by James Ponti
Scrooge was devastated. When he asked to see emotion tied to the death, he did not imagine that emotion would be happiness. Before he could say a word, the images faded away and Ebenezer once again found himself in the room with the dead man.
The phantom pointed and again Scrooge pleaded with him.
“Let me see some tenderness connected with a death,” he begged the spirit. “Or this dark chamber will forever haunt me.”
Another light enveloped them, and this time they were transported to the Cratchit house. Scrooge found himself standing on the narrow staircase, and the fire from the fireplace cast the phantom’s shadow on the wall beside him.
Ebenezer looked down at the family table, the same one at which he’d seen the joyous Christmas dinner. But now it was solemn. Mrs. Cratchit sat with her children. The mood in the room was very different from before. The happiness of the holiday had been replaced with quiet and sadness.
“And He took a child and set him in the midst of them,” the eldest son, Peter, read from the Bible. Once he was done, he closed the book and set it on the table in front of him.
“It’s late,” Mrs. Cratchit said, looking at the clock. “It’s past your father’s time.”
Her son looked up at her. “He’s walked slower these last few evenings.”
“He has walked with Tiny Tim on his shoulder fast indeed,” Mrs. Cratchit said, her voice cracking with sadness. “But he was very light to carry, and your father loved him so.”
A moment later, Bob Cratchit came in through the door. The children got up to greet him and though he gave them hugs, there was a definite sadness about him. His boyish charm and enthusiasm were gone. He seemed much older than before. He had just come back from the cemetery.
Mrs. Cratchit looked at her husband and tried to smile. “You went today?”
“Yes, my dear,” Cratchit said as he sat by the fire. “I wish you could have gone. It would have done you good to see how green a place it is. But you’ll see it often. I promised him that I would walk there every Sunday.”
It was at this point that Bob Cratchit began to cry. “Oh, my child,” he wailed. “My little child.”
The children surrounded him and did their best to console him. It was a gesture he greatly appreciated.
“I am sure none of us shall ever forget our poor Tiny Tim,” he said.
“Never, Father,” the children replied.
“Thank you, my dears,” he told them. Cratchit hugged each of his children and climbed up the narrow staircase. At one point it seemed as though he and Scrooge were looking each other in the eye, but the clerk had no true awareness of the spirit that was watching him.
Tears filled Scrooge’s eyes as he watched Cratchit enter a small room. In the middle of the room was a bed and on that bed lie the dead body of Tiny Tim. This room was the opposite of the one with the other corpse. It was brightly lit and fully decorated for Christmas. It was the room of a person who had been truly loved in life.
Cratchit bent over and kissed Tim’s forehead, and then he sat next to the bed and began to sob.
Scrooge was overcome with grief and fear. He turned to the spirit. “Specter, something tells me our parting moment is at hand,” he said. “Tell me. Who was that man we saw lying dead?”
The spirit waved his shadow of an arm, and a tornado-force wind whipped through the house, tearing it into a thousand pieces. When the wind had passed, Scrooge found himself alone in a dark and desolate churchyard.
Scrooge slowly walked across the frozen ground of the cemetery as gnarled trees swayed in the winter wind. A full moon cast its light across the graveyard, and with it came the terrifying shadow of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. It pointed to a lonely, untended gravestone, away from the others and overrun by weeds.
Scrooge knew that he must proceed and read the name on the stone, but before he could, he turned and pleaded once more with the haunting spirit.
“Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,” Scrooge said. “Answer me one question. Are these the shadows of things that will be. Or shadows of things that may be?”
Again the ghost gestured to the headstone as the wind caused ripples to pass through his indistinct form.
“Men’s courses in life foreshadow certain ends,” Scrooge continued. “But if these courses are departed from, these ends will change. Isn’t that so?”
The shadow lowered its arm and revealed the name on the marker. It read: ebenezer scrooge.
Scrooge dropped to his knees and cried out. “Am I the man who lay upon the bed?”
The phantom unleashed a gust of wind that blew away some of the snow covering the bottom of the headstone. It read: born february 7, 1786.
