Christmas at Stony Creek (3 page)

I
t was Christmas Eve. The house was filled with the smell of pine. Pip and Kit had dragged home all the pine branches they could find. They draped them over the fireplace. They hung them from the doorways. They spread them, soft and thick as a carpet, along the hall.

The tallest bough, they declared, would be their tree.

Nan and Nibs were decorating it now. They hung
ornaments, oohing at their beauty. They tossed tinsel, giggling when it missed. They chattered back and forth while they worked, their tiny eyes sparkling with excitement.

Finny stood in her playpen and laughed.

Mama had saved a bit of flour and some raisins. While the little girls took their naps, she baked a Christmas cake and hid it in the cupboard. It was smaller than any cake they ever had before, but still, it was a cake.

“What will we have for Christmas dinner?” Nan said, jumping up and down. “Will we have cakes and puddings and sweets?”

“Will this be the best Christmas ever?” cried Nibs. “Will it, Mama? Will it?”

“Hush, you sillies.” Mama laughed and swept them up in her arms. “It’s a surprise, you know that.”

“But what if Papa isn’t here?” asked Nan, suddenly serious.

“We can’t have Christmas without Papa,” said Nibs.

Pip felt the sudden sting of tears. She draped her last bough over the mantel. She wiped her eyes.

“I’ll go call Will for dinner,” she told her mother quickly. She let herself out of the house and ran down the path to Stony Creek.

Will was coming toward her as fast as he could, dragging his leg behind him.

“Great news, Pip!” he called. “The people are gone! They’re not there!”

He was out of breath when he reached her side. “I was talking to Squirrel, you know Squirrel, he knows everything. He told me the people have gone away for Christmas. Isn’t that wonderful?”

“But there won’t be any food if they’re not there,” said Pip.

“Sure there will,” Will scoffed. “People leave it all over the place. They never clean it up. There will be plenty of food. And no Cat.” He said the words slowly, saving the best for last.

“No Cat?”

“Squirrel said the people sent him to a place where he’ll be taken care of while they’re gone. Big bully can’t even take care of himself.”

“Oh, Will, that means it’s safe!” cried Pip.

“As long as you don’t touch the trap,” Will warned. “But you’d better get up there soon, before the word gets out.”

“I’ll go tonight.”

“Promise me you won’t go near the trap.”

“I promise.”

“No matter what?”

Pip looked back at him with shining eyes. “No matter what.”

T
he bowl Pip was drying slipped and fell to the floor with a clatter.

“What’s wrong with you tonight?” Mama asked. “That’s the second dish you’ve dropped.”

“It’s Christmas Eve,” said Pip. She picked up the bowl and put it carefully on the shelf. “I’m excited, that’s all.”

“Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”

“I’m fine. Really.” Pip ducked her head to avoid
her mother’s worried look. All she wanted was for the evening to be over and everyone to be in bed.

When Finny began fussing in her high chair, Mama went to comfort her. The twins came and leaned against Pip.

“When’s Papa coming home?” said Nan, tugging at the hem of Pip’s skirt. “We never have Christmas without Papa.”

“Will we still get presents if he isn’t here?” asked Nibs.

Pip picked them up and carried them, squirming, to the fireplace. “Why, what else do you think you’re getting for Christmas?” she said, sitting in Papa’s chair with one on either side. “Papa, tied up in a red bow!”

The little girls giggled.

“He isn’t a present,” said Nan. “He’s our papa.”

“Yes, and we can’t dress him up and play with him,” added Nibs. “Besides, we’re getting dolls.”

“Because that’s what we asked for,” finished Nan.

“Come along, girls,” Mama said from the doorway. “If you don’t go to bed now, you’ll be too tired to play with those dolls, won’t you?”

“I’m going to bed, too,” said Pip. “Good night.”

She brushed her teeth and slid under her quilt, still in her clothes. She could hear Mama singing to Nibs and Nan as she tucked them in, then saying good night to Kit and Will.

Mama came into Pip’s room last. Pip held her covers tight under her chin when Mama sat down on the edge of her bed.

“I want to thank you for being so grown-up about Christmas,” Mama said. “You’ve never complained about having to do Will’s job or not getting enough to eat. When Papa gets home, I’m going to tell him how brave you’ve been.”

“I haven’t done anything brave,” said Pip.

“Sometimes keeping your fears to yourself is the bravest act of all,” said Mama. She kissed Pip’s cheek. “Good night, Pip.”

“He’ll be home tomorrow,” Pip said when her mother reached her door. “I know he will.”

“Yes, and it will be the best Christmas ever,” said Mama. “Just as Nibs said.”

Across the room they looked at each other and smiled.

I
t was cold and very late.

Mama had sat up in front of the fire for a long time. Pip had had to pinch herself to stay awake. The clock in the dining room was chiming midnight before she finally heard her mother’s bedroom door close.

