From: FNYK09A@prodigy.com (Gary Himes) Newsgroups: alt.ql.creative Subject: SPIRIT OF THE SEASON 1/3 Date: 17 Jun 1995 14:36:09 GMT Message-Id: <3rup8p$1k3g@usenetw1.news.prodigy.com> There's something about the holidays; most leaps have their challenges, but it is the special occasions that seem to bring my strangest experiences. So I suppose I shouldn't have been all that surprised when I appeared in a room full of children, a kindergarten class whose every member was able to see me as I truly am. After all, as I was later to learn, it was only two days before Christmas. * * * * * * The children let out a collective yell, shocked by Sam's sudden appearance in the place of their teacher. They scurried around him yelling and screaming in a room filled with somewhat old-looking toys and rather well-worn workbooks. Obviously a classroom. One little girl walked right up to him and tugged on his skirt for attention. Skirt? Sam realized. Oh no, not again. "Where's sister?" she asked in a plaintive little voice. "Uh...your sister is missing? Is she in this class?" "No," the child answered with impatience. "Sister Mary Margaret. She was gonna read us Velveteen_Rabbit, then she was gone and you came. Where did she go?" Sam was trying to think of an answer when he caught a glimpse of his reflection in a window on the far side of the room. He was dressed in a functional black-and-white outfit and wore a plain clothe wimple on his head. The outfit was called a habit, he remembered. "Oh boy. I'm a nun." * * * * * Tina placed her hands on her hips, stuck out her lower lip, and started tapping her foot. "Al, c'mon! Be a sport!" Al sighed and got up from behind his desk. He could recognize instantly when Tina was in her 'pushy' mode, but today he wasn't up for one of their bouts, no matter how much fun making up would be. Sometimes, Al mused, you're just not in the mood, and this was definitely one of those times. "Tina, you know how I feel about this! I've got no desire to look like a doofus in front of the whole project!" Al snapped, rumaging through his desk drawer as he looked for the handlink. "Jeez honey, it's not like that," Tina countered. "It'll be fun! Hey, aren't you the guy who loves parties?" "Not Christmas parties," Al grimaced. He found the handlink and fiddled with it until it gave a responding squeal. "Always Christmas," Tina replied, her body language changing from defiant to disappointed. "The rest of the year you're the original party animal, but at Santa time you turn into such a...a grinch!" "Can I help it if I don't enjoy visions of sugar plums dancing in my head? That eggnog makes me nauseous? And, especially, that I hate dressing up like a fat, old elf for the project Christmas party?" Tina threw up her hands in frustration. "Well then, who are we gonna get to do it?" The admiral plucked a cigar from his coat pocket and lit it. "Why don't you ask Gushie? After all, he did it last year." "Yeah, and he barfed all over my ice sculpture of the three wise men!" she exclaimed, fanning away the smoke with her hand. "You know how Gushie is when he gets a little of the 'Christmas spirit' in him." Al shrugged. "So you'll find someone else; why does it have to be me?" "Because everyone here looks up to you! Because it's fun! And because I don't want you moping through another holiday celebration!" Al looked away helplessly. How could he explain to Tina his dislike of family holidays? When he had a family they had always been too poor to enjoy celebrating them, plus his parents' eternal bickering only seemed to increase at those times. The orphanage had been worse; Christmas then only became a reminder of how much he missed out on by not having a family at all. Oh, the nuns had done their best, but the somber services of a Catholic Church-run orphanage and the few meager presents they mustered simply depressed him, reinforcing the fact that he was truly alone in the world. He'd never enjoyed Christmas since, not with friends, not with his wives, not with anyone until Sam. Maybe, he mused, that was because the scientist was the closest thing he'd had to family in a long time. But he was gone now, too, and Al just couldn't find it in himself to celebrate the holidays without him. The intercom on his desk buzzed. "Yeah," Al said, pushing the answer button. "We've got a visitor." The voice that answered him belonged to Verbena Beeks, and the words were her usual code for someone arriving in the waiting room. Of course the "visitors" as she called them usually didn't concern Al, but their presence always signalled that another leap had begun. Al tucked the handlink back into his pocket and made for the door. "Excuse me honey, but I have to go to work. Now just don't worry about moi and go find yourself another Kris Kringle." "But Al--" Tina protested. "Sorry, gotta run." Al rushed down the hall to the imagined chamber, thankful for the call to duty. Whatever was on the other side of the IC door, he decided, couldn't be half as bad as Tina's nagging and Christmas in general. * * * * * Sam held the smallest member of the class, a cherubic little blonde girl, up so that she could drape tinsel on the upper limbs of the Christmas tree. "There, now doesn't that look fine?" Sam asked the class. Actually, the tree was old and worn with time, lacking several of its artificial branches and missing too many bristles from the branches that were left. Sam looked at it with concealed sorrow; he guessed this was the best that the orphanage could afford and that these children could not look forward to much of a holiday. "Hey! Stop it!" Sam looked down to see a dark-haired young boy push over a little girl and snatch away her ornaments. There's one bully in every crowd, he thought ruefully. The little girl began to cry. "You're mean Remo! Gimme back my dec'ration!" Sam caught the little ruffian by the seat of his pants and hauled him up to eye level. "Remo, you know it isn't nice to steal Susan's ornament. Now say you're sorry and give it back." Remo struggled against Sam's grip. "You can't make me! You ain't Sister Mary Margaret!" Sitting the boy down on the top of