Suddenly, another gust came and slowly pushed away the snow that covered Scrooge’s date of death.
“Hear me!” Scrooge shouted, terrified of learning the day he would die. “I’m not the man I was. Why show me this if I’m past all hope?”
The snow blew away and uncovered more of the date, showing that he would die on December twenty-fifth—Christmas Day.
“Good spirit, assure me that I may change these shadows you have shown me,” he cried as the snow began to uncover the year of his death.
As he begged, his feet slowly began to sink into the ground above his grave. He tried to climb out, but that only opened the ground even more. Suddenly, all of the dirt fell out from beneath him and Scrooge was at the top of a giant hole. He grabbed on to a protruding tree branch and dangled above the grave.
Ebenezer looked down into the hole and to his horror saw a coffin resting beneath him. He let out a bloodcurdling scream as the lid of the coffin opened, revealing the box to be empty.
“Help, spirit!” he screamed as the branch began to break free, lowering him closer and closer to the pine box below.
He looked up and saw that the phantom was now staring down at him. And for the first time, he saw something other than shadow. He saw two glowing eyes filled with death and terror. They pierced right through him.
“No, spirit,” he pleaded. “I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year.”
The phantom’s eyes flared.
“I will not shut out the lessons of the past, nor the present, nor the future!” Scrooge yelled. “Tell me I may sponge away the writing on that stone!”
The phantom reached down to him and Scrooge did not know what to do. There was no way to grab hold of a shadow. There was no way this spirit could help him. But as the phantom’s eyes narrowed, Scrooge suddenly felt a sense of peacefulness.
He let go of the branch and fell down into the grave, his arms and legs flailing. He spun over and fell facedown, heading straight for the coffin. Right before he hit, he closed his eyes and braced for impact.
But it never came.
He was stopped cold by some unseen force and left dangling. Scrooge carefully opened his eyes, and just a hair’s breadth before him he saw a bull’s-eye–shaped knot in the wood.
Although he did not yet realize it, Scrooge was not dangling above his coffin. He was upside down in his bedchamber. His legs were somehow tangled in the curtains that surrounded his bed. His pointy nose hovered just an inch above the bull’s-eye knothole in a floorboard.
It took a moment for him to realize that he was in fact not dead and that he was actually in his bedchamber and not his coffin.
When the picture fully crystallized and he knew that he had survived the visit from Marley’s three spirits, Ebenezer let out a gleeful cheer like none he had ever yelled before.
“Yee-ha!”
Just then the curtains snapped, and Scrooge slammed into the floor nose first. It did not matter one whit. He bounced right up on his feet, tears streaming down his cheeks and a giant smile on his face.
“They’re still here,” he shouted as he clutched the now-torn bed curtains. “I’m still here!”
He began exhibiting some very un-Scrooge-like behavior as he hopped, skipped, and danced his wa
y around the room.
“I don’t know what to do!” he exclaimed. “I’m light as a feather, merry as a schoolboy. I’m as giddy as a drunken man.”
He hurried over to the window and flung it open. The previous day’s gloom had given way to a bright blue sky. There was no longer any fog or mist, just golden sunlight. Ebenezer took a deep breath of the cold, fresh air and was invigorated. Down below he saw a boy pulling his red sleigh through the snow. It was the same boy he had seen with the Ghost of Christmas Present. Only now, unlike before, he could interact with the young man.
“What’s today, fine fellow?” he called out.
The boy stopped and looked up. “Today?” he said as if of all days this should be the most obvious. “Why, Christmas Day!”
“Christmas Day,” Scrooge sang like a song to himself. “I haven’t missed it. The spirits have done it all in one night. They can do anything they like.”
“My fine fellow,” he called back down to the boy. “Do you know the poulterer’s on the corner?”
The boy nodded. “I should hope I do.”
“What an intelligent boy,” Scrooge responded. “Do you know whether they’ve sold the prize turkey that was hanging there? Not the little prize turkey… the big one?”
