AN: So just in case Hurricane Sandy decides to take out the power over here on the Eastern Seaboard here is the next chapter! Say thank you to the hurricane everybody. Oh and Alfred wants me to tell you that he's "really, really happy cause there's two days of no school!" This also means I'll have oodles of time to write. Thanks Sandy!
That night Arthur marched into his bedroom waving a wad of toilet paper around. Francis was brushing his teeth in their bathroom so Arthur strode in.
"Alfred lost a tooth today," Arthur exclaimed with his hands on his hips.
Francis spat into the sink and rinsed his mouth out, "Excuse me?"
"I said," he huffed, "Alfred lost a tooth today."
Francis looked at him as if he had six heads. Arthur felt his cheeks flushing, with rage of course.
"How do you know?" The French-men asked leaning back against the sink to face him.
"I was throwing the junk mail away and I saw this in the trash," Arthur said and held out the toilet paper.
Francis blinked and took the bundle. He peeled back the layers and stared down at it. Arthur knew what the tooth looked like. The Brit had stared at it for several minutes before he'd come storming upstairs. Nestled in that paper was a tiny pearly tooth about the size of a pea, one end was pink from where it had been attached to Alfred's gum. That wasn't the point though. The point was that it was in the trash and not under a pillow.
Francis handed him back the tooth and Arthur glared at his husband. How could he not see the problem?
"Francis!" He exclaimed, "What did you do the last time Matthew lost a tooth, huh? You told him to put it under his pillow because the tooth fairy was coming!"
Arthur waved the napkin with Alfred's tooth in front of Francis, "Alfred didn't even tell us! He just threw it in the garbage."
Francis sighed, "Well what are we suppose to do?"
Arthur threw his hands up. "I don't know! Why do you think I'm coming to you to talk about it?!"
Francis raised an eyebrow, "You know we can't tell him to put the tooth under his pillow for the tooth fairy."
Arthur stopped waving the napkin in front of Francis's face. How did Francis know that was really what he wanted to figure out.
"Why not?"
Francis just stared at him, "He doesn't live here Arthur and this isn't the first tooth he's lost."
Francis continued on, "Maybe he put one under his pillow the first time and nothing happened, maybe he even did it the second time. At some point Alfred must have realized the tooth fairy wasn't coming and started throwing them away."
Arthur looked at the floor. They needed to be scrubbed. He should do that tomorrow. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Francis shift.
Arms wrapped around the shorter man, "And what happens when he's at home and he loses another tooth?" Francis asked. "If we tell him to put it under a pillow at our house because a magical fairy is coming then how do we explain why it doesn't work when he's alone at his house?"
Arthur clenched the little napkin. He tried to keep his chin from wobbling.
"But..."
"No, Arthur," Francis sighed, "He's not our son. We can't."
Arthur sat down on the edge of their bed hard. Arthur stared at Alfred's pearly tooth with watery eyes.
He felt like Alfred was.
Mattie squeezed a blob of glue onto his yellow construction paper. Their class was making holiday ornaments in Art class. Mattie was making a star ornament.
"Aren't you excited Alfred?" Mattie gushed. He loved this time of year. Everyone put their decorations up and Papa made lots of yummy cookies and Santa came!
"For what?" His friend asked. He was concentrating hard on cutting out white circles for his snowman.
"For Christmas of course!" Matthew exclaimed.
Alfred stared at him for a moment before replying, "Not really," and then he went back to cutting a large circle. It came out wobbly on one side. He stuck his tongue out and made a big cut. Now the circle had a straight edge. Alfred sighed.
"Why not?" Mattie asked, "It's the best time of the year! Santa is coming soon!"
Alfred shrugged, "Well I guess it's ok... I really like all the decorations on the houses."
Matthew nodded, "What presents do you think you'll get? I'm hoping Santa will bring me hockey skates."
