Carol for Another Christmas (7 page)

“Merry Christmas?” Sheryl asked. “Who has time for Christmas? We've got work to do.”

“Yeah, who has time for all that card and candles and jingle bell stuff?” Phillip agreed.

“It's just another cheap commercial excuse to make a buck,” John added. “Not, mind you, that I don't like bucks.”

“I always get very depressed around Christmas, personally,” Harald said.

“I might get into Kwanzaa, but I'm usually just finishing up a big project and try to go to Tahiti instead,” Sheryl said.

“Well, I'm Buddhist, but my family still has a big gathering with a tree, and I wish I was there instead of freezing my butt off here, half starving, and talking to a computer screen,” Curtis said. He snapped his fingers suddenly. “Hey, I've got it! Maybe this is an interactive phone call that's been patched in here—”

“Curtis, we turned off the system and looked under the hood,” Phillip told him. “If someone had cross-wired a video phone, we'd know about it by now. We have here an unexplained communications system using a seasonal avatar to give us a Christmas freakout. Maybe it's Wayne, after all, but if so, he's onto something we haven't even thought about yet.”

“So, come on, gramps, give. Who are you really?” Sheryl asked.

“I told you, I'm Ebenezer Scrooge. In person—well, in a manner of speaking. I used to manage properties in London, you see, and was very good at it, except that I—”

“We know who Ebenezer Scrooge is,” she said impatiently. “What we want to know is, who's behind that wrinkly mask. Cause whoever it is, he or she is jamming our system when we've got work to do.”

“I assure you, my dear young lady, there is no one behind me.”

“Something's going on above him, though. Oh! Look! It's an icon that says, “Program Manager,” like on the early Windows Op Systems. But I've never seen one shaped like a tricorder and all gold and glowy in Gonzo-gothic script like that!” John said.

And abruptly the room and all its inhabitants melted away like snowflakes.

Eight

Monica Banks did not look pleased to see Scrooge again, but he hadn't supposed she would. So when she reached for the button this time, he was prepared. He knew she could not shut him out if he did not wish it.

“Now, now, my dear girl, that simply will not do,” he said, waggling his finger at her when she tried it, without so much as a “How do you do” or a “Merry Christmas.” “You don't really want me to go, my dear. You see, I begin to understand my purpose here now, and it's very much in your best interests that I be here.”

“Do tell,” she said. “And what might that be, pray? Other than to hold up production and bankrupt my company, that is. And don't call me ‘girl' or ‘dear.' I won't be patronized in my own company.”

“No, indeed,” Scrooge said. “I should say not. Perish the thought. Well then, esteemed madam, if it pleases you or if it does not, I am here for your benefit.”

“You bring a ghostly piece of programming that will make my project run?” she asked. “Because that's all I want out of anybody.”

“That seems very little to ask, whatever it is,” he said. “But first, let me say that now I do quite understand your discomfiture at my presence. Something quite similar happened to me once, and it was very upsetting. Very. But instructive. You see, Miss Banks, I believe I am either to announce the visit of three ghosts—”

“Been there, done that!” she snapped. “I already had a dream where my brother's ghost was announcing the visit of . . . ohmigod.” The snappiness drained out of her and she slumped in her chair. “Another ghost.”

“Very well. That narrows the field considerably. Then I must be the ghost of Christmas Past.”

“Wait a minute. He said you'd be coming three times.”

“Will I now? How odd. I received visitations from three specters, myself—four altogether, if you count Marley, and since counting was Marley's life, I believe one must indeed count Marley.”

“Doug's ghost didn't tell you?” she asked. “I mean, didn't he send you here?”

“I'm as puzzled about how I came to be here as you yourself seem to be, my—Miss Banks—but I believe we have sorted it out. Very well—ahem—” He cleared his throat and attempted to sound properly somber and spectrally authoritative. “I am the Ghost of Christmas Past. Follow me.”

“What if you're all there is?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You got four. You said so. It says so in every stupid Christmas play and TV takeoff you see. Three ghosts, plus the prequel. Christmases Past, Present, and Future, and Marley. So how come I only get you and Doug? Downsizing?”

“I'm not sure. Since I didn't know of your brother's visit, it is unlikely I would know about other specters that are to appear to you.”

“This gets more reassuring all the time. You know what I think? I think you're another bad dream. I'm so tired and stressed- out, I've fallen asleep again, and you're my follow-up nightmare. A little something to waste my time when I have a job to do. Either that or you, Doug, the whole thing is a really clever computer virus: a little piece of techno-sabotage dreamed up by my competitors. Now, fess up, you pixilated refugee from a Disney movie. What is it you want with me, exactly, other than to ruin everything my brother and I have struggled to build here at Databanks and cost thousands of people their jobs?”

“Surely you know that already since you appear to be familiar with the, er, procedure. I believe I must be here simply to, er, ensure that you have—that you appreciate, that is—that you help others to have—a merry Christmas.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“I believe so, yes.”

