Jingle Boy

by Kieran Scott

  My mother paused. “What do you mean?” she asked, her back facing me as she braced her hands on the counter.

  “Just that . . .” And then I realized that there was nothing to what Marge had said. All she’d done was tell Scooby she thought my mother was too stupid to skim money from the registers.

  “Just that I think she thinks you’re innocent,” I concluded lamely. So much for making her feel better. Nice one, Paul.

  “Well, it’s nice to know someone does, even if it is That Awful Woman,” my mother said, turning to face me. “But let’s get back to the subject at hand. I’m not going to tell your father about this. Not yet. I’m afraid it might make him worse.”

  “Mom, I know you don’t want me to talk, but I just want to say that I really am sorry,” I told her.

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly through her nose, facing the counter again. “I know you are, Paul,” she said, turning so that I could see her profile. “But I think that right now you should just go to your room.”

  “I . . . I can’t,” I told her. “My room is—”

  “Finished!” she said with false brightness. She turned completely around now and braced her hands behind her on the counter. “I was going to surprise you when you got home tonight. They finished your room this afternoon.”

  My throat swelled up with emotion. There was no way I could speak.

  “Merry Christmas,” my mother said flatly. Then she turned away from me again. “We’ll talk about all this in the morning.”

  Slowly I walked over to the stairs. I could see from where I was standing that she’d tied a huge red bow on my bedroom door. I didn’t know exactly what was inside, but if I knew my mother at all, I could bet she’d had a new bed delivered and had spent half the day at Bed, Bath & Beyond picking out sheets and pillows. She’d probably worked on the place for hours while I was plotting to break the law—and her heart.

  I climbed the stairs, each step feeling heavy enough to shake the house, and walked over to my room, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t open the door and have it thrown right in my face—what a great mom I had and what a bad son I was.

  Next to my bedroom door there’s a niche in the wall to display figurines or photographs. Every day during the Christmas season my mom puts little treats there so that if I get hungry while studying or if I have friends over, there’s always something to eat. Today, standing in the little indentation was a statue of Santa Claus, made out of Rice Krispies treats. His little arm was raised in a wave, and his mouth was drawn up like a bow, just like in “’Twas the Night Before Christmas.”

  Before I could even breathe, I was overcome with a violent rage. I braced my hands on the wall above the indentation and glared down at Santa.

  “I hate you,” I said through my teeth. “I lost my Santa hat and you turned against me. You turned all of Christmas against me. If it wasn’t for you, none of this would have happened!”

  I grabbed Santa, ripped off his head, and stuffed it into my mouth.

  “You’re going to pay for what you’ve done to me,” I said through my sticky teeth. “You are going to pay!”

  JOLLY OLD SAINT NICHOLAS

  “WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT?” I WHISPERED INTO THE darkness of my bedroom, clutching my new sheets to my sides. Something had jolted me awake. A noise? A movement? What? My heart was pounding in my chest, and, like a little kid who’s just had a nightmare, I was afraid to even look left or right. If there was something freaky in my room, maybe it wouldn’t see me if I didn’t see it.

  A couple of minutes of holding my breath and I started to relax. A few very weak, very pink rays of sunlight were starting to peek through my windows. Maybe it was nothing. Just part of a nightmare I could no longer recall. I was just letting my heavy eyelids close again when I heard it.

  It was faint at first, so faint I thought I might already be dreaming. But it gradually grew louder and louder. A persistent jolly tinkling sound. The sound of jingling bells.

  I sat up straight in bed. Okay, now I was sure I was losing it. Who would be outside jingling bells at five o’clock in the morning?

  I whipped off my blankets and swung my legs over the side of the bed. Moving the stiff new curtains aside ever so slightly so that the psycho outside wouldn’t notice, I looked out.

  That was when I knew I was still sleeping. Because there was no way I was seeing what I thought I was.

  “Ho ho ho!” the freak on the lawn shouted, waving a velvet-gloved hand at me. “Merry Christmas, Paul!”

  It knew my name! The freak knew my name!

