.......KATY!!!

When they were young

‘Ally! Wait for me Ally!’

‘Sucker,’ Ally whispered to Mikey as they hid behind a tree in the snowy woods, watching Charlie run around, desperately looking for them.

‘Ally! Ally, where are you? Ally!’ Charlie shouted, his lip trembling as he fought back tears. Ally and Mikey shook with laughter.

‘Come back!’ Charlie screamed! ‘This isn’t funny anymore! Ally!’

‘Why doesn’t he shout your name for once?’ Ally rolled his eyes. ‘Fucking loser.’

‘It’s getting dark,’ said Mikey, looking up through the trees. It was only around 3 o’clock but on in the winter it got dark so quickly in their little village. Ally looked up to the sky as well and an evil grin appeared on his face.

‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ whispered Mikey, grinning too.

‘If it involves waiting until its pitch black and balling him with snow, then yes I am,’ Ally laughed softly. Charlie was now sitting down on the snowy wood floor, his arms around his knees, face buried and shaking with tears.

‘Bollocks to waiting, lets just do it now,’ said Mikey, scoping a handful of snow up and squeezing it into a ball. Ally did the same, and soon they had a large pile of snowballs between them.

‘On three, okay?’ said Ally, snowball in hand, his arm poised to through. ‘One... two... three!’

The balls hit Charlie on the shoulder and the head. With a small scream, he jumped to his feet, peering around him for the attacker.

‘Ally... Ally, was that you?’ he called, trying to peer through the gathering gloom. Ally and Mikey were crying with laughter.

‘Throw another one,’ said Mikey, and Ally picked up a snowball, made a quick dash behind another tree when Charlie wasn’t looking, and throw it at his back.

‘Ahh!’ screamed Charlie, and spun around. Ally ducked out of sight, and picked up another lump of snow. Another scream told him that Mikey had thrown another snowball.

Ally looked out from behind the tree, and saw Mikey nod at him. He grinned back, and nodded.

A flurry of snowballs were hurled at Charlie, hitting him all over. He was knocked onto his back screaming and struggled to get up. As soon as they stopped, he ran screaming back home, leaving Ally and Mikey clutching their sides as they laughed.

‘Let’s go,’ said Ally, and they walked back to the village, laughing as they recalled the finer points of the attack.

The boys’ parents had decided that it would be fun to spend Christmas together, and had sent the boys to the woods nearby whilst they drank mulled wine and gossiped. Ally’s dog, a big German Shepherd called Jack, (fondly nicknamed Killer by Ally) hadn’t been allowed to come with them, because Charlie was allergic to him, and afraid that Jack would bite his face off, as Ally had often told him Jack would. So the boys had gone alone, and when Charlie began to piss them off, Mikey and Ally had decided to hide from him.

Following Charlie’s screams and his footprints back to the house, Ally and Mikey took off their jackets and scarves and hung them up in Ally’s front porch. Pulling off their boots, they entered the house quietly.

Jack immediately bounded up to them and they petted him, grinning. Jack came up to their shoulders, and Mikey could see what Charlie found frightening about him, being far shorter than both of the other boys.

‘Bed, Killer,’ said Ally, and Jack lay down on his bed, looking adoringly at his young master.

‘Gimme a hand,’ said Ally, and he and Mikey pushed a chair up against the kitchen counter. Mikey, being the taller of the two, climbed up on the chair and onto the counter, and over to the cupboard which contained the dog biscuits, on the highest shelf so that Ally wouldn’t be able to reach them.

Mikey stood on his tiptoes and reached for the dog biscuits, knocking them off the shelf with his hand.

‘Oops,’ he said, as the box hit the floor and dog biscuits fell everywhere.

‘Never mind,’ said Ally, shrugging, and petted Jack as he leapt up to eat all the biscuits. ‘Good boy, Killer.’

They left the kitchen and hurried to the lounge, where a great big fireplace with its roaring fire filled the room with a warm glow. The room was dominated by a massive Christmas tree, with a huge pile of presents underneath it already. The mothers were sitting on the sofa’s talking, Mikey’s mother Jane holding his little sister Megan on her lap.

‘There you are,’ said Ally’s mother, Lisa, holding out an arm to hug Ally, which he avoided. ‘Charlie came running back here crying because some big boys threw snowballs at him.’

‘We lost him in the woods,’ said Ally, innocently, his big blue eyes gazing adoringly up at his mother. ‘We came back here because we couldn’t find him.’

‘He’s up in your room getting changed,’ said Charlie’s mother Diane. ‘His clothes were absolutely soaking.’

‘Heya Ally,’ said Ally’s dad Phillip, scooping his son up into his arms and lifting him above his head.

‘Gerrof me dad!’ said Ally, squirming as his dad gave him a hug.

