The 13th Day of Christmas Read online

He breathed out, loosened his tight grip, and began to knead the curve of the wheel.

  “Is this really my life now, God? Is it?”

  For the first time all morning, and despite having the heater running in the clunker since he’d left for work, Thomas noticed he could see his breath against the December morning. “Are you paying attention? At all? Where are you?” He inhaled and said the words much louder a second time. “Where are you?”

  Thomas closed his eyes. “God, Heavenly Father, Lord, whatever. I’m trying here. I’m doing my best. Do you not see that? Am I not trying?” He paused, as if expecting an answer from a debate partner. “Listen. We need you. Mostly Charlee needs you. But probably Zach, too. The whole family needs you to notice us and pitch in. Could you please pitch in, God? Please?”

  Thomas started the truck and re-gripped the wheel. “How about a sign? Huh? Something that says we’re not completely forgotten down here in this hole of a life. Something that says loud and clear you know what we’re going through, that we’re trying to make it here.”

  Thomas didn’t know how much time had passed while he waited. He only knew the sun was up, and he’d stopped praying.

  18

  What’s Your Twenty?

  “Miss Marva?”

  No response.

  “Miss Marva, hello?”

  Charlee counted to thirty and tried again. “Miss Marva, are you there?”

  “Hello, Charlee, I’m here.”

  “Hi!” Charlee shouted into the walkie-talkie. “What’s your twenty?”

  “My twenty?”

  “Zach says that means where are you right now.”

  “Oh, of course, my twenty. My twenty is in bed, I’m afraid.”

  “But it’s lunchtime.”

  “I know, sweetheart. I couldn’t sleep and got up very early. Then I guess I wore out and decided to lay back down.”

  “Did I wake you up? I’m sorry.”

  “No, I was just laying here in bed. But not sleeping.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “What apron are you wearing today?”

  “I’m not wearing one today. I must have forgotten.”

  Charlee sat up in her own bed and exchanged a glance with Melvin. “You forgot? But you never forget.”

  The reply took its time, but just when Charlee was about to try again, the walkie-talkie squawked. “Enough about me forgetting. I want to know about you. What’s your twenty?”

  “Bed. My twenty is in bed, too. It stinks.”

  “I’m sorry, Charlee. How are you feeling?”

  “I’m tired, too. But I’m always tired right now. The doctor said that’s part of the treatments.” She released the talk button and took off her knit cap. She pulled a clump of hair from inside and hit the button again. “I’m losing my hair, Miss Marva.”

  “I’m really sorry, sweetheart. Just think how lovely it will look when it grows back.”

  “That’s what Mom says.”

  “And she’s right.”

  Charlee ran her fingers through her hair and dark strands stuck to her fingers as if they had been covered in honey. “Guess what? The doctor said it might grow back different. Like a different color or more curly.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Me neither. But curly might be nice to try. I could be a brand-new Charlee Alexander.”

  “Oh, sweetheart. No matter if your hair falls out or how it grows back, you’ll always be the same Charlee.”

  Charlee sat on the edge of her bed and wondered what pajamas Miss Marva was wearing. She pictured her hair, her face, the hallway connecting her room to the main portion of her house. She wondered what the empty space in the living room looked like without the tree filling it.

  “Miss Marva, do you miss your tree?”

  “Not really. I think the tree needed you this year.”

  “Don’t you mean we needed the tree?”

  “I mean you needed each other.”

  Charlee sighed and wiggled her toes inside a pair of her dad’s oversized socks. “It must be lonely there. Have you had any visitors?”

  “My. Yes. Zach stops by every day after school to check on me. And your mother comes by sometimes, too.”

  “Do you make them wear aprons?”

  Charlee heard Marva laugh. “No, but I should, shouldn’t I?”

  “At least Mom.”

  “Consider it done. I’ll have one ready next time she comes.” Another silent minute passed. “I’ve had a few ladies from the library come by, too. Just to say hello. And my friend, Rusty—remember him?”

  “The man from the newspaper.”

  “That’s right. He’s been by to check on me. He even offered to get me a small tree, one to go on the table, like Charlie Brown had.”

  Charlee smiled. “I love that tree.”

  “Me too.”

  Charlee stood but the floor seemed to shift under her. She supported herself against Zach’s bunk before slowly lowering herself back to the edge of her own bed.

  “How about you, Charlee? Have you had any visitors?”

  “Just Nurse Becky. She says I can’t really have any other visitors or I’ll get an infection. If my temperature gets hot, they have to take me back to the hospital. Even a little bit warm, Mom says.”

  “I see.”

  “That stinks, too.”

  “I know it does. . . . What about Mom and Dad? Where are they today?”

  “Dad is at work, I think. Mom is in the kitchen on the phone. She’s trying to find a second job.”

  “I see.”

  “Zach’s at school.” Charlee looked at Melvin. “I wish I could go to school.”

  “You’ll go again, don’t worry.”

  Charlee pulled her legs under her and sat cross-legged in the middle of her bed. “Are you getting ready for Christmas? It’s coming fast, you know.”

  “I know it is. But you already helped me get ready. Remember spending the day here before Thanksgiving?”

