Flash Fiction Anthology

Christmas trip

I spent every free moment of the week leading towards the trip by carefully choosing what to bring with me.

Spending ten days in the mountains in December meant a huge luggage, which I could not afford to take. All that I would bring I would have to drag across the forest, on foot, for the last three kilometers of the journey. The four girls and I would be the first to arrive in the early afternoon of the twenty-fourth, a few more people were supposed to come in the evening of the same day, and the rest as early on the twenty-fifth as they could, in time for the Christmas dinner.

It turned out that Lucy, the brain behind this trip who took it upon herself to book the chalet, make sure that we would find the place warm and supplied with enough food for at least twelve people for ten days, was the only one who knew who was coming except the five of us. And she refused to say anything to any of us, we found out when we called each other behind her back during the week. She wanted it to be a surprise.

At least I don't ski, I mused as I dropped the heavy bag on the back seat of my car at seven o'clock in the morning on Friday, opening it quickly to check that the mysterious present was still where I had put it-- stuffed safely among my clothes. I had given up guessing what was inside, I kind of enjoyed the mystery now multiplied by not knowing who was coming with us.

I took my jacket off and put it on top of the bag. Shivering in the freezing darkness of the early morning I shut the door and walked around to the front, starting the engine and driving quickly into the hectic traffic of the city, hoping to be out on the motorway before the rush hour.

I had a long journey ahead-- two hundred kilometres to the town where I grew up and the girls still lived, then another sixty to the place in the mountains where I would meet them and leave the car.

It was lunch time, and snowing heavily, when I finally arrived. The four girls, having reached the place in one car an hour ago, were waiting for me patiently in a small cafè.

"I'm sorry it took me so long." I apologized as I took my things out of the car and locked it the moment they joined me outside. "The roads were awful."

"It took us ages to get here too, it's been snowing since last night." Klara beamed, looking excited about the amount of snow lying everywhere around us.

I rolled my eyes at her even as Jane, nearly invisible from under the huge rucksack she carried on her back, said, "I want to see if you'll be this excited about the snow once we start walking."

"Let us go then," Lucy said, looking up at the heavy grey clouds, squinting against the falling snowflakes. "It will be dark soon."

Leaving the tiny, picturesque village at our backs we ventured into the forest following a narrow trail. It wound its way under the trees, snaking up a gentle hill. At first all of us in turn tried to get some information about who was coming from Lucy, but she refused to say anything. Soon the hill became so steep that we had no spare breath to talk.

Jane and Kate reached the clearing where the chalet stood first. They started to laugh the moment they saw it, before the rest of us reached them.

"What?" Lucy asked, feigning ignorance, but Klara and I were already giggling too.

"It looks like that place from Last Christmas," Jane said.

"It used to be your favourite song!" Kate added.

"I bet you chose it on purpose..." I said, looking at Lucy who finally laughed too.

"Alright, I admit." she said, dropping her ski, like the other girls, into a tall heap of snow lining the trail. "But it used to be our favourite song, not just mine."