Christmas Treasure (4 page)

They drove on until they reached a large white building at one end of a street. The empty parking lot was littered with broken bottles, and a heavy chain and padlock hung across the front door.

“This is it,” Colonel Hanson said. He smiled at Carole’s puzzled frown. “I think you’ll be very surprised when you go inside.”

They got out of the car. From his pocket Colonel Hanson pulled the key chain on which he kept all his Marine Corps keys. He flipped through them, then grasped one bright blue key and fitted it into the lock. The key turned, and he pushed open the door. At first all Carole could see was darkness. Then her father turned on the lights.

“Gosh!” she gasped in amazement. The huge warehouse was filled with toys. There were dolls and games and balls and rocking horses. Brightly colored, soft toys for babies were stacked next to action figures for older children. Books and coloring books and drawing kits filled
one corner, while blocks and board games filled another. Carole blinked at all the bright colors. She’d never seen so many toys in her life!

“Gosh!” she repeated. “How long have the Marines been collecting these?”

“Well, it’s a yearlong project,” Colonel Hanson said with a chuckle. “We started right after last Christmas.”

Carole blinked. She wouldn’t know where to begin sorting through all these toys. “How are we supposed to do this, Dad?”

Colonel Hanson unzipped his briefcase and pulled out a thick computer printout. “This is a list of needy children and families the county human services agency sent us. We just have to inventory these toys and match them to the children on this list. You know, figure out what we have for boys under five, or for girls over eight. That kind of thing.”

Carole still stared at the huge mounds of toys. “But, Dad, it’ll take us months to do that, and it’s only two weeks till Christmas.”

“Oh, other Marines will work on this after hours during the week.” Colonel Hanson smiled. “This is just the shift I chose because I thought it would be fun to do it together.”

“That’s a relief!” Carole cried. “For a minute I thought it was all up to just us.”

Colonel Hanson looked at all the toys stacked around
the room and scratched his chin. “I’ve got an idea,” he finally said. “Let’s just pull all the baby toys we can find over in this one corner. Then we’ll put all the toddler toys next to them, then the preschool toys next to them.”

“Just like grades in school?” asked Carole.

“Right,” said her father. “We’ll go from youngest to oldest.”

They started on the far wall of the warehouse, searching through all the boxes for toys for babies. After working a couple of hours, they had all of them piled in one corner of the building.

“Now,” said Colonel Hanson, taping a sheet of paper that read
BABIES
to the tall stack. “On to the toddlers.”

Again they looked through all the toys the Marines had gathered, now searching for toys that helped toddlers learn their colors and numbers. Carole found several new versions of some toys she’d had as a small child. In one corner, she found a doll exactly like one her mother had given her years ago.

“Look, Dad! Here’s another Ahmarha.”

Colonel Hanson came over and looked at the pretty little doll with her dark brown hair and cinnamon-colored skin. “I remember the day your mother gave you that doll,” he said softly. “You had just begun to talk and you could barely say
doll
.”

“Really?” Carole laughed.

Colonel Hanson nodded. “Your mother and I thought
you were the cutest little thing.” He laughed. Then he saw a sad expression flicker across Carole’s face. He put his arm around her. “You miss Mom a lot at Christmastime, don’t you?”

Carole nodded. Her mother had died of cancer a few years ago, before she and Stevie and Lisa had started The Saddle Club. “I think about her a lot.”

“I do, too,” said Colonel Hanson, squeezing Carole’s shoulder. “Sometimes I get real sad, but then I concentrate on all the wonderful things she did for us, and how much she loved to laugh. Remember that special Kwanzaa song she taught us?”

Carole nodded. “ ‘We bring to this feast of Karamu, our colors of Kwanzaa love,’ ” she sang.

Her father smiled. “Every time I feel sad about your mother at this time of year, I think of that song, and then I feel better.” He gave Carole a hug. “Sometimes when we miss the people we love, all we need to do is think about something that was special to them—like a song, or something they thought was funny, and it’s as if they’re right here again, with us.”