‘Lisa, go and make the boys some hot chocolate, they’re freezing!’ barked Phillip, and Lisa smiled at Jane and Diane and hurried from the room.

‘And let Jack in here, he’s our dog, let him come into the warm lounge,’ Phillip shouted, and continued his conversation with Charles, Charlie’s dad and namesake.

The boys sat down next to the fire as the dog came in and threw tennis balls for him to catch. Lisa brought in three mugs of hot chocolate and handed two to Ally and Mikey, and put the other on the table for Charlie.

‘Where is Charlie?’ said Jane. ‘He’s taking an awefully long time to come down.’

‘I’ll go and see what’s wrong,’ said Diane, and she hurried upstairs to find her way ward son.

‘Megan, you’re getting too big to sit on my lap the entire time,’ said Jane, picking her daughter up and setting her on the floor.

‘I’m not too big, mummy,’ said Megan. ‘I’m only five years old.’

‘Go and play with the boys,’ smiled Jane, and Megan hurried over to where Ally and Mikey sat with Jack.

‘Go away Megan,’ Mikey groaned.

‘Mum said I could play with you two,’ she said, smiling at Ally, who she was extremely fond of.

‘Well we don’t want to play with you,’ said Mikey. ‘Get lost.’

‘Mikey, let Megan play with you,’ said Jane loudly.

Mikey groaned, but moved up so that Megan could sit next to him.

‘I want to sit beside Ally,’ she said, and Ally sighed, and let her sit next to him.

Footsteps coming down the stairs signified Diane bringing Charlie back down.

‘Silly thing,’ said Diane. ‘He was being shy. Come on in Charlie.’

Charlie entered with a face like thunder and Ally and Mikey struggled not to laugh in front of their parents. He was wearing the most awful Christmas knitted jumper imaginable and clearly would rather freeze to death than wear it.

‘Here you go, Charlie dear,’ said Lisa, beaming at him. ‘That jumper is lovely, dear.’

Charlie sat down by the fire, not saying anything. Ally looked at Charlie, and then said, ‘So... err, nice jumper.’

Charlie’s face flushed red and sipped his hot chocolate to cover it. His hands were shaking with humiliation and anger and his hot chocolate spilled down the front of his jumper.

‘Charlie!’ cried Diane. ‘You messy boy, that’s the only spare jumper I brought with me.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Charlie happily. ‘I’m warm enough, I don’t need to wear a jumper.’

‘Don’t be silly darling,’ said Diane. ‘Its very cold, you’ll just have to wear it.’

‘But mum, there’s a fireplace in every room in Ally’s house!’ cried Charlie.

‘Charlie, stop being silly,’ said Diane, embarrassed. ‘You’ll wear that jumper and that’s it!’

Ally’s pale face flushed and he put his empty mug of hot chocolate down. ‘C’mon guys, lets go to my room.’

Mikey stood up but Charlie stayed where he was, mortified. Ally grabbed his arm and pulled him up. ‘I said lets go, Charlie.’

Ally dragged Charlie up to his room, Mikey following behind. When they got there Ally opened his wardrobe, saying, ‘Take off that stupid jumper, Charlie.’

‘My mum says I have to wear it,’ said Charlie, silent tears dripping down his face.

‘Stop blubbing, cry-baby,’ said Ally, collecting his sleeve in his hand and wiping Charlie’s cheeks rather more forcefully than he needed too. ‘Come on, you can wear one of my jumpers, take that one off.’

Charlie looked up at Ally, so happy that his friend was saying this, and Ally and Mikey found one of Ally’s designer hoody’s that Charlie could wear.

‘Don’t get hot chocolate down that one,’ laughed Mikey. ‘Or Ally’s mum will kill you.’

‘Th-thank you Ally,’ snuffled Charlie, looking as though he wouldn’t dream of touching anything for fear of getting the jumper dirty. ‘I promise I won’t spill anything on it.’

‘I don’t care,’ shrugged Ally. ‘Mum can get me a new one when she goes out next. You can have it if you want.’

Charlie beamed at him.

‘Let’s go back downstairs,’ said Ally, shivering. ‘It’s too fucking cold up here.’

They hurried downstairs and after Diane made a fuss about Ally giving Charlie on of his jumpers, the three families sat down at the huge dining table for a Christmas Eve meal.

‘So, what do you boys want from Santa?’ asked Jane, as Lisa dished up the ham for everyone.

‘A racing bike!’ said Ally happily.

‘New basketball shoes!’ said Mikey, punching the air.

‘A book,’ said Charlie, slightly less enthusiastically.

‘A book?’ Phillip laughed. ‘What do you want a book for? You’re a seven year old boy, you should want a quad bike or something like that.’

‘Actually, Charlie is six,’ said Lisa calmly. ‘He’s a little bit younger than Ally and Mikey.’

‘Tch, books,’ said Phillip, shaking his head.

