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Jake and the Christmas Surprise (for kids) CHAPTER ONE My
favorite time of the year is Christmas. If I close my eyes real tight, I
can smell Christmas six months away. I can smell evergreen branches and a
fat turkey sizzling. I can smell chocolate-covered peanuts and mustard on
my popcorn. Yum. I love the taste of Christmas, too. The taste of eating
soft candy out of my socks. The taste of special oranges, sugar
cookies—and fresh dirt from one of my brother Jake’s incoming
snowballs. Christmastime
is cold where we live. So cold that sometimes polar bears buy plane
tickets and fly south to warm up. But I love the cold. There’s so much
to do in it. There’s skating and skiing and slipping and sledding and
snowball throwing. I
examined the shiny metal closely. “Why?”
I asked. “What does it taste like?” “Kinda
interesting,” he said. “It’s like licking a battery. You won’t
forget the taste. I’ll give you fifty cents if you lick it real good.” So
I did. I opened my mouth wide. I slapped my tongue on the metal and it
stayed there. It wouldn’t budge. I said, “Thith ithn’t goog!” My
eyes got water in them. I said, “Thith huuurts….heeeeep!” Jake
ran fast to get some warm water. Then he brought me two shiny quarters. I
couldn’t drink hot chocolate for a week, but Jake was right. That
doorknob sure was cool. I’ll never forget the taste of it. And I’ll
never forget what happened to make this the second best Christmas ever.
CHAPTER TWO Once
a year Jake and I stand in the airport waiting for Grandpa. He comes
through the clouds in a big silver bird. So we press our noses against the
frozen glass and jump up and down when we see him. Last year I forgot
about the glass. My nose still hurts.
We have good reason to jump up and down. You see, Grandpa always brings a
gallon of maple syrup and a brown leather suitcase full of
brightly-wrapped packages—some of them for me. I love my Grandpa. He is like no one else on earth. For one thing, he is so bald I can see my reflection on the top of his head. I don’t need a mirror when he’s around. I can comb my hair in his head and he doesn’t mind at all. He is a big man, too. He wiggles when he walks. He jiggles when he laughs. And I like to watch his chins move when he snores. My
brother Jake says he is wider than he is tall, but Grandpa won’t sit
still to let me measure him. He’s too busy laughing. Or eating
chocolates. He always keeps them nearby. He says he is on a special
chocolate diet to keep him from losing too much weight. I’m glad he is
so big. We can hide behind him during hide-and-seek, and best of all both
Jake and I can sit on his laps and listen to the Christmas story night
after night. One
day when Christmas was barely a week away, I did something awful. I
sneaked into Grandpa’s room while he was snoring, and stole an entire
box of chocolates. Then I locked myself in the bathroom and ate both
layers. They were so good. They almost made me wonder if it was better to
ask forgiveness or permission. My mother wanted to spend some time with me
when I came out of the bathroom. She said that boys who keep stealing end
up in jail for Christmas and sometimes in the electric chair, but she
wouldn’t put me there this year. She would put me in the kitchen
instead. I could do dishes there every day for a week. And there would be
no more chocolate until Christmas day.
CHAPTER THREE Each
December morning Jake and I sit on a living room heat vent inches from the
Christmas tree, drooling at toys in a catalog. My tongue hangs out when I
point at them. “What does this one do?” I ask. Jake always seems to
know. “This doll’s head wobbles side to side,” he says, “Then it
pops off. Too bad we didn’t have a little sister to give it to.” Then
he showed me a dog that jumps four feet when it hears the word “Bob.”
Jake is the smartest kid on our whole continent and the best big brother
I’ve ever had. I guess he’s the only brother I’ve had, too. Once he told me that the sentence “The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog” uses every letter of the alphabet. He also said that cats sleep fifteen hours a day and that the world’s termites outweigh us humans ten to one. I had to think about that one. “It’s true,” he said. “And did you know that the electric chair was invented by a dentist?” Near
the back of the toy catalog is my favorite page. At the top, just above a
dinosaur that glows sits a tiny plastic bow that shoots a real suction-cup
arrow. “I want one of those so badly,” I told my brother. He shook his
head. “Impossible,” he said. “Dad’s broke. And remember what you
did to Grandpa’s chocolates? You’ll be lucky to get underwear this
Christmas.” Deep down, I knew he was right. Deep down, I knew I didn’t even deserve Christmas. I wouldn’t get anything this year. I had stolen from my poor bald Grandpa while he was snoring. For the first time in my life I didn’t really want Christmas to come at all. CHAPTER FOUR One
night three days before Christmas I took the catalog to my dad. I said
real fast, “How are you doing Dad I sure love you may I rub your
feet?” My dad smiled and sat me on his knee and gave me a bear hug.
“What would you like, Son?” he asked. So I showed him. I showed him
the most beautiful bow and arrow in the history of bows and arrows. I told
him what it did and that I would be careful and that I wanted to be like
Robin Hood but I wouldn’t steal from anyone, not even rich people, not
even chocolate. Dad
took the catalog from me and gasped. “Ten dollars!” he exclaimed.
“You want to put us in the Poor House?” I
wasn’t sure. I wondered what the Poor House looked like. What would we
do there? Would Grandpa still come visit? Would he bring chocolate?
