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on Christmas Eve and she was willing to bet that most other kids couldn’t
either. She kept her eyes on her Barbie clock, the numbers reading
11:49. The minutes seemed to pass slower and slower the closer it got
to midnight, the official start time of Christmas.
But finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the clock read
midnight. It was Christmas!
Hailey sat up in her bed, daring herself to sneak into the living
room and look under the tree. See if Santa had come yet. If not, maybe
she could hide behind the sofa and see him when he did.
Just as she got the nerve to leave her room, she heard something
in the living room. Curiously, she snuck down the hall and peered around
the corner of the wall once reaching the end. Something, or someone,
was coming down the chimney, and what she saw when the intruder’s
foot reached the pit was not a shiny black boot, but a dust covered brown
one.
“Daddy!” she said, only a loud whisper so as not to wake her
mother, as a dust covered soldier crawled out of the large fireplace. She
hadn’t seen his face yet, but she didn’t need to.
“Hi, Hailey,” he said, turning with open arms to catch her as she
ran toward him.
“How did you get here?” she asked, hugging him like she had
never hugged him before.
“That doesn’t matter,” he said. “All that matters is that I’m here.
I promised you that you’d see me on Christmas again.”
“Can you stay? You don’t have to go back do you?”
“I can stay until you go to sleep, honey. But I do have to go back.”
“Then I’ll never sleep again,” she said, enjoying the warmth of his
arms, looking up at him with admiring eyes. “I’ll stay awake for the rest
of my life if it will keep you here.”
“Ok,” he said, smiling. “You stay awake as long as you can. I’ll
help. I bet your mom has some Coca Cola in the fridge. Let’s get some.”
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