by Mike Rich
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2017 Mike Rich
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Inkshares, Inc., San Francisco, California
www.inkshares.com
Edited by: Staton Rabin & Matt Harry
Cover design by: Will Staehle
Interior Design by: Kevin G. Summers
ISBN: 9781942645801
e-ISBN: 9781942645818
LCCN: 2017938051
First edition
Printed in the United States of America
For Gigi
I’ll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams
—Recorded by Bing Crosby, 1943
PROLOGUE
Under the Elephant’s Watchful Eye
IT WAS LATE afternoon on Christmas Eve, and twelve-year-old Henry Babbitt was alone.
Alone in New York City, no less—where it was snowing hard on the eight million residents. And frantic weather forecasters were saying the worst was yet to come.
Technically, Henry wasn’t completely alone, but that’s how he felt inside; the type of feeling he’d felt a lot over the last couple of years. As if something very important was missing.
It was that kind of alone.
His best friend had left a half hour ago, so right now it was just Henry—all five feet two inches of him, in his dress-formal Nikes—and the towering and startled African elephant standing ten feet away. Fortunately, the animal was both motionless and indoors where it was still nice and warm.
The room. Not the elephant.
New York City’s American Museum of Natural History was on Henry’s shortest of short lists of favorite places to spend time. Especially now, when the place was nearly empty, and he was completely by himself.
Merry Christmas, big guys, he thought to himself as he looked up at the eight well-preserved elephants, the tallest of which loomed eleven feet over him. See ya again in the new year, I guess.
Just today, he’d heard more than a few museum visitors calling his eight buddies “stuffed” elephants, but Henry’s father had always insisted he never use that word.
“They’re not ‘stuffed,’ son. They’re ‘preserved.’ Doesn’t that sound like a much better term for such a dignified beast?”
So “preserved” is what these eight majestic elephants would always be—at least to Henry Babbitt.
He took a quick glance at his iPhone.
4:10 p.m.
No new text from his mom yet, although there were plenty of messages in ALL CAPS on his phone screen saying she was:
ALMOST THERE! BUT I THINK I’VE MOVED AN INCH IN THE LAST HALF HOUR. THIS SNOW IS GETTING DOWNRIGHT NASTY OUT HERE!
Y’know, I think that’s the only time I ever hear the word “downright,” Henry thought to himself as he tucked his phone away. When it’s snowing and it’s not just “nasty” anymore. Don’t worry, Mom, I’m doin’ fine here. Everything’s good.
He sighed and scratched the back of his neck, wondering what he should do next. His blue eyes scoured the cavernous room with the slightly amused twinkle his mother said was always there, even when he was frustrated or irritated. Henry wasn’t either of those things right now, despite a somewhat furrowed brow that was usually there as well. Right now, his brow was more furrowed than usual because of the red, white, and blue New York Giants winter hat covering most of his forehead, the ear dangles bearing the NFL shield providing a solid finishing touch.
His mom had been out taking care of some last-minute Christmas shopping, an annual tradition because of her annual habit of waiting to the very last minute to buy presents. Henry didn’t mind; it meant he had a bit more time to tour the surrounding exhibits of Akeley Hall: the black rhino, the gorilla of the savanna, the watering hole that was always being visited by the giraffes, zebras, and gazelles.
None of the mammals in the exhibit were quite on the same level of majesty as the elephants, at least not in Henry’s book, but still, the entire exhibit was pretty awesome just the same.
The museum had been scheduled to close at 5:00 p.m., but that was before the snow had started falling sooner than expected. Once that happened, there’d been an announcement that the museum would be shutting down early.
Fortunately, they’d been able to squeeze in Dr. Riggins’s Annual Christmas Edition of “Meet the Scientist.” Riggins dropped by each month with a presentation that usually mixed science with history. The topics included stuff like Einstein, Edison, and Eiffel—“The Three E’s,” he always made a point of calling them. Henry loved it when he said that.
Today’s lecture had been especially good. Riggins had explained how Einstein’s theory of relativity could actually make Santa’s delivery in a single night scientifically possible. Jeremy Nack—one of Henry’s few friends from Regis Middle School—had gotten so excited that when his parents picked him up, he’d almost made Riggins repeat the whole thing over again.
But that was an hour ago. Now it was just Henry and the—
BZZZZZZZZT.
His phone rumbled in his pocket and he took it out for a quick glance. Onscreen were the dozen or so previous texts from his mom, including the one she’d just sent:
I’M OUT FRONT!
Henry fired off a quick On my way and tucked the phone into his bulky winter coat, hiking the bag of books he’d checked out from the school library for holiday break a bit higher over his shoulder. The strap landed right on the massive red scarf he’d yet to fully wrap around his neck. Once he did that, about the only thing anyone would be able to see of him would be his rosy, thin cheeks.
“Whoa, Henry, you’re still here?”
Henry turned just as Dr. Riggins walked up, apparently heading out into Snowpocalypse himself. With his red beard and enormous sky-blue North Face coat, he looked as if he were getting set to climb Mount Everest.
