Free Of Mice and Nutcrackers: A Peeler Christmas by Richard Scrimger Page B

His eyes are bright as stars. He lets Mom take charge of him, pushing him onto the couch, covering him up with blankets.
    “What’s wrong with Dad?” I ask.
    “He’s feverish. He isn’t making a lot of sense,” says Mom. She puts her hand on Dad’s forehead, shakes her own head, and checks the clock on the desk. “Still two hours until his next pill,” she says.
    “Is he going to be all right?” As I’m talking, he falls back on the pillow and starts to snore.
    Mom turns and smiles. Her lip trembles, though. “Course he is, honey. Course he is.”
    “Good.”
    “Now, get back to bed. It’s really late.” “Night, Mom.” “Night, Jane.”
    On the second floor I can smell cigarette smoke. The lights are off in the family room and downstairs hall. Grandma’s coming up to bed. I see the glowing red coal of the cigarette bobbing up the stairs ahead of her, like one of those guttering old candles that Ebenezer Scrooge would light himself to bed with. I don’t know why Grandma makes me think of Ebenezer Scrooge – they’ve got nothing in common except that theyboth stay up late at night. And they’re both grouchy old people with no one to care about them. Hardly anything in common.
    “Humbug!” growls Grandma, when she sees me.
    “What?”
    “I said humbug. Do you have any humbugs? You know, those little striped mints. I usually keep some in my purse, but I’m all out of them.”
    “Sorry,” I say.
    She coughs a couple of times. “What are you staring at?” she rasps at me. “Nothing.”
    “So I have a cigarette before bed. So what?”
    She wears a pointy nightcap on her head. And her slippers are down at heel. And her nightie is big and wraps around her body. All she needs to complete the picture is the Ghost of Christmas Past, and Tiny Tim.
    There’s something moving in her hair. I peer at it in the glow of her cigarette.
    “Why do you have a spider on you?” I ask.
    “Where?” She swipes at it. I worry for the spider. I reach and take it off her. She shudders, looking at the spider in my hand. “Must have picked it up in the basement,” she says.
    “Quiet down there!” Mom calls from upstairs. “I have to leave early tomorrow.”
    “Sorry, Mom.” I go to bed.
    “Hmph,”
says Grandma. But she goes to bed too. The cigarette stays in her mouth.
    “Where’s the nearest hardware store?” Grandma asks at breakfast. She’s dressed in a shapeless Grandma skirt and a big sweater with buttons.
    “There’s the Dominion Hardware store on Copernicus Street,” I say. “Two blocks or so, next to the fruit store.”
    “That’s where we get our Christmas tree,” says Bernie.
    “Uh-huh,” says Grandma.
    “When are we getting our Christmas tree?”
    Grandma shrugs. “Soon, I guess, Bernard,” she says.
    “That’s what Daddy always says.”
    I wonder what Grandma wants at the hardware store. Probably not humbugs.
    Before leaving for school, I run upstairs to see how Dad is doing. He’s sitting up, propped against a bunch of pillows. His eyes are open to slits. There’s a cool cloth on his forehead. He looks weak.
    “You were wandering around the house last night,” I tell him. “You got lost on the stairs. Do you remember?”
    He shakes his head.
    “How are you feeling now?”
    He shrugs. “Not too bad,” he says.
    I can hear footsteps on the stairs. Slow-moving footsteps, and labored breathing.
    Dad’s hand is still hot. I pat it. “Will you get better?”
    He tries to smile. “Course I will,” he says.
    Grandma enters, breathing heavily. “Ham stairs,” she says. “Three floors and no elevator. My hip feels like the
Hindenburg.
Time for your medicine,” she says. She flops down in the chair to rest.
    “Okay, Mother-in-law,” says Dad.
    Grandma takes a pill bottle from the desk, holds it a long way away from her and peers at the writing. “Two pills, with water,” she mutters. She removes the lid and shakes out the pills. One of them drops on the floor. Grandma