a desk, Sam motioned for the rest of the class to gather round. "Let me explain to you all one more time why I'm here. You see, God needed Sister Margaret to help him with...a very special job. So, while she's gone I'll be here to take care of you and we'll all play a game where we pretend that I'm your teacher. Do you all understand?" A little black boy shot up his hand. "Is sister in heaven?" "No, she's with a friend of mine and she'll be back in a little while." Susan wiped the tears out of her eyes. "Are you an angel?" Sam cast his eyes skyward for forgiveness. "Uh, I'm kind of an angel-in-training." Remo continued to sulk. "Ah, you're full of bulldookey." Just then the classroom door opened to reveal the figure of an older nun. "Mary Margaret, it's time for the children's recess. Will you be coming?" "Uh, no. No, I've got some...papers to grade?" Sam answered, snatching up a pile of finger paintings. "Very well." The children lined up and began to file out of the room. As Remo passed the older nun he said, "Hey, y'know that really isn't Sister Mary Margaret!" The nun reached down and whacked Remo on the gluteus maximus with a ruler drawn from the sleeve of her habit. "You mind your manners boy and don't blasphemy!" "Ow!" the bully cried as he hurried on. When the last of the children vanished into the hall the nun stuck her head back into the room. "That Williams boy is a real killer, isn't he?" she said before following the class. Sam sighed and picked up his papers. He had gleamed from his earlier conversation with the children that Sister Mary Margaret's office was right next door to the classroom. Walking down the hall he found a door with her name written on its opaque window. Voila, he congratulated himself mentally. Just as he reached for the door handle, Sam noticed a tiny tendril of smoke floating straight through the door. "Al?" Sam said as he opened the door. Inside he saw the figure of the observer looking through a window into the school's courtyard, his face pinched into a pained expression. "Al, what is it? What do you see?" The admiral turned to face him, his shoulders slumping with depression. "Jeez Sam, of all the rat holes in all the cities in all the world, you had to leap into this one." He turned his face towards the ceiling. "What is with you?!" he yelled upwards, "Do you get a kick out of making my life miserable!" Sam moved next to his friend. "Calm down Al! What's gotten under your skin today?" Al shook his head. "You don't know, do you? You really haven't figured it out yet?" "All I know is that I leaped in right in full view of a kindergarten class, all of whom could see me and most of whom will probably be traumatized for life by it! Now Al, I need you to pull yourself together and tell me what's going on," Sam finished firmly, hiding his concern over his friend's behavior. Al shrugged listlessly. "You're Sister Mary Margaret, formerly Caroline Horton, a nun working in St. Theresa's Orphanage in Newark, New Jersey in December '54 and, next to the Hanoi Hilton, I can't think of a worse place to spend my Christmas." Sam blinked in astonishment; during his entire speech Al hadn't once consulted his handlink. Slowly the truth began to dawn on him. "Do you know this woman? I mean, I know she's a nun but did you...?" The admiral shook his head emphatically. "Sam, that's not even remotely funny. But yeah, I know her, and I know this place too." Suddenly it dawned on him. "Here? This is--" "--where I grew up," Al finished. "Welcome to the As the shock settled in a thought occurred to the scientist. "You're not here right now, are you?" Despite everything, the thought of a little "dead end kid" Al running around nearby brought a ghost of a smile to Sam's face. "Are you kidding? I'm twenty years old right now and spending my Christmas at Ft. Harrison down in Georgia. No, the day after I graduated High School I lit out of this joint and swore I'd never set foot in it again. In fact, when I heard they tore it down in '77 I held the biggest disco party you ever saw." "Look Al, I'm sorry you have such sad memories of this place, but right now I need to know why I'm here," Sam said with honest sympathy. "Let's just do what we're here to do and then you won't have to ever see St. Theresa's again, all right?" "Yeah," Al grunted in response. "Ziggy says there's a boy in your class named Mike Allen. He's just been here a few months and already he's tried to run away three times-- can't much say that I blame him." "Al," Sam admonished. "Anyway, his parents died last September in a car crash and the poor kid still hasn't accepted their deaths--Catholic orphanages weren't big on counseling in these days." "So that's what I'm here for?" Sam asked. "To get Mike to accept his parents' deaths?" "Partly; it seems that in the next 24 hours the orphanage is going to be visited by a couple wanting to adopt and Mike fits what they're looking for perfectly. Trouble is, he won't be here to meet them--Ziggy says he runs away again tonight." Sam's expression brightened. "Well, then it should be easy. All I have to do is keep Mike from running away and tomorrow he gets a new home and I leap, right?" Al sighed in response. "I dunno Sam; I broke out of this place practically on a weekly basis, until finally I ended up doing a semester in reform school. You'd be surprised what a bright young kid full of energy can do." A fragment of memory came to the scientist. "I know what you mean--when I was seven I took my dad's new milking machine apart. He would've tanned my hide if I wasn't able to put it back together." "Keep an eye on the kid," Al answered as he summoned the imaging chamber door. "I gotta get back and talk my way out of playing Santa at the project Christmas party. Tina's gonna have a fit, I just know it." "It's Christmas there, too?" Sam queried. "That's unusual, it being the same day there as here." "Nah," Al responded with a shake of his head. "Not when you consider that somebody up there just doesn't like me." Before Sam could answer, Al vanished through the door. "Merry Chrsitmas to you too," he told the empty air. TO BE CONTINUED...