he knows

Early Christmas morning, Telly calls me.  There’s no hello. 

“Give me a play-by-play description of events in the next yard.”

“Uh, Merry Christmas, Telly,” I say.

“Yeah, yeah.  Merry Christmas.  Now what’s the scene?”

“What.  Am I casing the joint for you?  Are you going to steal all the kids’ toys once things settle down?”

“I’m in quarantine,” he reminds me.  “You are my eyes and ears on the outside.  Just indulge me.”

The unseasonably warm weather prevails, and Tabby and her two-year-old brother Francis, a.k.a. Sir Francis—as his father Dan-the-Man tells it—are outside with the new Christmas presents. 

So.

“No chestnuts popping on an open fire here, too warm.  But just perfect to take your new plastic wagon-pull-thing out for a spin.  Sir Francis is pulling his wagon-thing in erratic lines back and forth across the yard.  If he could straighten it up a little bit, I could see him pulling a functional lawnmower-thing next Christmas morning. 

“And he’s padding around in in a Halloween costume.  I will assume it’s a Halloween costume.  I don’t recall a dinosaur in the manger scene.”

“What about the girl?” Telly asks impatiently. 

“If you are hoping to get an adult-size Christmas tree sweater with blinking lights like the one she gave Toby, I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed.  Dan-the-Man’s wearing that gift.”

“Have you ever listened to a baseball game on the radio?” Telly asks.  “Have you ever noticed how all they ever talk about is the baseball game, not the color of the clouds over the scoreboard or the number of cars they can see in the parking lot.”

“I’ve never noticed that.  Why?”

It’s just too much fun not to rile up the old guy.  But I don’t push it.

“Okay, Tabby is standing perfectly still in the middle of the yard holding a doll by the hand.  I mean, the doll is literally hanging at the end of her arm.  She is watching her father follow the wagon-thing his dinosaur son is pulling around the yard.  Not a very compelling set of actions.  Let me see if I can see their parked cars.”

“Is that her doll?” Telly asks.

“Either that, or it’s her miniature younger sister who appears to have not one structural bone in her body.  I’m thinking someone left it under the tree for her overnight.”

“She doesn’t sound too happy about it,” Telly says rather excitedly.  I’m beginning to suspect an inner Grinch in my friend.

“Hold up,” I say.  “There could be a new development.  Tabby’s moving again.  She is about to intersect with Sir Francis and his wagon.  Her arm is out.  Maybe she’s going to hug him.  She’s stepping past him…I’m thinking no hug… and she’s dropping her doll into the wagon-thing as her father smiles down at her.  Now she’s watching them leave.  Now she’s turning to look at me while I narrate everything she is doing to a ninety-two-year-old man who is bored babysitting a sick Republican.”

Telly sighs.  “Now what is she doing?”

“Tabby,” I call over the fence.  “What are you doing?”

The kid narrows her eyes and pulls up a mask covered in candy canes.  She walks toward me and the cat, who is walking on top of the white picket fence.

“Who wants to know,” she says.

“Give her the phone,” Telly says. 

“What?”

“Give…her…the phone.”

I hand the girl my phone and she picks up where I left off.  “I don’t talk to strangers,” she says for an icebreaker.  But in about three seconds, her expression changes and she hangs up my phone.

“He said to tell you to take me to the outhouse,” Tabby says with a perfectly straight face.  “What’s an outhouse?”

“That’s what Telly calls the small in-laws suite behind his granddaughter’s big house.  We were there last night.”

After a few awkward seconds, the kid says, “Are you waiting for me to ask you to take me?”

“Yo, Dan,” I call out to the adult in the next yard.  “I’m kidnapping your daughter for a few minutes.”

My neighbor waves to me.  “As long as the ransom is within reason.”  Not where are you taking her?

Tabby lets herself out of the fenced yard and Toby and I walk her up the street where Telly’s granddaughter, Ally, is waiting outside for us in her work scrubs.  “I just got home,” she calls out as we approach.  “I didn’t even have time to change when my grandfather told me.”

“Told you what?” the three of us ask.

I see Telly standing in the glass storm door of Ally’s house.  He points toward the driveway and disappears.

“What’s going on?” I ask Ally.

“Follow me,” she says with a smile too topographically pronounced to be concealed by her mask.  She takes us around the side of the big house to the smaller in-laws house in the back.  “Wait here,” she says.  “I’ll go get it.”

“Get what?” the three of us ask.   

I look back to the kitchen door where Telly has stepped outside to watch.  I shrug my shoulders Why.  He motions for me to turn back around and pay attention.  When I do, I see Ally walking a killer mountain bike with a brilliant yellow paint job so bold it throws back every glint of light the sun can throw at it.

There is an honest-to-God gasp beside me.  Tabby’s mouth is hanging open.  She is poignantly aware just what doll-thing was left for her under her tree at her house.  Perhaps for this reason, she absolutely refuses to let go of the tears swelling in her eyes until she knows what is what.

“This old guy in a red suit left this bike before I could tell him I thought he had the wrong house,” Telly says behind us.  “What does the card say?”

Ally plucks a card-with-string tied to the handlebars and hands it to the girl, who reads it to us. 

“Tabby,” she says. 

At once, she opens the dam gates and those tears gush.

“That’s me.”  She can hardly get the words out of her mouth.  “But…but…”  Now come the buts of doubt.

