Seven Days of Christmas, a Despicable Me fanfiction
Chapter Three: Tuesday, December 21
Gru awoke with a start to the sound of his alarm buzzing irritatingly. "Oj!" he shouted with surprise. The sleepy former villain searched his dark room in a confused state, trying desperately to figure out where the sound was coming from. But when he realized that it was his alarm, he put a hand to his face, exasperated, and sighed. He glanced at the time, though he already knew what it was, for he had set the alarm himself.
One o'clock. In the morning. Gru sighed again for good measure before crawling out of bed to change out of his black silk pajamas and into his black jacket and striped scarf. Already could he feel yesterday's fall off the ladder pinching at his back. And his chest was still sore from landing on it after the trip in the hallway on Sunday. Gru had the idea that this holiday would not be as pleasant for him as he had hoped.
Quietly making his way into the girls' bedroom, Gru turned on their individual lights near their beds, making sure to point them away from their faces so they didn't go blind when the girls opened their eyes.
"Margo, Edith, Agnes," he whispered.
Kyle was the first to wake. He groggily opened his bug eyes and snarled at Gru when they finally adjusted.
"No, no Kyle. Go to sleep."
"Dad, why are you talking to Kyle?"
Gru turned to find Edith sitting sleepily up in her bomb bed, rubbing her eyes. "Uh, I have another surprise, but you first need to wake up your seesters and make sure you bring your coats and slippers." He smiled and nodded at Edith.
"Where are we going? What time is it?" she asked tiredly.
"Eet's a surprise."
"Remember what happened to Agnes the last time you said that?" Edith crossed her arms, her Santa falling back over her eyes.
Gru sighed. "Yes, but you will not have to wait long for this surprise. Now hurry and get your seesters ready. Meet me downstairs when you are done." Then he hurried out the bedroom and disappeared down the hall, but not before he could say, "And remember, coats and slippers please!"
Edith rolled her eyes when she saw the time, but did as her father asked and woke her sisters.
It was nearly twenty minutes later when the three children wandered into the dimly-lit living room. Gru was seated on the crocodile couch, ready to fall back asleep, but when he saw his daughters he was right awake. "Good morning!" he said, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically for that time of the day. Then he saw Agnes holding onto Kyle. "Um, Kyle can't come, Agnes. Please put heem down."
Kyle snarled, but was put down with a sigh from Agnes. The creature sleepily wandered back up the stairs, probably to fall back asleep in Agnes's bed.
"It's not even 1:30, Dad. Why are we awake?" asked a drowsy Margo as she pushed her glasses farther up her nose.
"And why do we need are coats? Isn't it a little early to go outside?" Edith held up her pink jacket for emphasis, but she quickly dropped her arm back down under the weight of it, for she was way too tired to do much of anything at the moment. Her sisters would surely concur.
"I'm sorry that eet's so early, but I wanted to show you gurls something very, very cool. Come weeth me to my lab," said their father as he scooped up a half-asleep Agnes into his arms and took Edith's hand. Margo took Edith's free hand as they ventured towards Gru's laboratory.
When they arrived, Margo took note of how empty the place was. During the day, the whole lab bustled with life as minions ran every which way doing work and chores, but now the entire lab seemed bare. Well, except for the occasional minion that had fallen asleep on the job and was never moved, like Steward from the day before with a chewed up pant leg who was currently passed out beside the pinball table.
"Okay gurls, now I want you to close your eyes nice and tight. No peeking!" Gru made sure everyone had their eyes closed before ushering them into a vast room. He pressed several buttons on the wall before the ceiling began to open up and expose the world to them.
When a swift breeze swept through the room, Edith and Margo shivered and Agnes snuggled closer to Gru. Their slipped and jackets protected them, however.
"You can open them now."
And when they did, the three girls gasped in astonishment. Looking up at where a portion of the ceiling had once been was an opening that showed a perfectly round full moon that hung brightly in the sky and got rid of the need for lights to be turned on in the room.
Gru smiled happily when he saw his daughters' faces. "Well, what do you theenk?"
"It's beautiful," commented Margo.
Agnes removed her face from her dad's chest to see what the fuss was about and beamed as brightly as the lunar surface itself.
"I've never seen the moon that big before!"
"Well, Edith, that's because tonight is a special night for the moon."