“Oh, yeah,” Henry answered him. “I was just waitin’ for my mom to get here. She just showed up.”
“Ah, good to hear,” Riggins seemed relieved, pulling off his doctory-looking glasses to make sure they were clean. “The snow’s getting downright nasty out there. Four inches already, another six inches expected overnight.”
A second “downright,” thought Henry. It really must be gettin’ bad out there!
“Yeah, well, my grandparents’ place is pretty close by,” Henry opted to say. “We should be okay.”
The champion of The Three E’s gave him a nod. “You want me to walk you out?” he asked. “I just gotta pick up a couple things in the Discovery Room.”
“Nah, I’ll be fine,” Henry assured him. “Thanks anyway, Dr. Riggins. And thanks for today. It was really great.”
“You’re more than welcome, Henry,” Riggins said with an almost protective smile. “Hope the break’s a good one for you. I know the next couple of days have gotta be, well . . .”
He stopped before finishing the thought. Henry offered a faint smile and nodded, knowing Doc R was just trying to help.
“See you next month then?” Riggins asked as he hiked up his own bag of books. “Might have a new thing or two about Eiffel for you. Really interesting stuff.”
“Yup, sure will. I’ll be here.”
Riggins gave one more nod and a wave over his shoulder as he walked out.
“Merry Christmas, Henry.”
“Merry Christmas, Dr. Riggins,” Henry called back as his phone buzzed wit
h what he guessed was a follow-up text from his mom out front. A quick look confirmed as much:
HERE! Oops, I mean, I’m here. No shouting in my text messages, right?
Henry smiled. His mom’s arrival came precisely at the right moment, being as Akeley Hall was now completely empty. Not a creature was stirring, not even a security guard—and it was fairly common knowledge among movie-watchers what kind of things could happen if you ended up spending a night in this museum.
With one last glance of respect toward the towering elephants in front of him, Henry wrapped his scarf around his neck and zipped up his winter coat. He headed for the exit . . .
. . . ready to begin his very favorite and most difficult night of the year.
ONE
Christmas Eve
EVER SINCE IT had happened, Henry usually found himself on the boring side of the window. In other words, the “inside” side, precautions being precautions and all.
He was on the boring side right now, sitting in the passenger seat of his mom’s car as he looked out on the downright nasty snow coming down. Twelve-year-old boys closing in on thirteen shouldn’t be on this side of the window, Henry knew.
They should be outside.
Not always, of course, but certainly a lot more than Henry had been allowed to be over the last couple of years. Playing sports, hiking, the occasional camping trip or two—those kind of activities were now simply out of the question. He didn’t need to remind himself that this was his mom’s doing.
Not that he’d be doing any of that right now anyway. Thanks to the snow pelting down on the windshield of his mother’s old Ford Expedition.
“Well, I sure am glad Dr. Riggins was able to get his lecture in. I know how much you like him,” Eloise Babbitt said as the gridlocked holiday traffic on Central Park West finally decided to move. A few feet later, though, it stopped again.
“Yep, it was really great,” Henry replied, eyes locked on the bright screen of his phone. “There were like thirty kids there.”
“Ah, that’s nice,” Eloise replied while tucking her shoulder-length sandy-blond hair—the section of hair up front that was blocking her view at least—back under her finest purple dress beanie. She stole a glance in the rearview mirror, her one dimple deepening with growing concern.
A good part of her attention, of course, was on the unrelenting snowfall outside. The Expedition had four-wheel drive, but it wouldn’t help if they remained stuck bumper-to-bumper in the street-turned-parking-lot surrounding Central Park.
“You would not have believed the number of people still shopping only an hour ago,” Eloise remarked. “Yes . . . me too, I know,” she added with a smile. “Everybody’s busy, busy, busy.”
“The museum was pretty much empty,” Henry informed her. “’Cept for the elephants.”
“Mmm,” she replied, her eyes locked on the worsening weather.
A text from Jeremy popped up on Henry’s phone:
8p tonight. Sci-Fi. The Tick Loves Santa!
’Scuse me? Henry responded.
It’s great. Just listen: After a bank robber disguised as Santa falls into a neon sign he gains the improbable power to duplicate himself. Multiple Santa is born! The Tick must get over his Santa-worship in order to fight the legions of Nicks. Best line in the whole thing? When he’s about to be swept away by an avalanche of Santas, the Tick screams, “It’s a yuletide!”
Cool. I’ll check it out, Henry typed.
Henry hit “Send.”
WOOOOOOSH.
“Henry?” Eloise asked. “What’s the latest on this weather? I mean, look at all this!” She glanced at her son. His eyes were locked tightly on the screen of his phone. “Y’know, I could be wrong”—Eloise sent him a quick smile that he caught—“but I don’t think your video game’s gonna have the forecast.”
With the glow from his phone illuminating his face, Henry knew he at least needed to fake a quick internet search.
“Same as before,” he said with a firm look at the latest NBA standings. “Six inches of snow tonight. Clearing tomorrow.”