Carole hugged her father back. She thought of her mother often, in just the same way he did, and she, too, felt as if her mother was near. “I know exactly what you mean,” she said.

“Then let’s get back to work.” Colonel Hanson smiled down at Carole. “I know your mother wouldn’t want us to
goof off on this job. She would say it’s much too important to get these toys distributed to the kids who need them.”

“Right,” said Carole.

They worked for several more hours. Though there weren’t any clocks in the warehouse, Carole could tell by the empty feeling in her stomach that it must be getting close to suppertime.

“What time is it, Dad?” she finally asked.

Colonel Hanson looked at his watch. “Good grief!” he cried. “It’s almost eight o’clock! You must be starved.”

“Well, I am getting a little hungry,” Carole admitted.

“Gosh, honey, I had no idea it had gotten so late. I guess we both got caught up in all this sorting.”

They looked at the toys they had arranged in one corner. It was a lot, but it seemed to Carole that they had made just the tiniest start.

“We’ll quit now and let Captain Morton and her squad take over tomorrow.” Colonel Hanson made a check mark on his list and began to put on his coat.

“It doesn’t seem like we’ve done that much, Dad,” Carole said. “And we’ve been here all afternoon.”

Colonel Hanson looked at the toy-filled warehouse. “We’ll have troops working here all week, so by next weekend we should be in good shape.”

“Stevie and Lisa said they would help,” Carole added.

“Great,” said Colonel Hanson. “I knew I could rely on
The Saddle Club.” He zipped up his jacket. “Are you ready for a Hanson special?”

“Oh, yes,” said Carole. “I can smell it already. All that yummy cheese, all that delicious pepperoni.”

Colonel Hanson grinned. “Okay, then. We’ll lock up here, and then it’s Giuseppe’s, here we come!”

“L
ISA
! D
ON
’
T CLIMB
down yet. You’ve missed a spot!”

Lisa was standing on the next to the top rung of the stepladder from the garage. She’d spent most of the afternoon washing the upstairs windows in her house while her mother held the ladder to steady it. At the moment, her mother was still behind and below her, pointing to a tiny spot high on the inside of the top pane of glass.

“Where, Mom? I don’t see it.” Bright sunshine poured through the windowpane. Lisa couldn’t see anything on the glass except her own reflection.

“It’s right there, just over your left shoulder.”

Lisa squinted at the glass. If she cocked her head in a certain direction, she could see a faint smudge of dirt that
she’d missed with the paper towel. “That little thing?” She turned and looked down at her mother.

“Yes.” Mrs. Atwood nodded. “It looks like a big blob from here.”

Lisa squirted more window cleaner on the glass and rubbed it with the paper towel. The spot disappeared. “Is it gone now?” she asked, afraid to step down from the ladder for fear her mother would find another spot for her to scrub.

“I don’t see it anymore.” Mrs. Atwood peered up at the pane of glass. “Is this the last window in this room?”

“Yes,” answered Lisa as she began to climb down. “This is the last window in the whole upstairs.”

“Good,” said Mrs. Atwood. “You’ve done a marvelous job, sweetie. Now if you’ll put that ladder back in the garage we can start baking.”

Lisa took a deep breath as her mother hurried downstairs to the kitchen. So far this afternoon they had cleaned out three closets, washed all the upstairs windows, and scrubbed the downstairs woodwork. And all to get ready for a bunch of people she could barely remember! Though she had a vague memory of what her cousins Douglas and Eliot looked like, the rest of the family was a blur, and now there were two more of them. “Darling twin girls,” her mother had said. “Caitlin and Fiona.”

With a sigh, Lisa began to fold up the ladder. She knew that her mother was a good mother, but sometimes she did get carried away about things. Usually she was very
concerned about redecorating the house or making sure Lisa had the right dancing lessons or drawing lessons to be a properly brought up young lady. But ever since Mrs. Atwood’s cousin Sarah Ross had called in September, she’d been totally obsessed with planning their visit down to the last minute. Now that their arrival was drawing near, she had become a nonstop whirlwind of cooking, cleaning, and baking.

