It is with pleasure that we post our third place winner in Writing It Real’s 2008 No-Contest Contest. Nicki narrates a Christmas morning in a way that goes beyond Christmas memories. She does a fine job of helping us see life through the eyes of an eight-year-old girl with two brothers. Her use of setting in the house of her childhood, details about her tomboy behavior and her parents desires to keep her safe, and explanation about the beginnings of thinking that lasts a lifetime combine to keep us involved in her story and remembering our own childhood and budding feelings of independence. Nicki has made good use of particulars and her entwining of her television heroes into her thought process and decision making reminds us of how seriously we modeled our behavior after the characters we admired, of how much our fantasy lives were part of our daily lives. –Sheila

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The Blue Hornet
By Nicki Jack

I watched the first light of Christmas morning peer through my windows as I lay in the four-poster bed in the attic of our old, stucco-covered farmhouse. I touched the cold, hardwood floor with my bare feet, covering them quickly in my favorite kitty-cat slippers as I looked down on our winter orchard. Low, angled branches were still visible in the towering drifts of snow at their bases. Early summer through late fall, those strong forks were my springboards to the higher limbs of the fruit trees I loved to scale, reaching up and over with my tomboy arms and wrapping my legs around one branch after another until I had climbed to the highest branch that would hold me. There I would sit… silently staring through my leafy camouflage for signs of movement below, like an ocelot waiting to surprise its prey, or in my case, my two older brothers.

Now these vintage apple trees stood alone in the early light, their bumpy limbs topped smooth in a six-inch layer of winter’s icing. They held only a small collection of brown apples that lingered from last fall’s harvest and dangled like edible Christmas ornaments for hungry winter birds or the occasional deer. Three arctic storms had already blown snow and freezing rain through this small town settled at the base of Michigan’s thumb. Yet some apples always refused to fall until spring, making me wonder if they believed they could hold on until the soft, spring grass cushioned their landings. Hope clung eternal, I decided, even in these tiny, seeded hearts. They were not alone in that, for I clung to my own hope as tenaciously as those apples clung to theirs. I was eight years old this Christmas, turning nine in February, and more than anything, I wanted a bicycle.

I deserved to get my own bike for Christmas. My brothers both had bikes, my friends all had bikes, and even some neighborhood parents had bikes. I, on the other hand, did not have a bike, so the best I could do every summer was chase after the other kids on my roller skates. This alternative transportation worked far better once my father let me use two skates at a time, realizing the folly in thinking I would somehow be safer with four spinning wheels under one foot and a rubber-soled sneaker under the other. Emergency-brake stops sent me airborne every time, and gravity brought me face-to-face with concrete or grass. Still, my constantly scabby knees had failed to challenge his “safety” logic. So I decided at age seven, on behalf of self-preservation, to use both skates when he wasn’t around to catch me.

 One afternoon, racing along the sidewalk with a pumping heart and a huge grin, I forgot about my plan entirely and lost track of the time. As my father drove home from work and into our driveway, all I could think to do was wave. “Uh oh,” I thought, “too late to take one off now.” He stepped out of the family station wagon, held me in his stare for what seemed like a very long time, then said, “Well… I guess you must be ready for two skates.” All I could do was swallow and nod. However, this single, significant moment began my lifetime of independent logic that went something like this: a 50/50 chance of not getting caught was good enough odds for me.

As I stared out the windows, I thought I remembered parts of a dream from last night. I was making my way down the stairs, although I couldn’t remember why. As I turned on the landing and looked down, my father looked up at me from the bottom of the stairs, sitting startled and wide-eyed, like a raccoon caught in the porch light. I stopped dead in my tracks on the staircase. His expression hit me like a red, city stoplight in the middle of a country road…unexpected, confusing and making it all the more commanding. He appeared to be straddling a wheel between his long legs. Then I thought someone whispered, “Go back to bed, honey. Go back to bed. It isn’t Christmas yet.”

I hurried up the stairs in dreamtime and dove under my pink and lavender, ballerina-covered comforter. (My mother had read somewhere that sleeping under ballerinas would turn me from tomboy to tutu.) My bed was still warm, and I must have been asleep in seconds, but not before I asked one small question in the dark. “Why was Daddy sitting on the stairs? He never sits there.” The oddest thing about a dream is how real it can seem, even if it’s only wishful thinking. Now the memory faded as quickly as it had come…just a dream…probably.