  “Yeah. That was a good day.”

  “My. It sure was.”

  “Have you bought any presents?”

  “A few.”

  “Where are they? Since you don’t have a tree, where are you keeping them?”

  “You think of everything, don’t you, Charlee? I put them by the calendar.”

  Charlee let the answer hang. “Oh.” She wanted to ask if there were any presents with her name on them, but she thought seeing Miss Marva again before Christmas would be enough of a gift. Still, Charlee decided to keep that to herself, just in case she got both.

  “We have a couple of gifts under our tree—I mean your tree.”

  “That’s nice.”

  Charlee set the walkie-talkie down and pulled her knit cap back on. “It’s cold outside. Have you been outside?”

  “Not really.”

  Charlee lay down and tucked Melvin in next to her. “Melvin says hi.”

  “Tell him hi back. And tell him that I miss him.”

  “He says he misses you more.” Charlee lay quietly a moment. “Are you still tired, Miss Marva?”

  “I sure am.”

  “Me too.”

  A few more minutes passed as Charlee stared at the bottom of Zach’s bunk. “We should take a nap.”

  “That’s a good idea.”

  “You’ll keep your walkie close?”

  “I will.”

  “Okay.”

  Charlee let another moment pass. “I love you, Miss Marva.”

  “I love you too, Charlee.”

  The Note

  December 13

  Dear Charlee:

  Surprise! We hope you found our note tonight without any problems. We weren’t sure exactly where to leave
it, but if you’re reading this, we must have done all right.

  Before we go any further, we want you to know that this letter, and the other items that will follow, are for you. But because we know how special you are, we also know you might want to share with your family. That would be just fine with us.

  Now, without further ado, please allow us to introduce ourselves. We are a family of Traveling Elves, very unusual elves, and we’ve got a story to tell about the popular song “The 12 Days of Christmas.”

  We are sure you know the song, but did you know that we wrote it?

  It’s true! There are many theories about the song’s origin, but we know the truth because our family wrote every word. Unfortunately, some of the verses have been misunderstood or translated incorrectly. So this year, finally, we shall clear a few things up!

  Curious yet, Charlee? There’s more! We can’t wait to reveal to you the lost 13th Day of Christmas. It’s a mysterious thirteenth verse that has remained a secret . . .

  until now!

  Yes, after countless hours of serious elf deliberation, we are very pleased to have found and chosen you, Charlee Alexander!

  We’ve wanted to share these mysteries before, but we simply couldn’t find the right person. But you couldn’t be more perfect, Charlee. And once you learn our secret, we just might give you permission to share it with someone else. We’ll see!

  Beginning tomorrow evening, we will deliver to you gifts representing each of the 13 Days of Christmas. We will also include our top secret daily travel log for your records.

  We hope this brings you a bit of holiday cheer. Traveling the globe in our sleigh and collecting these items has been such a joy for us. (Except, of course, for the immunizations, the horrible sleigh food, and having to go through customs all the time. But we’ll get to that.)

  Finally, and this is important for you and your entire family, please do not try to catch us in the act. We wish to remain anonymous. We know that as the days unfold between now and Christmas, you might be tempted to peek out the window, or hide in the bushes, or use a satellite to track our sleigh. But Charlee, the mystery must remain!

  Let the 12—we mean the 13—Days of Christmas begin!

  Love,

  The Traveling Elves

  19

  Sherlock Charlee

  Canyoubelieveiteverybody?” Charlee rattled the words so quickly they sounded like one. Then she took a giddy, childlike gulp of air and said it again more slowly, punching each word as if standing on stage and speaking to the last row of the upper balcony.

  “It’s really something, isn’t it, Charlee Chew?” Thomas stood at the kitchen sink, scrubbing engine grease from his calloused hands.

  Charlee still stood by the trailer’s front door holding the letter by the edges with her fingertips. She wore her pink-and-white Disney long johns with the silhouettes of princesses. “Tell me exactly how you found it, Daddy.” She eased the letter further into the air and away from her body. It was evidence and she didn’t want to taint it with her own prints.

  Her father turned off the running water and leaned against the counter. He smiled at Emily and Zack who were sitting at the kitchen table eating the scattered remnants of the family’s everything-goes nachos. “I came home, like you know, and I noticed the envelope on the doormat. I picked it up and started to open the door, then remembered I wanted to check something on the Beetle that I didn’t finish last night. So I stuck it in my back pocket and went back out to the car. And I yelled at Zach to help for a minute.”

  Charlee noticed her father’s eyes went from hers to her mother’s.

  “And we got carried away. It’s pretty warm out there, nice weather, right? I guess we stayed out there longer than I realized.”

  “Sounds right to me,” Charlee’s mother said as she scooped a stray clump of black beans onto a broken tortilla chip.

  “So then we came in, handed you the envelope, and I started washing my hands.”

  “In the kitchen,” Emily said. “You washed your hands in my kitchen sink.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that. Zach was using the bathroom sink.”

