The Christmasaurus

by Tom Fletcher

  He was marching fast, and the Christmasaurus saw his jolly, round shadow pass William’s bedroom door.

  Santa was already in the living room!

  “Ooh, a carrot! My favorite!” he heard Santa whisper before crunching into the treat.

  The Christmasaurus panicked. If he didn’t make it back up to the roof before Santa did, then he would be…left behind!

  He turned clumsily on the spot, and with a thud his long tail swung around behind him, knocking off every book on William’s bookshelf (all books about dinosaurs, of course!). Then he took a great leap toward the door, but his clunky dinosaur claws got caught in Stuffy’s wrapping ribbon, and the Christmasaurus went tumble-bumbling across to the other side of the bedroom, smash-whacking into the closet door.

  As you can imagine, this made such a clatter that William woke up in an instant.

  “W…wh…what’s going…on?” he said through a yawn, rubbing his sleepy eyes open.

  As the room came into focus, William saw a large polka-dotted present sitting beyond the foot of his bed, hand-tied with a red ribbon. But the ribbon had come undone. His eyes followed the loose ribbon along the floor until it reached a large, scaly foot. The ribbon was caught around the Christmasaurus’s claw, all tangled in knots! Before William could blink, before he could scream, before he could think, before he could even do anything whatsoever, the Christmasaurus bolted out of the room at a hundred miles an hour, dragging the present behind him. William scrambled out of bed and into his waiting wheelchair and chased after them!

  The Christmasaurus burst into the small, cozy living room just in time to see Santa’s big black boots disappear magically up the chimney. He roared a panicked roar and dived toward the fireplace, trampling presents and tripping over the miniature Christmas tree in the process, sending decorations flying through the air and scattering across the floor! But that didn’t stop the Christmasaurus. He crawled into the fireplace and looked up the chimney, which now seemed far too small for even an elf to get through! He tried desperately to jump, climb, and claw his way up, but it was no use. Santa’s magic had worn off, and the chimney flue had deflated back to its normal size.

  Then came the worst noise of all. The clopping of hooves, accompanied by soft Christmas music, echoed down the chimney and then all of a sudden seemed to disappear completely. The Christmasaurus let out a howl-like roar up the chimney into the sky above—but it was too late.

  Santa had gone.

  The Christmasaurus had been left behind.

  It was at that moment that a bright, round light switched on like a spotlight. It was a shaky, wobbly light. It was coming from a flashlight in William’s nervous hands as he sat in his wheelchair at the doorway, looking at a dinosaur in his home.

  They stayed perfectly still. Staring at each other. William and the Christmasaurus. A boy and a dinosaur, face to face for the first time in history. Neither of them knew what to do or say.

  Then suddenly William let out a frightened

  And the Christmasaurus released a scared

  They both sat roaring and screaming at each other for what felt like the longest time, until eventually they both ran out of breath and stopped. They searched each other’s faces, and although neither of them knew what they were searching for, they found that they were both just as frightened as each other, which suddenly made them not scared of each other at all. It’s funny how things work like that.

  “William? What’s all that noise?” croaked a sleepy Mr. Trundle from upstairs.

  William looked into the dinosaur’s big, frightened blue eyes.

  “Nothing, Dad, just had a bad dream,” William replied in his best attempt at sounding casual.

  There was a pause that seemed to last forever.

  “Oh…OK.” Mr. Trundle yawned. “Well, get some sleep or Santa won’t come!” And with that, William heard his dad’s bedroom door close.

  “H-hello?” William said quietly as he wheeled himself slowly into the living room over the piles of festive debris that now decorated the floor. He rolled closer to the fireplace, and he couldn’t believe his eyes.

