♫On the tenth day of Bookmas, the book blogger gave to me, a Christmas short story, a year overview, a review for the reading, a bit of Hide & Seek, some festive reads, a post about films, reading recipes, comic book thoughts, a list of writing tips and a book rec for a mystery♫
It is so close to Christmas now, I can really feel it! I hope you are all getting into the Christmas spirit and eating lots of delicious food, singing carols and getting excited for presents! Today I have a little present for you guys. This is actually the first time I've ever done this, so I'm a little nervous!
What I am giving you today is a fully completed Christmas-themed short story written by me. Yep, and entire 3,500 word short story filled with cutesy Christmas feels, unlucky characters and hilarity. I have been working on this since I started planning Bookmas, and I'm so so so excited to share it with you. The story is about possibly one of the worst scenarios you can get yourself into at Christmas: getting locked in a shopping centre bathroom.
Without further ado, here is the story! I really hope you all enjoy it :)
Perhaps if I hadn’t decided
that last minute Christmas shopping was a fantastic idea, I wouldn’t be in this
mess. Perhaps if I hadn’t spent weeks putting it off and off. Perhaps if I
hadn’t been playing Angry Birds on my phone for hours whilst I waited in the
catastrophic pre-Christmas lines. Or perhaps if all my professors had laid off
the homework in the last week before Christmas break, too. If I’d had more
time.
But there’s really no use
complaining now. Especially considering I’m trapped in a shopping centre toilet
stall on Christmas Eve, when I should be at home with my family. I wonder where
they think I am. Do they think I’d blow off family dinner? I hope not.
There’s going to be no nice
way to recount this story. It’s the type of story they’ll either die laughing
over or die crying over. When you get yourself into a situation like this,
there’s really no living it down.
And it began earlier yesterday,
when I realized it was almost Christmas Eve,
and I’d bought neither presents nor the groceries required to make the dish I’d
said I would for family dinner. It’s not completely out of character for me to
be this unorganized, let me tell you. Let anyone tell you. But, it being my
first Christmas after having moved out of home and into a dingy little studio
apartment close to my university, I figured my family would cut me some slack.
The plan was to hit the shops
ASAP, and be home with time to spare to whip up a delicious potato salad. I was
going to conquer Christmas shopping this year. Today was going to be combat
shopping — not for the faint of heart.
But this, of course, never
came about. After a long sleep in and a few hours of trying (and failing…
multiple times) to make French toast as a special Christmas Eve breakfast, it
was suddenly the afternoon. What can I say, I never was very good at time
management. And then, once I finally realized the time and raced out of my
apartment, my Great Aunt Hilda, a notorious talker with a penchant for tall
tales, decided it was time for our yearly Christmas phone call.
And lo and behold, it wasn’t
until late afternoon before I made it even into the shopping centre. Which I
suppose began the start of the calamitous afternoon I’d had.
Now, as I sit in a toilet
stall, bags of gifts around me, it pains me to think of where I should be. And
how my own stupidity got me here.
I’d rushed into the bathroom
just as the centre was closing (you’d think most shopping centres would be open
late on Christmas Eve. Nope, not ours. Typical). The security guards had just
done their sweep of the bathrooms, and one who took pity on me let me in and
said, “Be quick.”
But the security guards never
came back. Well, they never heard my cries for help, at least. Because the
stall I entered, bundling in with all my various shopping bags, just so happened
to be the stall that jammed. Jammed beyond the point of my brute force.
I remember the feeling of the
panic setting in, as I threw my body weight against the door and it still
wouldn’t budge. I screamed and screamed before I realized — my phone. Of
course. I called my mum first, because I thought I better explain why I wasn’t
at family dinner. No answer. Typical. I’m stranded in a closed shopping centre
toilet, and my mother still cannot answer her phone.
I go to call the emergency
services, wondering if they even work on Christmas Eve (no, but they’d have to,
right? Danger doesn’t take a break for Christmas. I think?), but my phone
blanks. Battery. I’ve never been so unfortunate on one single day in my life.