  Charlee read the letter again—aloud. She’d inched it off her fingertips but still clung to it with her nails. “I wonder how long it’s been there. I wonder if they walked up to the house or drove. Why me? When did you go outside the front door last? Was it there when you got home from work at Walmart, Mom? Has anyone seen Miss Marva driving around today? Are her lights on? Where’s my walkie-talkie?”

  “Easy, Charlee,” her mother said. “Aren’t you supposed to just be happy with the surprise? Isn’t that what it says?”

  “I guess so, but it’s so exciting, isn’t it?” Charlee moved to the table, sat in her usual spot, and carefully refolded and reinserted the letter into the plain white envelope. Her name was scrawled on the front in blue ink. “It’s definitely not Miss Marva’s writing though, definitely not. I’ve seen hers before. This isn’t hers.” Charlee’s mind was spinning. “Is it because we’re poor?”

  “We’re not poor,” Charlee’s dad barked.

  “Zach says we are.” Charlee looked across the table at her brother, but his eyes were down as he scraped cooled cheese from the large plate that once held dinner.

  “He’s wrong,” Thomas said.

  “Is it because of the cancer? Because I’m sick?”

  “You’re not sick,” Thomas said, and he pulled her knit cap down over her eyes. “You were, but you’re fine now.”

  “You’re getting better, Charlee.” Her mother shifted the cap back above Charlee’s eyes. “But yes, it could be because of all the excitement around here.”

  “Uh-huh,” Charlee said, nodding. But she couldn’t have repeated what her mother said. She took the letter back out of the envelope to read to herself again. When she was done, she returned it to its envelope and rested her head on her folded arms atop the table and faced her mother.

  “Is it someone from Dad’s work? Or maybe someone from Walmart. You said you’ve made friends there.” Charlee’s breathing became shallow. “Maybe it’s the old waving ladies on the bend. Or someone from school. Or the neighborhood.”

  Her mother reached over and pulled off Charlee’s cap. Charlee opened her eyes and saw a few strands of her thin hair fall through the air and land on the table. She closed her eyes again and felt her mother’s hand gently caressing her balding head. Charlee could feel her mother’s fingers closing together like a comb and capturing the few colonies of hair that remained like islands on a blotchy, peach-colored sea.

  When she opened her eyes once more, her mother was also resting her head on the table, and Charlee thought her eyes looked wet. She whispered, “Don’t worry, Mom. Even if I find out, I won’t tell.”

  Charlee drifted a moment. She saw her mother’s mouth move, but heard nothing. When she tried to whisper something back, she felt her words dying before they reached her lips.

  Charlee heard nothing more that evening. Her mind was lost in aprons, calendars, and secrets.

  December 14

  On the 1st Day of Christmas

  my true love sent to me:

  A Partridge in a Pear Tree

  Dear Charlee:

  Our family wrote the first verse of our famous song while visiting the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. But did you know that in our original draft, the first day didn’t mention a partridge at all? It was only meant to be about a single, delicious pear.

  Let us explain.

  We were walking through a market and enjoying goodies of all kinds when we learned from a local farmer that Brazil has quite a reputation for growing some of the most sumptuous pears in the world. He was right! We noticed the color was perfect and the taste was heavenly. We knew right on the spot that the 1st Day of Christmas needed to be a pear tree. It was fate.

  We toured orchard after orcha
rd, sampling fruit and eyeing each tree with great care. We wanted the ideal tree to present on this 1st Day of Christmas. Nothing else would do for you!

  At the last orchard of the day, just as daylight escaped over the westward mountains, standing on the edge of town and across the street from the local bus station, my sweet wife spotted the most gorgeous tree we’d ever seen. It was the tallest, the sturdiest, the best tree ever—precisely what we envisioned!

  The kids and I began to dig it up while my wife sweet-talked the farmer into letting us have it. We planned to carefully bury the roots in a burlap sack and strap it tightly on the back of our sleigh.

  But then, in an instant, history would be forever changed.

  We noticed that at the bus station across the street, a shiny tour bus had pulled into the parking lot and a crowd of crazy teenage girls came rushing from every direction to greet it. As soon as the bus stopped, the door opened and a fine looking young man appeared.

  Panicked and fear-stricken by the throngs of screaming girls, he jumped from the bus and cut a path straight through them. He darted across the street toward the orchard shouting, “Help me! Help me!” He was running right at us.

  We were dumbfounded! Amazed! Bewildered! Flabbergasted! Overwhelmed! Startled! Stunned! Plus lots of other synonyms for surprised.

  What should we do?

  But before we could offer any assistance, the young man had climbed the very same pear tree we were trying to dig out of the ground.

  We held off the screaming gaggle of girls, and eventually they were shooed away by the young man’s security team. But our new friend would not descend so quickly.

  “Who are you?” I called up to him.

  “You don’t know?” he said.

  “I’m sorry, we don’t.”

  “I’m David Cassidy.”

  We chatted for nearly an hour before we could persuade him to climb down. He was so grateful for our help that he pitched in to dig up the tree and load it on the sleigh. We spent the evening talking and getting to know one another. By the time we said a tearful good-bye, we knew the first verse of our song needed to be slightly reworded in his honor.

  So there you have it, the truth. Instead of just a “Pear Tree,” it became a “Partridge in a Pear Tree.”