“I’m not tired,” Theodore informed him with childish indignation.
Hank nodded at Annabelle asleep in Margaret’s arms. “It’s time for bed, kid. The quicker you go to sleep, the sooner morning will come.”
“Why? Does morning come faster when you’re asleep?”
Hank and Margaret exchanged looks of how-do-I-answer-that. Hank turned back to Theodore. “Yes.”
He played the last carol. The song ended, and Margaret went to put Annabelle to bed. Theodore was just getting his second wind, his eyes bright, warning that he was ready to stay awake all night.
There came a rustling on the roof. There was a loud thud and some of the palm fronds fell down to the ground.
Everyone looked up, suddenly silent.
“It’s Santa Claus,” Theodore whispered, the whites of his eyes as wide as gull eggs.
Hank stood up so quickly it almost made Muddy dizzy.
Margaret placed her hand on Hank’s arm. “What’s wrong?”
Hank stared at the roof with a look of amazement. He whipped his head around and gave a narrowed-eye look at Muddy, who didn’t say a word. Muddy just slid his arm around Theodore’s shoulder, crossed his legs, and stared up at the roof. His shoe bells rang as he nonchalantly swung his feet back and forth, and he quietly hummed “Jingle Bells.”
Hank turned and ran outside so fast that Muddy gave a small chuckle.
A choice swear word echoed back into the hut followed by Hank’s deep voice saying, “This is not happening.”
In the distance, there was a new sound. Not the small tinkling of Muddy’s bells, but the clean ringing of brass sleigh bells.
And if one listened very closely, if one tried really hard, it was there... a deep and jolly bit of laughter that drifted across the great Pacific sky.
* * *
Dawn camecool and earlythat Christmas day. Margaret lay in the misty morning world where one was neither asleep nor awake. She heard something and opened her eyes. Hank was slowly closing the door of the hut.
He’d been acting odd most of last evening, even after they calmed down the children. She had awakened in the middle of the night. Hank was standing over her. He held the ragged hem of her dress between his fingers, and he was silent. She hadn’t let him know she was awake and had closed her eyes quickly, but she wondered what he’d been doing. It had seemed an odd thing, to feel someone’s clothes when they were asleep.
She rose now and checked on the children. They were sound asleep. She crept to the door and quietly followed him.
He walked down to the lagoon, dove in the water, and swam out to the sandbar, like he did every day. But somehow, she had a feeling today was different.
Margaret stood there, wondering why she had followed him. It was almost as if someone had told her to, like some odd instinct. Or like the time she chased the hoop. He was swimming as usual, diving beneath the water a few times. She shook her head and took one last look before she started to go back.
Then she saw it, just a few hundred feet from his dark head. She looked again. It was a shark fin.
And she ran.
28
Margaret ripped open the door of the hut, grabbed the pistol, and tore back outside, running as fast as she could. Faster than she’d ever run.
Down the beach. Over a crest in a sand dune to where she could see the water.
In the distance, the shark slowly circled over and over, its fin black, ominous, slicing through the blue water.
Her feet ate up the sand, her long legs fleet. Her heart pounded in her throat. She clutched the pistol tighter.
She blew out breaths as fast as her feet moved.The range? How far? How close? Am I too late? No...
She just kept running.
