"So is Boo excited to ride on an airplane?" Shane asked.
Oliver had to hold the phone tight to his ear to hear above the crowd noise. "I'm not sure. She is excited, but I think that has more to do with going to Grandma's to get mommy than riding on the airplane. How is your mom doing?"
"She is good, ready for Christmas. Our daughter is not easily impressed is she?" Shane laughed.
Oliver laughed. "She is as smart as her mother. I think that's the problem. That little mind never stops."
"Flight 4663 to Philadelphia now boarding at Gate 6!" a voice boomed in the background.
"What is she doing while you have to wait?"
"At the moment she is talking to the old man she adopted."
"What? Oliver!"
"Flight 5665 to Orange County now boarding at Gate 9!" a voice boomed in the background.
"Relax. It's not like that. He was sitting right beside us when we sat down to wait. She started talking to him as if they were old friends. I don't see any danger, we are sequestered in what amounts to a locked environment. No one gets out, no one gets in. You know what the TSA is like. There are police everywhere to help with holiday crowds. If that doesn't put your mind at ease, I talked with the guy, he is old, pudgy and couldn't run twenty feet without an oxygen tank. Besides, she is only two feet away from me and will stay right there. For some reason the two have been talking a mile a minute ever since. Boo even introduced him to Hermione."
"Oh my," Shane gasped. "She trusts him to meet her bear. Now that is some serious vetting," she laughed.
"Flight 3653 to Baltimore now boarding at Gate 7!" a voice boomed in the background.
"Finally," Oliver blurted. "That's our boarding call. We need to start moving."
"Ok. Call me when you're airborne so I can talk to Boo. I want to see how she likes flying."
Oliver lifted three year old Boo from her seat and stood. The rotund old man she had been talking to, stood and handed the child her stuffed bear. His hair was white, his cheeks were red, and his beard was as fluffy as cotton. "Don't forget this, Little Lady," the man said with a voice that oozed laughter. "Wait," he said suddenly. "May I?" he asked Oliver, holding up a tiny silver bell.
The lead Postable for the Denver DLO studied the tiny bell for several seconds. To say the bell was small was an understatement. The thing would easily fit inside of a marble and didn't have enough room to hide anything.
"Sure," Oliver said, smiling.
The man used a short piece of ribbon to tie the bell to the bow circling Hermione's neck. "Now don't forget, Little One. When you hear the jingle bell, look out your window."
"I won't forget, Nick," Boo laughed. Then, "Daddy, hold me closer so I can give a hug."
Oliver did, and the little girl threw her arms around the old man's neck, which started them both laughing.
"Good bye, Boo," the man said and rolled a dark gray Stetson onto his head, the brim tipped jauntily to one side. After bundling a dark wool overcoat around his bulk, he picked up a walking stick with a silver reindeer on the end, tapped it three times on the tile floor, then gave Boo and her daddy a wink.
"Good bye Nick," Boo called, waving a tiny hand as the man disappeared into the crowd. At the same time she used one hand to help Hermione wave too.
Oliver held back, letting the ebb and flow of the moving crowd move them slowly to Gate 7. It was a week before Christmas and it seemed as if everyone in the country was trying to move from one end to the other. He had wisely shipped their luggage ahead to Grandma's house so his only carry on was Boo. And her only carry on was Hermione.
"Boo honey, why did you start talking to the old man?"
"He is really nice."
"You know we don't talk to strangers, don't you?"
"He 'snot a stranger. I have met him before."
"Where?"
"Last winter in our living room. We ate a cookie together."
Oliver made a mental note to have a long discussion with Boo about proper boundaries.
A long gap in the crowd suddenly opened and Oliver took the opportunity to step up to the counter and present boarding passes. The smiling attendant behind the counter stamped them both and then ushered them through into the boarding tunnel. Some distance ahead, Oliver caught another glimpse of the Nick, the old man. The man turned suddenly and looked back at Oliver. Then he smiled once more, laid his right index finger alongside his nose and was gone.
Startled, Oliver started weaving back and forth to get a better look ahead. His eye said the man had vanished but his mind was saying, "NO", he simply disappeared in the crowd. He kept looking until he and Boo stepped into the aircraft. While finding their seats, he scanned every row, ever aisle. Nick was not on the plane.
An hour of time, a hundred horizontal miles, and thirty two thousand vertical feet later, Boo was talking with Shane on Oliver's I-phone. She was explaining to mom how airplanes and cars are a lot alike. Both noisy, both move fast, but you can see better out of a car.
"What?" Shane asked.
"She means its night and we can't see anything out of the windows," Oliver laughed.
"Boo, I want you to try and take a nap so you are rested when you get here. Maybe daddy can help with that?" The arch of her eyebrow insinuated that it was not a request. Oliver laughed. He got the message.
Working carefully, he managed to create a small cocoon with a two pillows from the overhead compartment, with just the right amount of space to fit Boo into. With Hermione. Mission accomplished, he was leaning back into his seat when the little silver bell on Hermione's neck began to jingle quietly.
"Ah!" the little girl gasped. "It's time," she said with a big smile and bright eyes. She got on her knees on the seat and looked out the window, searching among the tops of the moonlit clouds. "Yeah!" she cheered and started bouncing on her knees. "There he is, there's Nick."
Oliver bent and looked out the window. It took a few seconds before he saw what it was Boo was seeing. His stomach turned completely over and the world went all flip-flop for a moment. Oliver O'Toole, the stoic, looked out the window again and saw them once more before they disappeared into a cloud bank.
Barely two hundred feet below, skimming the tops of clouds painted silver by moonlight, was a large red sleigh pulled by eight reindeer. Waving from the sleigh was the old man, still dressed in his wool overcoat and Stetson felt hat. Nick waved to Boo for a last time and the sleigh and reindeer turned toward the north and disappeared.
Boo laid a small hand on Oliver's face. "So glad," she said, patting daddy's face gently. "He made his con'netshun flight. Good thing too. He has so much work to do before Christmas."
