Chapter Six
Sarah looked up from fastening a sprig of mistletoe to the top frame of the front door as she heard the clomping of boots and laughter from upstairs.
"Here they come" she called to Derek, who was in the living room, hastily stuffing the small rectangular box he had found in the shed into John's stocking hanging from the mantelpiece.
The squeals and bonks from upstairs made Sarah quirk an eyebrow.
What on earth are they doing up there? That sounded like giggling…
Trying to recall if she had ever heard Cameron laugh apart from her close to blatant attempt at Enrique's, Sarah shook her head and smiled. It was nice to hear John laughing again, even if he only seemed to do so around Cameron.
Funny, she thought to herself. Of all the girls in the world, this one, this machine is the only one who measures up.
An uncanny feeling of déjà vu took hold of Sarah, she was sure she'd said something like this before, but she just couldn't place it.
That's the mistletoe up…
Feeling strangely at ease with herself for having come to terms with John and the machine and understanding her son's care for her, Sarah studied the hanging bunch fondly before turning expectantly towards the stairs. She wanted to see the look on her son's face when he entered the dining room and saw the decorations and the presents.
Cameron and John appeared at the foot of the stairs, still laughing and seemingly oblivious to their surroundings. Sarah's eyes bulged as she saw Cameron's fingers laced through her son's and the way she was leaning her head against his shoulder, giggling.
Her eyes narrowing, Sarah wrenched off the mistletoe.
I'm not that understanding…
…
"John?" Cameron asked as they headed across the hall to the dining room.
"Is that a Christmas tradition?"
"Eh? What do you mean?" John inquired, not quite understanding what she was on about.
"Your mother is making green confetti. Is that done at Christmas?"
They stopped and John turned his head in the direction she was indicating. He saw Sarah standing at the front door breaking up something that resembled a small twig and littering the floor with leaves. He squinted, finally realizing that the unfortunate plant being literally torn to pieces was in fact mistletoe.
"Not really" he considered, shaking his head. "That's mistletoe. It's usually hung up over a door for decoration…"
He trailed off, a little bewildered, wondering why his mother had torn it up.
Perhaps she couldn't get it to stay up…
"Oh" Cameron said brightly. "Thank you for explaining. I know mistletoe. It is supposed to bring you good luck if you kiss under it."
"Um … well … yeah, I guess it does" he murmured, his cheeks turning pink.
Great stuff, Mom. Did you have to go and shred it?…
Glaring first at Cameron, then at her son, Sarah strode past them into the dining room.
"Come on then, if you're coming" she snapped.
"Wonder what's up with her?" John glanced mystified at Cameron who merely shrugged her shoulders in a very human fashion, making him grin.
"Perhaps the turkey isn't thawed out" she suggested.
They followed Sarah into the dining room, John shouldering his rucksack and Cameron carrying the presents.
The room's appearance was completely different than to how John remembered it. Last night it had just been a dining room with a table covered in empty pizza cartons and beer bottles and a lop-sided tree at the window. Today it was bright and sparkling, the table presented a fine festive table cloth with a Christmas cracker at each place-mat together with a small twig of holly. Sarah had got Derek to cut off a branch from the neighbours' holly bush.
And the Christmas tree really looked smashing. Derek had done a surprisingly good job of draping the electric lights round its branches. John couldn't help but stop and admire it.
"Did that all on me own" Derek announced proudly, noticing that even the cyborg had stopped to look at his tree.
"I beg your pardon?" Sarah demanded dangerously, causing his smile to falter.
"I mean the lights" he corrected himself quickly. "I put them on. Sarah did the rest."
Cameron approached the tree and bent down to arrange their presents under its lower branches. Then she suddenly stiffened and stood up so abruptly she made everyone jump.
"What?" John asked, noticing her distraught expression.
"I forgot—" she uttered wide-eyed before hurrying out of the room.
After having heard the front door slam, a puzzled Sarah and Derek both looked at John for an explanation. He merely shrugged his shoulders and lifted his hands in the universal 'no idea' gesture. At least Cameron's absence gave him the chance to remove her present from his rucksack and slip it under the tree with the others without her knowing.
