One Christmas Wish

by Katherine Rundell

  For the real Theodore

  —K. R.

  t was Christmas Eve, and Theodore was fighting a cardboard box. The box was winning. Someone had been very enthusiastic in their use of packing tape. Someone had thought it was important that the box stayed safe.

  The tissue paper was as old as the decorations themselves; it smelled of spices, and old perfume. Most of the decorations were baubles, and most of the baubles had cracked in half. Theo frowned as he took them out. “You should not be able to cut yourself on Christmas,” he muttered. “That’s not in any of the Christmas carols.”

  But at the bottom of the box there were four decorations that were different: a rocking horse, a robin, a tin soldier with a drum, and an angel. The angel’s wings were molting, and the soldier’s drum had rusted. The robin had developed a bald patch, and the rocking horse’s rockers had been partly eaten by woodworm.

  Theo hung them on the tree, next to the lights that didn’t light. He wasn’t tall enough to reach the high branches, so he tried throwing the angel at the top of the tree. When that didn’t work, he wedged her in the branches. He arranged the broken baubles as best he could.

  Theo had found the box of decorations on top of a cupboard; his parents had had no time to buy new decorations.

  They had had no time to buy a turkey. Both of them were at work. An envelope with gift cards inside was the only present under the tree. Theo tried to fold the envelope into a more exciting shape, but it didn’t help much.

  “You mustn’t stay up too late,” his parents had said. “We’ll be home tonight.”

  “But as soon as you can? You absolutely promise?”

  “We promise.” His mother had stroked his cheek with one hand. Her other hand was hunting in her bag for her phone. “The babysitter will cut you a nice big slice of fruitcake. Won’t that be nice?”

  Theo made a face. Nobody in the world actually likes fruitcake, he thought. But he was a polite boy, so he only said, “Why isn’t Mrs. Goodyere babysitting me?”

  “She didn’t give a reason,” his father had said. “She only said she couldn’t tonight. And she’s getting rather old, anyway. The neighbors say she’s becoming a little peculiar.”

  “I like her. Actually,” he said, “I love her.” Sometimes Mrs. Goodyere talked to herself, but she gave him chocolate cake with cheese, which was surprisingly delicious, and sang to him at bedtime.

  His parents had asked the babysitter to help Theo put up the decorations, but she had fallen asleep at the kitchen table with her nose pressed against her phone.

  Theo swallowed. He looked out the window, because it was less difficult than looking at the tree.

  As he looked, he saw a star. It was soaring across the sky, blinking red and green.

  “A shooting star,” he whispered. He closed his eyes, and clenched his fists, and crossed his toes, and bit down on his tongue. His father always said, When you wish, you have to wish with every inch of your heart. Theo thought about his heart, beating hard under his four layers of sweaters. (The house was cold, because Theo couldn’t reach the button for the heating system.)

  He wished with every inch of heart he had. I want not to be alone, he thought. He said it out loud. “I wish for someone to be with. I wish to be un-alone.” He hoped shooting stars did not care about grammar.

  He wished so hard his skin prickled and tingled, and his head spun.

  Behind him, the tree rustled. Theo whipped round.

  The tin soldier was unhooking the loop that held him to the branch, and swinging down the tree.

  The angel was trying to fly. Her wings were too threadbare to catch the air, so she sat there, looking half excited and half annoyed, flapping. The robin’s wings, on the other hand, worked beautifully, but a twist of wire at his feet was keeping him fixed to the tree. The rocking horse was trying to chew through the string. Its tongue kept getting in the way.

  “Excuse me,” said the rocking horse, “but could you unhook me?”

  Theo closed his eyes. The world, he thought, had gone mad. He counted to ten, and opened them. But the world was still there. The decorations were still there. The tin soldier was sitting on his shoe and singing a marching song.

  “Your mouth is hanging open, did you know?” The tin soldier was very polite. He offered a tiny tin hand for Theo to shake.

