Hush, It’s Christmas Read online

  “Soy!” The strange being picks Soy up and pets her fur.

  “I have you back, my darling!”

  Soy’s Mommy came back from India earlier than planned. Arriving late in the night like this made her feel uncomfortable. Her spare key is hanging in our hallway. She forgot her main key in India, so she rang the doorbell. When nobody heard the doorbell, she walked around the house – directly into our trap.

  No Christ Child, what a pity.

  Daddy brings Soy and her Mommy home. Before they leave, Soy tells me bye-bye and then she is gone.

  I lay down on my blanket. How quiet it suddenly is. It’s so quiet that I can’t sleep. I toss to the right and back to the left. On my back, then on my belly. I just can’t sleep.

  My blanket smells like Soy, but the more I smell it, the more her smell fades away. Now my heart has a funny, aching twinge. Am I having a heart attack?

  “Go to sleep,” I tell myself. Good thing the cat is gone.

  But I just can’t sleep. With an aching heart, I lay on my blanket and stare into the air until dawn.

  December 22nd

  Just in the nick of time everything is finished.

  Just like every year! Well, then, “Merry Christmas!” Or not?

  Mommy runs through the house, Daddy runs out and back into the house again, and the children run into rooms they aren’t allowed to go into. One is screaming and one is crying, like every year on Christmas Eve. I am laying all cozy on my blanket and thinking about Soy’s belly exercises. I will never have to do them again, although I have become more athletic in the last few days. I am not coughing and breathing as heavy as I did before when I walked up the stairs.

  Coughing and breathing… That kinda rhymes like the funny ryhmes we did together. Thinking about these last few weeks, I realize Soy and I experienced many fun things together.

  My heart starts hurting again.

  Daddy lights up the candles. Mommy puts the many colorful packages (that she had to rewrap) underneath the Christmas tree, while giving me a dirty look.

  Then Tina and Tommi are allowed to come into the room. They have to play Christmas carols on their flutes, and they only do so because they’ll get to unwrap the colorful packages afterwards.

  But today they don’t have time to unwrap the packages because they are barely done playing their flutes - more squeaky sounding, than pretty, as every year – when the doorbell rings. Who can it be on Christmas Eve?

  Daddy goes to see who it is and comes back with Soy’s Mommy! My heart starts to do a happy dance. Did Soy come, too?

  No, she didn’t.

  “Merry Christmas!” Mommy and Daddy say merrily.

  Soy’s Mommy looks at them dumbfounded and says, “Christmas Eve is the day after tomorrow.”

  Now Mommy and Daddy look dumbfounded.

  “I just came to get Soy’s milk saucer. I forgot it last night.”

  “Yes, but our calendar…” Mommy points to the calendar. Clearly, it says December 24th. Strange.

  Soy’s Mommy leaves and my humans sit sheepishly around the Christmas tree.

  Daddy blows out the candles. Mommy turns off the oven. Tina and Tommi sit there with long faces. Me? I hide underneath the couch. Soy’s rag mouse is still there and something else is there. Two little square pieces of paper. There are numbers on them. “December 22” I read on the first, and “December 23” it says on the second piece of paper. These must have fallen off the calendar the day Soy jumped around like a Jack-in-the-box. I push my nose into Soy’s rag mouse so I don’t laugh out loud.

  December 23rd

  Finally, Bruno has the perfect gift for Soy. But how shall he bring it to her? He doesn’t even know where she lives!

  It looks like he’ll have to be very athletic one more time.

  Mommy is cleaning and she makes a pile of things that she is throwing away. On the pile is a glass case with a butterfly in it. Its wings are velvety red, purple and dark blue. Mommy really wants to throw this beautiful butterfly away? Out of the question! It’s the perfect gift for Soy!

  But I don’t know where Soy lives. So, how am I going to give it to her? Wait, didn’t she say that she can see the TV tower from her balcony? Without wasting any time, I stuff the butterfly into a white bag with red handles and matching red hearts on it (a bag that Mommy also put on her pile to throw away), and get moving.

  I discover the TV tower is pretty high. It’s so high that you can see it from almost half of the city’s apartments that have balconies. I sniff to all sides. There are many apartment buildings here and the smell of many kitties, but none of the smells smell like Soy. So, in which kitty apartment does Soy live?

  I hear music from one of the balconies that sounds very familiar. I heard this kind of music before. It was the evening that Soy almost ran into a car. The music came from the Indian restaurant on the other side of the freeway. Today the music comes from a balcony on the fifth floor.

  Now what? How do I get up there?