“The one as big as me?”
Scrooge laughed. “Yes!”
The boy nodded. “It’s hanging there now.”
“It is?” Scrooge said as he concocted his plan. “Go and buy it!”
The boy looked at Scrooge, trying to figure out if this was all some sort of trick.
“I am in earnest,” the old man replied. “Buy it and bring it here, and I’ll give you a shilling. Come back in less than five minutes and I’ll give you a half-crown.”
A half-crown was a lot of money to the boy, and he was off like a shot to the store.
Scrooge smiled as the boy hurried down the street. “I’ll send it to Bob Cratchit’s,” he said aloud to himself with a belly laugh. “He shan’t know who sent it. It’s twice the size of Tiny Tim.”
Scrooge hurried down the stairs into the foyer of his house, when he suddenly saw something that stopped him in his tracks.
“Mrs. Dilber,” he cried, throwing his arms wide open.
Mrs. Dilber, the cleaning lady, had just entered, spun, and jumped back against the door. Her jaw dropped at the sight of her boss still in his nightgown and grinning like a fool. Terrified, she started to unlock the door to run.
“Merry Christmas!” Scrooge announced as he took her by the arms and started dancing across the entryway. “My dear Mrs. Dilber, you’re the loveliest creature I have ever laid eyes upon. Dance with me!”
“Eeeeee!” Mrs. Dilber screamed as she broke free of Scrooge’s grip and rushed to the back of the house screaming hysterically.
“What a charming woman,” he said with a chuckle, totally unaffected by her sense of panic.
A few minutes later, Scrooge had gotten dressed and was about to leave his house. At the door, he stopped and turned to face the knocker, the one that had terrified him when it turned into Marley’s face the night before.
“I shall love it as long as I live,” he said, giving the knocker a kiss. “What an honest face it has.”
Just then, the boy from the street came back to Scrooge’s house. “Here’s the bird!”
The boy motioned to the burly poulterer trudging up the path. Although he was strong, the man was straining to carry the massive turkey fully cooked and dressed—ready for Christmas dinner.
“Merry Christmas,” Scrooge said happily as he greeted the poulterer. He let out a whistle of admiration as he looked at the massive turkey. “Why, it’s impossible to carry that to Camden Town. You must have a cab.”
Scrooge turned and signaled for a horse-drawn hackney cab. When it pulled up, Scrooge helped the poulterer get into the cab with the giant bird and gave the driver directions to Bob Cratchit’s house.
He smiled broadly as he watched the cab pull away. He imagined how happy the Cratchits would be when the turkey was delivered, and it was almost more excitement than he could stand. He was so happy that when a carriage rode by he instantly thought back to the boys he had once called delinquents for hanging on to the back of a carriage and letting it pull them across the icy street. Now he wanted to try it himself.
He grabbed hold and let out a merry wheeee as he skied along the street, drawing stares of amazement from nearly everyone who saw him.
For the first time, Scrooge loved walking among the people filling the streets with Christmas cheer. When he had ridden above the landscape with the Ghost of Christmas Present, he had been so distant from the feelings of happiness and joy. Now, though, he was part of everything, and it was exhilarating.
“Good morning to you,” he said to strangers walking past him. “Merry Christmas!” Then a familiar face caught his attention. It was the large man who had come to Scrooge’s countinghouse looking for donations for the poor. Ebenezer strode right up to him and took him by the shoulders.
“My dear sir, how do you do?” Scrooge said as if he were greeting a long-lost friend. “I hope you succeeded yesterday. A merry Christmas to you.”
“Mr. Scrooge?” the man said warily.
“Yes, that is my name,” Scrooge said, nodding. “And I fear it may not be pleasant to you. But allow me to ask your pardon. And will you have the goodness…”
Scrooge leaned forward and whispered the promise of a huge donation into the man’s ear.
“Lord bless me!” the man said, overwhelmed by the amount. “My dear Mr. Scrooge, are you serious?”
“And not a farthing less,” Scrooge said with a definitive nod of the head. “A great many back payments are included in it, I assure you.”