The repeated slamming of the front door gave John such a start he jumped up in alarm, bumping into the tree and nearly knocking it over. It swayed ominously until Derek grabbed hold of it and steadied it, cursing as its needles pricked him in the hand.
Cameron entered looking murderous.
"Someone has broken into the shed. There are board games scattered all over the floor and my present for John is missing" she announced, her fists clenched.
"What?" Sarah and John cried simultaneously, gazing at her in alarm.
A cough from the direction of the tree made them turn. Derek was standing there, fidgeting nervously and shuffling his feet.
"That … err … must have been me. I … um … tripped over a crate" he admitted sheepishly.
"And John's present is in his stocking. I took it in with me last night."
"Why did you take my present? How come you found it anyway?"
"I … err … it fell on my foot."
Cameron tilted her head.
"The aluminium case I had placed it on is also missing" she informed him.
"Yeah. Well, I … um … took that as well."
"Oh. Is there a drill inside the case? It looked like a kind of tool box."
Derek's face fell.
"Yeah, that's right. It's my new toolbox. Look, why don't we start on the presents, eh?"
Sarah rolled her eyes and politely interrupted their discussion.
"I'm sure Derek had his best interests at heart. He'll clear away the mess in the shed later on, won't he?" she said pointedly, while Derek mouthed who, me?
"The game of ludo is incomplete. One of the yellow counters is missing" Cameron told them, while John sidled up to her.
Sarah sighed.
"Thank you for being so observant, Cameron, but that will hardly be of any importance in the near future, don't you think?"
Cameron stared at her blankly while John grinned and put his arm around his protector's shoulders.
"I wouldn't say that, Mom. We might have a go at ludo after dinner. How about it?" he asked, looking between his mother and Derek.
Derek snorted. "Ludo? Us? I bet Sarah doesn't even know how to roll a die."
Wilting under her threatening glare he added quickly "Only joking. Course we can have a go."
"Have you ever played ludo before?" John whispered into Cameron's ear.
"No. But how difficult could it be?"
…
"Alright then" Sarah announced, a rare smile on her lips. "Who's going to start on the presents?"
Derek's arm shot up like a schoolboy's, making everybody grin.
"What?" he exclaimed in mock astonishment. "Can't a man just be a kid again for once in a while?"
"Go on, then" Sarah nodded her consent, and then turned to her son and the cyborg.
"You two go and get your stockings."
While Derek eagerly knelt down by the Christmas tree pulling out the presents from under its branches, John and Cameron made their way into the living room.
"Jeez, yours feels heavy!" John exclaimed as they unhooked their stockings from the hooks next to the fireplace and he held his hand under her bulging rice sack pretending to be legwear.
"Looks like Santa left you most of his stuff."
Cameron was rather surprised that Santa had left her anything at all. Letting her stocking dangle from her outstretched hand, she estimated its weight.
"The stocking weighs just over two pounds. The liquids it contains must account for the weight" she concluded, letting the stocking swing slightly from side to side.
"Liquids?" John asked in amazement. "How d'you find that out?"
"The pattern of the pendular motion indicates the presence of two or more receptacles containing liquids" she explained, holding up her swinging stocking in front of him.
John groaned and rolled his eyes.
I shouldn't have asked…
"Come on" he said, taking her by the hand. "Let's see what else there is."
"Else?" she asked with a puzzled expression, as they crossed the living room.
"Will there be any more presents for me?"
"We'll see"
Their stockings dangling from their hands, they made their way back to the Christmas tree to find that Derek had already split the presents up into four small heaps and was eagerly sitting on the floor by the tree in front of what appeared to be his pile.
"Dunno whose those are" he shrugged, pointing behind him at a fairly large parcel which was expertly wrapped in a shop's custom paper, and an ornate envelope still lying under the tree.
"There's no name on them."
Oh no…
Realizing he had obviously forgotten to label his presents, John handed his stocking to Cameron and sheepishly shuffled over to the tree.
"Anyone got a pen?" he mumbled, kneeling down next to his uncle.