  I see a fire ladder. The ladder leads up the apartment wall in front of the balconies. I have to think of Mommy’s favorite film, in which the handsome movie star climbs up the ladder with a rose between his teeth. Mommy cries at this part of the film. I could cry right now as well.

  I get dizzy on the first steps of the ladder. “Just don’t look down,” I tell myself. “For that matter, don’t look up either!”

  With the red handles clamped between my teeth, I work myself up the ladder, step by step.

  I made it to the first floor. I need to take a breather. I only hope I am at the right apartment building here. On the second floor, a lady with curlers in her hair screams so loud I almost fall off the ladder. She gave me such a scare! I hurry on.

  I suddenly hear a familiar voice above me, “Well, look who’s here!”

  I look up and smile at Soy. Soy smiles back. Elegantly, just like the movie star from Mommy’s film, I take the next step… but I miss it, and fall.

  The last thing I hear is the glass of a perfect gift shattering into a thousand pieces.

  “Brunoooooooo!” I hear Soy’s voice from far away.

  December 24th

  Finally, Christmas! Everyone is relieved, even though Bruno cannot breathe underneath his bandages.

  The perfect gift has also been delivered. The only question left is, “What does the Christ Child look like?”

  Poor Bruno. His entire body is wrapped up in bandages. His hind leg is in a cast. Only his eyes and mouth peek out of the bandages. And on Christmas Eve!

  “Don’t laugh. It’s only because of the perfect gift!” he says. “Where is it, by the way?”

  “Over there,” I tell him and point to the wall. Mommy hung it over my basket. The glass case didn’t survive the fall, but the butterfly still looks very pretty.

  “Humans say when a butterfly flaps its wings on the other side of the world, then something will happen here at our side, because everything is connected with everything,” Bruno tells me.

  It sounds nice. So nice, that I can’t say anything for a long time.

  Bruno grins, “By the way, India is on the other side of the world, not on the other side of the freeway.”

  “No, not on the other side of the freeway,” I agree with him. “Thank you for saving me that evening,” I add. Then I softly say, “If my Mommy hadn’t flown to India, we would never have gotten to know each other.”

  Bruno nods. All of a sudden my heart starts to pound.

  “Then the butterfly is the symbol of our friendship!” I say.

  Bruno raises an eyebrow. He looks like a movie star. “I could’ve given you a muzzle or a claw trimmer…”

  “Hush!” I giggle. “I have something for you, too.”

  “Well, you better have. My accident had better have been worth the trouble,” he says indignantly.

  “A mirror,” Bruno concludes as I hold the little pink pocket mirror in front of his nose. “And now?”

  “What do you see?” I ask curiousl
y.

  “A mummy,” Bruno says dryly.

  “Nonsense. The nicest dog in the whole wide world!” I say. “And the best friend that anyone could ever ask for.”

  Bruno coughs and only says, “Hm.”

  My Mommy comes radiantly into the room. “We will all celebrate Christmas with Bruno!”

  Later in the car, I tap Bruno from the side and ask, “You want to know why the Christ Child is a cat?”

  “Hush!” Bruno says. “It’s Christmas now!”

  Then he acts like he is snapping at me, but there is a quiver around his lips. Laughing, I cuddle up to him.

  MERRY CHRISTMAS!

  About the Author

  Karen Christine Angermayer is a German author, speaker and coach for writers. She has written und published more than 22 books that are international bestsellers, including „Writing The Sexy Way: 33 Quickies to make readers read you and customers need you“.

  She is also the founder, CEO and publisher of the sorriso publishing house. sorriso is the Italian word for „smile“.

  Karen Christine is living with her family near Frankfurt, and at Lake Constance, Germany, and stays as often as possible at the Ocean in Santa Monica, California.

  She loves working internationally, telling stories that transform other peoples lives, and helping authors, trainers and speakers from all over the world to tell their own inspirational and power-full stories.

  For more information, all sorriso products and services, and for connecting with the author please visit:

  www.sorriso-verlag.com

  Special thanks to:

  My love Pino who inspired me to create the English version of this book, and who inspires me every day.

  Sandy Nottingham-Müller who translated the German edition with enthusiasm and in lightning-speed.

  Tina and Neil Thrussell for being great friends and fabulous finetuners.

  Catherine Saykaly-Stevens, Teresa de Grosbois, Stephen Hobbs and all my friends of the Evolutionary Business Council who have helped me in so many ways to bring Soy and Bruno into your home.

  Thank you all for being my tribe. I feel honored to be part of yours.