Humbug Holiday (7 page)

In a moment, he was deep asleep.

It being too dark to read, and too cold to stay awake, and seeing that not much would happen until Scrooge woke up, Frankie curled up in the chair and I tumbled onto the sofa. Like Scrooge, I was fast asleep before my head hit the cushions.

Chapter 11

“Grrrr-sss! Grrrr-sss!”
Someone was snoring big time.

“Grrrr-sss! Grrrr-sss!”
It was really annoying.

“Devin—wake up!”

“Grrrr-snf-snk
—what?” I woke up just in time to hear the church bell chime a deep single
BONG!

Scrooge bolted up out of bed. “Was that all a dream, or did it actually happen? Did we really travel in the past with a spirit?”

“I'm pretty sure we did,” said Frankie. “And I'm not sure you should have treated the ghost like that.”

“Right,” I added. “There are probably rules for dealing with ghosts with lights on their heads, and I'm sure snuffing out the light is not at the top of the list.”

Scrooge frowned. “Perhaps, but now it's time for our second messenger. And let me say, nothing between a baby and a rhinoceros would surprise me very much—oh, dear, look at that!”

It was then that we noticed a powerful red light streaming under the door to Scrooge's sitting room.

Even as we noticed the light, a deep and echoey voice boomed, “Come in! Come in!”

We all stared at one another, but for some reason, we all did what the huge voice said. I think we were too scared not to.

Scrooge slid from bed, wrapped his robe tight around him, put on his slippers, and went to the door. Frankie was second. I was last.

We opened the door to an astounding sight.

Frankie gasped. “Someone remodeled last night!”

It was true. Scrooge's dingy little sitting room was completely changed. The walls and ceiling were hung so thickly with evergreen garlands that it looked like a forest in there. Bright, gleaming holly trees filled the corners of the room, and their red berries flashed and twinkled in the light of a roaring blaze in the fireplace.

Heaped up on the floor to make a weird kind of throne were plump turkeys, geese, chunks of beef, strings of sausages, dozens of pies and puddings, mounds of hot chestnuts, bright pyramids of oranges, pears, and apples, stacks and stacks of giant cakes, and enormous steaming bowls of hot punch.

And sitting on this crazy throne was a jolly giant.

“Come in!” he boomed. “Come in, and know me better! Come in! Come in!”

The creature was seven or eight feet tall and dressed in a long robe of deep green trimmed with white fur.

In his hand he held a great horn with a fire blazing in it, and on his head was a thick wreath of holly from which gleaming icicles hung. His hair was long and brown and curly, and so was his enormous beard.

We shook and trembled all over the place, but that only seemed to make him laugh more.

“Come in, Scrooge! Come in, Frankie and Devin!” boomed the giant. “I am the Ghost of Christmas Present! Look upon me and wonder!”

I nudged Frankie. “I wonder, all right. I wonder how a giant could fit in this tiny room. Not a bad trick for a ghost. And a not too spooky ghost, either.”

The giant's laugh echoed around the room as if we were all in some kind of cave. “You have never seen anything like me before!” he boomed.

“I'm pretty sure we would have remembered,” said Frankie. “You're … pretty memorable!”

Scrooge bowed before the ghost. “Spirit, take us where you will. I learned a lesson last night. Let me learn more.”

“Then touch my robe!” said the ghost.

We did, and instantly the room vanished.
Poof!
The room, and all that awesome food, gone in a flash.

We stood in the street, and with just a single glance I could tell that it was Christmas morning.

Snow lay fresh on all the rooftops, and people were everywhere, shoveling their walks clear.

The grocery shop at the corner was jammed with customers. They tumbled against one another at the door, clashing their wicker baskets wildly, some calling to others, some wishing each other a merry Christmas, everything smelling so good.

“I love this!” said Frankie, breathing it all in. “The snow and the cold, the food smells, the people. This is like Christmas really should be!”

Suddenly, a snowball whizzed past my ear.

Without thinking, I packed my own and shot it right back. But to my amazement, it hit a small boy.

“Hey!” he yelled.

