"Very well. Whatever length the piece turns out is fine. But be sure you do justice to each work."
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By the time I got through with the assignment, it was thirty-eight pages long. I never thought I could write that much but it kept on coming, new thoughts about each book, each scene, the different worlds Verne had built: the fantastic slopes of Barsoom, the sinister Island of Dr Moreau. . . Each one spawned a new insight. I felt like the Verne's detective, Sherlock Holmes, assembling all of the seemingly insignificant details into some kind of coherent picture, finding the improbable links between the wildly different stories the Frenchman told.
Mama was thrilled to see me working, papers spread out all around me on the kitchen table — I could've used Pa's study, but it felt like an invasion, somehow — writing until my wrists cramped. She let me get away without doing my chores, rising early to milk the cow, bringing in the eggs from the henhouse, even chopping the kindling. Just so long as I was writing, she was happy to let me go on shirking my responsibilities.
Even on Christmas Eve, I was too distracted to really enjoy the smells of goose and ham and the stuffing Mama spent days preparing. I was still writing when she told me to go change and set the table for three.
"We're having Mr Johnston to dinner," she said.
I made a face. Mr Johnston was the only one in town that I could have talked to about my time in 1975, but I never did. He had a way of bossing a fellow around while seeming to be nice to him. He still ran Pa's store, using ladders to reach the high shelves that Pa had just plucked things off of. I had to see him when Mama sent me on errands there, but I made sure that I left as quickly as I could. Mama kept saying that I should ask him for a job, but I was pretty good at changing the subject whenever it came up.
I put away my papers and changed into my Sunday clothes. I'd been hinting to Mama lately that a boy just wasn't complete without a puppy, so I put an extra shine on my shoes and said a quick prayer that I wouldn't find socks and picture-books under the tree.
Mr Johnstone arrived with a double-armload of gifts. Well, he did run my Pa's store, after all, so he could get things wholesale. I took his parcels from him and set them under the tree. Then that dandified sissy actually kissed my Mama on the cheek, lifting a sprig of mistletoe up with one hand. When Pa and Mama stood together, she'd barely come up to his shoulder, while Mr Johnstone had to stand on tiptoe to get the mistletoe over their heads. "Merry Christmas, Ulla," he said.
She took his hands and said, "Merry Christmas, James."