As soon as Sarah had thrown him the pen she had found in one of the sideboard's drawers and had retrieved it again cursing from under the tree where it had rolled after John had missed it, he jotted down the recipients' names in his famed illegible scrawl.
"Total forget…? What is that supposed to mean?" Sarah asked incredulously, leaning over him and trying in vain to decipher her son's dreadful handwriting.
Snatching the parcel out of John's hands, Derek read aloud.
"It says: To Cameron from John."
He pushed it across the floor up to an even larger package wrapped in newspaper.
At hearing her name, Cameron looked up from busily trying to determine her stocking's contents by analysing the shape of the parcels, only to see two large presents standing side by side on the floor.
One of those must be from John. I wonder what's inside, it's so big…
"I can read Connorish, you know" Derek announced proudly. Turning to John he added with an evil grin "Your writing was legendary in the future. We all had to learn it."
"Oh, like my cooking was?" Sarah interjected, folding her arms.
"Ah. Well…" Derek gulped.
John shook his head, still amazed at how his mother had managed to make total forget out of his writing.
Wasn't that a movie?…
Handing Derek the hastily scribbled on envelope, he went over to Cameron who had been quietly watching their interaction and was still quite intrigued by the size of the parcels on her pile.
"My writing wasn't that bad, was it?" he whispered, taking back his stocking from her.
"It was. And is."
His indignant retort at Cameron's honest reply paired by one of her tiny smiles was cut short by Derek, who had placed the envelope next to his pile.
"Oi! Since when do you call me Uncle Derek?" he inquired, looking a little disgusted at the writing on the envelope.
"Err, I thought it just … um … sounded nicer than To Mum and Derek" John explained, starting to feel slightly uncomfortable.
His cheeks were spared their usual pinkness by Sarah, who stormed over to Derek and snatched up the envelope off the floor.
"It says To Mum AND Uncle Derek. So you thought you'd just hog the lot, would you? Well just for that, I'm having it now."
"Hey, that's not fair" Derek complained, sulking.
Just as John was wondering if he might have done better by splitting his present into two envelopes, Cameron spoke up.
"If you like, I could open it for both of you. Then neither of you would feel left out."
Sarah turned to stare at her while Derek quirked an eyebrow.
"Aw shucks" he muttered, turning his head away sheepishly.
"No problem, Sarah. You open it."
"No, you were right. That would be unfair. You can open it."
"What! No, I insist."
"Here. You open it."
Frantically, Sarah thrust the envelope into Cameron's hand and sat down heavily on one of the chairs at the table.
Giving John a quizzical 'and you really missed this?' sort of look, Cameron kept hold of the envelope and remained motionless, regarding Sarah patiently, yet blankly.
"What is she waiting for?" Sarah turned to her son, quite at a loss.
"I think she's not sure if she should be the one to start" John told his mother, taking hold of Cameron's hand with a grin and giving it a squeeze.
"Um, I guess Mom meant you should open it now" he whispered into her ear.
"Oh. Thank you for explaining."
Smiling at him, Cameron used the index finger of her left hand as a letter opener and expertly slit open the envelope.
Twitching and muttering to herself about steam-powered machines and how on earth Skynet ever expected to win with this, Sarah got up and stomped over to her pile, which consisted of one single flat wrapped up item. She picked it up and headed back to her chair.
Cameron tilted her head.
"Tickets" she exclaimed in surprise, as she pulled out some sheets of paper and unfolded them.
"Eh?" Derek voiced, putting down the parcel he had been impatiently turning over in his hands and getting up from the floor.
"What sort of tickets?"
"I don't know. What is a spay?" Cameron asked John, turning her puppy-dog eyes on him and making him go weak at the knees.
It had been getting harder and harder for him by the minute to refrain from pulling her into his arms just to hold her tight. She was always so polite, so modest.
Only not when it comes to showering, John recalled fondly, loving her all the more for it.
"A what?"
Derek snatched the sheets of paper out of Cameron's hand before John could answer. His jaw dropped in disbelief as he read.
"A spa" he said tonelessly, turning to stare wide eyed at Sarah.
"The daft bleeder's only gone and given us vouchers for a spa."
…