  “What . . . what happened?” said Theo.

  “We woke up,” said the angel. “We’re here to keep you company.”

  “You—but, I didn’t know you could—” said Theo.

  “Could you help me down?” said the robin. “I don’t like heights very much.”

  “But I—but I—but—” said Theo.

  “Excuse me? Boy? Could you unscrew me from my rockers?” the rocking horse asked. “I’d like to stretch my legs. And rotate my ankles. I’ve been dreaming of it.”

  There was a screwdriver in the kitchen. Theo made sure not to wake the babysitter. The unscrewing took some time, because the rocking horse tried to eat Theo’s hair, and although he apologized, he couldn’t quite make himself stop.

  “That feels astonishing,” he said. He cantered up and down the mantelpiece, and jumped over the photo frames. He only broke a very few.

  Theo’s eyes were aching from staring. “What happens now?” he said.

  “Anything you want to happen,” said the angel. “I think we woke to do whatever it is you need. We’ve woken up before, and that’s always what we’ve done in the past.” She paused. “It doesn’t always go that well, actually.”

  “So—I can choose what we do? Anything at all?”

  “Anything at all.”

  Theo shut his eyes and thought. His eyes were closed for quite a long time. A cough came from his shoulder.

  “I don’t want to interrupt your thinking,” said the rocking horse, “but, just while you’re doing it—I wonder if you might have something to eat? I’m hungry.”

  Theo didn’t know what rocking horses ate.

  He had a feeling real horses ate sugar lumps, and carrots, and apples. He ran to the kitchen to get them. The apples were soft and wrinkled, and the sugar didn’t come in lumps, but the carrots were crisp and fresh. He chewed on one himself as he ran back to the tree.

  By the time he got there, it had turned out that rocking horses also ate pine needles, electrical cables, and the bottoms of curtains. It ate the apples—even the one that had started to look like somebody’s great-grandmother— with a great deal of chomping and burping and sighing with happiness.

  The rocking horse had barely swallowed the last crumb of electrical cable when a voice came from Theo’s elbow.

  “Excuse me, boy. You wouldn’t be able to do me a tiny favor, would you?”

  It was the robin. He had a businesslike beak, and polished black eyes. If he could have worn a tie, Theo thought, he would have. But as he spoke, the red on his breast blushed a deeper scarlet.

  “I seem to have forgotten how to sing. I know I knew once: I remember it very vividly. I had great talent. But I can’t remember how. And I’m a robin.” The robin’s voice cracked. “All real robins sing. Can you teach me?”

  “Oh—I’m so sorry!” said Theo. “But I don’t know how you explain singing. It’s just something that happens. Like dancing. Or farting.”

  “But there must be people who can,” said the robin. He sounded angry, but Theo could see that he wasn’t. He was excited, and anxious, and hungry, which often come out sounding annoyed, but are in fact more complicated. “You can teach anything.”

  “There’s a woman called Mrs. Goodyere who teaches the piano, just down the road,” said Theo. “But she wouldn’t come tonight. And it’s late.”

  “Could we go and visit her?” said the robin.<
br />
  “I’m not really allowed to leave the house alone.”

  “Says who?”

  “My parents.”

  “But they’re not here, are they?”

  “No,” said Theo. He looked very hard at his shoes. “No. They’re not.”

  “And you wouldn’t be alone,” coaxed the robin. “You’d be with us.”

  • • •

  he walk took longer than it usually would have, because the rocking horse kept stopping to eat leaves, and twigs, and snow, and bits of other people’s cars. He had to be discouraged from eating the dog poo.

  Mrs. Goodyere was awake. She sat at her piano, but she wasn’t playing it. She had a picture in her hands.

  They rang the doorbell. Mrs. Goodyere answered, still holding the photograph. She did not seem at all surprised to see a wooden horse nibbling her doormat.

  “Theodore!” she smiled down at him. “I’m sorry I couldn’t babysit—I thought I’d like to be in my own home tonight. I’ve been remembering my Arthur. What was it you wanted?”

