UNDERCOVER - Dark Fire Data (Book 3)

Part 6 - Oh, Christmas Tree

Early on Christmas morning, I was abruptly awakened by an eerie creaking and groaning and it was several seconds before I remembered where I was. I lived, with my grumpy Grandma, in one of the two downstairs apartments in a old house where the heating system had been installed while Victoria was Queen of Canada. The ancient cast iron radiators shook the entire building as they filled with hot water and expanded.

I hopped out of bed, scraped through the layer of frost on the window and looked out. It was still dark but the street lights, reflected between the snow and the low cloud, lit up the scene like moonlight. The snow had transformed the trees and bushes into magical sculptures but there were no footprints in the snow. I sighed. No sign of Santa Claus. 

 I searched the living room for Christmas presents although I wasn't expecting much because Grandma wasn't a big Christmas fan. I had only recently moved in with Grandma after Murga had kidnapped my parents. But, just a week ago, Miguel and I had almost succeeded in rescuing them after we had followed Murga through Dr Zhang's apparatus at Silverwood School. And that was when I had discovered I could fly. 

 Anyway, here I was, looking for presents. I found a couple of gift wrapped books from Mom. She must have bought them before she went to China searching for Dad. I was surprised to find a gift from my grumpy Grandma. She must have noticed that the sleeves on my old sweater barely covered my elbows but the new sweater looked like something from the Salvation Army store. It was a ghastly green and the sleeves were 20 cm longer than my arms. Oh well, I could roll them up and I wouldn't need gloves. 

 I crawled back into bed and read one of the books until I got up and boiled an egg for breakfast. I put some of Pacman's favourite food in his dish and waved it under his nose. Pacman was my dog although there was some doubt, as he looked like a cross between a Pekinese and a piranha. He reluctantly woke up and sniffed at the food before swallowing it with astonishing speed.

I was washing the breakfast plates when something slammed open the apartment door. It resembled an oversized fork lift truck dressed in a Spandex jogging suit with black and yellow stripes. My grumpy Grandma.

'Merry Christmas Ziff,' Grandma barked. 'I need you to help me get a Christmas tree upstairs.' Grandma's dotty friends, Emma and Beryl, lived upstairs in the apartment normally occupied by our landlord, Mr Bragg. Since he had mysteriously disappeared, Emma and Beryl, unwilling to waste an empty apartment, had secretly moved in claiming to be apartment sitters.

Yawning, I pulled on my parka, stumbled to the front door, opened it partially and poked my nose through the gap. 'Grandma, it's starting to rain. Can't this wait until Spring?'

'We won't need a Christmas tree in Spring,' Grandma snapped. 'On the bright side, it's above freezing so you won't get frostbite.'

But I might die of hypothermia, I thought, but I didn't want to start an argument on Christmas morning. Pacman took one look at the icy slush on the porch and refused to leave the house. So, Grandma and I slipped and stumbled through the melting snow to the parking lot, at the back of the Galactic Fruit and Deli, where a scattering of misshapen, left-over trees were draped with a piece of crudely lettered cardboard. 'MERRY XMAS. HELP YOURSELF.'

'Grandma, these are old growth trees! We could build a log cabin with them.' 

 'Nonsense,' Grandma retorted. 'Pick that one up.' I hauled each one of them into a vertical position, getting an icy shower in the process, while Grandma inspected every dripping tree in the lot. 

 'This one's too tall, eh?' I told her. 'We'll need a crane to get it into the apartment.' My running shoes were filling with melting snow and ice water was trickling down my neck when, at last, Grandma ordered me to take the largest tree home while she finished her morning jog. She was out of sight by the time I had dragged the tree to 67 rue Sumac street (Ottawa is a bilingual city so all the street signs are in French and English). 

 I really didn't think I was going to get it up the stairs but then a battered pick up truck skidded into the curb and an elderly man got out carrying a case of beer. Rico was renovating Mr Bragg's apartment which was presently occupied by Emma and Beryl. A teen-aged weirdo, carrying a large box, got out of the passenger side. He had a green Mohawk haircut and a face decorated with more rings and pins that I had yet seen on a human face. 'Hi, Ziff,' Rico said. 'This is my nephew, Jeremy.'

I said, 'Hi' and Jeremy nodded. His rings jangled audibly. 'Would you give me a hand, Rico?' I asked. 'Grandma is expecting me to have this tree up and running by the time she gets home.'

 'Sure,' Rico said, 'but Emma says there's no room in the fridge for beer so I have to put it in the snow to cool down.' Jeremy broke open the beer case and stuffed the bottles into the snow drift in front of the porch. Jeremy and I collected a few bruises as we wrestled the tree upstairs and stood it in a corner of the dining room. 'I used to have a nice quiet life before I moved in with Grandma,' I grumbled. 'My pants are soaked, I've got pine tar on my hands and I think I've got pine needles up my nose.'

'We haven't got a tree stand Ziff,' Emma chuckled. 'You'll have to stay there and hold it up.'

'With his red nose, he does look like a Christmas gnome,' Beryl laughed. 'I'll find some silver bells for his ears.'

Jeremy grinned. 'He does makes a nice tree ornament, doesn't he, eh?'

'Will you cut the funny comments?' I snapped. 'My arm is going to sleep.'

Jeremy and Rico quickly constructed a tree stand, from spare bits of lumber, set the tree in a bucket of water and then celebrated by watching a ice hockey game on Mr Bragg's television (Santa's Elves against the Reindeers!). 

 I made myself useful by decorating the tree with origami birds made from discarded Christmas wrapping paper. After that I helped Emma carry the contents of our refrigerator upstairs and then went back to my book while Grandma, Emma and Beryl bustled about in the kitchen preparing Christmas dinner.

Beryl laughed uproariously when I told her about our collision with the police cruiser and she told me that, after the Bunglers had taken off, she had checked her beaver traps and then taken the next bus home. 

 Late in the afternoon, I was going downstairs, to get another book, when I heard a drilling noise from the other downstairs apartment. It was supposed to be empty.