"Why is it special, Daddy?" asked a curious little Agnes, once again holding a stuffed unicorn as thought if she didn't have one, the world might come to an end.
"Tonight is a—"
"Ooh!" exclaimed a squeaky voice suddenly from behind them.
"Jorge! I am trying to…ah, what ees eet?" asked an impatient Gru.
"Eh moon?"
"What? Fine. You can watch eet too."
Margo lifted a brow at the little creature before turning her attention back to her dad.
"Anyway, today the moon eclipses," he finished.
"Eclisp…eclisps…"
"No, no, no, Edith. Eclipses. There will be an eclipse in…" Gru ckecked his wristwatch. "Well, it begins in about four minutes."
"What does that mean? That word, Daddy?" Anges asked, a little more alert and awake now.
"Eet means the moon ees going to go behind the earth so that eets shadow weell cover the moon."
"Ooh!" said Jorge, the minion, again.
"I've set a place for us to watch eet," Gru added, guiding Margo and Edith to a set of cushioned chairs in the center of the room with perfect view of the moon. "You weell need to find a chair, Jorge."
The yellow minion sighed and headed over to a corner where a stack of plastic chairs sat gathering dust. He hurried back just in time as Gru was sitting down in his seat. "Moi! Na moi! Naaa!" he shouted, but a little too late. His master had already sat down. Jorge could see the chair's legs buckling below Gru.
"What ees eet now, Jo—" A sudden crash to the floor sent an echo through the empty room. A loud shout, however, made an even bigger echo. "Jorge!" Gru yelled with rage and pain as he rubbed his behind. He was so thankful that Agnes had left him to see Margo only moments before he'd sat down.
"Poka," said the minion quietly.
Edith, Margo and Agnes watched in slight confusion as their dad sat on the floor beneath splinters of wood.
"Don't 'sorry' me, Jorge! Explain yourself!"
"Uh, my ah depoi ina poka." Jorge's expression was that of nervousness and a little guilt.
But Gru immediately calmed down after hearing his response. The minions had required some of the chair's bolts for the project Gru was having them work on, so Gru had to look at the bigger picture. However, he knew his butt was going hurt in tomorrow. Sighing, Gru said as he carefully stood up, "Alright, alright. Just get me another chair, please."
Jorge was grateful that he hadn't been grounded like Steward and Dave and he hurried off to grab a chair for Gru.
"Sorry about that, gurls. Just a leetle acceedent. No beeg deal," he said, grinning as if nothing had happened at all.
Margo eyed him suspiciously before saying, "I think it's starting."
Sure enough, when Gru eyed the sky he noticed that the moon was definitely beginning to eclipse. "See how that side ees getting darker? That ees Earth's shadow."
"Woah!" exclaimed Edith in her chair.
"Do you think there are unicorns on the moon, Daddy?"
"Uh, no. I do not." Gru suddenly remembered Vector and thought, But I know what is on the moon and eet ees about to get very dark for them. He smiled evilly until Jorge appeared with a plastic chair that had a soft pillow on its seat and then he sat down in his own chair. "Thank you. Hey Margo, there ees popped corn by your chair. Could you pass eet down to your seesters, please?"
"Sure," responded the eldest daughter, no longer sleepy and very eager to watch the lunar eclipse. She was happy that her father was going to such lengths to make them all happy this holiday, but she remembered what he had said two days before about being together as the important part and Margo realized how right he was. Having her sisters and Gru together under the eclipsing moon—a celestial thing she had never seen before—was the best thing she could have asked for. Gru was different from other dads; he was better, cooler and lot more fun than any father Margo could have asked for and she knew her sisters were feeling the same thing.
An hour later, the moon had reached totality and glowed red behind the earth's shadow. Everything was bathed in the color that was both eerie and beautiful. The gurls never stopped smiling through the whole thing and Jorge had his jaw dropped the entire time. And while Gru did enjoy the amazing sight of the eclipsing moon, he found more happiness when he took little side glances at his daughters and saw their grinning, popcorn-stuffed faces. This was a show they would not soon forget.
