The Christmas Room

The First Surprise

         Just as the door closed behind her, Krystal felt at all too familiar tingling at her waist. She looked down at the pager on her belt to see if it were really going off. To her dismay, it was. This pager was no ordinary pager, however. It was a very special pager that was given to her by Santa, and it only went off either when he was wanting to see her or to let her know that her mother was home. It didn't go off by any normal known signal such as a phone call or computer connection, and she never took it out of the house.

         Krystal moaned, inwardly, when she noted that the pager was not only vibrating, but it was flashing at her as well. She looked at her companion, Abby, and cried, "Oh no! She's home early. I guess I won't get to work on her present today."

         It wasn't that Krystal disliked her mother, or even that she wouldn't love to spend some time with her. Quite the opposite was true. She lover her mother, dearly, and she cherished each moment they had together; few as they were. She was simply upset because she hadn't gotten a chance to work on her project in over a week, and when she heard that her mother was going to have to work on her day off, she figured it would be the perfect opportunity to put some time in on her present. Now, with the arrival of her mother, that was not possible.

         "That's okay," Abby assured her. "There's plenty of time." She lifted her small pudgy hand and rested it on the child's shoulder. "Besides," she added, "with her going to school and working so hard all the time, how much time do you really get to spend together?"

         Next to Maggie Ravenclaw, Abby was Krystal's closest and dearest friend. She knew of Krystal's worries, and she did her best to cheer her up. Yet, the one thing that would make Krystal truly happy could not be given to her by anyone. Therefore, Abby settled for trying to make the young girl as happy as was possible in the current circumstances.

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         Arris Lightfeather was a Native American. She had long, flowing, dark hair, her skin was a beautiful shade of brown/black, and her large, brown, doe-like eyes shone whenever she looked upon Patrick McKullock. The day this Irishman asked her to marry him was one of the happiest of her life. She had run away from the reservation at the age of fifteen. She just knew there was more out there than her parents were allowing her to see, and she was going to go and see it. Within the next year she had met Patrick, married him, and discovered that she was pregnant.