The man was so moved by emotion that he was momentarily speechless. “My dear sir, I don’t know what to say.…”
Scrooge cut him off and gave him a reassuring pat on the back. “Don’t say anything,” he told the man. “I am much obliged to you. Many thanks to you, and God bless you.”
Scrooge tipped his hat, smiled, and continued down High Street. The man watched him go in stunned amazement, unable to believe that this Scrooge was the same man who had treated him and his cause so rudely just the day before.
But it wasn’t. Certainly, the body of Scrooge was the same, but the spirit inside of that body had changed greatly. And that spirit was glowing with the joy of the holiday. For so long Scrooge had detested the songs of the carolers, but as he heard them now they filled his heart with happiness.
Ebenezer practically danced along the street to the music of the carolers and the sounds of the glorious church bells. He continued all the way until he reached the warm and happy home that belonged to his nephew Fred. As he approached the door, Scrooge could hear the muffled laughter of the party inside.
For a moment, his happiness faded away. He could not bring himself to knock on the door. He was too sad and ashamed of the way he had behaved for so many years. He was embarrassed at the treatment that he had shown the son of his beloved sister, Fan. He turned to go home, but then a particularly loud boom of laughter stopped him in his tracks.
Just maybe the spirit of Christmas was enough for him to be forgiven. He took a deep breath, reached up and rapped on the door with a bony hand. A moment later the door opened, and Scrooge saw the smiling face of a housemaid.
“Is your master home?” he asked pleasantly.
“Yes, sir,” the woman said, trying to recognize Scrooge’s face, which of course she couldn’t because he had never once taken the time to visit his nephew.
“I am his uncle,” he said.
The woman let him in, and Scrooge walked slowly to the parlor where Fred and his friends were playing. He had watched the game alongside the Ghost of Christmas Present and knew that he had been ridiculed, but now he hoped that he could also be welcomed.
They were playing the game Yes and No.
“An animal that growls and grunts?” one of the guests
asked.
“Yes,” Fred replied.
“And lives in London?” another questioned.
“Yes!” he answered.
For a moment Scrooge waited outside the doorway, pained with the knowledge of how they saw him. He listened as they guessed all sorts of animals. A cow and a pig. Fred said no to each until his wife guessed dog.
Fred smiled and answered, “Yes and no!”
This brought a laugh from everyone. They were all laughing so hard and enjoying themselves so much that none of them noticed that Scrooge had entered the parlor.
The scene was almost exactly as it had been the night before when he watched it with the spirit.
“I know what it is, Fred,” offered his sister-in-law.
“What is it?” Fred asked.
“It’s your…” But before she could finish her statement, Fred completed it on his own.
“Uncle Scrooge!” Only he wasn’t trying to answer the question, he was looking at his uncle directly across the room from him.
“Why, bless my soul,” Fred continued, a look of total shock on his face.
They all turned to look at Ebenezer, and everyone was wearing the same expression.
To their amazement, Ebenezer Scrooge was standing in the parlor, wearing his best clothes.
“I have come to dinner,” Scrooge said meekly. “If you’ll have me.”
Fred’s wife happily jumped to her feet. “Have you?” she said as she gave him a warm embrace. “Mercy! Come in, please. Fred, introduce your uncle.”
Fred rushed over and shook his uncle’s hand so hard it throbbed with pain, but Scrooge didn’t mind one bit.
Later that night, Scrooge sat down for a delicious dinner of Christmas goose, holiday treats, desserts, and punch. It was the happiest he could ever remember feeling.
It was the day after Christmas, and a gentle snow was falling on London. Scrooge sat at the desk in his countinghouse and looked out the window. He saw Bob Cratchit hurrying down the street.
“A full sixteen minutes late,” Scrooge said gleefully as he checked the time on his pocket watch. Suddenly, he remembered the joke that the Cratchit daughters had pulled on their father, and he decided to do likewise. He replaced his happy expression with the familiar scowl he had worn for so long.