Shortly after the moon became fully eclipsed, all three girls fell asleep in their chairs. Even Jorge was no longer awake. Gru sighed when he realized that he was probably the only one awake in the entire house—the minions were scattered about the lab, probably dreaming of photocopying their butts and dancing to"Swan Lake", Dr. Nefario was passed out in his one-speed scooter somewhere, and the girls were sleeping peacefully under the shadowed moon. Smiling, Gru realized what a lovely life he now led ever since Margo, Agnes and Edith had become a part of it.
As expected, Gru woke later that morning with a pain where there shouldn't be pain. But he recalled the eclipse and how happy his daughters had been in watching and suddenly he felt better.
When he glanced at his clock, the time read 10:49am. "Ugh," he said, tiredly. He could hear children's voices coming from downstairs and he knew the girls were awake. So he flopped out of bed, got changed for a second time that day, and headed down his winding stairs.
"Daddy! Daddy!" yelled an overjoyed Agnes. She rushed up to her father quicker than he could have reacted and jumped his leg.
"Ah, ah, ah, Agnes. Remember what happened last time?"
The little girl listened to her father and let go of his leg before rushing back to where she had been before. Margo and Edith were there as well, all gathered in a circle around the floor.
"Look what I made!" Agnes had returned to Gru and shoved a piece of colored paper up in the air.
On it, Gru saw what appeared to be the moon and some sort of purple blob monster.
"That's the elipse and that's a unicorn!"
"Oh! Eet's very…good," hesitated Gru uncertainly. "Have you gurls had breakfast yet?"
"No, but we'd definitely love some," answered Margo happily on the floor. She, too, was drawing pictures.
Gru nodded. "Okay, how about something seemple? Like cereal." He was exhausted and really didn't want to cook anything.
"Cereal sound fine," said Margo, clutching her stomach, but it was Edith's that made the monstrous grumbling.
"I'll eat anything right now." Edith smiled up at her father.
"Me too!" said Agnes excitedly. Changing the subject suddenly, she asked, "Can we watch another elipse tonight, Daddy?"
"Sorry, but that was the last one thees year."
"Aw," she said sadly.
"But there ees a meteor shower next month that we could watch." Gru smiled in hopes that that would cheer her up.
It did because her face lit up brightly, as did the other two girls.
"Now, who ees hungry?"
The rest of the day was spent lounging around and doing, for the most part, nothing. Once in a while, Dr. Nefario would call Gru down to the lab via the television communicator to help with the progress of whatever it was he was so secretly working on.
The girls, thankfully, stayed relatively occupied. Since going outside was out of the question—the clear skies that had allowed for perfect viewing of the moon had been eaten up by a wintry blizzard—Agnes and Edith colored and when they became bored, they crafted snowflakes and chain loops out of paper to hang around the house. Margo helped in their creation and by the end of the day, there were enough snowflakes to cover the living room walls. They smiled once they were finished and asked their father if he could help hang them up.
Gru frowned because the last time he had his feet off the ground, he ended the day in pain. "I weell get my, uh, helpers to do that." He still refused to use the word "minion" around them because it sounded too sinister.
Whatever they were to be called, the yellow bean creatures hung the girls' creations as they were told to and when they were finished, the interior of the house was completely decorated with paper flakes and colorful chains that wrapped up the staircase and hung from the ceiling. Gru's house would certainly have won Most Creatively Decked Out Home if any competition judge had dared step foot beyond the front door.
"Eet's…beautiful," praised a hesitant Gru. He wasn't used to his house being decorated, but he had to admit that the girls did a fanciful job nonetheless.
"Thanks, Dad," said Edith kindly.
"What are we gonna do tomorrow?" questioned Agnes curiously, as if today was already dead and gone.
Gru eyes widened momentarily. "Let me sleep on eet, okay gurls?"
TRANSLATION: "Oj" means "oh my" in Russian.
For those of you who keep up to date on those sort of things, there was actually a total lunar eclipse early Tuesday morning. It was beautiful and lit up everything red once it reached totality, at least where I was at. I really wanted to keep this chapter laid back so I added the eclipse because it worked perfectly. And next month really will be a meteor shower-the Quadrantids. I watched this shower one year and it was amazing during the peak. So keep your eyes peeled when it's time for them. (:
I'm hoping to upload Wednesday's chapter today as well, if I finish it, that is. I don't want to be behind anymore in this story, but we'll see how today goes. I write chapters pretty slowly and this one took about 3.5 hours, so I'm not sure. We'll see.