Perhaps I get some good karma for this. Perhaps this is bad karma for
everything I’ve done this year (maybe once I get out of here, I’ll apologise to
my professor for that one time I fell asleep in his lecture…).
My throat hurts from
screaming. I try to listen for noises outside the toilet. Maybe there’s a
security guard who’s doing circles around the centre, looking for burglars or
stray shoppers or Santa Claus. Maybe I’ll get lucky.
I’ve eaten through my
sister’s chocolate Christmas house I was planning to give her tonight. Not now,
I think, as I nibble one of the last bits. It doesn’t nearly fill me up. The
thought of Christmas ham and potatoes and green beans makes me feel
lightheaded. Why, oh why, do I have to be stuck here and not at Christmas
dinner?
Then, I hear a shuffling outside
the door. My heart starts racing. “Hello!” I yell. “Hey! Please help! I’m stuck
in here!”
A squeaking sound. Footsteps.
I keep yelling out.
“Who’s in there?” someone
asks. It’s at this point where I wonder whether this was the best decision.
This person could be a burglar. Or worse, a murderer. Or better, Santa Claus.
That would almost make this worth it, just for the story. But I’m more
concerned about the murderer possibility.
“Um… Hi. My name’s Noël. I’m
stuck in this stall,” I say carefully. “Who are you?”
I hear a chuckle from
outside. “What an icebreaker we’ve got here,” the voice says. I can gauge that
the person is most likely male. And youngish (hopefully). What he’s doing in a
closed shopping centre, I have no idea, but I’m pretty thankful. As long as the
aforementioned murderer thing doesn’t become a reality.
“My name’s Oliver,” the voice
says. I hear footsteps over to in front of my stall, and I can see his scuffed
Oxfords under the door.
“As lovely as it is to be
acquainted with your voice and shoes, I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind
helping me escape from this stall,” I ask.
Oliver laughs. “That should
be fine. But you owe me the story behind how you got here once we free you,” he
replies.
I roll my eyes. “Sure. Just
pull on the door. I’m going to push against it. On three… two… one!” I push
against the door with all my might, and I can feel it give a little.
“Hey, Noël?” Oliver says
through the door. “Why didn’t you use your mobile phone to call for help?
Surely you have one.”
I push hard against the door.
“It died, unbelievably enough. Fun fact about me: I am the unluckiest person
alive.”
“It seems so. This door really
is stuck,” Oliver mutters, breathing heavily. “How does a door even get this
jammed?”
“Honestly?” I huff, getting
ready to push again. “I have no idea. Could only happen to me. Are you ready to
go again? Three… two… one!”
After a few more minutes of
intensive door unjamming, the door flies open, sending me tumbling out the
front of the stall and into Oliver.
“We did it!” I exclaim,
stepping away from him and doing a little victory dance. “I’m freed!”
Oliver chuckles. I retrieve
my shopping bags. “How long were you in there?” he asks, looking into the stall
that was previously my almost-death chamber.
“A few hours. What time is
it?” I reply, washing my hands vigorously. I had previously taken for granted
just how nice freedom is.
Oliver gapes. Only now do I
actually take in his appearance. He’s tallish, with a mess of dark brown hair
that looks like it needs a haircut, and he looks no more than a little older
than me. His eyes are wide and brown, full of mischief. But I feel like I knew
that from his voice. He wears nice clothes, clothes that look like they might
have been expensive, but there’s something off about him that I just can’t put
my finger on.
“It’s almost midnight! How
did you survive in there for that long?” he asks incredulously.
I smile and hold up my
shopping bags. “Thankfully I had some presents to eat.”
He grins. “You’re like the
Bear Grylls of shopping. Let’s get out of here. I think we’ve both spent too
much time in the ladies’ restroom for one day,” he says, grabbing some of the
shopping bags from me and holding the bathroom door open.