  There, right in front of him, was an actual, living, breathing dinosaur! How was that possible? Not only that, but he was the most awesome-looking dinosaur William had ever seen! He had smooth, icy scales and big blue eyes, like a wintry lion. But he was currently tangled from head to tail in ribbon and wrapping paper, tinsel and Christmas lights. The dinosaur was decorated like a Christmas tree. As William got closer, he saw that there was a tag, very loosely stuck to the dinosaur’s back. It said:

  “No way!” William whispered. “I never in my wildest dreams thought Santa would bring me a real dinosaur!”

  Suddenly, he found the courage to reach out his hand to stroke the dinosaur. But just as his hand got to an inch away from the dinosaur’s long, smooth nose, the creature turned to look at something through the window. William followed his gaze. Something small and red was zooming across the sky!

  The Christmasaurus burst into a run once again, this time heading out of the living room and toward the front door. He scrambled and skidded on all the decorations and bits of plastic Christmas tree, becoming more tangled as he went. Suddenly, William felt a sharp yank, and his wheelchair spun around on the spot.

  “Oh no…wait!” he screamed.

  He looked down and saw that the other end of the Christmas lights and tinsel had become tangled around his wheelchair.

  He was attached to the dinosaur!

  His wheelchair lurched forward as he was suddenly dragged across the living room and into the hallway. All William could do was hold on for dear life as the panicked and determined dinosaur launched full speed ahead toward the front door.

  “Stop! Wait!” cried William. “The front door is locked!”

  But that didn’t matter. The Christmasaurus bowed his hard, scaly head and with one massive

  he burst through the door, pulling William and his wheelchair through the dinosaur-shaped hole and into the snowy street!

  The Christmasaurus searched the sky for Santa’s sleigh as he ran. It was cloudy now and difficult for him to see anything, but there was the sleigh! Just for a split second it poked through a break in the clouds, shiny and red, zooming through the sky. Moonlight must have been reflecting off the red paint of the sleigh! He gave chase, sprinting as fast as his dinosaur legs would carry him, littering the streets with broken baubles that were flying off the strings tangled around his body.

  He skidded around the icy corners with William whizzing along behind him. William used the brakes on his wheelchair to avoid lampposts, parked cars, mailboxes, and the occasional cat as they accelerated through the town.

  The Christmasaurus couldn’t see the sleigh anymore—it was above the snow clouds and getting away. There was only one thing to do, thought the Christmasaurus. He was going to have to…fly!

  He’d seen the reindeer do it a million times. He’d spent his whole life dreaming of flying, and tonight was his night….He could feel it! He put his head down low and started a strange, reindeer-like gallop.

  “What…are…you…doing?” cried William as he got a faceful of snow kicked up by the crazed dinosaur. He brushed the snow from his eyes just in time to see the Christmasaurus take a deep breath, his strides getting longer and higher, higher and longer!

  Then, at the side of the road, the Christmasaurus spotted some sort of ramp that was being used for roadworks—it was a perfect takeoff ramp!

  The Christmasaurus headed straight for the ramp and galloped up it as fast as he could, his eyes set on his target: the sky!

  William couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  This dinosaur is bonkers!

  He doesn’t have wings.

  He isn’t a reindeer.

  He can’t fly! William thought to himself as he held on tight to the armrests of his wheel
chair, too scared to let go to buckle his seat belt.

  As the dinosaur reached the end of the ramp, he took an almighty leap into the air, pulling William in his wheelchair off the ground….

  They came crashing down in a pile of rubble, sending a mixture of dust and Christmas sparkles into the air. William only just managed to keep his chair from tipping over!

  They didn’t fly. Just as William had thought.

  As the glittery dust settled, the clouds parted for a moment, just long enough for them to see the red flashing lights of an airplane flying overhead. It wasn’t the sleigh after all. The Christmasaurus let out a sad, lost roar, and William put his arm out and gave him a comforting stroke. It was the first time William had ever touched a dinosaur.

  The Christmasaurus’s skin was bumpy but smooth at the same time. Warm but also cool. Magical!

  “Were you trying to fly?” William asked.

  The Christmasaurus nodded, ashamed that he’d failed.