Still speaking in a loud voice from the house, Telly says, “I know mountain bikes don’t usually have a basket in the front.  But what do I know.  And there are probably a few nicks and scuffs.”  He laughs a calculated laugh.  Of course there are nicks and scuffs.  The bike belonged to his deceased wife Alexi, the person he talks about more than anyone living.  “The guy in the red suit rode it around to make certain his elves turned all the nuts and bolts tight.  And, well, he kind of fell.  A few times.  He made me promise not to mention that little bit to anyone.  But you are not just anyone.” 

“He knew,” Tabby says to me.

“Telly knows a lot.”

“Santa!” she corrects me.  “He got my letter.  I just didn’t know this is what he had in mind.” 

Still in a state of shock, Tabby takes the bike from Ally, mouth open, eyes wide.  I can practically hear the song of angels coming out of her ears. 

I hold the bike steady for her while she climbs up to try it on for size.  “It’s a little big.”  She looks at the six inches between her feet and the pedals.

“Excuse me,” Telly continues to but in.  “I think most bicycle seats are mounted on a metal post that can be raised or lowered.  And if I’m not mistaken, the tool to do that is in my granddaughter’s hand.  Loch?”

I adjust the seat, with the new owner still on the seat.  She simply refuses to separate from the bike.  I tell her to lift up while I lower the seat.  “There,” I say, still holding the handlebar to keep her upright. 

“Look at these tires,” Tabby says with wonder.  “This is exactly what a monster truck would look like if it were a bike.”

“They’re supposed to be big, to help the rider tackle mountain terrain.  Unlike the truck version, they’re not made big for running over other bikes.  Although, I’m sure it could do that.”

“This is so cool,” she says.  Then, “Give me a push.”  

I don’t know why, but I hadn’t imagined us doing more than walking the bike back down the street like a pet on a leash.
“You heard her,” Telly yells out.

I take a few steps, pulling the bike with me at the seat, and let go. 

“Okay, turn,” I say.  “Tabby, there is a tree in front of you.  Tabby,” I shout.  “Turn.”

The bike is going so slowly, and the big wheels are so big and puffy, the kid just bounces off the tree and stops.

“Wow!”  Her face lights up.  “Let’s do that again.”

“This time,” I suggest, “why don’t we try to avoid anything standing in our way that is bigger than we are.”

We take our rodeo down the driveway to the street.  Telly reappears at the front door.  Ally holds the handlebar for Tabby until she is ready.  When Tabby nods, Ally lets go.  I walk with Tabby, again holding the bike by the scruff of its seat.  We take it up to a jog.  Ally and Toby run with us.  When we have enough momentum, I quietly release her.  Tabby doesn’t even know.

Ally is filming all of this on her phone to show Santa when she returns home.  I run beside Tabby and she looks at my arms swinging at either side.  “You’re not holding it,” she says, alarmed and exhilarated. 

“It’s all you, Tabby,” I tell her.  “You got this.  Right?”

The kid pedals harder. 

Ahead of us, I can see Dan and Alice with Sir Francis and the wagon-pull-thing on the far side of the street in front of their house.  They recognize the eight-year-cyclist in the distance.  Tabby crouches over the bike’s handlebars and bears down on her family.  As she gets closer to them, it isn’t clear to me she remembers what she is supposed to do when she encounters something bigger than her.   

As for her parents, they just stand there.  They’re not moving.  There is no evidence of concern on their faces, no recognition that harm may ride on their daughter’s shoulder today or that they may stand in harm’s way.  It matters not, their uninformed smiles suggest, if she approaches on foot, a mountain bike, or a ground-to-air missile.  This is their daughter.  She approaches.   

“Turn Tabby, turn,” I shout, uncertain who poses who the greater risk to whom.  Finally, at the last second, she does just that, turning right, missing mom and dad, and nailing the neighbor’s parked Cadillac on the side of the road.

“Tabby!”

“Sweetheart!”

Dan and Alice kick their parenting act into gear after witnessing their daughter somersault over her handlebars and the trunk of Ed Filbert’s car. 

They reach for their fallen daughter.

“BACK OFF!” Tabby cries with a hand up.  She winces as she scoots to the edge of the car and hops down.  “I am eight years old,” she declaims, “and I don’t even know how to ride a stupid bike.  I am so behind my peers because NO ONE would get the ONE THING I have been asking for since I outgrew my Big Wheel like forEVER ago.”

Dan and Alice step back with Sir Francis who clearly knew better in the first place.

The girl picks up her bike, just as Ed Filbert comes running out of his house in his robe.  “What’s going on here?”

“What’s going on?” Tabby echoes and turns on the street’s most contentious resident.  “SOMEONE parked their STUPID CAR on the street when their driveway is WIDE OPEN.”

I’ve told myself before, I like that kid.  I’m just glad she’s not mine.

Effectively shut down before he can work up his signature indignation, Ed backs up with Tabby’s parents.  The girl walks her bike back to Toby and me.  Her candy cane mask is crushed, and there is a smidge of blood below the nose bump.  She approaches me, completely disregarding everything the CDC has been shouting from the pulpit for the last nine months, and walks into my arms.

“You okay?” I ask her and look up at Ally who is still filming.  There is at least one person in quarantine who will want to see every gritty detail. 

“Yeah.”  She says softly and pulls back to look right in Santa’s eye.  “Even though I’m pretty new at this, the bike rides perfect, like maybe someone already taught it how to be ridden.”  There is a twinkle in her eye, and I realize now, for all her tough talk of letters and trust-worthy toymakers, the girl knows exactly where this monster gift came from, even if she doesn’t understand why.  “This is the best Christmas ever.”

What do you mean I have the wrong house? No! No! No!