“Sorry!” I said. “I thought you were a shadow—”

“A shadow, eh? I'll get you back!” he said in a miniature English accent. And he did, sending a good fastball that plastered me. I lobbed another couple back, and so did he, laughing louder with each one.

Frankie turned to the ghost. “I thought the people here were shadows.”

“Scrooge and I are the shadows,” said the ghost. “You can be seen, we cannot.”

“It probably has something to do with being in the present,” said Frankie.

I grinned. “Which means I might actually be able to get my hands on my pack—if we find it.”

“Come,” said the ghost. “We move on. Quickly!”

He turned the corner and entered a side lane, where a bakery was nearly bursting with people trying to get in and out.

As customers left the shop, the spirit lifted the covers off their dinners, and sprinkled something from his torch over the food. He also sprinkled it over a couple of women who were arguing about their place in line. At once, the women stopped arguing, hugged, and wished each other a merry Christmas.

“Wow,” said Frankie. “Useful stuff you have in that torch. I guess you'd call it Christmas spirit … Spirit?”

The jolly giant just waved us on, chuckling to himself.

Frankie and I lobbed one more round of snowballs at the kid, got fully pelted in return, then slid down the street after Scrooge and the ghost.

We zigzagged our way into some snowy alleys and stopped before the smallest, poorest house on the block.

“Spirit,” said Scrooge, a tinge of fear in his voice, “why do you bring me here? I do not know this place.”

“Of course, you don't,” said the spirit. “Yet, it is the home of someone very close to you.”

“Close to me?” said Scrooge, completely clueless. “But I don't know anyone—”

The spirit sighed. “Do you know Bob Cratchit? He lives here!”

Scrooge looked over the house, astonished that anyone could live in such a tiny place. But he was even more surprised when the spirit tossed a twinkling, glittering handful of incense on the Cratchit house.

It suddenly smelled like every good food I'd ever had. I breathed it all up. It smelled so Christmas-y.

“Is there a particular flavor in what you sprinkle from your torch?” asked Scrooge.

“There is. Something of my own.”

“Too bad you can't bottle it,” said Frankie.

“Would it work for any dinner?” Scrooge asked.

“To any dinner that is given in kindness,” the spirit replied. “But to a poor one most.”

“Why to a poor one most?” I asked.

“Because a poor one needs it most. Let us enter.”

Chapter 12

The ghost went in first, leading with his magical torch. It was really cramped in the Cratchit house, and the ceilings were very low. But, amazingly, the Ghost seemed to stuff himself in there without busting a hole through the roof.

“He's pretty good at that,” I whispered to Frankie.

“Christmas spirit fits in any kind of room,” she said.

I looked at her. “Very deep, Frankie. And smart, too.”

She grinned and handed the book to me. “It's all in here. Try reading some.”

As I scanned the page we were on, Scrooge slid in next to the ghost and gazed around, shocked at the smallness of the rooms inside. “Cratchit lives
here
?”

“And his large family, too,” said the ghost.

Finally, Frankie and I stepped in, and a woman about as old as my mom hustled to greet us. From her description in the book, I knew right away it was Mrs. Cratchit. Her dress was worn and tattered, but she smiled just like Bob.

“Merry Christmas, my dears! Can I help you?”

Frankie and I looked for the spirit, but he had already pulled Scrooge off to explore the house.

I turned back to Mrs. Cratchit. “Um, we thought we'd stop by to, um, that is, what I mean to say is …”

“We came to drop off Mr. Cratchit's scarves!” said Frankie, unwinding the scarf from her neck and handing it to the lady.

“Oh, you know my Bob!” said Mrs. Cratchit.

“We met him at the office,” I said.

At this time, a stampede of smaller assorted Cratchits burst into the room from a closet in the back that was probably their room. They blasted right through old Scrooge on their way to their mother.

I recognized the kids right off from the way Dickens described them in the book. There was Peter, the oldest, Belinda in the middle, and two little Cratchit twins, a boy and a girl.

They were all talking pretty excitedly about the big Christmas dinner that they couldn't wait to start eating.

“If you are friends of my Bob,” said Mrs. Cratchit, “then you must stay for Christmas dinner! You must!”

“Please stay for dinner!” all the children chimed in.

