Wow, y'all, it's been nearly four months, and nearly a month otherwise! How time flies!

If you guys are wondering where the heck I've been for the past almost-month, the answer can be summed up in four words: six month old kitten.

Not only that, but it's also been your typical holiday month: shopping, wrapping, putting up the tree, sending out Christmas cards, taking Christmas pictures, etc, etc. Another reason is because school also got a little challenging, so I had to focus on that for a little while. I mean, after all, school comes first, right?

Anyway, so here's the chapter you've all been waiting for! I know it's a little short considering the timespan I've had to write it, but again, I've been really busy lately. I hate it when I can't update, but, well, ya gotta do what ya gotta do!

Anywho, enjoy, and please review! Feliz navidad!


Chapter Eight/ Making Christmas Happen

December 24th, 2007

5:30 PM

"It's your move, dude." Wilbur said, sighing with boredom. Lewis, too, sighed and picked up his black checker, jumping two of Wilbur's red ones.

"King me." He said.

Wilbur and Lewis, after having picked up every single kernel of popcorn there was, had dragged some board games from the linen closet in the hall and set them up. With nothing else to do but listen to the Christmas Carols and weather reports on the radio, it had grown quite boring pretty fast, especially for Wilbur, who had never been without power before in his life.

Wilbur set one of the black checkers he'd jumped earlier on top of Lewis's checker. He then moved his checker to a point where Lewis could jump it, getting another king. Wilbur let out a frustrated sigh.

"This is boring." He said. "How do you live with power outages?"

Lewis shrugged. "You get used to them after one or two." He said.

Wilbur just let out another huff. "Is there anything we can do other than sit around playing board games?"

Lewis shook his head. "Not unless you want to go back outside in the storm." He said.

Wilbur just rolled his eyes and sighed again.

"Hey, I could use some help wrapping Mom and Dad's gifts. Think you could help me?"

Wilbur thought for a minute and nodded. "Sure." He said. Lewis grinned.

"Great!" He said. "Grab the radio and let's go."

Wilbur did as he was told and grabbed the radio, then dashed after Lewis into the cold hall. He followed his best friend up the stairs and into the lab, where Lewis walked over to the closet.

"I hid them in here." He said. "Mom and Dad hardly ever come up here in the first place, but I wanted to be sure if they did their gifts wouldn't be in plain sight."

Wilbur nodded and grinned to himself as a reminder to look in his dad's lab closet when he went on his yearly snooping trip throughout the house.

Lewis dug through his closet for a minute before he reemerged with a small shoebox in one hand. 'DO NOT OPEN' was written in big letters with permanent marker on the side, and Lewis stuck it under his arm as he grabbed the roll of wrapping paper in the corner before making his way to his desk, where he and Wilbur both set to work clearing a space amongst the piles of paper and tools.

"So what'd you get them?" Wilbur asked as Lewis opened the shoe box.

"Well, I got Mom some Double Expresso Extract for her caffeine patches and a tracking devise for Dad's teeth." Lewis answered.

"Grandpa's already lost his teeth?" Wilbur asked, cocking an eyebrow.

Lewis nodded. "He said he got them over three years ago." He said.

"Why? Grandpa's never told us before." Wilbur said. Lewis grinned.

"He said he had too much candy as a kid." He said. Wilbur grinned back.

"Sounds about like Grandpa." He said.

Lewis spread out the wrapping paper on the table, then took the box of gifts from Wilbur. He pulled out the Expresso Extracts, placing them in the middle of the wrapping paper, sizing it up with the dotted lines on the paper. Grabbing a pair of scissors from a cup in front of him, he carefully cut the paper along one of the dotted lines. Then he opened a drawer under the table and pulled out what looked like a small version of a boxing tape dispenser, but with Scotch Tape™ instead.

Wilbur's eyes grew wide when he saw it. "Uh, Lewis? Are you sure it's such a good idea to use that thing? I mean, we don't have any electricity."

Lewis cocked an eyebrow at him. "Wilbur, this doesn't use electricity." He said. "And besides, I need to try it out, not to mention it might speed things up a bit, and we're losing daylight fast."

Wilbur glanced up at the glass-dome ceiling. Snow still swirled crazily outside, and he could see that the light was beginning to fade, even if it was cloudy.

"Alright." He said, sighing. "Fire it up."

Lewis nodded and pressed a small button on the handle of the tape dispenser. Tape began to come out in perfect strips, and Lewis carefully touched it to the gift, the tape neatly seamed together the two pieces of paper.

Surprisingly, Lewis was able to finished packaging Lucille's gift without any problems, but when he got to Bud's, the tape dispenser suddenly quit working. Lewis gave a frustrated groan.

"It's jammed!" He said as he began to repeatedly press the button on the side.

Tape suddenly began shooting itself out of the dispenser at hyper-speed, sticking to everything and anything.

"Lewis, hide!" Wilbur said as he ran over and hid behind Lewis's desk. Lewis did as he was told and dropped the tape dispenser and ran to join his son behind his desk.

"What's happening?" He asked, suspecting Wilbur knew a little more about this invention than he was letting on. Wilbur peeked over the desk at the tape dispenser.

"Remember the PB&J Maker?" He asked. Lewis nodded. "Well this is another invention you've never been able to work the way it should."

"What's it do?" Lewis asked.

