This post is part of Teagan Geneviene’s Christmas In July blog hop. https://teagansbooks.com/ #Christmastime
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 Fourth
Click here for part the first.
Click here for part the second.
Click here for part the third.
The side door of the lodge flew open, and Holly’s family swarmed the wagon, cheering its arrival, greeting Holly, the book, and the two strangers with equal celebration and warmth, carrying the wagon’s load into the hall. They didn’t forget the pratty; it was led into a stall connected to the hall itself, where it could eat and drink and warm itself in company with the revelers.
There was only one point of distress.
An elderly woman in the tunic and sash of a rustic clung to Holly with tears in her eyes.
“Where’s my boy? Where’s my little Nittleigh? Don’t tell me he hasn’t come home to see his mother for the Anti-Hot Solemnities.”
“I’m sorry, Ancient Rustic Matron Nitterr Witterr. His luggage is here, though.”
With a rattle and a pop, the trunk she indicated opened, and a short, thin man unfolded from a compartment that took up half of its space.
“Nittleigh!” The old woman threw her arms around his neck. “I knew you’d come!”
Holly’s mouth was open as wide as the trunk’s lid.
“Sorry, Holly,” Nittleigh said. “I didn’t want to worry you, but I was dodging a creditor, and I–” He stopped, his own mouth the widest of all, as he spotted Dickens O’Henry and his henchman.
O’Henry leaned over the trunk and drew out a colorful cloth-wrapped bundle. He unwound the cloth, which turned out to be a Fair Trade hand-knitted Tellurian muffler. At its center was a bottle of his own Blue Ruin.
“Oh, Nittleigh,” cried the old woman. “You remembered!”
Nittleigh said nothing, but cringed as his wary glance flicked between Plugugly and his boss, unsure from which direction his doom would come.
O’Henry’s eyes narrowed and widened and narrowed again, in a Morse code debate between his good and evil natures. His nostrils flared, his face turned as purple as Holly’s feather boa with the strength of his warring emotions.
In a distant part of the lodge, a choir of children broke into a chorus of “Snuggle Up, Honey, It Isn’t Hot Outside”.
“Yes,” said O’Henry. “He did, indeed.” He handed the bottle to the old woman and wrapped the muffler around Nittleigh’s neck. If he made it just a touch too snug for comfort, it was only by a touch. “Let me tell you about it.”
He proceeded to spin a tale that rivaled the most treacly of the Compendium’s collection, about the Brave Little Pratty, The Littlest Pratty Of Them All, who struggled through storm and cold and dark and sundry other obstacles to bring a head librarian and a beloved son to the bosom of their family for the Anti-Hot Solemnities.
“And now,” he finished, “Blue Ruin for everybody!”
Carried away by the spirit of the occasion, Humbug Plugugly said, “And Free Trade mufflers!”
O’Henry, laughed and echoed the cry: “And Free Trade mufflers!”
Later, when all the Blue Ruin had been drunk in toasts to the season, Humbug Plugugly turned to Holly Jahangiri and said, “What kind of noise does a pratty make, anyway, Holly?”
And she told him.
“They go ‘Baaaaaah,’ Humbug.”
A WRITING PROMPT FROM ME TO YOU: A story with a happy ending.
MA
