This post is part of Teagan Geneviene’s Christmas In July blog hop. https://teagansbooks.com/ #Christmastime

During StoryADay May, Sundays are for Holly Jahangiri stories, so I’m going to use the Sundays of this blog hop to serialize one of the first Holly stories. This was published in an anthology still available on Amazon, and free on Kindle. LET IT SNOW! SEASON’S READINGS FOR A SUPER-COOL YULE!

Before the release of FORCE OF HABIT, my sf/cop/humor novel from Echelon Press, I ran a contest; one of the prizes was the right to name a character in a story set in the same universe. The winner was Holly Jahangiri, a blogger and online acquaintance. In the resulting story, “By the Book”, Holly became Assistant Librarian of the Old Earth Living Library of Council City on the planet Llannonn. I had so much fun writing Holly’s story, and she got such a kick out of it, we’ve become dear virtual friends because of it. She even interviewed herself once, but whether the real Holly was questioning the fictional one or the other way around is unclear. In this story, Holly has become Head Librarian.

The Pratty Who Saved Christmuss, Part the Third

Click here for part the first.

Click here for part the second.

“Turn this thing around,” O’Henry said. “We’re going back to Central City.”

“We can’t turn it around.”

O’Henry made a slight movement of his head. Plugugly pulled a ray gun from inside his well-cut jacket and pointed it at the librarian.

“The Boss says to turn it around.”

“We can turn it around.”

O’Henry and Plugugly grinned and nodded.

“But it won’t do any good,” Holly continued. “It’ll just turn around again and head the way we’re going now.” She sighed at their lack of comprehension. City slickers! “This is a homing pratty. It has to be moved out of town by hovervan and left at a posting house. The only place it can or will go is home. Its home, I mean. My home.”

“And your cousin’s home,” O’Henry said, thoughtfully. “He’s supposed to be at this family thing for the Solemnities, right?”

“Neither of us has ever missed one yet.”

“Nor have I, in quite some time,” said the book.

“He’s traditional,” Holly explained. “He likes to come trade trash-talk with the village storyteller.”

“Okay,” said O’Henry. “All right, then.” He flicked a finger, and Plugugly holstered his ray gun. “We’ll just relax and go along for the ride. Then we’ll wait for your cousin to come to us. He’s going to be sorry he tried to run, eh, Humbug?”

“You said it, Boss.”

Now, Holly had no particular affection for Nittleigh. In fact, it was her opinion that the family gene pool would be considerably elevated by his absence from it. On the other hand, he was family. It would also put a tremendous damper on the festivities if Nittleigh were abducted, pistol-whipped, murdered, or otherwise maltreated right there in his own home town.

What could she do? These men had at least one weapon and she had none. Or … perhaps she did.

“No sense riding in silence,” she said. “Why don’t you read yourself to us, Compendium?”

Like most Living Books, A COMPENDIUM OF CHRISTMAS CLASSICS lived to repeat himself to patrons. It was, after all, his job.

“First of all,” he said, “are you gentlemen aware of what Christmas is?”

“Crissmuss?” O’Henry eyed his henchman until it was clear Plugugly hadn’t a clue. Then he felt secure in admitting his own ignorance. “Never heard of the stuff.”

“Christmas is a holiday they have on Earth,” the book said. “It’s a time very like our own Anti-Hot Solemnities, and takes place in the same time of their solar year in the same sort of weather.”

With that introduction, A COMPENDIUM OF CHRISTMAS CLASSICS launched into his repertoire. There were poor little match girls. There were people giving one another gifts they could ill afford, people learning The True Meaning of Life, people opening their crabbed and calloused hearts to tenderness, and any number of tough guys turning out to be real softies.

Neither Bar and Grill Owner Dickens O’Henry nor Assistant Humbug Plugugly had ever done much reading, and lifetimes of avoiding sentimentality had left them easy prey to it. They were, as Head Librarian Holly Jahangiri had calculated, defenseless before it. The heart-tugging tear-jerkery of Victorian-era Earth’s emotional kitsch riveted them, enthralled them, held them spell-bound for the entire journey. Holly helped things along by giving them peppermint sticks to suck upon. The eggnog from the jug she had brought with her didn’t hurt, either.

As the sun set, the sky cleared and a full moon gleamed on the fallen snow, making everything glitter and gleam like a set of opals. The pratty shook itself free of the clumps atop its insulating curls and followed the road like a GPS device that actually worked.

At length, the snow-wagon passed between a double row of hedges perforated by lanes. They passed houses first widely spaced, then more closely spaced, then cheek-by-jowl, and then they were in town. Holly took the reins in hand and guided the beast through the streets until she brought it to a halt in the carriage yard of a three-storied wooden building.

“The Jahangiri/Witterr/Moboy/Hannannann lodge,” Holly said. “Where we all gather for the Five Solemnities.”

A WRITING PROMPT FROM ME TO YOU: Emotional kitsch — good or bad?

MA