Mattie stared at his friend, waiting for an answer but Alfred just kept working on his snowman. His friend had been talking about a rocket ship for the last few weeks. The small boy had thought that's what Alfred would say he was getting for Christmas. Matthew looked back down at his star ornament. He traced some flames out of light yellow and white paper. It was going to be a shooting star, he decided.
Alfred had started to glue his pieces together when he bit at his lip and said, "Santa doesn't come to my house."
Matthew stopped cutting to look up at Alfred. "Why?" he asked, "Were you a naughty boy?" That was the only reason Santa didn't give gifts to girls and boys. He didn't think Alfred was bad, but maybe he was at home... Mattie couldn't be sure.
"No!" Alfred exclaimed, "at least not on purpose! Santa used to come... But then my father and I moved a lot. I think he must've forgotten about me."
Matthew's brow furrowed. Santa could... forget people? But he was Santa! He was magic! If he couldn't find Alfred then something was wrong. If Alfred was a good boy Santa should visit him... and even if he was a bad boy he should still visit him and give him coal.
"Have you written him a letter?" He asked. Alfred looked up from coloring his snowman's scarf.
"Last year my Daddy helped me write him a letter and I got everything on my list." Mattie explained, "Maybe if you write him a letter and you write your address he'll remember where you live!"
Alfred nodded frantically, "That's a great idea! I'll do it as soon as I get home!"
Mattie smiled glad he was able to help his friend. The two boys went back to working on their ornaments. Matthew finished his shooting star and wrapped it in blue tissue paper. He was going to give it to his parents to put on their tree. He looked over at Alfred. His snowman had turned out really good. You couldn't see any of the straight edges on the snowballs and he had put the hole for the string in the snowman's top-hat so you couldn't really see it. Matthew wished he could make his ornament look that cool.
A snowman shaped package, wrapped in yellow paper lay at the side of the kitchen table. Alfred sat across from it and a lined piece of paper sat in front of him. How did he start his letter? Alfred twiddle his yellow pencil and absently chewed on the pink eraser.
He spat it out, "Gross!" The blue eyed boy kicked his legs under the table for a few minutes thinking. Finally he decided to just start writing so Alfred put the tip down and began.
'Hi Santa,' he scratched out in large letters.
'My name is Alfred Jones. You use to visit me when my family lived in New Orleans.' He stopped after that. What next? He tapped the pencil against the table.
'I wanted to let you know that me and my father have moved.' He wrote, 'Don't worry about forgetting because we moved around a bunch.' He underlined 'a bunch' two times.
'My friend Mattie told me that I should write you with my Christmas list. But I only really want one thing this year.'
He hesitated in writing his Christmas wish. He stared at the blue lines of the paper and chewed on his thumbnail.
He set the pencil tip down and wrote in his best letters, 'Could you please bring my mother home?'
'Please Santa I've been a really good boy this year and I won't ask for anything else.'
Alfred crossed his left hand fingers and kept writing, 'I know it's a big wish but it's all I want for Christmas.'
Alfred's eyes watered as he thought of his Mere's laugh and her perfume in the purple bottle. He really wanted her back again.
He signed his name at the bottom and drew a picture of his mom and him holding hands. After a moment he drew his father in too. He drew his father smiling like he used to. Alfred ran into his father's office for an envelope. He found them in a box under his desk. The child stuffed his letter inside and on the front he put:
'Santa Claus
The North Pole'
On the back he wrote:
'Alfred F. Jones
76 Jefferson Drive
Boston, MA
USA'
Alfred ran out to the mailbox barefoot. He hoped he wasn't too late. He stuck the letter inside the box and lifted the little red flag up. Christmas was next week after all. Alfred crossed his fingers again.
AN: Yes I know a first grader would have more spelling mistakes than that in a letter, but after writing it out with no capitalization, backwards b's and d's and other common spelling errors it got to be illegible. So I tried to make the writing style more first grader-y. Clever readers would notice there are no commas anywhere and some of his sentences run on. Of course you all caught that, right?
Happy Hurricane Day!