  “Oh…I’m really sorry, but I don’t believe dinosaurs like you can fly!” William said.

  The Christmasaurus looked sad. Something about William’s words seemed to hurt. William saw that the dinosaur was upset, so he instinctively put his arms around the Christmasaurus’s strong, solid neck and gave him a hug.

  “It’s OK. I know how you feel,” whispered William, and he gently stroked the dinosaur’s head.

  That was the moment that William and the Christmasaurus became friends.

  But the boy and the dinosaur had something else in common: they’d both just heard a noise. Someone else was in the street with them!

  They both froze and fell dead silent. Who else could possibly be out in the street in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve? A sniffle-sniffle sort of sound broke through the cold quiet air. They heard it again, and both knew that there was definitely someone else nearby!

  “Who…who’s there?” called William nervously, hoping that no one would reply. The Christmasaurus backed up like a scared puppy, until he was almost sitting on William’s lap! Then they heard it again: sniffle-sniffle!

  Someone was crying!

  “Hello? Are you OK?” William said kindly in the direction of the sniffly sobs. They seemed to be coming from behind a small bush in the yard of the house in front of which they were standing.

  “D-d-don’t…come…any closer! Or…I’ll smash your face in!” snapped a snotty, stuffy voice from behind the leaves.

  William recognized the voice at once. It was the last person he’d ever want to bump into…Brenda Payne!

  “Quick, get out of sight!” William whispered to the Christmasaurus. He didn’t want Brenda getting a glimpse of his new dinosaur—he had to stay a secret!

  But this wasn’t the Brenda that William was used to. He’d never, ever, EV-ER seen Brenda Payne cry before. He didn’t know Brenda had any feelings other than anger, hate, and horribleness….This was something he had to see with his own eyes!

  “Are you crying?” William asked as he wheeled himself across the snowy pavement toward Brenda’s front gate.

  “What are you doing? Go away! I’m…sniff…completely…sniffle…fine!” snapped Brenda.

  “OK!” William shrugged, but just as he was about to wheel himself away, something stopped him. His wheelchair wouldn’t budge. He tried to leave again, but he was stuck! Then he realized that he was still attached to the dinosaur by the strings of Christmas lights and baubles and tinsel. His eyes followed them to where the dinosaur was standing, and he saw a kind, caring sort of expression on the wonderfully scaly face.

  The dinosaur couldn’t speak, of course—at least, not like you and me—but he had feelings just the same, and sometimes feelings are loud enough to be understood better than any words. As William looked into the dinosaur’s icy-blue eyes, it was as though he could hear the Christmasaurus’s thoughts as clearly as if he were speaking perfect English (with a slight North Pole accent, obviously).

  As the Christmasaurus huffed with his nose, criss-crossed his eyes, and nodded his head in Brenda’s direction, William instantly knew what the dinosaur was saying:

  GIRL. NEEDS. FRIEND.

  William sighed. He hated to admit it, but the Christmasaurus was right. Every bone in his body wanted to get as far away from Brenda as possible, but no one—not even Brenda Snotty-Pants Payne—deserved to be crying alone in their front yard on Christmas Eve.

  You stay! William mouthed to the Christmasaurus, who immediately parked his bottom on the snowy street by Brenda’s gate like an obedient dog, looking very happy with himself at managing to convince William to help the girl.

  William unlooped the string of Christmas lights from his chair, pushed open Brenda’s gate, and wheeled himself into her front yard. It was something he never thought he’d do! As he wheeled toward the sound of her sobs and sniffles, he glanced at her house. He’d seen her house many times before, but he usually whizzed by so fast, hoping she wouldn’t see him, that he’d never paid much attention to it. Now, for the first time, he noticed that it stood out like a sore thumb among the other houses. Whichever way William looked down the street, every house was covered with some sort of Christmas decoration. Some had flashy dancing lights; others, just a simple wreath. William’s, of course, had just about every Christmas decoration his dad could afford covering every inch of their wonky little house.