I had asked for a bicycle since my seventh birthday, which is a long time ago when you’re a child. But my parents still worried I wasn’t ready yet… something like the “roller-skate logic.” But I knew I was ready, more than ready for the feel of my hands gripping black, rubber-coated handlebars. I was ready for the sound of plastic streamers, snapping together in the wind while I pedaled furiously down the sidewalks that lined miles of Borden Avenue and ended at the four-way stop sign, our “finish line” for every race. Imagination fueled my hope. No more straddling a boy’s bike for me, especially with my short legs. My loyal steed awaited downstairs. I just knew it had to be there with its kickstand down in the carpet beside the lighted tree. I could feel it just as surely as the Lone Ranger always knew when Silver was near. I had just made another 50/50 decision and there was no stopping me now.

I wrapped my fuzzy robe over my pink, flannel nightgown, slipped out of my room and listened for any sounds coming from my brothers’ room…nothing. Perfect! The only sound was my father’s regular, soft snoring coming through my parents’ door at the far end of the hall. Everyone was asleep. I was about to override our family rule of “stockings first, then presents, one at a time.” I felt instantly empowered, standing there in static silence as my whiskered, two-eyed slippers kept watch.

I started down the long staircase, reminding my feet to avoid every creaky spot on the old, oak landing and 15 stairs to safety below (a maneuver Tonto would have easily managed in his soft, leather moccasins as he crept through the woods, surrounded by sleeping cavalry soldiers). I made it down the staircase and stopped where the living room carpet met the hardwood floor. The entire downstairs was filled with the sweet, heady scent of Scotch Pine. I scanned the end of the room where bay windows wrapped around our Christmas tree, its heavily decorated branches drooping over layers of brightly wrapped gifts and curly ribbons (my mother’s favorite). Three stockings with our names written in green, blue and gold rested against the French Provincial love seat. I could see the stocking suffers peeking out of their white, furry borders. But … I saw no bicycle, no loyal palomino, and no kickstand pushing deep into the soft carpet. One overwhelming feeling made my stomach drop to my feet: I was going to turn nine without my own bicycle.

A thump coming from my brothers’ room lurched my stomach up to my ears, instantly turning deep disappointment into panic at the prospect of getting caught. If I had gotten a bike, I could have ridden it out the front door and down the steps to the sidewalk, being miles away before my brothers woke my parents. Then again, if I had gotten a bike, I could have bribed my brothers with a morning ride along shoveled sidewalks, just to keep them quiet. But I hadn’t gotten a bike, and now my 50/50 logic wasn’t looking so good. All I could think to do was ESCAPE, but it was too late to make it back to my bedroom. I was either out the front door in my jammies or down to the basement in my jammies. The basement wasn’t 30 degrees with three feet of snow so I made a dash for it, just as I heard my brothers scrambling down the stairs. I flew across the floor, passed the knotty-pine kitchen and was scaling the basement steps before you could say ” Hi-oh, Silver, away!”

Then something at the bottom of the stairs stopped me. It was the color of deep, iridescent blue paint reflecting the light from our basement window. A heavy kickstand dug into the dirt floor, supporting this miracle that stood waiting for me. There could be no mistake. This was a girl’s bicycle…my bicycle, and the finest bicycle ever made in 1958 or since. Its name was scrolled in silver letters across the sculpted front fender: “The Blue Hornet.” In those 10 seconds, I felt more loved than any little girl could ever hope to be.

I ran my fingers along its cool sides, finding the silver button as if we’d been friends for years. One quick push and the shrill sound of an angry hornet made me jump. I pushed it a second time without a flinch. I knew how my Blue Hornet got its name. This was not the honk of an ordinary bicycle horn. But this was no ordinary bicycle, either. It was the bicycle of my dreams, fueled by my imagination, right down to the blue and white plastic streamers in the grips. I cupped both hands around the huge, chrome headlight that promised warm summer nights of braids flying, all the way to the 4-way stop and back. I was relieved to see no boxy “girls’ basket” on the front; this mesmerizing beauty was designed for speed. Someone knew my heart very well. Someone had just filled it to capacity.

I never had to worry about my 50/50 logic that day. My father, one step ahead of me after my sleepwalk, had finished assembling the Blue Hornet in our basement. Using his own version of my 50/50 logic, he was 50% positive I would figure out my “dream” from Christmas Eve and expect to see a bicycle under the tree. That would spoil his surprise, and this just wasn’t going to happen. I never told him any different. After all, it was Christmas, and I was turning nine in February.