Carol for Another Christmas (12 page)

Harald and Miriam caught his eye and drew the attention of the others to him. “Hey, you guys, I think Mr. Scrooge is about ready to say The Line.”

“I beg your pardon?” Scrooge said.

“You know,” Miriam prompted, “
the
line, your famous one—first word, sounds like a lamb?”

“Bah!” said Scrooge, who'd absolutely adored guessing games since that first Christmas, when, while being haunted into attending his nephew's party, he'd started playing Scattergories.

Miriam and the others were making encouraging motions with their hands, “That's it. ‘Bah!' and . . . help him out, gang. I think he agrees with us about Christmas in July. Christmas in July, Mr. Scrooge. Whaddaya think?”

“I think that while the spirit of Christmas should be in one's heart all year long, the celebration of Christmas proper should bloody well stay in December, where it belongs, and Christmas in July is nothing but—”

And one and all chorused together, “Humbug!”

After that, they had a much merrier time. They were laughing at everything, laughing so much they would, had anyone else been able to hear or see them, have been thrown out by one of the uniformed guards.

Sheryl brought them all back to reality. “We got work to do, and we'd best get back to it. How do you suppose we get out of this thing?”

By now they were at an escalator. Above it was a sign with a panel of buttons.

“Hit ‘Escape'?” Melody suggested.

“Right,” Phillip said, and jumped straight up, yelled, “Slam dunk,” and hit the sign.

Instantly they were back in their offices, though Scrooge still regarded them from the inside of the computer. “Excuse me,” he said. “There's a small problem.”

“I'll say,” Sheryl said. “Would you mind getting out of the way, old buddy? I gotta kick some butt here, and I can't do it with you hogging—or is that
haunting
—the pathways.”

“I'd be happy to oblige,” Scrooge said. “But I have a feeling we are all bound together in this adventure until the end.”

Sheryl tapped impatiently at her keyboard. Curtis was pulling wires and plugs, to no avail.

“I have a feeling you're right,” Melody said. “I guess since you just did Christmas Past, you must be ready for Christmas Present, huh?”

“Yes. Thanks to you, I have in some measure been enlightened as to the nature of my haunting, but I still have one or two concerns.”

“Which are?”

“Miss Banks is no longer awed by me, you see. She's grown quite used to the idea that I am Ebenezer Scrooge of another century and that her brother is somehow behind my manifestation. I fear that I will not be able to make her respect my message. I do not wish to storm about and make demands. That's not in the least Christmassy. I wish to inspire her to open her heart.”

“Her alleged heart,” Phillip said.

“No problemo, baby,” John said. “All you gotta do is morph.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Metamorphose into another shape,” Melody explained. “It's easy.”

“It is?”

“Just try. Pick an image, and change yourself into it.”

Scrooge studied on the problem and as he did so, his hair bundled itself into a braided bun, and a little cap appeared upon it; he grew an ample bosom and a lap and found to his alarm he was wearing a queenly gown.

“You never know who's going to turn out to be a cross-dresser do you?” Harald observed to no one in particular.

“That was very good, Scroogie,” Melody said. “Queen Victoria ought to impress the stuffing out of Money Banks.”

“If I may just say something,” Dave from marketing said, clearing his throat. “Image is my business, and I somehow don't think Her Maj is really, you know, quite the look you're shooting for.”

Scrooge focused gratefully on the young man. “How astute of you, my dear boy. If you could just tell me what look I am shooting for, I'd be ever so pleased.”

“Well, in the book and most of the plays and even the takeoffs, Christmas Present is the big, abundant looking guy, kind of like a cross between Dionysus—”

“That's the pagan god of wine and merriment,” Miriam put in.

“—and a Victorian Santa. You want big, larger-than-life, merry, jolly, red-cheeked, red-haired if you can manage it, and—er—flowing robes, some snappy holly trim, maybe a garland for your head—or do you guys think that's a little too much?”

“No, that's
perfect
, Dave,” Melody said, clapping her hands as Scrooge turned slowly to show her his new regalia. He even felt different. He was naturally inclined to kindliness and jollity since the Christmas of his own metamorphosing, but now he felt expansive, grand, truly merry, as if there were nothing in the whole world that time and love and the magic of Christmas could not change. Even though he knew, in his heart of hearts, that this was utter claptrap, poppycock, and humbug.

Of course, changing the world took not only those qualities but much hard work, dedication, energy, time, and money from every soul who would seek to make a real improvement. In this guise he did not care. And the task did not seem so onerous. He could light not only one candle in the darkness; he could light hundreds.

“Sic 'er, Eb. I mean, Ghost of Christmas Present,” Harald said.

“Yeah, break a leg,” Melody said.

“Save me a turkey leg if you go to any really good feasts, will you?” Dave asked.

“And eggnog. I love eggnog,” Phillip added.

But Scrooge had turned to focus on the room where Monica Banks once more lay rolled up like a wreath on her sofa.

He had an idea then. He didn't bring her inside the computer. Such was his grandness in this guise that he was able to enlarge his surroundings to encompass the whole room, the whole city, the whole building, and the whole world.

Eleven

Monica smelled gingerbread, mincemeat, pine needles, and cedar logs burning in the fireplace. She sat up, rubbed her aching back, and looked around her suspiciously. The apartment looked normal enough, but from beneath her office door, lights twinkled red, green, gold, and blue. “Oh, no,” she groaned. “Show-time.” She remembered this part in the story. This was where Christmas Present was hiding in another room, waiting to lower the boom on—Scrooge. But Scrooge was who would be waiting. And he knew she knew. So that was all right. It was a waste of time, of course, but she felt a little more in control. It was like that guided-dreaming stuff someone had mentioned at one of her product launch parties.

