Here’s a story that I wrote in high school and which won a writing contest. It may also soon be made into a non-major motion picture. I hope you enjoy it. Merry Christmas!
The story you are about to read is true.
The name has been withheld to protect the juvenile delinquent.
Our story begins a few weeks before Christmas in a suburban mobile home. Our young kindergarten delinquent was up and about, while his family was ‘nestled all snug in their beds’. If we were to enter the criminal’s mind at this point, we would find he was torn between his parents’ trust in his honesty, and his burning desire to know what was inside his presents. They had been pleading with him from under the Christmas tree for nearly a week! He couldn’t stand it any more. “I’ll regret it, if anyone finds out. But if I hide it well… I can use tape to make it look unopened…”
“Ah, what the heck, just this one.” After having handled, shook, eyed, pryed, smelled, and yes even licked his presents, he still could not figure out what was in any of them. But this one really bugged him. Just one little rrrip! He looked around nervously. No noise. Nothing. “Whew.”
He looked inside, nothing but black. “All right,” he thought, “I’ll make another tear in the other side and hold it up to the light to see through.’’ That didn’t work either. Whatever it was blocked all the light and he couldn’t see anything! He made the rips slightly longer, but still blackness. He ripped again, crosswise, and pulled back the flap to reveal a transforming Go-Bot watch. “Wow!” he thought, “Just what I wanted!” *
He went and got the tape to fix it. As he tried to pull the paper together, however, it tore again. Luckily, it was still attached by, oh, at least a centimeter. He put a piece of tape to hold it. Then another, and another. None went on straight and soon the present was nearly laminated in scotch tape. “Uh oh,” he thought, “they’ll know for sure. I can’t open the rest, but I have to.” Then a sudden brilliant idea hit him. He could practice on the gifts he was giving his family. They’d never know he hadn’t intended it to be that way! He grabbed one and carefully made a small tear…
After coating nearly all of his family’s presents, and using 3/4 of a roll of tape, he began with the rest of his packages. He found he had a small Transformer.™ He also had a Star Wars action figure; he loved Star Wars. He had a stunt motorcycle powered by a friction motor, and many other things, but his favorite were to be these four.
As he rewrapped them, he realized his roll of tape was low. He didn’t want to use a whole roll, for fear of detection, but he couldn’t spare any tape now. He used the rest of the roll and some of another. He was going to throw the roll away outside in the garbage can, to escape detection, but it was so cold outside. He just threw it away in the kitchen. Which proved a mistake. “No one will know,” he thought smugly as he viewed his handiwork.
“Mom! Dad! Can we open our stockings?” the impatient Kindergartner pleaded.
“Can’t you wait till we get up?” she said tiredly.
“Oh Mom,” then reading the look on her face he added, “alright, (sigh) but hurry up!”
He ran out to the living room to wait for his parents to come. He couldn’t figure out what was in his stocking, it looked like a jar and a tree branch. He didn’t know what it could be. What kind of a present would be in a jar? He almost looked but he heard a door open. His mother and father walked out, confidently, almost smugly. Everyone got down their stocking. “What do you have son?”
“Well,” he paused, “a jar with some water, a stick, a piece of paper with writing on it, and a black rock.”
“Let’s see. It’s a letter from Santa.
Season’s Greetings,
I know that you opened every present under the tree. I have to tell you how naughty that was of you. That is why you only got a snowball, spank-stick, and lump of coal. I put the snowball in the jar so it wouldn’t melt and make a mess on the floor. Please discuss this with your parents.
Signed, Santa”
Mom read out loud. “Now, throw that snowball outside before it leaks.”
They later had a long talk about patience, obedience, honesty, etc. etc., and I’ve never done it again. I mean he’s never done it again!
* He later ended up dropping it in the toilet so the watch no longer worked, but he still has it to this day.
Raven 