This Free Christmas Short Story is by Rob Hopcott - I hope you will share it with your friends and have a great Christmas...

The Christmas Story - 2004
by Rob Hopcott

See also 'Christmas (Xmas) Wishes' my 2005 Christmas Story

Tom loved stories. He would sit in the old storytelling chair by the fire, his pale blue eyes glinting in the light from the flickering candles on the tables all around. His chuckles would drift from lips that were weather beaten like the old oak beams above his head. Contentedly, he made himself comfortable in the oak chair that had heard thousands of stories over hundreds of years in this small West of England Inn that nestled between the dark hills of Exmoor.

People came to see Tom from all around the world. How they heard about him nobody knew but the hostelry had welcomed travellers for as long as anyone could remember.

To find him, visitors had to negotiate miles of twisting leafy lanes. But when they came over the brow of the hill to descend into our little hamlet, they got their reward. The low slung thatched roof seemed to snuggle into the valley. There was an old rusting water pump and a mill wheel which in summer was covered in red and white roses. The low ceilinged beams were genuine and there was always good food on the hob. On a warm summers evening, the scent of fuscia mingled pungently with the musk of damp undergrowth from the surrounding high earth hedges.

When the winter came, there were fewer visitors but the village community that lived in the valley would draw close around the log fire that roared its way up the stone chimney until its smoke mingled with the moors beyond - and the stories would go on.

"Who is to tell the story tonight," Tom would enquire.

The drinkers at the bar and the diners at the tables would look away, trying to avoid his steely eye.

In all the history of storytelling in this isolated stone-built hostelry, with its blue wisteria that clambered around the low entrance porch in the summer, its white inner walls and its worn stone flags, there'd always been somebody willing to tell their tale.

Sometimes, a young man would accept the challenge and, with his hip born portable telephone and executive suit worn like badges, he would recount adventures of conquest and adversity.

Sometimes, the soft voice of a local woman would relate accounts of the countryside and haunting folk legends.

Occasionally, Tom would take the seat and reach into his vast store of experiences that spanned more than 80 years. With his eyes glinting like flints, he would bring forth images so strange that the merest glass placed on the bar would sound like a cannon's roar in the rapt silence.

But the best story was always saved until Christmas - for this was the story that marked the end of the year.

It was the time when the holly was cut from the high hedgerows and festooned around the bar with its shiny prickly green leaves and red berries. Then the Christmas tree, cut from the fir tree lined hills above, was reverently placed by the huge log burning fire and piled with presents to be exchanged with much ribald jibes on Christmas Day.
 
It was also the time when the landlord would serve warm mulled wine, the favourite drink of his customers at Christmas and it was the time that Tom was certain to make his challenge.

"Come on you mangy rabble," he would chortle. "You can't hide from old Tom, you know. Unless somebody comes and sits in this chair and tells us a Christmas story, I'll tell the landlord to put away the mulled wine!"

"You wouldn't do that," cried a busty girl with a pretty face, her long blonde hair cascading down to arrive just above her tiny skirt. "You like the mulled wine too much yourself, Tom!"

"Aye, lass, I like the mulled wine but I like the Christmas story even more. It's a tradition that goes back far longer than I know - even to when there were lords and ladies gracing this bar instead of you lot!"

He nodded his head sagely in affirmation of those better days. His white shaggy beard extended from his chin to the sideburns in front of his ears and his eyes sparkled in the flames of the fire.

"Tom's got my support!"

This was from a quick voiced man with clipped speech and a round face. His dress was smart but casual, with well-ironed light blue slacks and a shirt open at the front that revealed for more hairs than were on his head.

"When I come down from London each year, I always look forward to the Christmas story."

"You tell the story, then, m'dear," retorted a young labourer, his jeans still dirty from milking the cows.

"Not I," said the executive man. "All I know is balance sheets, profit and loss accounts and share prices."

"Cooo I'd like to know about that!" said the young man. His face shining with mock enthusiasm under his mop of fair hair. "Maybe I'd learn enough not to have to milk those cretinous cows every day. Last week, I made the mistake of walking behind one just as she was 'un-encumbering' herself, as you might say. Cooooor, I didn't half stink. I couldn't wait to get my kit off when I got home."

"We don't want to know about your disgusting experiences, young Jim, at the back of the cow or whenever," said Tom, preening his beard. "It's Christmas time. The sun goes down early and the nights are long. The leaves are off the trees and crisp brown on the ground. Our best pullovers are out and wrapped around us to keep us warm in the wintry gales. It's a special time of the year and we need our special Christmas story."

The room was quiet but everyone could hear the wind growing stronger outside. Feet shuffled and shoulders rubbed as people tried to escape to the back of the bar to avoid Tom's questioning stare. His eyes wandered from person to person. Few could hold his gaze long before looking down, embarrassed. But none were willing to take the story-telling chair tonight.

