Christmas for Everyone

It was Christmas eve at our mountain farm in Kenya. The night was cool and bright as dew and all the stars wide open.  The young moon wandered the sky like a little canoe and down in the forest a wood-dove called purely and slept again.  Now all the lamps in the house had been turned out except mine and the one in my mother’s room where she worked away at things rustling and mysterious.

            Big dog Slasher and I turned away from the night and went into the tiny cabin we shared.  Slasher got into bed without saying his prayers but I knelt down.  It was, after all, the Lord’s birthday and not the time for shirking.

            Our Father who art in heaven... The thatched roof of the cabin was beautifully neat, the grass lying straight and slick on wattle poles, rising to a peak in the centre and fastened with strips of bark.  The walls were neat, too, of horizontal planks overlaying one another.

            Our Father who art in heaven...  And over the bed was a lovely picture of a doe with twin fawns drinking in a river.  It was just a picture torn off an old calendar but tonight, with the lamp low and flickering in the far corner of the room the stream in the picture seemed to glisten and swirl.  I fancied the doe flicked her ears to listen and the fawns stood ready to run.  I listened too.

            From somewhere above us came the thinnest whisper of sound.  Before I could move, down the steps of the wall planks, very cautiously, fist over foot, came a little grey dormouse.

            He stopped, looked across at Slasher snoring in his basket, at the doe and the twins in the picture, and at me.  Nobody moved a whisker.

            He was as round as a butterball, wrapped up in a fuzz of close grey fur.  His bushy tail was long, the hair harsh and not very thick.  He flicked it once to show how it worked.  he had a round little face, a turned-up nose and mouse ears.  Darker shading from his nose to his ears highlighted his silver cheeks.

            After we had stared at each other for so long without moving  I was beginning to wonder if we were real or dreaming, he gripped a plank with his hind feet, head down, shook hands with himself and skipped away into the thatch.

            I nipped across to the house, put some milk and cheese in the soap dish and left it on the cabin shelf, turned out the light and got into bed, too full of wonder and happiness to get any further with the Our Father.

            At half past four the next morning my mother came by lamplight to rouse us children for church.  Christmas slept in the mist.

            The first thing I thought of was the soap dish and jumped out of bed so fast my mother never got over it.  The soap dish was empty and polished.  A corner of the dish had been sampled too.

            Day came on the way to church.  Mist swam among the soft pink featherheads of the grass.  Birds yawned and fluffed and covered their eyes with their wings again.  A little duiker doe stepped carefully through the dew.  Church was nice, too, so early in the morning, with the cattle outside just waking, blowing bubbles of warm breath into the cold dawn.

            Afterwards, we spent the rest of the morning squealing over our presents.  The dogs and cats got theirs, all edible except for new collars for the Sealyhams.

            We all ate stick-jaw toffee to keep our strength up.  It gummed the cats’ whiskers together but they asked for more.  The Sealyhams loved it.  Slasher didn’t but wasn’t going to be left out of anything and carried his piece around for ages between his left canine teeth, very careful not to get his lips on it, until he thought no one was looking.  Then he shoved it under a corner of the carpet and came back licking his lips and saying how delicious it was.

            Only one person had to wait for Christmas until all the house was quiet and dark and everyone asleep.  Then I filled the soap dish with piles of titbits I had saved during the day and put it up on the shelf for the dormouse. 

            In the thick of the night I woke and lay wondering why.  Slasher was asleep, snoring his way through some jerky dream.

            There came a soft, rude noise, followed by a sound like someone slapping about with a very small facecloth.  I moved my hand slowly to my new Christmas torch and shone it onto the shelf above the washstand.

            The little dormouse was sitting in the empty soap dish washing his face.  His stomach was so full the bulge of it lay on his toes.  Slasher woke up as surprised as if he saw his dream come true and I whispered to him to be still.

            The dormouse finished washing, patted his stomach and scratched his bottom, gave the soap dish a long, sad look, flicked his tail and waddled off.

            Later in the night Slasher woke with a terrible stomach ache.  I took him onto my bed and massaged him.  He groaned and rolled his eyes and looked awful.  I had been very careful to take all the turkey bones out of his celebrations but I grew afraid and ran to the house to call my mother.  She helped me give him a dose of milk of magnesia, then she tied a hot water bottle on his stomach with a towel.  Slasher didn’t mind how funny he looked.  He was much comforted and drooled his thanks.

            I had a look at the Sealyhams and they were all right.  The cats were out somewhere, living it up on their own.  The night had turned cold.  Slasher and I got under the blanket and he was soon asleep.

            I lay for a while hoping the dormouse wasn’t in the same trouble.  The last I saw of him his stomach looked full to bursting, his cheek pouches bulging out past his shoulders as he waddled fatly up the wall planks.

            I made a note to get a wee doll’s hot water bottle, just in case we may need it sometime.  The first bird was yawning as I fell asleep.

*****