.
Special thanks to my sister, Wendy, who birthed t
his idea when she suggested the title at Christmas dinner. And thanks as always to my agent, a warm, friendly, wise voice, always available on the other end of the phone.
Last, and with much love, thanks to Sean, John Caleb, and Cate, who fill my home with irresistibly contagious laughter and good humor. Praise be to God who fills our hearts with joy.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
RENE GUTTERIDGE is the author of thirteen novels. She worked as a church playwright and drama director, writing over five hundred short sketches, before publishing her first novel and deciding to stay home with her first child.
Rene is married to Sean, a musician, and enjoys raising their two children while writing full time. She also enjoys helping new writers and teaching at writers conferences. She and her family make their home in Oklahoma.
Please visit her Web site at www.renegutteridge.com.
BOO HUMBUG
PUBLISHED BY WATERBROOK PRESS
12265 Oracle Boulevard, Suite 200
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921
A division of Random House Inc.
All Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.
Copyright © 2007 by Rene Gutteridge
Published in association with the literary agency of Janet Kobobel Grant, Books & Such, 4788 Carissa Avenue, Santa Rosa, CA 95405.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gutteridge, Rene.
Boo humbug: a novel / Rene Gutteridge. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Indiana—Fiction. 2. Christmas stories. I. Title.
PS3557.U887B6635 2007
813′.54—dc22
2007021314
eISBN: 978-0-307-49927-1
v3.0
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