Freedom
is beautiful, I think, as I skip around the centre, twirling and giggling. The
shopping centre looks so empty and dark. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen
before.
And then I realise — I’m
stranded in a closed shopping centre on Christmas Eve with a strange boy I’ve
only just met. Just like most things in my life, there is nothing normal about
this situation. I wonder what my family are doing right now. They’d have
finished dinner, and the kids would be asleep on the couches. Wrapping paper
would be strewn all over the floor, and the adults would pass around eggnog and
laugh at old stories.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Oliver
asks, dropping my shopping bags at the base of the nearby fountain. If it were
opening hours, the fountain would be bubbling, but it’s not. It’s asleep, and
we should be, too.
“Nothing. I need to — I need
to go,” I say, grabbing my bags and heading for the entrance. “Thank you for
your help!” I call over my shoulder.
Oliver sits lazily on the
edge of the fountain. “I don’t think you’ll be very successful in leaving the
centre right now,” he yells after me.
The murderer thing pops back
into my head. I try to flick it away. I turn back to him, but I don’t’ walk
towards him. “Why?”
“The shopping centre’s closed,
Noël,” he says. “The doors all lock.”
I let out a sigh, and tears
start to well in my eyes. “So I’m stuck in here on Christmas Eve,” I say
quietly. My words bounce around the empty centre.
I slowly walk back over to
the fountain, and I sit next to Oliver. “There are worse nights to be stuck
here,” he replies. “At least during Christmas there’s nice little decorations
and stuff.” I wonder why he’s been stuck in a shopping centre before. I wonder
why he’s stuck in one now.
“Why are you here, Oliver?
Where are you supposed to be?” I say, dipping my hand into the fountain. I pull
out a coin from the floor and flip it in my hands.
“What do you mean, where am I
supposed to be?” Oliver says. “I’m here right now. That’s clearly where I’m
supposed to be.”
“Well, I’m meant to be with
my family. Having Christmas dinner. Surely you’re meant to be somewhere. And
how did you get stuck in here in the first place?” I ask.
Olive fiddles with a loose
thread on his shirt. “Let’s play a game,” he says. I stare at him. “I get to
ask you a question, and if you answer it, you get to ask me one. If you
forfeit, I keep asking questions until you answer one. And then we swap.”
I nod slowly. “Okay then.”
“I’ll start easy. How old are
you?” he asks.
“Eighteen. And you?”
He smiles. “Nineteen. My turn
again. Why were you shopping right before your family dinner?”
I scoff. “Because I’m not
very good with time management. Are you a murderer?”
This time, he actually
laughs. Laughs at me. I would feel embarrassed, but can he really blame me for
asking? Then again, if he were a murderer, would he actually tell me? Now I’m
regretting asking.
“Yes, Noël. I am. However,
it’s Christmas so I’m taking a break from my normal murder schedule. Evil’s
gotta celebrate the birth of Christ too, you know,” he says, amused. “Why do
you think I might be a murderer?”
I shrug. “Because you’re in a
closed shopping centre helping young girls escape from jammed bathroom stalls.
Now, why are you in a closed shopping centre?” I ask. I’m still not convinced
that he’s not a murderer. I am not an expert in teenage boys, but I would
imagine that most of them would be required to, if not wanting to, spend
Christmas with their families.
“Ahhh, now there’s a question
I’d like to forfeit. But considering you think I’m a murderer I should probably
fill in that blank for you,” he says, pausing. I wonder what would make him end
up here, of all places. “Well, Christmas in my family isn’t your normal, happy-family,
let’s-sit-around-the-hearth-and-laugh-at-good-old-times Christmas. Lots of
yelling. Throwing things. And you could say that my parents aren’t especially
fond of me.”
I suddenly feel incredibly
sympathetic for this boy, who is hiding in a shopping centre on Christmas to
avoid his family. It’s kind of devastating. “I’m sorry, Oliver,” I say, but it
doesn’t come close to expressing how I feel. I now understand why his outfit
looked a little off. He’s clearly been wearing it for a few days.
