Tracy
The frozen world fell away beneath them as they rose up, up, up into the sky. The cold air stole Tracy's breath, and at one point, she swore she was so high she could touch the moon. She reached her hand up just in case, but when Chris looked at her from the corner of his eye, she felt self-conscious and dropped her hand back into her lap.
“Ha ha!” Chris bellowed joyfully and jerked the reins. They zoomed off above the trees.
There were no fake reindeer in front of them, but Chris manipulated the reins as if there were. When the sleigh twisted to the left, Tracy slid into Chris's side. When it twisted to the right, Tracy got squished between him and the side of the sleigh. Her whole body tingled, just like it had when she was five and had ridden that spinny ride at the fair with Pim. The two of them must have ridden it a dozen times, trying to squish each other into pancakes. But this was even better.
The world was silent and perfect, the way Tracy always imagined Christmas night should be. She didn't care if it was mirrors or video screens or some high tech Disney-type trick. It was Christmas, and up there in the sky, everything felt right.
The moon reflected on the snow and made it look like the ground was covered in diamonds. She wanted to roll around in it and fill the landscape with snow angels. They soared over trees solid white with ice, and Tracy thought she had entered some sort of fairy tale. She could have never imagined anything so beautiful if she had tried. Even more amazing were the colored lights filling the sky. It was like a rainbow had turned into a river.
“What's that?” she asked.
“The Northern Lights,” Chris said. “I like to think the heavens create them just for me on this night.”
Tracy understood. She felt as if the night was putting on a show just for her. Even in the bitter cold, she felt warm on the inside. Her troubles had been nestled deep inside of her for so long, but as they flew, those troubles seemed to loosen and break free. Riding in that sleigh, life seemed more possible. Jared, however, didn't seem amazed at all, just tired.
“Look over the side, just ahead,” Chris said.
The two children poked their faces over the edge. “Polar bears,” Tracy exclaimed. “A mom and two babies!”
The baby bears flopped around in the snow, giving themselves a bath. When they were done with that, they used their mother as a jungle gym. Tracy watched until she could no longer see them, then settled back into the seat.
“They're always twins, you know,” Jared said from the other side of Chris.
Tracy peeked around Chris and saw Jared looking at her. It was the first time he seemed excited about anything.
“I'm gonna be a biologist when I grow up,” he explained. “Probably for marine mammals.”
Tracy wrinkled her nose at the thought of working around animals all the time. She'd been to Sea World. She knew what the seal and dolphin tanks smelled like. Still, Tracy felt a certain kinship with him that she hadn't before. “I like science too. I want to work in a lab though, developing medicine.”
“You know,” Chris said, “science is its own kind of magic.”
“Not this again.” Jared rolled his eyes and turned away so he was looking off at the distant mountains.
Tracy didn't argue. She actually agreed with Chris. Something had changed while they were up in the air. If someone had asked why she was ready to talk, she would have said the twinkle in Chris' eye gave her a pinprick of hope. “I know someone who needs that type of magic. Very badly.”
“Oh?” Chris laid the reins across his lap and turned to Tracy. The sleigh didn't seem to mind. It stayed on course without so much as a wiggle. It looked old-fashioned, but must have been fitted with jet engines just like the other sleighs. “Would you like to tell me about her?”
Tracy narrowed her eyes. “How did you know it was a her?”
“The girl in the picture.”
Of course. He'd seen her crying over the picture in the hallway. “My cousin Pim. She fell out of a tree two years ago, and her brain doesn't work right anymore. She's awake and can say a word or two, but she's not…right. She can't go to school. She can't even play video games with me.”
“Oh, dear,” Chris said.
She had Jared's attention too. He was staring at her with his mouth hanging open. Tracy wished he wasn't. She didn't want his pity.
“Anyway,” she continued, looking only at Chris, “my aunt found out about this operation they think will fix her, but it's really expensive.”
“I see.” For the first time that night, Chris looked sad. His mouth turned down at the edges, and his eyes lost their glow.
“Yeah, so I had this plan to get the money…a state science fair.”
Jared's eyes perked up at the mention of the science fair.
Tracy glared at him. “I'm going to win it. Pim needs that operation.”
“Well, I need a new Xbox, but it doesn’t matter. Beth told me you live in Florida. I don't.”
“Oh.” Tracy hadn't thought about that. “So anyway, I had the perfect project. It just hasn't turned out as well as I thought it would.”
“And what is your project?” Chris asked softly.
“It's…um…” What was she supposed to tell him? She had sneaked onto Santa's sleigh, cut a hole in his bag, and took pictures and video that she was pretty sure no one in the world was supposed to see. That had all been part of her plan, and she might have confessed right away if that was all she had done. Unfortunately, her plan had fallen completely apart, and she'd been forced to improvise. It had all been in the name of helping Pim, but the more she thought about it, the more her stomach started to hurt. It twisted in knots like the time she had worn her mom's bracelet to school without permission, and then lost it on the playground. Tracy hadn't touched her dinner that night, and at three am the next morning, she got up and confessed to her mom. Her mom took away her allowance for a month, but Tracy didn't mind, because the pain was gone.
Tracy clutched her stomach as she realized what exactly was making it hurt now, and it was far worse than a lost bracelet. In the past few hours, she had snatched one of the Santa coats with the intention of keeping it, stolen a camera from another child, and broken Santa Command's main computer. And after all of that, she ran away. Were Phil and Beth even able to fix the computer? How many kids were going to miss Christmas because of her? The Santas may have been fake, but the presents and the spirit of giving were not. That was something Tracy had forgotten, but her stomach was doing a very good job of reminding her. As her stomach twisted in on itself, Tracy realized it was time to make the pain go away.
“Chris?”
“Yes, Tracy?”
“I think I've done something very bad.”