  But Brenda’s was completely bare. Dark. Cold. Utterly un-Christmassy.

  Through the window William could see no sign of a Christmas tree, no Christmas cards at the fireplace, no wreath on the door, and, most of all, no presents!

  “Go ahead, laugh. I know you want to,” sobbed Brenda.

  “I don’t want to laugh at all,” said William truthfully. For William, seeing a house looking so normal at this time of year was a little creepy! “Why don’t you have any Christmas decorations?” he asked.

  “If I tell you, you’ll hate me,” said Brenda.

  “I already hate you,” said William, “so you might as well tell me!”

  Brenda looked up at William, and one corner of her mouth twitched into a tiny smile. William smiled back, and they both let out a little laugh.

  That was weird.

  “Don’t you like Christmas?” asked William.

  “Of course I do! It’s her…,” Brenda said as she pointed at the figure of a woman pacing around inside the house.

  William recognized her at once. It was the Scroogey lady he and his dad had passed on their way to the mailbox a few weeks ago. She was the most serious-looking woman William had ever seen, with skin as pale as the moon. As William watched her, he noticed that she was ripping up pieces of paper.

  “That’s my mom,” said Brenda.

  William gasped. Brenda’s mom couldn’t be any more the opposite of William’s dad. She was dressed in old pajamas, and her expression looked more like she was heading to a funeral than Christmas Eve! Even though she seemed seriously serious, William could see instantly where Brenda got her annoyingly perfect prettiness from. Her mother was very beautiful—or at least she would have been if she didn’t look so awfully sad. When William looked closer, he noticed that it wasn’t paper she was ripping to shreds. It was Christmas cards!

  “Why is she ripping up Christmas cards?” William asked.

  “She…she…” Brenda struggled to get the words out. “She hates Christmas!” And as she said it, she scrunched up a perfectly round snowball in her hand and launched it at the front of her house.

  “But why?” William asked. “How can anyone hate Christmas? Does your dad hate it too?”

  Brenda paused with her trembling hand full of a half-made snowball.

  “What is it?” asked William, sensing that she was keeping something secret. He glanced quickly at the dinosaur, who was peering over the wall and staring encouragingly back at William.

  William watched
Brenda take a deep breath. Whatever she was about to say was obviously very difficult.

  “I don’t have a dad,” said Brenda. Just like that.

  “Oh,” replied William.

  “Well, I do have a dad, but I just don’t see him anymore,” Brenda explained. “My mom and dad got divorced a year ago…one year ago exactly, on Christmas Eve.”

  William looked up at the cold, dark, undecorated house and began to understand.

  “My mom used to love Christmas, but this year she says it just reminds her too much of Dad, so…” Brenda gulped hard and finished rolling the snowball. “So this year she canceled Christmas.”

  As those awful words left her lips, a single teardrop formed in her eye and fell onto the snowball she was holding. She quickly threw it at the wall and made another one.

  William sat thinking about everything he’d just heard. For the first time ever, he actually felt sorry for Brenda Payne. Was this why she was the way she was? William imagined what he would be like if he lived in Brenda’s undecorated house, with no Christmas at all. It made him shudder.

  “When did your mom and dad get divorced?” Brenda asked.

  William remembered the nasty things she’d said in school, and he decided it was time she knew the truth.

  “My parents aren’t divorced,” William said. “My mom died a long time ago.”

  Brenda froze.

  Her pale cheeks suddenly flushed red.

  William guessed she too was remembering what she’d said.

  “It’s OK—you didn’t know,” said William, and he scooped up a handful of snow, packed it into a neat ball, and offered it to Brenda.

  Brenda was too embarrassed to say anything, but sometimes the right words don’t exist anyway. She just stood there and cried again.

  William caught a glimpse of the Christmasaurus’s eyes peeking over the top of Brenda’s wall. The dinosaur looked at Brenda, then back at William, and gave a little nod with his head: HUG!