He shakes his head. “Don’t
be. I’ve come here to hide out a lot over the years. It’s not that hard to
sneak into here. And it’s quite peaceful. I’m surprised more runaways don’t
crash here.”
There’s a pause. It’s funny
that we’ve known each other for only half an hour, but we’re both stuck here,
on one of the biggest holidays of the year, alone, and so we’ve forged an odd
bond. Also, there’s the fact he saved me from death in a toilet stall. Always a
good trust building exercise.
“Okay, my turn. What would
you be doing right now, if you hadn’t been locked in a toilet stall?” he asks.
I think for a minute. “Well,
it’s almost midnight, so most of my extended family would be leaving. My
aunties and cousins and such. My parents and grandparents and I would probably
stay up watching Home Alone or
something, and my siblings would go to bed. I’d make tea and eggnog and we’d
stay up and laugh and set up presents for the next day,” I say. The whole thing
makes my chest ache. “This is the first Christmas I will have missed.”
“Don’t you think your parents
would have called the police or gone looking for you or something?” Oliver
asks.
I smile. “Not your turn,
Oliver. But yeah, I think they might’ve. They wouldn’t think to check here,” I
sigh. “Anyways. My turn. Do you know anywhere I can get food in here?”
In response, Oliver grins
cheekily and stands up. He holds out his hand. “I’m so glad you asked that,” he
says. “Come with me, Noël.”
I slowly raise my hand to
his, and he leads me through the empty, echoing corridors. Christmas lights
glitter from where they hang on the ceiling. It’s a bit spooky, but it’s also
strangely beautiful.
“Where are you taking me? I seriously
hope you aren’t going to murder me,” I say.
“Nope, no murder tonight.
Just dinner,” he replies. Then, we stop abruptly. “Welcome to my personal
restaurant.”
He gestures to a wall full of
vending machines. I’ve never been down this end of the shopping centre before,
with all the children’s play areas and fitness clubs. Seems strange to put the
vending machines here, but I’ll take any food at the moment.
“What do you normally have
for Christmas dinner, Noël?” he says. I like the way he says my name. Maybe
it’s Christmas looming, but it seems more magical. Noël. Like it is its own little carol.
I smile. “Ham, and turkey.
Roast beef. The best potatoes in the world,” I reply.
He pulls out loose coins from
his pocket. “Potatoes, that I can do,” he says, sliding a coin into one of the
machines and punching the numbers in. Out comes a few packs of potato chips.
“And perhaps some dessert?”
He turns to the next machine
and retrieves some chocolate bars. “I’d say we’ve got a Christmas Eve dinner
fit for royalty.” He grins, bundling up the food in his long arms. I keep
thinking he’s going to drop something, but he doesn’t.
“And I know exactly where to
eat it.”
Oliver leads me across the
entire centre and up several flights of stairs, but it’s worth it when we
arrive. We’re on the roof, a little balcony lookout that belongs to the rooftop
café (turns out cafés aren’t that hard to break into when closed. Oliver even
nicks a few muffins from the windows). And the view of the city is incredible.
Not only are the glowing lights an art form in their own right, but accompanied
by the rainbow assortment of Christmas lights glittering all over, it’s
positively enchanting. It takes my breath away.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Oliver
says, passing me some chips. “I come up here sometimes, when I want to be
alone. But it’s quite incredible during Christmastime.”
“Alone?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I’m not normally
with anyone. You’re the first — the first person I’ve ever really hung out with
here, after hours.”
I smile. I can see him
watching me out of the corner of my eye, but I can’t move my gaze from the
lights. “Then I suppose it isn’t all bad that I’m stuck here, then.”
I finally look back to him,
and he’s smiling, too. His face is lit softly by all the shining lights. We’re silent
for a while as we eat and watch the silent city. It’s true, strangely enough,
what they say about the night before Christmas. It’s quieter than I’ve ever
seen it. Very few cars, no people wandering the streets. It’s incredibly
peaceful.
