Page 2 of A Little Merry

I slowly spun and spun, whispering my wish over and over again, not willing to give up. Not willing to stop until I dropped from complete dizziness.

Then it happened.

I felt a cool snowflake melt on my tongue.

The sensation caused me to pop open my eyes and stop spinning. I saw hundreds of snowflakes as they fell from the heavens, and as I finally looked around the square, I hoped that I’d see my beloved or my new best friend walking towardsme, but aside from the spinning world around me, everything seemed to be the same.

I was alone, standing in the center of the town square in my lovely new town while snow stuck to the ground, turning everything into a winter wonderland.

When I gazed up at the silver twinkling star shining on top of the tallest tree, it seemed brighter and kept getting brighter, until the star exploded, and all the twinkling lights went out.

It scared me.

I yelped and because of my dizziness, when I tried to run away from the exploding star, I ran right into someone or something, and I went down, hard.

Suddenly, all I could see were dancing sugarplums floating all around me.

“Are you okay?” the voice said several times. It sounded like it was coming from inside a long train tunnel. I couldn’t tell whether it was a man’s voice or a woman’s. Either way, I knew I had to answer, but I was busy watching those sugarplums dancing in my head, so I merely nodded.

Or I thought I did.

“Are you okay, my darling? Open your sweet eyes and let me know, or I’m calling the local doc to come check on you. She won’t like having to get out here in the middle of a snowy night if there’s nothing wrong with you.”

I knew I couldn’t allow that to happen. It wouldn’t be the way to make friends with the local doctor if she were angry with me.

“No. No. I’m fine,” I finally managed to tell the voice. “I’m great. It’s a big, fat, happy sunshine day for me,” I told her, quoting Luke Danes.

All I wanted to do was quote Gilmore Girls, like I was part of the show.

What the hell?

I finally opened my eyes and stared up at an older woman with curly red hair that surrounded her smiling face like a wreath. She had stardust in her hair that kept falling on me, or was it the snow? I couldn’t tell.

“Can you sit up, darling?” she asked, her voice sounding way too high-pitched for a grown woman.

“I think so,” I said and proceeded to do just that without any problem. “I ran into something when the lights went out.”

“That was me, and the lights are back on now. Just an itsy-bitsy glitch of some kind. It happens sometimes. I think there must’ve been a short in that star on top of the tree. I told them not to use it, but does anybody ever listen to me? Noooo. They think they know better than me, which is impossible, but that’s a story for another book.”

I continued to gaze at this curious woman who had appeared out of nowhere.

Sure enough, the twinkling lights were back on, even the star seemed okay—a little crooked but still intact.

I stared at her for a moment longer and realized she wore earrings that looked like old-fashioned Christmas tree lights. They lit up, and she wore a matching necklace that did the same. Her coat was bright green, and I saw red and white stripes on her turtleneck sweater. Her gloves were the same color red as her lipstick and her ridiculous red knit hat with the pure-white fuzzy ball stuck on top. She seemed to love Christmas as much as I did. I wanted to ask her where she bought her earrings and necklace and those gloves, but I knew this wasn’t the time for shopping advice.

“Who are you?” I asked, wanting to know the name of the person who had rescued me.

“Noelle Kringle. I live in your building.”

“You do?”

“I most certainly do. Now, let’s get you back home where you can have some hot cocoa and get warm. You’re cold as a snowball in an ice storm.”

“But I don’t have any cocoa.”

“No worries. I’ve got plenty. And marshmallows. Do you like marshmallows in your cocoa, or are you a candy cane fan?”

I hadn’t really thought about it until that moment.

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