  Theo explained the problem, while the robin tried to look unembarrassed and bold. In fact, he looked like he was trying to swallow an unusually large insect, but facial expressions are difficult for robins.

  Mrs. Goodyere shook her head. “I’m sorry, my dear. I have no qualifications in teaching birds.”

  The robin fluttered his wings anxiously. “Would you reconsider for a fee? I cannot offer payment, but I believe robins are skilled at catching worms. Do you enjoy worms?”

  “I’m afraid I’m more of a tea and cake person myself.”

  “Or—if you were wanting to do some remembering, perhaps I could remember with you.”

  Mrs. Goodyere looked harder at the robin. “You know—you actually look rather like my Arthur,” she said. She hesitated, with the door half open and half closed.

  “I would be honored to hear about him,” said the robin. “He sounds very handsome.”

  “Well—I could try to teach you a scale,” said Mrs. Goodyere. “I’ve never taught a bird, but perhaps children and birds aren’t so very different.”

  They all came in. The angel tried on a teacup as a hat.

  Mrs. Goodyere sat down at the piano. “Listen. Sing this note.”

  The robin let out a noise somewhere between a squeak, a wail, and a cough.

  “That’s a good beginning,” said the old woman. “Again.”

  Each time, the note got clearer.

  Theo kept an eye on the other decorations while the robin sang “Away in a Manger.” It wasn’t easy. The rocking horse had to be discouraged from eating the piano. The tin soldier caught sight of its reflection and tried to attack it, just to pass the time. The angel tried to fly again, and crashed into the china cupboard.

  “Sorry,” said Theo to Mrs. Goodyere. “Sorry!”

  “Why don’t you take your friends home, dear, and I’ll send robin back when he’s worked out the high notes? And perhaps he and I will have a little bit of chocolate cake, and talk about the old days.”

  “It would be a delight,” said the robin. He gave the closest thing that a robin can give to a bow. “I am at your service.”

  • • •

  hey paused outside the house, while the horse ate the hedge.

  “What’s that?” asked the angel. “A spare wing! A wing, just lying there!”

  “It’s a feather,” said Theo.

  “Does it belong to anybody?”

  “It would have belonged to a pigeon, I think.”

  “Could I borrow it?”

  “I don’t think the pigeon needs it back,” said Theo. “I think you could have it for good.”

  The angel’s eyes widened. “Are there more?”

  “More pigeon feathers? I think so! I mean—there’s definitely more pigeons. So it would be logical that there’d be more feathers.”

  The angel bit Theo’s hand to make sure he was paying attention. “Where? Where would there be more?”

  “There’s a wood, down by the library. We could go feather-hunting.”

  The rocking horse was untangled from the hedge, and they set off. The angel kept the rocking horse’s head warm. Theo held the tin soldier in his gloves.

  The night was clear, and the stars shone as if they knew something important was happening down below.

  “There are often feathers under a bird’s nest,” said Theo. “We’ll find a nest.”

  The bird’s nest they found had been abandoned when the birds had flown south, and was half full of snow. Theo gathered the feathers from the nest.

  “I’m afraid they’re quite little,” he said.

  “But they’re beautiful,” said the angel. “They look so warm.”

  hey searched among the trees for an hour. Theo’s gloves got soaked with snow, but the horse licked his fingers to warm them up. Eventually they had a pile as high as the angel’s knees: blackbird feathers and pigeon feathers and a few that were pure white.

  “Look! Oh, this is wonderful! How do I fix them on to my wings?” asked the angel.

  “With glue, I think,” said Theo.

  “Glue! How glorious! Do you have any glue?”

  “Oh. Well, no,” said Theo. “Sorry.”

  “At home?”

  “No,” said Theo.

  “We can buy some!” said the horse. “I remember about buying things from last time we woke up. I distinctly remember enjoying it.”

  “Does anybody have any money?” asked Theo.

