A Sock-Monkey Christmas
Santa Claus was real. Monkey had seen him on the TV. And the TV had never lied to Monkey.
He wasn’t stoopid. He knew not every Santa was the real Santa. Shopping Mall Santas were as real as their cotton wool beards. But that was because the real Santa was too busy making toys in the North Pole to sit around all day having his photo taken.
Still, Monkey would have liked to have a photo. He would sit on Santa’s knee and smile the biggest Monkey smile any Monkey had ever smiled.
Monkey asked Hunter if he would take him to the Mall.
‘Are you nucking futs?’ Hunter asked him. ‘What if my friends see me?’
So then Monkey asked Marlowe. But she was writing in her diary and she wasn’t really listening to Monkey.
Monkey was worried. All he could think about was Santa’s Naughty list. Was he on it? He always tried to be good. But it wasn’t always easy. Being naughty came naturally to Monkey. All Monkeys were a little bit naughty sometimes.
He found a piece of paper that was purple and smelled like some kind of flower and a stub of chewed green pencil in the kitchen drawer where Mum saved things like rubber bands and bits of string and old batteries and wrote Santa a letter.
He asked for a tricycle for Christmas. A blue tricycle with rainbow coloured streamers on the handlebar grips. There was a picture of one just like it in a catalogue. Monkey cut the picture out very carefully with his safety scissors and folded it inside his letter. Then he looked in the same kitchen drawer until he found an envelope and a stamp.
He posted his letter with the picture of the blue tricycle inside it on the 1st of December. To make sure it got to the North Pole in time.
That night Monkey dreamed...
He dreamed he was riding his tricycle in the park. All the people in the park pointed and clapped and cheered and waved and smiled at how clever Monkey was. And how beautiful his new blue tricycle was with its rainbow coloured streamers fluttering and sparkling from the handlebars.
He rode and rode. Up and down and all around. He rode until his legs were too tired to pedal anymore.
He was the happiest Monkey in the whole world!
He dreamed the same dream every night.
The day before Christmas the postman knocked on the front door, and when Monkey answered it, the postman gave him a letter. It was his letter. The letter he had written to Santa. Somebody at the post office had stamped on it with red ink -
INSUFFICIENT POSTAGE
The postman said he was sorry.
The price of stamps had gone up, he said, and the North Pole was a long way away. Maybe Monkey could text Santa. Or send him an e-mail.
‘You can do that these days’, said the postman. ‘There’s still time for Santa to see it.’
Monkey wasn’t listening. All he could hear was his heart breaking into a million pieces.
Monkey knew he should say something to the postman. But he was too sad for words. He went to bed early without any dinner and cried himself to sleep.
He dreamed about riding his tricycle in the park again. But this time a big ugly bully pushed him off and laughed at him and called him a baby.
‘Only babies ride tricycles,’ the big ugly bully said. Then he told Monkey, ‘Only babies believe in Santa Claus.’
It was still dark when Gus the dog woke Monkey up.
‘There’s somebody in the house,’ Gus said.
Wearing his blue and white striped nightgown and cap, Monkey tiptoed down the hallway and peeked around the corner of the doorway into the living room. All he could see was a very large and very round bottom in white fur trimmed red trousers. It was so big and round it blocked out the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree.
‘That’s not a somebody,’ Monkey whispered to Gus. ‘It’s Santa!’
‘Can’t be,’ said Gus. ‘Everybody knows Santa’s not real.’
‘Oh, really?’ Asked Monkey. ‘So who drank the milk and ate the cookies Marlowe made?’
Gus looked sheepish. And that’s not easy for a dog. Unless it’s a sheep dog. But Gus wasn’t one of those. He was a Rottweiler Golden Retriever cross with a milk moustache and cookie crumbs in his fur.
‘It’s a good job you don’t like carrots,’ said Monkey crossly.
‘Uhm... Yeah... Well... I might have nibbled them a bit.’
Henry the cat crawled out from under the sofa and wrapped himself around Santa’s boots, purring.
Santa tried to nudge Henry away. But Henry wasn’t having any of it. He purred even louder and jumped up to claw at Santa’s leg.
‘Go away,’ said Santa. ‘I’m aller... aller... aller-CHOOOOH!!!’
He sneezed so hard his beard came off!
‘There,’ said Gus. ‘Told you so. Not real. Just Hunter and Marlowe’s Dad dressed up.’
Only it wasn’t. Behind the beard Santa was -
A WOMAN!
Monkey’s jaw hit the floor with a thud. ‘WHAAAAAAAT?’
Santa who wasn’t Santa turned around and saw him.
‘You’re not Santa,’ said Monkey. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m not Mister Claus,’ said the old lady in Santa’s clothes. ‘He’s tucked up in bed with the flu. There’s a lot of it going around. Half the elves are down with it, too. Even Rudolph has a head cold. Why do you think his nose is red?’
‘But...’
‘But...’
‘But...’
Before Monkey could get another ‘But...’ out, Mrs Claus winked at him and disappeared up the chimney. WOOOSH!!!
‘She moves fast for an old lady,’ said Gus, standing with his front paws on a window ledge and looking up at the roof.
They both heard the jingle of sleigh bells and the clip clop of reindeer hooves. And then Mrs Claus shouting, ‘On, Prancer! On, Dancer! On, Comet and Blitzen! Shift yer hairy arses, ya dopey buggers! We don’t have all night, you know!’
Monkey went back to bed. But he was too excited to sleep.
In the morning there were presents under the tree. Lot and lots of presents. For Hunter. For Marlowe. For Mum and Dad. And there were presents for Henry and Gus, too. But the biggest most beautifully wrapped present of them all was for Monkey!
He bit through the ribbon and tore at the wrapping like only a Monkey can. Under all the paper and sticky tape was a big plain cardboard box. And inside that box was another box. And inside that box was another smaller box. And inside that box was another box that was even smaller. And inside that box was a framed photo of a Monkey who looked a lot like Monkey sitting on Santa’s knee. Smiling.
But how?
‘It’s magic,’ said Marlowe.
‘There’s something on the back of it,’ said Hunter. ‘Look.’
Monkey turned the photo over.
There was a map of their house sketched with green pencil on lavendar paper with an X drawn in the back yard.
They all went outside to look. And there. With an enormous red bow tied around it was a bright and shining new blue tricycle with rainbow coloured streamers fluttering and sparkling from the handlebars.