Pip hopped out of bed, grabbed her stick, and crept down the hall to the front door. Will was already there.

“Be careful,” he whispered as he held the door open. “Don’t forget your promise.”

“I won’t,” said Pip. The door clicked quietly behind her.

She stood stock-still in the night. She strained her eyes to see, her ears to hear.

Not a footstep. Not a sound. Even the wind was asleep.

She looked longingly at the round window behind her. She thought about her family, warm and safe in their beds. And then she thought about Papa.

Was Papa safe and warm tonight? Or was he alone, cold and hurt?

Pip drew a deep breath and held her stick more tightly against her.

If Papa could be brave, so could she.

There was no more time to waste. Pip scurried from rock to bush. From bush to log. Hiding, ever hiding, from eyes in the night. The air smelled clean and cold.
I can do this,
Pip thought.
I can!

She ran faster and faster without making a sound, never staying in the open for long. She didn’t see another living creature the whole journey. Finally, she came to the stone wall that marked the end of the woods and the beginning of the huge field she would have to cross.

Pip saw it the minute she reached the top of the stone wall.

Land’s End.

It towered over the horizon, its blank windows
staring down at Pip like empty eyes. Pip looked ahead at the steep hill she would have to climb and shivered.

“You’d better hurry if you want to get anything.” Pip’s heart gave a great leap as Squirrel jumped up onto the wall next to her. “I saw the rats from North Woods heading that way,” he said. “They’ll take it all.”

“They can’t,” Pip cried. “It’s mine!”

“I wouldn’t try telling them that if I were you,” said Squirrel. “A tiny thing like you is no match for them.”

“Tiny can be good,” Pip said defiantly, drawing herself up. “Tiny can be brave.”

“I certainly hope so, for your sake. Good luck!” Squirrel called as he ran off into the woods.

Pip started across the field.

The food’s ours,
she thought as she ran.
Nibs’s and Nan’s. Finny’s. Kit’s. Will’s. Greedy rats aren’t going to take it from us. I won’t let them.

Pip didn’t think about Owl. She ran.

Dried stalks stuck up through the snow, casting ghostly shadows. Craggy heaps of dirt, dumped by careless bulldozers, rose in front of her like mountains. Up and down, around and around.
Use your stick, Pip. Keep going. Don’t give up.

By the time she reached the bottom of the hill, Pip was panting and exhausted. And oh, what a hill it was.

Jagged rocks jutted from its steep side like rows of unfriendly teeth. The wind had blown away the snow to reveal frozen dirt. There was no grass. No trees. Only a few sad roots, few and far between, for her to cling to.

Pip didn’t know how she would make it. Then she heard Aunt Pitty’s voice.
Braveness is earned one step at a time.

Pip began to climb.

Her feet slid on the slick dirt. Clumps of coarse bush loomed in front of her. Pip jabbed her stick into the hill, again and again. She pulled herself around every root, each bush. One step after the other, she climbed.

Jab, pull. Jab, pull. Rest.

Jab, pull. Jab, pull.

When she reached the top, she threw herself onto the flat ground with a sob. She’d made it. She crawled gratefully forward and looked up.

She was lying at the bottom of the porch steps.
They stretched as far as her eye could see. At the top the porch sat empty and serene. Waiting.

Pip slowly stood and walked forward. She reached out to touch the bottom step. It was covered with a layer of slippery ice. All the steps would be covered with a layer of slippery ice.

All the way to the top.

Pip grabbed the edge of the bottom step and tried to pull herself up. She slid back. She tried again. She slid back.

It was too slippery. She would never make it.

Climb the lattice.
The soft voice whispering in her head was Will’s.
The lattice will be easier,
he had said.

Pip ran around to the side of the house. Lattice was nailed to the steps so animals couldn’t crawl
underneath. Pip saw the narrow boards, nailed together in a crisscross pattern, with friendly little spaces between them she could grab on to and pull. She took a deep breath and started to climb.

First this way, then that. Grab here, put your foot there.

Slowly Pip crisscrossed her way to the top and slipped over the edge onto the porch. She had made it. And there was the wood box on one side of the door, the way Will had said.

Pip slipped behind the box and in through the crack between the edge of the door and the house and looked cautiously around the strange place she had entered.

Huge and silent, the room was as chilly as a tomb.
Wooden cabinets rose to touch the ceiling high above her head. A table with four chairs stood in the middle of the floor. The refrigerator hummed; a clock ticked.

The room was empty.

Pip ran along the molding under the cabinets. Will had told her that was where she would find the most crumbs. Sniffing and running, sweeping her whiskers across the floor, she ran the length of one wall.

There was nothing.

She ran up and down the cracks between the floorboards.

Nothing.

She scrambled up onto the kitchen counter.

Nothing.

She squeezed in behind the stove and jabbed her stick into the greasy darkness.

Still nothing.

Will couldn’t have been wrong. He couldn’t.