‘Besides, its not like Santa exists,’ said Charlie. ‘So it doesn’t matter.’

‘Santa does exist!’ said Ally and Mikey, aghast.

‘No he doesn’t,’ said Charlie. ‘Of course he doesn’t exist, its impossible for one man to visit every boy and girl a night. I worked it out, he won’t possibly be able to do so.’

‘Charlie, don’t say things like that,’ said Diane, looking pointedly at little Megan, who looked on the verge of tears.

‘But he doesn’t.’

‘Charlie, that’s enough!’ said Charles angrily, and Charlie shut his mouth, and ate in silence.

After dinner the boys hung up their stockings, left milk and minced pies for Santa and carrots for his reindeer, and went to bed, saying goodnight to everyone. They lay in their beds in Ally’s huge bedroom, and Lisa, Jane and Diane tucked them in.

‘Go to sleep,’ said Lisa to Ally, smoothing his hair out of his face, ‘or Santa won’t come.’

Charlie mumbled something inaudible, and the mothers left the room.

‘Charlie you idiot,’ said Ally, throwing a basketball at Charlie. ‘Of course Santa exists! He gives us presents every year!’

‘Its just presents from your parents,’ said Charlie, rubbing his head where the ball had hit him.

‘Well how come the writing his different?’ asked Mikey, sitting up too.

‘It’s just your parents changing their handwriting,’ said Charlie.

‘I doubt that my mother is clever enough to do that,’ said Ally coldly. ‘And my dad doesn’t give a shit about Christmas, so it’s not him.’

‘I’m telling you, Santa doesn’t exist,’ said Charlie adamantly.

‘And I’m telling you he does!’ said Ally angrily. ‘And we’ll prove it! We’re going to wait until the adults have gone to bed and then we’re going to wait for Santa to arrive.’

‘You can’t do that,’ said Charlie. ‘We’ll let into trouble.’

‘Shut up Charlie, you wanker!’ Ally said frustrated. ‘We’re going to do this, and if you chicken out then you’re a bigger wanker than I thought.’

Charlie shut up, and they lay awake, listening as the adults drank whiskey and mulled wine and said goodnight to each other, before going to bed.

‘Okay,’ said Ally, when he was sure it was safe. ‘I can hear my dad snoring, they’re asleep. Let’s go.’

He and Mikey leapt up and put on socks and jumpers, and looked over at Charlie’s bed.

‘C’mon Charlie,’ said Mikey. ‘Let’s go!’

‘He’s asleep,’ said Ally is a disgusted voice, and ran and jumped onto Charlie.

‘Oh!’ said Charlie loudly, but Ally put his hand over Charlie’s mouth to stop him from screaming.

‘Come on you idiot,’ said Ally. ‘We’re going to prove that Santa exists.’

‘I don’t want to go,’ said Charlie. ‘It’s pointless, he doesn’t exist, you’ll be waiting all night and will fall asleep there, and then you’ll get into trouble in the morning.’

‘Come on, or we’ll put your hand in warm water while you’re sleeping and make you wet the bed,’ said Mikey. ‘It works, we did it to Dave when we stayed over at his house last time.’

Groaning, Charlie got out of bed and Ally and Mikey ran downstairs, Charlie grudgingly following. They entered the living room where the last embers of the fire burned red and the Christmas tree lights flickered over an even larger pile of presents than before.

‘We’ll hide behind here,’ said Ally, jumping over a table and sitting behind it. We can see the fireplace, the stockings and the Christmas tree, but no one can see us. It’s perfect.’

Mikey joined him, laughing, and Charlie stayed in the middle of the room, objecting. They heard footsteps and with a squeal he joined them behind the table.

The door pushed open as Jack came in with Megan riding on his back. Jack hurried over to where they sat and Megan laughed happily. ‘I scared you.’

‘No, only Charlie,’ said Mikey angrily. ‘Go back to bed, or Santa won’t come to you.’

‘Please let me stay,’ she begged. ‘Let me or I’ll tell mum what you’re doing.’

Mikey scowled, but moved up to let her sit between him and Ally. She snuggled up to Ally, complaining that she was cold, and Ally, rolling his eyes, put his arm around her.

‘I’m cold too,’ complained Charlie.

‘Well you should have got up sooner and put on a jumper and socks,’ said Ally slightly angrily. ‘Now shut up and quit whinging.’

So they settled down, with Jack lying across their feet to keep them warm, and waited. The clock on the mantelpiece was dimly illuminated by the tree lights, and showed that it was almost twelve o’clock. The stockings were also hung up, and Ally’s, Mikey’s and Megan’s were all quite big, but Charlie’s was not so, in fact it was rather small. Charlie sniffed when he saw this, and then sighed. They had a long night ahead of them.