“When I was a boy,” Dad
told me, “I wanted more than anything else a kitten. I prayed and prayed
then I decided to do something.”
“What?” I asked, looking
closely at my father’s whiskers.
“On Christmas Eve I decided
to put my shoe out the back door so the kitten had something to crawl
into, and I fell asleep dreaming about that kitten.”
“What happened?”
“Well, on Christmas morning
I woke up and ran to the door with just my socks on.” “Really?”
I said. “Well,
I had my pajamas on too,” laughed Dad. “Was
your shoe still there?” I asked. “Oh
yes,” he smiled. “I opened the door and there was a little black tail
sticking out. It had a white stripe too. There was the cutest baby skunk
in my shoe. An orphan skunk. I named him Punk. Punk the Skunk.” I laughed until I fell off Dad’s knee and hit my head on the floor. “Really?”
“Really,” said Dad. “We
got the stinker taken out of Punk and he was my pet for years. He was
better than a watchdog. Or a watchcat.” I
grinned widely, then hung my head. “I haven’t prayed about the bow and
arrow,” I said. “It’s
always a good idea,” said my dad. “But remember, sometimes we don’t
get what we ask for. Or what we deserve. We get something even better. Now
you brush your teeth and climb into bed.” I
couldn’t stop smiling for an hour. There are times when Dad is even
smarter than my brother Jake.
CHAPTER FIVE As
December 25 inched closer, I watched the presents pile up like snowdrifts
beneath the tree. There were blue ones and red ones. There were fat ones
and skinny ones—but there was no bow and arrow. A shiny green package
near the back was just the right size, but late one night while everyone
was sleeping, I sneaked into the living room and crawled under the tree.
The nametag said: “Jake.” In fact, most of them seemed to be for him.
I squeezed the ones with my name on them. They felt like socks,
toothbrushes, and underwear. Things you don’t tell your friends about on
Boxing Day. At
least I’ll get something,
I thought, feeling sorry for myself. I better remember to smile when
I open these.
On the night before Christmas,
Jake and I sat on Grandpa’s great big laps in our big padded chair and
listened to him tell my favorite story of all. “A
star fell from heaven one night long ago,” he began, as we watched the
lights on the tree twinkle. “It could have landed anywhere. In a palace
or on the rich side of town. But it landed in a barn among the poorest of
people. The star began shining brighter and brighter until the time came
when the light made some people mad. So they buried it. They put it in the
ground. But you can’t keep something that bright from shining. The dirt
couldn’t keep it there. It rose into the sky and now it’s the
brightest star in the heavens.”
“I know what the star
was,” I said. “It was Jesus.”
“You’re right,” said
Grandpa. “Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given. Wonderful.
Counselor. The mighty God. The everlasting Father. The Prince of Peace.”
Then he asked me if I would run and get
him another layer of chocolates.
CHAPTER SIX The
worst thing about Christmas morning is the waiting. My parents made us eat
breakfast first. Then do the dishes. And sweep floors. And vacuum carpets.
And memorize the Gospel of Luke in Greek. I’m kidding about that. Then
we all sat in the living room and Dad read the Christmas story from the
Bible. I was searching the presents, and hanging onto hope.
At last the time came, but the
more presents we opened, the sadder I felt. On
my lap I held a small red truck, three pairs of black socks, a shirt with
pins in it, and a cowboy poster that said, “When you reach the end of
your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.” There
were only three presents left beneath the tree now.
I pulled the first one out and
handed it to my mother. It was a compact disk with old people’s music on
it. I handed the second one to Grandpa. It was a box of chocolates from my
brother and me. The last gift was shiny and blue and it was huge. Jake
grinned as I handed it to him. He looked at it and turned it over in his
hands. Then
he handed it back to me. “Open
it,” he said. “It’s yours. I put my own name on it to fool you.”
Mom wanted me to save the
wrapping paper for next year, but it was too late. I ripped it off fast.
Then I let out a Whoop! you could have heard in Africa and danced
around the living room, holding the present high like the Stanley Cup.
It was a crossbow. The
greatest crossbow ever. It had six soft suction-cup arrows, a scope, and a
trigger. “You
can shoot six arrows in six seconds with it,” said Jake. Grandpa
stopped eating chocolates and smiled widely. “It’s from all of us,”
he said.
“You be careful with that,
Son,” said my mother.
“He’ll be okay,” said my
dad.
CHAPTER SEVEN I think I’ll remember this Christmas if I live to be forty. I’ll remember sticking my tongue on the doorknob. I’ll remember ice-skating and carol-singing and candy-making and Grandpa’s story of a Baby whose tiny brow was made for thorns; whose blood would one day cleanse the world. And I don’t think I’ll ever forget that crossbow. A gift I didn’t deserve coming along when I didn’t expect it. I couldn’t wait to try the gift out. I wolfed down turkey and my Mom’s special dressing and pudding so thick you could hear it hit bottom. And I watched Grandpa doze off in our big padded chair. Then I tiptoed after my brother Jake as he headed down the hallway that afternoon. I locked six arrows in place, took careful aim and pulled on the string until it was tight. “Hey
Jake!” I yelled. He
turned and grinned at me. “Merry
Christmas!” I said.
And I wondered just for a
moment if I should ask for permission or forgiveness. Order
a copy
of the Jake CD.
It has been known to fit perfectly in stockings! |
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