  I turned away from the window, grabbed my robe, and flew down the stairs. “I am not going insane, I am not going insane, I am not going insane,” I chanted as I pushed my arms into the sleeves. I was going to get outside, the wind was going to knock me out of my sleepwalking stupor, and I was going to wake up to a normal day. Or as normal as the day could be when I’d been arrested the night before.

  I flung open the front door and my heart literally stopped for half a second.

  My whole house was ablaze with Christmas lights. They dripped from the eaves and surrounded the windows and doors. They laced the bushes that lined the house and ran along the ground on either side of the front walk. My father’s Santa in Space extravaganza was in full effect, except the iridescent spaceship was set up on the front lawn instead of the roof. And the Santa inside it was not plastic. The Santa inside it was real.

  “Hello, Paul,” Santa said with a twinkle in his deep blue eyes. Then the spaceship let out a huge burst of dry-ice steam from its rocket blasters. Just like my father had planned.

  “Uh . . . hi?” I said, my arms hanging limp at my sides as Santa stepped out of the ship.

  He smiled and patted his stomach as he gazed at me. “The answer to your question is yes, Paul. It really is me. It’s Santa Claus. I’m the real thing.”

  My head started to pound as I looked into his eyes, trying to find the truth, but it didn’t take long. As I looked at him, a sudden, soothing, even elating warmth came over me and my heart tingled with anticipation just like it did every Christmas Eve. It was true. I was standing on my front lawn in my pajamas with Kris Kringle himself.

  “Wow,” I said under my breath. “Wow.”

  “Paul,” Santa said, his eyes suddenly narrowing a bit but never losing their twinkle. “We have to talk.”

  He brought his big hand down on my shoulder and turned me around. We walked together over to the front steps and Santa sat down. As I stood there, unsure of what to do, he reached into his sleeve and pulled out a candy cane.

  “Peppermint?” he asked, offering it to me.

  “No thanks,” I said as I dropped down next to him.

  I have to say, I couldn’t stop staring. It isn’t every day a person gets to meet the real Santa. His thick red suit stretched over his sizable belly and was fastened up the front with silver buttons, each in the shape of a different snowflake. The white fur around his collar and the edges of his sleeves had wisps of light brown in it and his black boots were cracked and mud caked, the laces fraying. I guess getting in and out of a sled a billion times over will do that to your footwear.

  “Mama always shines them up for me on Christmas Eve,” Santa said, picking up his left foot slightly when he noticed me looking. “They’re a bit well worn right now, I’m afraid.”

  “I can’t believe you’re actually here,” I said, inhaling the pure evergreen scent that surrounded him and trying to commit it to memory.

  “Well, son, you brought me here,” Santa said. He stroked his beard—real curly whiskers as pure white as new-fallen snow—and looked down at his lap for a moment. “You know, I’ve always admired you and your family, Paul,” he said, looking me in the eye again. “The Nicholas clan has always understood the true spirit of Christmas. You live it all year round. Do you have any idea how rare that is in this day and age?”

  I felt a cold sliver of guilt start to slice its way through my gut. “Yeah,”
I replied, because I felt I had to.

  “Well, gosh darn it, Paul, you’ve really gone and messed it up this year, haven’t you?” Santa chided.

  I blinked at him. “How did you—”

  “You forget, Paul. I know everything,” Santa said, leaning toward me slightly. “But to be sure, I never thought I’d see the day when Paul Nicholas of Paramus, New Jersey, U.S.A., would wind up on my naughty list.” He shook his head and looked away with a sad sigh.

  I couldn’t believe it. I’d disappointed Santa. What was the world coming to?

  “I’m sorry, Santa,” I said, staring down at my plaid flannel pajama pants. “It’s just, I lost my Santa hat and then everything started to fall apart. My girlfriend broke up with me, my dad was electrocuted, my house burned down, and now my best friend has up and left me. I thought . . . well . . . I guess I thought Christmas was punishing me,” I finished lamely.

  “None of this has anything to do with your Santa hat. Can’t you see that yet, Paul?” Santa asked me, placing his hands on his knees. “Your father and the house . . . well . . . that was an accident. But everything else you’ve told me was your own doing. You can’t blame Christmas because you chose the wrong girl.”