“It’s after midnight, Noël,”
he whispers. We’re really quite close now, and I move closer to hear him well.
“Merry Christmas.”
I lean my head against his
shoulder. “Merry Christmas, Oliver.”
And with the quietness of the
world, and Oliver as my pillow, I fall asleep.
***
“Noël! Noël! Wake up!” I
hear. As I slowly open my eyes, I can see Oliver gently shoving me awake.
I groan. “What? What is it?”
I murmur.
Oliver pulls me up. Discarded
chip bags fly around the balcony with the wind. “I just thought of something!
We’re going to get you out of here. Your Christmas is not yet ruined!”
I rub my eyes as Oliver leads
me off the balcony and back through the centre. “Oliver! What is it? How are we
getting out?”
He grins. “The payphone! I
only just thought about it. If they don’t bother switching off the vending
machines, perhaps they don’t bother switching the payphone off, either!”
I’m suddenly very awake.
“You’re a genius! I’m going to get home for Christmas!”
Oliver laughs. “Yes, you
are!”
We practically skip the rest
of the way there, back past the fountain and my discarded shopping bags, and
past the bathroom I was stuck in hours earlier.
Oliver jams some of his leftover
coins into the phone and I punch in my parent’s home number. It rings three
times before my mum answers. “Hello?” I hear her ask. She sounds tired.
“Mum! It’s me,” I say. “It’s
Noël.”
I can hear her start to cry
through the phone. “Noël, we thought you’d gone missing. Where are you? Are you
okay?”
I smile, tears starting to
trail down my cheeks. “I’m fine. You’re going to laugh so hard when I tell you
where I’ve been. But for now, I’m stuck in the shopping centre. It’s completely
locked up and I’m here with —” I stop, noticing Oliver’s wide-eyed expression
and vigorous head-shaking. “Never mind. Can you call someone to help me?”
My mother exhales with
relief. “Of course. I’ll get right on —” the phone cuts out. Once again,
typical.
“It’s over,” I sigh, smiling.
I notice Oliver watching me, with an odd expression. “What are you going to
do?”
He shrugs. “Probably stay
here. The centre’s closed tomorrow as well, so I’ll have free reign all day.”
I frown. “I can’t let you
stay here during Christmas alone. Or any time of the year, really,” I say.
He shakes his head. “Don’t
worry about me, I’ve got my vending machines and turned-off fountains to keep
me company,” he says with a half-hearted grin. “You’ve got to go home with your
family.”
My face falls. I grab his
hand. “Come home with us. There’ll be left over dinner and you can stay in the
spare room,” I say forcefully.
He gives me a pained
expression. “I really can’t do that, Noël. I’m not a Christmas-crasher,” he
says softly.
“I’m inviting you. Please. You have to meet my family,” I gush. I know
that I positively cannot leave this boy here. “Listen. You rescued me from
dying in a toilet alone on Christmas Eve. Now I’m going to rescue you from
dying in a shopping centre alone on Christmas Day.”
He smiles. “You are my
Christmas miracle, Noël,” he says.
And so we sit on the fountain
talking about everything and nothing as we wait for our rescue crew. And I keep
thinking that although I was locked in a toilet panicking for a good portion of
my Christmas Eve, although I missed Christmas dinner, although I haven’t ever
had to eat vending machine food for a Christmas feast before, this might just
have been the most magical Christmas I will ever have. Maybe I’m not so
unlucky, after all.
Thanks for reading my story! I hope you loved it and that it filled you with some Christmas cheer <3. Let me know what you thought down in the comments below or via any of my socials. If you would like to contact me for business, feedback or to chat, my email (mywordsarearrows@gmail.com) is always open :)
Merry Christmas everyone, and I will see you back here soon with my Christmas Eve post!
Lily xo