The clock reached twelve and Mikey and Ally’s watches both beeped to show it had reached the hour. They held their breath, watching the fireplace eagerly.

‘Hey guys,’ said Mikey. ‘Even if Santa doesn’t come, Merry Christmas.’

‘Yeah, Merry Christmas everyone,’ said Ally, smiling broadly. ‘But he will come.’

‘I keep telling you,’ said Charlie. ‘There is no such thing as -’

But he was cut off from a scrapping noise coming from the chimney. Ash was falling onto the embers, covering them and extinguishing the remnants of the fire.

‘Its just a bird in the chimney,’ whispered Charlie. ‘They do go into chimneys sometimes.’

‘Shut the fuck up!’ said Ally, covering Megan’s ears as he did so.

The ash kept falling, and the scraping became louder. The anticipation was so extreme that Megan kept gasping as she was holding her breath for too long.

‘Breath normally you idiot,’ whispered Mikey, staring at the fireplace.

Suddenly a pair of black boots appeared, illuminated by the Christmas tree lights. Ally almost squeaked, but caught himself just in time. Jack tensed, and growled, but Ally and Mikey patted him, trying to make him stay quiet.

Red trousers followed the boots, and then a red coat with white fur trimmings. An old fat man was soon climbing out of the fireplace, carrying a big brown sack. He ash which had fallen out of the chimney had not covered him or his clothes, and there was no soot over the rug or Ally’s mum would have had a fit.

Jack couldn’t take it anymore, and leapt up and hurried over, wagging his tail.

‘Hello Jacky boy,’ said the man, petting Jack, whose tail wagged happily. ‘Yes, there is a present in here for you too.’

He began to pull gifts out of his sack and placed them under the tree, and then straightened up and filled their stockings full of small toys and sweets. Then he turned around.

‘Come on out children,’ he said, looking over at them. ‘Ally Richards, Mikey and Megan Reed and Charlie Edwards, I know very well that you are there.’

Ally really did squeak then, and he and the others crawled out of their hiding place and stood in front of Santa.

‘Well now,’ he said smiling. ‘Four children who should be in bed, waiting for me in the living room. You know what that means?’

‘Not “no presents”,’ said Ally, his voice squeaky and high pitched.

Santa smiled. ‘Of course not. You’ve all been very good this year. But you must understand, you’re not supposed to wait up for me. Promise me you’ll never do it again.’

‘We promise,’ was the chorus from the children. Santa smiled.

‘Okay, well, here are you gifts.’

Out of his giant sack he pulled a bike with a red ribbon tied around it, and gave it to Ally. ‘The racing bike you requested.’

‘Wow, thank you Santa!’ said Ally. Santa smiled, and reached back into the sack and pulled out a present.

‘For Mikey, your basketball shoes.’

‘Awesome!’ said Mikey, hugging the present to him.

‘Megan, here is your doll you wanted,’ he said, handing her a squiggy present.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered, and he laughed.

‘And now, Charlie,’ he said, and reached back into the sack. ‘For you, I have A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens, and a new stocking. Yours looks slightly smaller than your friends’.’

Charlie looked shocked, and Santa smiled. ‘Yes, gifts are given to all children, even if they do not believe in me.’

He hoisted the bag back over his shoulder and smiled. ‘Well, get to your beds, I’m sure you’ll want to be up very early to open your presents.’

They nodded, and left their presents underneath the tree, and went to open the door.

‘Wait,’ said Charlie, and went back to Santa. ‘May I ask you a question?’

‘I do believe you already have,’ Santa smiled. ‘I think you mean “May I ask you two questions”, don’t you?’

‘Yes sir,’ said Charlie, going red. ‘Um, how come you can get to ever single child’s house all over the world in one night?’

‘Why, Charlie, that’s easy,’ he smiled.

‘It is?’

‘Yes,’ said Santa. ‘It’s magic.’

He laid his finger on his nose and shot back up the chimney, leaving a huge fire burning in the grate.

The light through the windows woke them, and they found that they were sat as before, sitting behind the table with Jack lying on their feet.

‘What?’ shouted Ally. ‘No way, I did not just dream that!’

‘Dream what?’ said Mikey, waking up.

‘That Santa came and visited us.’

‘Well, if you did, then I dreamt the same thing?’

‘What?’ said Ally, looking around.

‘I dreamt that too,’ said Megan.

‘And so did I,’ said Charlie quietly.

Ally leapt up and ran to the tree. There was his racing bike and the presents from Santa, Mikey’s shoes, Megan’s doll and Charlie’s book. Up on the mantelpiece were four stockings, but Charlie’s was different, bigger than it had been, in fact as big as the other three’s. Ally and Mikey turned to Charlie.

‘Told you he was real,’ and then they raced up stairs to wake up their parents so that they could open their gifts. Charlie, looking at his stocking, smiled and ran after them.