  Huh? my brain asked. “The wrong girl?” I said.

  “Don’t you see, Paul? Sarah wasn’t the girl for you. She never had the true spirit of Christmas,” Santa explained. “All Sarah Saunders cares about is Sarah Saunders. And presents. Trust me, I know. I’ve been getting her Christmas list for the past sixteen years. Last year it was so big she sent it to me on a Zip disk. I don’t even know what a Zip disk is.”

  Santa chuckled and I did, too. That sounded like Sarah.

  “You’re better off without her,” Santa said, patting me on the back and sending another shot of warmth right through me. “Look what she’s done to you. You ended up torturing that Scooby kid, yelling at your best friend, falling in with a bunch of anti-Christmas hooligans. Paul, you sabotaged the Wooddale parade!”

  My head fell into my hands. The last thing a guy like me ever wanted to hear was Santa Claus’s voice listing my many, many mistakes.

  “Oh, son, I didn’t come here to make you feel bad,” Santa said, reaching out to tousle my hair. “I came here to tell you it’s not too late. You can still save Christmas.”

  “But . . . but how?” I asked, lifting my head.

  “Well, you know the true spirit of Christmas is making the people you love happy,” Santa said, his eyes twinkling like stars.

  “Right,” I said. “But how am I supposed to do that now? My mom hates me, my dad’s in the hospital, and I don’t even know where Holly is.” Just saying it made me feel suddenly and irrevocably overwhelmed, like a cold boulder was pressing down on my chest.

  “You miss her, don’t you?” Santa asked, his voice a kind, soothing rumble.

  The moment he said it, I felt like my heart was going to curl up and die. I’d been trying not to think about it—focusing on Scooby and all that—but I missed Holly so much it actually hurt. I saw her in my mind, standing in front of me at the Holiday Ball, her eyes at half-mast, and suddenly I saw myself kissing her. Felt myself kissing her. My whole body flushed. And I realized. I should have done it. I wanted to do it. I wanted to kiss Holly Stevenson. And I wanted her to want to kiss me back.

  “Shoulda gone for it, son,” Santa said, slapping my back.

  I almost choked.

  “But it’s not too late,” he answered. “Holly’s the right girl. And just realizing that is half the battle.”

  “But I don’t even know where she is!” I told him, my voice embarrassingly high-pitched. “And I still have to fix everything else! What am I supposed to do here, Santa?”

  “Ho ho ho,” Santa laughed quietly. “Take it easy there, Paul. All you have to do is take it one problem at a time.”

  “One problem at a time,” I repeated.

  Santa smiled slowly, knowingly. “The answers are right in front of you, Paul,” he said, rising from the step. He turned to stand right in front of me and laid his hands over his stomach. “You can’t trust every guy in a Santa suit.”

  I opened my mouth to ask him what he meant, but Santa simply winked and in a sudden whirl of magical snow, he was gone.

  I woke up with a start and looked around my room like a madman. Sunlight streamed through my windows and the red numbers on my digital clock read 7:15. My heart filled with disappointment. Was it all just a dream?

  I jumped out of bed, ran downstairs, and whipped open the front door. The front yard was as barren and dull as it had been the day before. There were no lights on my house, no sign that anything had happened. As I stood there on the front steps, where Santa and I had supposedly sat just a couple of hours ago, I felt my shoulders start to slump. The mind really could play some evil tricks. How could I have ever let myself think that it was real?

  I trudged back up to my room, pondering the chances of my mother letting me stay home from school, but the second I got back to my doorway, I froze. Every inch of my skin tingled and suddenly, I could smell that evergreen scent that had filled my senses when I was chatting with Santa.

  There, sitting on my pillow, was a Santa hat. I flung myself onto the bed, grabbed the hat, and turned it inside out. My name, in my own crappy handwriting, was scrawled across the brim. The semimatted fur. The cocoa stain. I lifted the hat to my face, closed my eyes, and inhaled. Ahhh . . . mulberry wine!