Frankie took a deep breath. “I am getting hungry.…”

“Time out,” I said. I pulled her aside. “The book doesn't say we stay for supper. What should we do?”

At this moment, the ghost and Scrooge came back into the room. Scrooge still had a shocked look on his face.

“Spirit,” I whispered, “Is it okay if we hang here for a while? Mrs. Cratchit wants us to stay for supper.”

The spirit beamed. “So, even though their dinner is small, they wish to share it? Scrooge take note!”

“Can we please stay for supper?” Frankie asked. “I mean, you and Scroogey can be shadows and all that, plus Scrooge is so thin he probably doesn't eat much, but Dev and I need to chow.”

A fresh whiff of Christmas dinner suddenly entered our nostrils and even the ghost breathed it in.

“Besides,” I added, “my backpack is lost somewhere in this story, maybe in this house, so we should stay and try to find it, don't you think?”

The ghost chuckled. “All right, all right, let us stay and see their feast. Scrooge, behold. Even a poor dinner can be a happy one!”

I turned to Mrs. Cratchit and said, “Yes! We'd love to have dinner with you and the assorted Cratchiteers!”

The children cheered, “Hooray!”

“How can we help?” asked Frankie.

Mrs. Cratchit put us to work right away. In the kitchen we helped Peter blow on the small fire to keep the potatoes boiling. Soon the water got all bubbly and we heard the potatoes knocking at the saucepan lid.

Then we helped Belinda and the Cratchit twins set the table. Even though there were so many of us crowded into the small dining room, it was actually kind of fun that way. The Cratchits made us feel right at home.

Just as everything was ready, the front door was flung open. All the kids gave a cheer as Bob Cratchit rushed in.

We ran over too, then stopped.

On Bob's shoulder was a thin little boy with iron braces on his legs. In his hands he carried a little crutch.

I could feel Frankie go stiff. “We were right,” she whispered. “There is something wrong with the littlest Crachit.”

It was something serious, too. The boy was so frail he needed the crutch to walk. But he giggled when he hopped from his father's shoulder and was carried off by his brothers and sisters to sit by the blazing fire.

“Devin! Frankie!” said Bob, turning to us, his face all red from running. “I'd like you to meet my son—”

I suddenly remembered the conversation between Bob Cratchit and Scrooge's nephew. I jumped. “Oooh! Oooh! Wait, don't tell us! I know this from before! His name has something to do with being sort of small, right?”

Bob chuckled merrily. “It's—”

“No, no,” said Frankie. “Don't tell me. I know—your name is … Small Sam!”

The boy giggled and shook his head. “No, it's—”

“Wait, wait!” said Frankie. “Is it … Puny Pete?”

“I should hope not.”

“Little Larry?” I said.

“Nooooo!”

Through all these, the boy laughed and shook his head. All the other Cratchits did, too.

Frankie sighed. “I'm out. Unless it's Nutshell Nick?”

“I was going to say that!” I said.

Still laughing, the boy said, “My name is Tiny Tim!”

“I was going to say that next!” I said.

Everyone laughed again, then the older kids carried Tim into the kitchen to listen to the pudding bubbling.

When the room was quiet, Mrs. Cratchit turned to Bob by the fire. “And how did Tim behave?”

“As good as gold, and better,” said Bob. “Sometimes he gets thoughtful sitting by himself so much. He told me, coming home from church, that he hoped the people saw him because he was a cripple. He said it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day who made lame beggars walk and blind men see.”

Bob's voice shook when he told Mrs. Cratchit, “I think Tim is getting better, my dear. Yes, he's getting better.”

Mrs. Cratchit's silence said something else.

I glanced up at the ghost. He was looking at Scrooge.

About a minute of uncomfortable quiet was broken finally by the tapping little crutch of Tim himself, on the floor. “It's time!” he cried. “Time for supper!”

In a flash, we were packed around the table tighter than sardines. There was a little bit of everything to go around: goose, potatoes, beans, stuffing, gravy, apple sauce, and finally the famous Cratchit plum pudding.

Frankie and I stuffed ourselves so much, we had to get up and walk between courses. While we did, we poked around for my backpack, but it wasn't there.