Pip ran faster and faster, searching. Again and again she ran under the cabinets, her ragged breath echoing in the night.

It was no use.

There wasn’t a single crumb. The wonderful things Will had told her she would find were gone.

The rats must have gotten there first.

Pip huddled in the middle of the empty floor and cried. She was a tiny mouse in a huge, empty house, alone.

She had failed.

T
he full moon moved slowly across the windows. The faucet dripped rhythmically into the white sink. Pip didn’t know how long she had been lying on the floor. It was so strangely peaceful she felt as if she could lie there forever.

Suddenly her nose twitched.

What was that?

Pip sat up and sniffed the air.

What
was
that? she wondered. Then she saw it,
tucked into the murky corner on the far side of the room beneath the windows. Hidden in the darkest shadows, waiting.

The trap.

Pip moved slowly toward it, as if in a dream.

It was bigger and more awful than anything she had imagined. Its powerful jaws were open wide, terrifying and patient.

She knew she should run now. But she couldn’t. Pip had seen the intoxicating prize the trap held for her, if only she were brave enough to grab it.

It was a piece of cheese.

The most magnificent piece of cheese Pip had ever seen. The closer she got, the more the smell of it filled the air like perfume.

Beads of fat twinkled on its waxy surface like stars.

It was huge.

Huge enough to feed her entire family for weeks.

All the promises Pip had made to Will disappeared like the cloud of her own breath in the chilly air. She couldn’t go home without it.

She circled the trap slowly.

Will had told her how it worked. How, if you lifted the cheese, the platform it was sitting on would move, making the vicious jaws slam shut with a speed no mouse could outrun.

Pip closed her eyes. She wouldn’t see Uncle Hank’s body trapped there; she
wouldn’t
.

There had to be a way.

If only she could stop the trap from springing. If
only there were some way she could stop its jaws from snapping shut.

Think, Pip,
think.

She rapped the end of her stick angrily against the floor.

Suddenly she stopped.

That was it.

You won’t find any wood stronger than hickory. Hickory’ll hold up anything.

Pip held her stick out in front of her as if she were seeing it for the first time. She looked at the trap, then back at the stick.

The trap. The stick. The trap. The stick. Her mind raced as her eyes moved thoughtfully back and forth between the two.

She leaned the stick to the left.

To the right.

She traced the path of the steel jaw in her mind again and again.

It just might work. As terrifying as it was, she had to try.

Then the most terrifying thing of all happened. Night became dawn.

Its pale light streamed through the windows and moved slowly across the floor, as unstoppable as the tide. If Pip didn’t act now, she would be caught in the house in the clear light of day. Would have to make her way back across the field. Anything could see her and catch her.

Pip felt strangely calm.

Moving slowly, taking care not to jiggle the trap, she rested the end of her stick on the spot where the jaws would hit. She twisted it slowly until the
Y
was in the right position.

There was nothing more she could do.

If it didn’t work, she would die.

If she waited another minute, she would lose her nerve.

Pip took a deep breath and flicked her long, delicate tail around to tap the platform holding the cheese.

Whap!

The steel jaws slamming shut filled the room with a mighty roar. The stick held.

It stood there quivering in the early-morning light
under the weight of the steel jaws, and it held.

Pip had done it.

Quickly Pip dragged the cheese off the trap and pushed it across the floor. She threw the weight of her body behind it, squeezing it through the crack onto the porch.

“Pip!” Will’s cry was joyful. “You’re all right!”

“Look, Will,” she said. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

Her eyes opened wide.

Will was standing on the porch of Land’s End.

He’d come back.

“I had to,” Will said, as if reading her mind. “You were gone for so long. I thought you were dead.”

They looked at each other without speaking. Then Will grinned his old grin. “We’d better get going.
We’re going to catch the dickens when Ma finds out.”

Will reached into his jacket and pulled out a piece of vine. He and Pip tied it around the cheese and dragged it to the top of the stairs.

“Look out below!” Will shouted.

The beautiful cheese, huge enough to feed a family, tumbled down the steps. They pushed it to the edge of the hill, and it tumbled all the way to the bottom. Pip and Will ran after it, laughing, and grabbed the end of the vine.

The sky was getting brighter, but a light snow had started. It fell around them like a veil, protecting them.

The cheese glided easily over the crusty snow as they ran across the field. When they got to the stone
wall, Pip scrambled to the top. She pulled while Will pushed. They leaped to the ground and pulled the cheese down after them as they ran into the woods.

Something landed on a branch above their heads. A shower of snow cascaded around them. “Good for you!” Squirrel shouted. He chattered and chirped. “Merry Christmas to you and your family!”

“Merry Christmas,” Pip whispered. She didn’t dare shout.

On they ran.

Will was limping now, but they didn’t stop.

Not until they saw the round window snuggled in the roots at the base of the tree, lit by a single candle.

They were home.