  It wasn’t just any Santa hat. It was my Santa hat. And there was only one way it could have gotten there, only one person who could have pulled off such an amazing Christmas miracle. The big guy. Santa himself. I pulled the hat on over my head and savored the warmth that rushed over me.

  Maybe Christmas hadn’t forsaken me after all.

  YOU’RE A MEAN ONE, MR. GRINCH

  SOMETIMES, WHEN I’M HYPER OR EXCITED OR INSPIRED or just happy, my brain seems to function on two levels. I can do two things at once—like programming the VCR while vacuuming (my weekly chore that I manage to do once a month and still get an allowance for). Or I can solve two problems at once or finish a trig test in half the normal amount of time.

  Well, that morning in school my brain was functioning on three levels. Santa hat firmly in place on my head, I sang “Deck the Halls” with all my heart while simultaneously working to figure out how to save Christmas and listening to Turk Martin and his buddies whispering behind my back. I knew the rumors were already flying about my mall escapade and my time in jail, but I didn’t care. All that mattered now was the fact that I had been visited by Santa. And Santa was counting on me to make Christmas right again.

  The only problem was, I had no idea where to begin.

  Mr. McDaniel raised his hand as we held the last note, then closed it into a fist with a flourish to cut us off.

  “Very nice!” he exclaimed, his bright eyes falling on me. “It’s good to see that you have all regained your enthusiasm this morning.” He smiled slightly and I knew he was talking mainly to me. I hadn’t exactly been into singing carols lately and I’m sure Mr. McDaniel was starting to wonder if I would ever snap out of it. I knew he was glad to have me back.

  “I think everyone deserves a water break,” McDaniel said. “Back in five!”

  The room exploded with chattering voices as half the choir streamed toward the hallway and the water fountain. Mr. McDaniel disappeared into his office and I walked over to the windows at the back of the room to look out over the gray parking lot and the grayer sky. There was snow in the air—I could smell it. I smiled and crossed my arms over my chest. A white pre-Christmas would definitely be a good start to putting this holiday season back on the right track.

  “So, dude, is it true?”

  My heart jumped, but I managed not to have a blatantly physical reaction to the fact that Turk and Randy had somehow snuck up on me. I turned to them slowly and smiled.

  “Is what true?” I asked, as if I didn’t know what they were talking about.

&nb
sp; “Did you really spend last night in jail?” Randy asked, his whole triangular face crinkling up in disbelief.

  “Yeah,” I said simply. “I did.”

  Turk rolled back his shoulders and brought himself up to his intimidating full height, which was even taller than usual since his hair was spiked extra high this morning. He eyed me skeptically. “Whadja do, go for a joyride on too much fruitcake?” he asked.

  “Actually, my friends and I tried to burn down the mall,” I said, holding Turk’s gaze. Okay, so maybe I wasn’t in on it. And maybe I didn’t want to be found guilty of being in on it. But I had to see their reactions, right?

  Turk’s and Randy’s eyes seemed to take on this whole new expression I’d never seen there before. Could it be . . . respect? Turk’s gaze slowly traveled up to the furry brim of my Santa hat and rested there for a moment.

  “Wow, man,” he said finally. “You’re even crazier than I thought.”

  He pulled up his hand and I almost flinched before I realized he wanted to slap hands with me. I put out my arm tentatively and he brought his hand down on my mine, clasped my fingers for a second, then smiled.

  “Crazy,” he told me, shaking his head.

  After that I had to concentrate to keep from smiling and betraying my giddiness. Suddenly Turk thought I was certifiably cool. All this time all I’d had to do to end the merciless Christmas season teasing was get arrested? Huh.

  What the heck was wrong with these people?

  The door to the hall opened with a creak and the room filled with the sound of girly giggling. I knew it was Sarah and her friends, and I heard my name mentioned a few times, but I didn’t give them the satisfaction of acknowledging them. This morning Sarah was wearing yet another Scooby gift—this time a pair of diamond earrings—and I was getting a little sick of seeing her toss her hair around to expose them. Sarah and her heartbreaking ways had sent me down the destructo-path I’d been on, and just being around her today was setting me on edge.