“Well, in your own words, then, ‘Bah! Humbug!' ”

At that point, two separate things happened. One was that red and green lights flashed on and off in front of Scrooge's eyes, and when he opened them, he was standing in front of three portals. Two of these were tightly closed with red lights above their thresholds but the third, and nearest, was marked by a button glowing green that bore the legend
Christmas Past
.

The second thing that happened, and he realized this only when the lights stopped flashing, was that Monica Banks now stood beside him, her feet lost in mist and her face looking as if, well, as if she'd seen a ghost.

Nine

Where the door had been there was now a Christmas tree, a large, fresh one, strung with popcorn and cranberries and gilded pinecones.

A man held a little girl up to the top of the tree, where she was placing an angel with a plastic and tinsel halo.

“Angie!” Monica squealed in a voice much younger than her current one. “It's Angie! Our Christmas angel. I used to put her up there every year. Mama and I strung all that popcorn and all those berries and she helped me dip the cones for the tree, too. And Daddy took us over on the ferry boat to the other side of the water and way out into the forest, where a friend of his worked for one of the timber companies, so we could cut our tree every year.”

Piles and piles of presents sat under the tree, most of them wrapped in paper to please the heart of a child, paper with Santas and elves and snowmen and kittens, paper with reindeer and Christmas trees, little drummer boys and partridges in pear trees, paper with stars and angels and ornaments and candy canes, paper with gingerbread men and bells and holly sprigs and teddy bears. “Can't I open just one now?” the little girl asked.

“You know better than that, princess,” her father said. “We have to wait until we get back from Grandma's for the ones under the tree, and then you have to go to sleep so Santa can bring you his gift and fill your stocking.”

The father bundled the little girl into her red velvet coat and hat, and after a moment, the mother came from the kitchen bearing a platter large enough to cover her distended belly.

“Come on, hon,” the father said.

“I—okay, but let me set this down. I have to make one more trip to the bathroom,” she said, and waddled with all speed back into the house before returning to put on her own coat and hat and take up the platter again.

Then they all trundled out into the snow, and the father and daughter hurriedly scooped up big snowballs and threw them at each other, the father laughing delightedly, the daughter shrieking with glee, while the mother, watching each step as best she could, carried the platter to the car. The little girl looked around her neighborhood one last time before getting into the car. The familiar houses had, with the onset of darkness, taken on the aspect of Santa's workshop, each of them strung with bulbs of red, yellow, green, and blue glass shaped like little candle flames. Some houses had Christmas stars on the roof; some had Santas and reindeer teams driving across. Her own yard at least had the snowman she and her daddy had made the day before, though his carrot nose had fallen off.

As the car drove away, Scrooge and Monica watched the snowman wave good-bye to the back of the girl who had created him. The car slushed through snow-muffled streets until Daddy had to stop to put on chains, and after that it clinked and clanked and jingled like sleigh bells.

“I want to see the lights downtown!” the little girl cried, and her parents were only too happy to oblige.

If Scrooge had been awed by the neighborhood light display, the downtown city buildings, comprised of more floors than Scrooge would have thought it possible to pile atop one another, were wonders bedecked with winking glass candles and wrapped like packages. The little girl had to admire the mechanical displays in the store windows—far more elaborate ones than in Scrooge's day—Christmas trains bearing presents in every car and driven by St. Nicholas himself, Christmas parties enacted by windows full of beautifully dressed mannequins, and a completely equipped Santa's toy shop with elves hammering and sawing on wonderful playthings. Christmas music blared out into the streets as if played by invisible orchestras.

Little Monica was most fascinated by the crèche in front of a large church whose steeple bore a brightly lit star at its tip. “I hope Santa remembers my Betsey Wetsey,” she said to her father in a hushed, excited voice, watching Baby Jesus in Mary's arms as if anxious to see if he dampened his swaddling clothes. “Where will we put the manger when our baby is born?” she asked her parents.

“We won't need a manger,” her mother said. “We have your old cradle.” Then she gave a little yelp and rubbed her belly. “We'd better get on to Mother's, dear.”

“But I was going to use that for Betsey Wetsey,” Monica said.

Then, suddenly, the family was on the doorstep of a large house on the outskirts of the city. The door had a big wreath of holly with fat red berries and a fat red bow to match, and when it opened, amazing smells wafted into the snowy air. Women in silky dresses and frilly aprons bustled around the dining table, filling it with various treats, but Scrooge could recognize only the cranberries, turkey, and dressing.

Much fuss was made over Monica's mother during the meal, and Monica was asked repeatedly by one aunt or uncle or another, “What do you want, Monica, a baby brother or a baby sister?”

She shrugged. “I just want the baby to come out of Mama's tummy so she's not fat anymore and her back doesn't hurt.”

Instead of being pleased by her thoughtfulness, her mother blushed. “Monica! That'll be enough of that showing off,” she said.

But her daddy ruffled her hair.

Later, everyone sang carols and even later, carol singers came by to sing for them. Monica knew most of the choruses and sang along. They were in the middle of the third chorus of “Jingle Bells” when Mama suddenly screamed.