She had obviously guided Scrooge through her early life, wanting him to understand the choices she'd made and that she wasn't really such a bad person, after all. And now—and now, well, she wished they could just skip the whole thing. Just at this moment, her life was a bit of a nonevent, personally speaking, which was the only criteria Scrooge seemed willing to accept.

But she was finally in control. No more calling people up dunning them on Christmas, hearing them whining, making excuses, or, more rarely, cussing her out. She was wealthy; she had a friend in the government, a new project that was going to revolutionize computerized communications, and a staff that was, if not loyal, at least bound to her by ironclad contracts. Finally, she was in the driver's seat. It was her office. She could go right back to sleep if she wanted to.

Then it started. Somehow, something had gotten into the loudspeakers in her room and over and over the tape played computer-generated cat meows singing, “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”

It was more than she could bear.

She jumped up from the couch, threw the pillow aside, stormed to the office door, and threw it open. Some big, fat guy in a bathrobe was sitting at her computer. He looked stoned. “Who are you?” she demanded.

“I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,” he said, in a booming but strangely familiar voice. “Come in and know me better,” he said.

“Just what do you think you're doing at my terminal?” she demanded.

“Why, I'm not doing anything. You and your company, however, are sending a universal message of best wishes for Christmas and all holidays the people of the world hold in their hearts, with peace on earth, good will to men—”

“How about women?”

“Everybody,” the fat guy said with a maniacal Santa Claus laugh as he stood and threw his arms open. “Everybody.” This wasn't Scrooge. This guy was about seven feet tall.

“Look,” she said, “I'm just not in the mood for Christmas this year, okay? I have a lot on my mind. Tell Doug I really appreciate the trouble he took to come and haunt me but—”

“Hurry,” he said, opening the office door so that an icy blast laden with snow swept in, which was impossible because there was a great deal more building between her and the outdoors. “Our sleigh is waiting.”

“Sleigh? What sleigh?”

But sure enough, sleigh bells jingled. She turned to look back at her television set, but all she saw was the reflection of her own back.

She walked over to the door. “I am in charge,” she said to herself. “I am in control, and I can do what I want. I am the boss.”

The wind snatched the door handle from her fingers and pushed her out the door, slamming it behind her and leaving her outdoors. The hall no longer existed. She was out on the grounds, in the drive in front of her building where the wind swirled the snow so fast she could scarcely see. A great red velvet cape fell across her shoulders, enveloping her. In front of her was an old-fashioned sleigh, red with gilt trim and two handsome dapple gray Percherons ready to pull at the command of the fat guy, who was in the driver's seat.

“Get in and know me better, child,” the fat guy said. She knew without trying it that the building was locked behind her, and she was fairly certain no one would answer the buzzer. She did not have her key with her, of course. And she had kicked off her shoes when she lay down on the couch. Getting frost-bite was no way to start a new year.

“Okay,” she said, “but you bring me back when I say so, understand? Kidnapping is a federal of fense.”

The big, fat guy laughed as if she'd been particularly witty and clucked to the horses. They trotted forward, their feathered feet plopping in the snow and their bells jingling.

“So where are we going?” she asked finally. “To some darkened theater where you force me to watch
It's a Wonderful Life
over and over again?”

“If you didn't have to work, where would you have wanted to go?” the driver asked her. Now that she was closer to him, she thought there was something Scroogish about him after all, in spite of the fact that he was massive and fleshy instead of stringy and spare.

Okay, she'd play his silly game. The point in the story was that Scrooge didn't have any friends, wasn't it? Well, she had plenty of friends. Important friends. “Senator Johansen's house, please.”

The driver just nodded and took a shortcut through the woods on her grounds. Although it was still nighttime, the sky was ivory with snow and alive with creatures startled awake by the storm. A family of deer stopped nuzzling aside drifts to find grass and watched as the sleigh drove past, and squirrels chattered in the trees while whole flocks of birds swept like curtains from air to ground and ground to air again, their wings black amid the twisting snow.

He showed her tracks of animals she didn't know could be found in the city: foxes, beavers, coyotes, and even the paw prints of a passing mountain lion. Twin points of illumination beamed through the trees and, as the sleigh approached, became miner's lights strapped over the stocking caps of a pair of laughing people on cross-country skis. Obviously besotted with each other, the pair skated past the sleigh near enough to touch it. Their socks and sweaters were patterned with reindeer, their foreheads beaded with sweat, and their conversation about mulled cider and turkey sandwiches when they returned home.

“They're trespassing,” she said, looking after them as long as she could, fascinated by the fluid movement of their skis. “Next thing you know it'll be snow machines.”

“Next thing you know this will all be gone,” the spirit beside her said.

“The snow?”

“I was referring to the trees and the animals but the snow as well. Enjoy it before it turns to slush.”

She knew this was sound advice, so she faced forward again. He was intent on his driving and wouldn't see. She stuck her tongue out to catch a flake.

The trees rose high above them, alive in the ivory night with shadow and flicker, bright eyes, the twitch of a tail, the flirt of a wing. She hadn't a clue where they were. She had no idea this road ran back here. She realized that on paper she owned this entire woods, and she saw it every day from the parking lot when she approached the building, but until now she had never spent any time in it. “It's really beautiful here, isn't it?” she said to the ghost.