christmas day
the year hadn't been particularly kind. the weather had been decent, and so had most of the things i'd done, but it was very mundane and plain and when things worth noting did happen, they weren't good things. needless to say i wasn't too amped up for christmas. it was going to be one of those christmas eve's when i'd sleep early, sleep deep, and sleep long. i almost missed the days when i was younger- back before i reached my teens and would barely contain my excited jittering and alertness of christmas eve. sure, there was still some of that childish excitement lingering in me, but it was nothing but a dull tickling in the bottom of my stomach. certainly nothing to keep me holding my breath.
we got home from the christmas eve party at around ten, my brother and i. he was hoping for a new car this christmas, the one he had had a busted front bumped and scratch marks from careless parking and i'm pretty sure he didn't even have his snow tires on, but i doubted that our parents could cough over the money to buy him something fancier. maybe if they could just get that front bumped fixed he'd be okay with the little black two-door sudan he had now. at least he had a car. i was turning seventeen in just a few weeks and the best i got was my dad's dirty grey van and mom's cheap nissan. of course there was something i wanted from my mother, or father, this christmas, and it didn't run on gas.
i knew the idea of me getting a horse, or pony, of any kind was slim. i've been riding since i was just a kid, but lately i've stopped taking lessons and the closet i get to a horse is driving by a farm on the way to the grocery store in town. i personally thought our property would be perfect for owning a little barn of our own. he lived out in the country on a relatively abandoned old road, and the nearest neighbor was half a mile down the street. sometimes at night it got a bit creepy, especially with the lack of streetlamp and lights and sounds from neighboring houses, but i've lived here all my life and have gotten used to the stillness of my house and property. some of it was woods, and there was a weird, muddy little stream nestled between two cracked boulders through a path of trees in my backyard, but for the most part it was open fields. again, something that might be a bit disconcerting to city folk who see crime around every corner and down every dank alley, but in our little town, out in our little country, there was very little to worry out. to be honest i worried more about being attacked by a raccoon when i let our dog out at night rather than a murderer.
anyway, i went to bed early that night just as i suspected. i fell asleep quick to, but strangely enough i found myself coming to very early the next morning- the morning of christmas. i stirred, the blankets coming off my legs and spilling onto the floor. shifting, i propped myself up on my elbows and fumbled for my phone which i kept on my nightstand to act as an alarm clock. it wasn't set now, since i was on break from school, but normally the damned thing would be going off at five in the morning. my hand bumped into my water cup on it's way to grasp the phone, so i steadied it before snatching the rather large thing up in my hand and hitting the home button. the screen was painfully bright in the darkness of my room, but the clock read three-thirty. it didn't see like i should be up this early- my brother and parents would most certainly be sleeping, but there was no exhaustion clinging to my bones like it does on the morning of school.
there wouldn't be any harm in getting up and checking out the tree, now would there? i knew it was stupid, and probably childish to be looking at the presents under the tree at some ungodly time in the morning, but there was nothing else to do. plus it wouldn't hurt to get more water before i retreated back to bed to sleep until seven or eight- which is what normal people sleep in to during break. I slipped out of my bed, grabbed my nearest sweatshirt to tug that on, grabbed my cup, and opened by door into the hall. the walk to the living room where our (fake) tree was waiting wasn't very long. bulbs and various other (mostly homemade) ornaments hung from the plastic, bright green branches of the christmas tree, and the lights wrapped around it shown in a multitude of colors, blinking at me occasionally. there wasn't a surplus of presents under the tree, but certainly enough to be impressed over. mother and father always outdid themselves every year, and every year i was surprised.
i stared at the presents for a bit longer, the most special ones adorned with ribbons, and all of them wrapped in glittering, red paper with some sort of wintery decoration on it. my mother and father usually wrapped mine with reindeer paper. 'reindeer are like horses' they'd always say, as if wrapping paper of a deer made up for the lack of me having an actual horse. or horse lessons, for that matter.
now i don't usually consider myself a cautious person or anything like that, but the simple fact that there was suddenly a bang outside, in my quiet, secluded yard, was enough to make me jump. i tugged my sweatshirt tighter around me before setting my cup down on the nearest stand. maybe it was stupid to wander over to investigate, but i had to. what if the dog had gotten out? speaking of the dog, it was right at that moment that he went off barking, scrambling from the kitchen where he was sleeping to the door. His tail and hackles were up, and long strings of saliva were hanging from his large chops. i furrowed my brow together and touched the top of the dog's head, but he went right on growling. Only for maybe a minute longer before he shoved his nose down between the crack in the door and the floor, snuffling at the outside air. at least his hackles were starting to go down now. the door was locked too, which was also good. if someone was trying to bust their way inside, it would be pretty easy to hear them banging on the lock to get it loose.
i grabbed the door knob here with one hand and unlocked the deadbolt with my other hand. the door opened out, so i pushed on it, and in the snow there was a flurry of prints. i'm not a hunter or a tracker, and it hasn't snowed lately, so i don't know how fresh the prints there are, or what size they are or anything, but they're definitely there. of course the large silhouette of something in my yard was rather hard to miss too. i wasn't expecting what i saw when i came closer, and i couldn't contain my surprise. there was a big gypsy in the yard, just the kind i had been wanting for as long as i could remember. i didn't quite know how it got there, or where i would move her, but in time i knew i'd figure it all out. for now my instant love and surprise over this gift was enough. (1295)