Suddenly, the front door of the Inn creaked open and the wind that was jostling the trees outside suddenly roared into the bar, spinning the decorations into whirling dervishes. All eyes swivelled around.

The woman had a pale face, short fair hair and impassive blue eyes. She stood uncertainly, staring around the bar, seeming surprised to see so many people in this lonely spot.

She pulled her red cape closed around her shoulders although it was already held fast at her neck by a small gold chain. Underneath the cape she wore a white polo necked jumper and white slacks. The heels of her red boots clicked on the stone flags as she slowly crossed to the only chair that was empty in the bar. Tom had moved to sit on a log, and was warming himself by the Christmas tree, with a serene look on his face.

There only seems to be one seat left in this bar on this dark and dismal night," she said.

Her voice was soft and mingled with the holly, mistletoe and decorations that hung from the beams.

"If you are to sit there," said Tom, kindly, "you must tell us a story and it must be a story for Christmas.

"I can do that for you if you wish," she said, removing the cape from around her alabaster neck and laying it over her knees as if to comfort and protect.

The landlord pushed through the crowd with a goblet of mulled wine and placed it regally in her hand.

"You'll need some of this, m'dear, to help you on your way" he said.

If the spices stung her throat, she showed no sign. After a deep draught, she laid the glass beside her chair and placed her hands palm down on its high arms. The old wooden structure seemed huge around her but she'd the attention of everybody in the bar as she began her story.

"Christmas is about children," she said. "The story I want to tell you is about a school where the children were all in their first years of learning."

"It was Christmas time and the children were having a music lesson. Clustered around the young teacher's piano, they sung some carols and then she showed them the individual notes of the musical stave and how she was reading them. Then it was time for the children to use what they had learned. They had to form themselves into small groups, decide on a note and then act it out."

"There was lots of laughter and discussion as they made their plans and the lesson was certainly a success because soon the children were fluently using the names of all the notes in the stave."

The woman in white with her cape as red as the holly berries paused and looked up at the clock above the bar.

"In the length of time it takes for the minute hand to go halfway round the clock, they were ready with their performance," she said.

"The first group formed themselves into a line on the floor with one of them curled up like a ball at one end and another diagonally angled away at the other end."

"We are a quaver," they shouted gleefully. "Our note is very fast. We're full of excitement and joy." The class clapped its appreciation.

"The second group likewise formed themselves into a line on the floor but this time without the diagonal tail and explained that they were a crotchet. Their music was solemn, marching, plodding and determined." Applause quickly followed.

"The third group then lay on the floor and formed a large oval shape."

"We are a semibreve," they said, proudly, "the longest of all the notes. We come at the end of the music when all the excitement is done and it is time for all the sounds to return home." Everyone clapped.

"Then, at last there was one child left who was not part of any group. This child was not popular and often missed school through sickness. Under the watchful gaze of the whole class, she slowly walked to the centre of the room, each step seemed painful and when she sat cross legged on the floor with her blue uniform tucked carefully beneath her pale knees, it was as if she was relieved to have made it at all."

"What musical note are you going to be," asked the young teacher. She knew that the little girl should have been part of a group but somehow hadn't got round to arranging it."

"The little girl sat quietly and completely immobile staring at the wooden floor of the classroom."

"The teacher turned to the rest of the class and asked them."

"What musical note do you think Natalie is today?" There was an immediate chorus of shouts from the girls and boys all around, each taking a different note from their imagination to associate with the little girl seated on the floor."

"The teacher frowned, worried. In Natalie's school notes, she remembered seeing something that had said the girl was unlikely ever become a teenager. Could it be that the child was ill now, for she was so quiet."

The class had finished it's shouting and waited, impatiently, for Natalie to speak. At last she raised her eyes from the floor.

"I am not really a musical note," she said, clearly. "I am the rest between the notes. I can be as short as a quaver or as long as a semibreve. I am the silence at the end of the music and the tranquillity of the night when you are all asleep ... in the end, I am all there is..."

The lady in white lifted her eyes to the people in the bar all around.

"And that is the end of the story," she said.

She raised herself out of the storytelling chair, slowly put on her red cloak and made her way to the door. A young man at the entrance held out his hand, grasping hold of the cape and speaking gruffly.

"Were you the teacher?"

He seemed to recoil as her eyes met his ...

"No …," she replied, "I was the child..."

Then she was gone and, in the bar, you could have heard a snowflake fall …

The End

See also 'Christmas (Xmas) Wishes' my 2005 Christmas Story

Bye for now ...     Rob

Copyright of this story is Rob Hopcott's, 1999 - 2007, all rights reserved. All characters in this story are fictitious and no reference is intended to any person living or otherwise.
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- is a free online short story by Rob Hopcott. I hope you have a great Christmas and you will share it with your friends. Merry Xmas ...