  “Christmas decorations don’t really have money. Or handbags,” said the tin soldier. “Or legs, usually.”

  “Oh,” said the angel. “Well. Oh.” She tried hard to smile. “Thank you. For trying.”

  Theo put his hands in his pockets, and tried not to show how much his heart suddenly hurt.

  “Wait, look!” He drew out a packet of chewing gum, and began to chew hard. The angel chewed even harder, her jaws working furiously.

  The tin soldier was still too rusty to be much help, but he tried. The rocking horse ate his f irst two sticks of gum, and Theo refused to give him any more.

  They made tiny balls with the chewing gum, and stuck a ball to the bottom of each feather.

  The wings grew. They were a bit sticky, and they smelled a little pink, but they were beautiful.

  The angel was shaking with nerves as she f lapped her wings.

  “What if they fall off?” she said. “What if I fall down?”

  But the feathers stayed on. She rose. She wobbled. She pulled her hair back behind her ears. And then she soared. Up, over the trees, over the chimney tops. Theo sat on the horse with the tin soldier and watched; they clapped and cheered even when she was much too high in the sky to hear. Theo gave his best whistle, using two fingers. The tin soldier banged his drum.

  She looped the loop around a lamppost, and built a snow angel on top of the church spire. Then she spun around their heads, and disappeared into the stars. “Lots of things to do!” she called to them.

  heo and the tin soldier and the rocking horse sat staring up at the sky. It began to snow.

  “Theo?” said the tin soldier.

  “Yes?” said Theo. He felt sure the tin soldier was going to ask for something. A hat, perhaps, he thought: one of those tall furry ones that soldiers wore outside palaces. He’d quite like one himself.

  “I’d like,” said the tin soldier, “to be able to play my drum. It’s so rusty: listen.”

  He tried to bang his drum, but all that came out was the crunching, scraping noise of rust on rust.

  “We can definitely try,” said Theo.

  They didn’t have any oil, but they discovered that snow and rocking-horse spit and the corner of Theo’s sleeve polished the worst of the rust off the drum. Theo used a pine needle to gently scratch the rust from the soldier’s ears.

  At last the tin soldier gave a great rat-a-tat-tat on the drum, and a cat on the pavement opposite looked disapproving and ran up a tree.

  “It’s l
oud,” said Theo approvingly.

  The tin soldier smiled, but his smile was not as wide as Theo’s. He bit his tin lip. “The thing is: I think I need someone who I can play my drum for. I’d like someone to be in love with.”

  “Oh!” Theo was startled. “That might be rather difficult. I don’t know many tin people I can introduce you to. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have a furry hat?”

  “Yes!”

  Theo thought hard. “Would she have to be tin?”

  “No! She’d just have to be kind.”

  “I have an idea, then.”

  • • •

  hey rode the rocking horse to the biggest toyshop in town. The horse picked the lock with his tongue.

  At the door, the tin soldier hesitated. “Do you think I should I smarten myself up first? I have a feeling you’re supposed to brush your hair if you’re hoping to fall in love.”

  “But you don’t have hair.” Theo was envious. He hated washing his hair.

  “But it’s the principle of the thing,” said the tin soldier.

  Theo found a pen in his pocket, and drew back the soldier’s hair so it shone dark and glossy in the lights of the security camera. They went in.

  They passed rows of dolls: dolls with ringlets, dolls that really cried—“Much too young,” said the tin soldier—dolls with high-heeled shoes and dolls with no feet at all that lived inside each other. And then—

  “That’s her!” cried the tin soldier. He jumped up and down, and the sound of his tin feet on the floor echoed through the shop.

  Theo lifted down her box. She wore a princess’s gown, and her eyes were closed, as if she were wishing.

  “That’s her! That’s her!” The tin soldier’s voice clanked with emotion.

  “But how do you know?” Theo looked up at the doll, worried. “You can’t love someone just because you like their dress, or their hair, or their face. Everyone knows that.”