Lisa shook her head and listened as her mother started banging pots and pans around in the kitchen. Of all Christmases, why did the Rosses have to be coming this year? She had so much to do. First she needed to figure out what sort of good deed she could do for Max, whose name she had drawn at Horse Wise that morning. Max had lots of people helping him out all day, and most of the stuff he did, Lisa didn’t know how to do, anyway. She couldn’t give anybody a riding lesson, and she certainly didn’t know how to manage some of the more difficult horses at the stable. There wasn’t a thing she could think of that Max couldn’t do better for himself.

“Lisa!” her mother called. “I need your help!”

“Okay. I’m coming.” Lisa picked up the ladder.
Maybe I can think of a Secret Santa good deed while I bake shortbread
, she decided as she maneuvered the ladder down the stairs. That way at least one part of my brain will be put to good use.

By the time she had put the ladder back in the garage, Mrs. Atwood had the stove preheated and several pounds
of butter softening. Lisa had to admit that it was nice to be in a warm kitchen after having been in the cold, damp garage, and the vanilla her mother was using for the shortbread made the room smell wonderful.

“All right, Lisa. Come over here and grease all our cookie sheets,” Mrs. Atwood said. “But be sure and wash your hands first.”

“Okay.” Lisa went to the sink and turned on the water. The rush of bubbles reminded her of her other task: curing Prancer of her fear of water.
Wonder what Prancer would do if she saw this
, Lisa thought as she soaped her hands.
If one little creek freaks her out, a stream of rushing water would probably send her up a tree.
She rinsed her hands and sighed again. How on earth was she going to find the time to retrain Prancer before the Fairfax competition? She turned off the water and dried her hands. There was just too much to do this Christmas, and not nearly enough time.

She stooped down to get the cookie sheets out of the cabinet and noticed her mother studying the cookbook. “Have you ever made this before, Mom?”

“Yes, I’ve made shortbread before. I was just checking on the oven temperature. There are lots of other Scottish dishes I’m going to cook that are new to me, though.” Mrs. Atwood smiled. “I’m going to try bannocks and clooty dumplings, and one night I’m going to fix haggis.”

Lisa frowned. “Haggis?”

“Yes. It’s practically the national dish of Scotland. It’s
liver and suet and oatmeal and spices all tied up and boiled in a sheep’s stomach.”

Lisa frowned. Liver? Suet? Was her mother kidding? Already she could feel her stomach beginning to churn at the idea of haggis. Maybe the night her mother served haggis would be a good night to become a vegetarian!

“Aren’t we going to have any American food while they’re here?” she asked. “I mean, the Rosses are coming to America. They might want to try something like corn on the cob or sweet potatoes or pumpkin pie or barbecued ribs.”

Mrs. Atwood measured several cups of flour into a big mixing bowl. “They might, but I think America will seem very big and strange to them. They’re from a tiny village on the west coast of Scotland. I thought if I cooked them what they were used to eating there, they might feel more at home.”

“Yes, but we are going to have our traditional Christmas dinner, aren’t we?” Lisa began to rub shortening on a cookie sheet. “Pot roast with potatoes and peas?”

Mrs. Atwood shook her head. “Well, no, dear. This year I thought we might try salmon and wild rice.”

“Salmon?” Lisa wrinkled her nose. “And rice? No pot roast and potatoes?”

Mrs. Atwood nodded. “Lisa, it’s important that we make our guests feel at home. It’s also important that they have a wonderful Christmas.”

“How do Scottish people celebrate Christmas?” Lisa
asked in a shaky voice.
If these people eat liver cooked in a sheep’s stomach, what in the world do they do on Christmas day—tie bells around a lamb’s tail and chase him through the town?

“Oh, I think they celebrate Christmas just the way we do—they decorate a tree and exchange gifts and go to church. Their cuisine is just a little different from ours.”