“Keep me posted on that,” she nodded with a worried look. “Oh, and can you check your hair, please? We’re almost there. Want you lookin’ sharp as ever for your grandparents. Tu es un beau garçon, oui?”
“Yes, oui.” Henry nodded and pulled off his hat, hoping his usually messy copper-colored hair was still in passable holiday shape—or as his mother had just insisted in her favorite language, that he was a “handsome kid.” She’d been fluent in French most of her life, and Henry was getting to the point where he wasn’t half-bad himself.
“Okay, and one more thing to remember,” his mother continued, craning her neck for a long-shot parking spot as she had been for a few blocks now. “Once we get out? I want you inside, and I want that jacket to stay on at all times. Understood?”
“Yes, Mom,” Henry answered with a quiet sigh, unable to resist a quick look up from his phone.
They were getting close now. Even though he’d been there countless times, Henry never got tired of seeing the front of his grandparents’ place. It was as if a sculptor had taken these already-perfect steps, columns, and outcroppings, and then etched them with royal shields and patterns that turned the whole staircase into this amazing frame for the walnut front door. Tonight, with all the snow, it would look spectacular.
“Six inches tonight, wow!” Eloise shook her head as she switched the wipers to a notch just below their most frenetic speed.
He stole a glance at her as she tightened her grip on the steering wheel.
Mmmboy, here we go. She’s headin’ straight to Worry Land. No stops. I am gonna look soooo good wearing my winter coat at dinner tonight.
Henry knew that never in a million years would he say anything like that out loud to her. First of all, he wouldn’t want to hurt her feelings, but more important: there was a part of him that understood why she worried. He didn’t like the overprotective part, but he did get it.
Henry’s father, Nathan, had been one of New York’s very finest attorneys—a loud and strong voice for those who needed that kind of voice most. In other words . . . a lot of people.
And when Nathan Babbitt—tall, yet wide-shouldered, like his son was on a path to be—wasn’t helping those in need, he was finding adventure; the thought of that, especially this time of year, was heartbreaking for his only child.
“Henry,” his father had always promised him with a sparkle in his eye, “when you get a little older, we’re gonna sail somewhere. We’ll climb the highest mountain we can find. And when we’re done with that adventure? We’ll find the next one. Okay?”
“Okay,” Henry whispered to himself in the here and now, quietly enough that his mother couldn’t hear.
The last time he’d heard those words was two years ago, the year a car had run a red light at West 96th and Riverside, hitting Nathan as he walked across the street and taking his life. Thanks to that, there wouldn’t be any adventures at all for Henry with his dad. Not then. Not now.
Not ever.
There were still moments when Henry allowed himself to dream about the journeys they would have taken together, but those moments weren’t as frequent anymore.
The one person Henry’s heart really broke for, though, was the one who was right now looking for a place to park. The loss of his father had ripped a hole in Henry that hadn’t even come close to healing yet, but it was a different kind of wound for his mother. Her pain was a crushing and permanent one.
To say that Nathan and Eloise had been in love, Henry’s grandmother had told him only a few months ago, was to undersell the very meaning of the word.
They lived to be with each other.
Home. Away from home. Anywhere.
And when his mother’s Volvo started having problems this past summer—even though she had loved, loved, loved the car—she decided to keep Nathan’s midnight-blue Expedition because he had loved it.
It had enough miles on it—more tha
n a hundred-thousand—that every once in a while, the transmission would slip out of drive and into neutral. And when it did that, it would make this ever-so-slight clicking sound. The service tech had said Eloise should get it fixed, but she’d told him she wanted to hold off, and Henry knew why.
The times when it did slip out of gear? Making that soft click?
It was almost as if Nathan was still there, shifting his SUV. The same SUV that was supposed to take Henry on so many of those adventures.
Henry sighed, knowing his mom probably still had a few more rules to cover, Christmas Eve–related or otherwise.
“Okay . . . so . . . I need you to stay inside once we get there,” she continued, immediately confirming his hunch. Just then, though, she discovered a Christmas miracle in the form of a suddenly vacated parking spot.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa—look at this!”
She hit the accelerator to block the dark red Mercedes trying to cut over from the middle lane—an impressively aggressive move even in Henry’s eyes.
“Annnnnnnnd, yes!” Eloise put the finishing touches on the parking job, even though it required a quick nudge backward and another one forward to get it juuuuust ri—
CLICK.
Her hand stopped an inch above the gearshift.
The acceleration had prompted the transmission to slip out of drive and into neutral, even though the glance she shared with her son suggested otherwise.
Eloise looked at the gearshift for a long moment before gently pushing the Expedition into park.
“Gotta get that fixed someday,” she said with a tiny swallow. “Not tonight, though, right?”
“Tonight? Are you kidding?” Henry answered her. “Last thing we’re gonna do is give up this spot on Central Park West . . . on Christmas Eve.”
Their shared loss had made Eloise’s smile come less frequently, but when she did flash her smile—as she was right now—it was stunning.
“Love ya, kiddo.” Henry’s mom leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on the top of his head.
“You too,” Henry replied back.