The Truth

When I woke up the next morning, I jumped out of bed. I looked at my calendar. It said: Sunday. December 24th. Christmas Eve. I expected to see in tiny print: Karen Brewer, you do not have an angel!

Why had I waited so long to find an angel? I guess I thought someone would send Andrew and me some Christmas money early. Or that we would earn the money ourselves. I thought somehow Andrew and I would be able to buy a wonderful angel to put on our Christmas tree. I was wrong.

Knock, knock. Andrew was at my door. He looked sleepy. And worried.

“Karen, are we going to get an angel today?” he asked.

“I wish we could,” I said. “But we have no money.”

Uh-oh. I remembered something important. I had promised to pay back the store owner by Christmas Eve.

“Good morning, Karen. Good morning, Andrew,” said Kristy. She hurried past my room with an armful of boxes.

“Come on, sleepyheads. Come join us,” said Elizabeth. She had an armful of boxes, too.

My family was bringing boxes of ornaments downstairs from the attic. Christmas Eve was supposed to be one of the best days of the season. So far it felt like the worst.

Andrew and I went downstairs to eat breakfast. The boxes from the attic were spread across the living room.

“We have such great ornaments,” said Kristy. “I can hardly wait until tonight to decorate the tree.”

“We have not seen the angel yet,” said Charlie.

“I am sure that will be the best ornament of all,” said Nannie.

That did it. I started to cry. Andrew did, too. We were crying so hard we could not even tell anyone what was wrong. Daddy put his arms around us.

“It is okay,” he said. “I am sure whatever is wrong can be fixed.”

“We will help you,” said Elizabeth. “Just tell us why you are crying.”

“It cannot be fixed,” I said.

“It is broken. We broke it,” added Andrew.

“What did you break?” asked Daddy.

Andrew and I stopped crying long enough to tell our family the story. We told them that the angel was dropped and broke into little pieces. We told them that the store owner wanted us to pay him back.

“I am sorry,” I said. “We had an important job and we did not do it.”

“I am sorry, too,” said Andrew.

“That is all right,” said Daddy. “You did not mean to break the angel. These things happen. I will call the store owner and straighten everything out.”

“You do not have to buy an angel,” said Kristy. “You can make one.”

“That is right,” said Elizabeth. “We would love to have a homemade angel on the tree.”

We heard Daddy talking to the store owner. He said we would be there in an hour to pay for the angel.

After he hung up he said to Andrew and me, “It is true that when you break something in a store, you should pay for it. So I will pay for the angel now, and I would like the two of you to pay me back when you can. Does that sound fair?”

Andrew and I agreed it was fair.

After breakfast, we drove downtown with Daddy to pay the store owner. Then we hurried home to make an angel.

“Hey, Andrew, I have an idea,” I said. “We can use this pipe cleaner angel I made at school.”

I showed him my angel. She was bent out of shape. With a little work we would be able to use her, though.

We fixed her up and brought her to the living room. But she looked shabby next to the other ornaments. Oh, well. She would have to do.