"It shoots out the tape until it reaches the end of the roll, then it has a habit of combusting."

Lewis's eyes widened and he quickly glanced over his desk at the dispenser. It was still shooting tape out like bullets, causing the sticky tape to stick to the walls, windows, and inventions in the room. It was almost at the end of the roll and Lewis gulped.

The small dispenser stopped moving, and for a minute Lewis thought Wilbur was wrong until it began to shake, and his eyes grew even wider.

"Hit the tile!" He said as he and Wilbur dropped to their stomachs on the floor, covering their heads with their hands. A small explosion could be heard from behind the desk, and the two stayed where they were until they were sure it was safe to move. Slowly, the boys got to their feet and ventured from behind the desk.

The place where the tape dispenser had been was smoking, and the tiled floor had been stained black from the explosion. Tape covered literally everything, and Lewis knew the cleanup would have to take til the morning to clean up.

"Man, this thing made a bigger mess than that Multi-tasker Pen!" Wilbur said, pulling a piece of tape from his hair. "Ow!"

Lewis just nodded in agreement. "We'll have to wait until the morning to clean this up." He said. "Right now we need to finish wrapping Dad's gift."

"Right." Wilbur said, nodding.

Lewis turned back to his desk and continued wrapping Bud's gift. "Maybe the tape dispenser wasn't such a good idea, huh?" He asked.

Wilbur smirked. "You've got that right!" He said. "There was one time when you and I were trying to wrap everyone's gifts with that thing, and we were pulling tape from our hair for weeks!"

"It was that bad?"

"Let's just say we were tape mummies."

Lewis laughed and finished up tying the bow around the box. "There! It's done. Now all we have to do is put them under the Christmas tree."

"Right!" Wilbur said. "Just let me grab the radio."

Just as Wilbur reached over to grab the tape-covered radio, the song it was playing ended and the radio newscaster was back.

"Well, folks, it doesn't look like that storm's letting up anytime soon! The roads are blocked, the visibility is down, the temperatures continue to fall, and hundreds are still out of power. If this continues, it looks like Christmas will have to be cancelled this year!"

Wilbur thought about what the newscaster had just said. Christmas, cancelled? No way! That couldn't happen!

Suddenly, an idea hit him, and he turned to Lewis.

"Hey, Lewis, are those boxes of Christmas decorations still by the front door?" He asked.

"Yeah, why?" Lewis said.

"I have an idea." Wilbur said. "Do you still have that ultra-power flashlight you lent me when I was stuck here a few months back?"

"Well, yeah, but what are you planning on doing with it and the Christmas decorations?"

Wilbur grinned. "We're going to make Christmas happen."

"What?"

"We're going to make Christmas happen." Wilbur repeated. "We're going to decorate the entire house so it at least feels like Christmas in here! I mean, just because the power's out and we're snowed in doesn't me we can't have Christmas!"

Lewis thought about it for a minute, then nodded. "You're right." He said. "Let's do it!"

"Great!" Wilbur said. "You get the flashlight while I go drag out all the stuff we need!"

With that, Wilbur hurried out the door and down the stairs. Lewis shook his head as he headed for his closet where he kept the flashlight.
"Something tells me we're in for a long night." He said.

►▲▼◄

December 24th, 2007

9:30 PM

Lewis was right.

By the time he and Wilbur were done decorating the house, it was well past nine o'clock at night, and they were both beat.

When Wilbur had said they were going to make Christmas happen, he meant it. He and Lewis had spent nearly four hours hanging every single strand of tinsel and garland Wilbur could find, and they had found the Christmas tree lights and draped one strand on the orange tree while they had used the rest to line the hallways. Wilbur had plugged them in, stating that when the power came back on, the house would be well lit. Lewis had just rolled his eyes, but had agreed.

By now, both boys were exhausted as they trudged into the warm living room.

"It still doesn't look like that storm's going to clear any time soon." Lewis said as he threw another log into the fire.

"Uh uh." Wilbur agreed as he yawned. "But hey, at least we got the house decorated for when it does die down!"

Lewis too nodded as he sat down. "I don't know about you, but I'm beat."

Wilbur nodded. "Oh yeah."

"I guess we should sleep in here on the floor. I've still got the sleeping bag you used when you were here last, and I can use Dad's. This is the warmest room in the house, so I think this would be the best spot."

Wilbur just yawned again and nodded.

"Alright, I'll go get the sleeping bags." Lewis said, walking out into the dark cold hallway. He shined the flashlight in front of him until he found the linen closet in the hall, where he pulled out two rolled up sleeping bags and pillows. He carried them back to the living room where he found Wilbur about to fall dead asleep where he sat near the fireplace.

"If you fall asleep there, you'll probably catch on fire!" Lewis said as he dropped the sleeping bags and pillows on the floor. "Grab one and unroll it." He said.

Wilbur did as he was told and grabbed a sleeping bag, unrolling it in front of the warming fire. His fingers were freezing after working for four hours in a cold house, even with gloves on, but they had been the cheap simple cloth gloves, so they hadn't done him nor Lewis any justice in keeping warm while decorating.

As soon as their sleeping bags were rolled out and their pillows placed at the end, both boys crawled into the bags and zipped them all the way up.

"Night, Wilbur." Lewis said.

"Night, Lewis." Wilbur answered back sleepily. "Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas."

With that, both boys drifted off to sleep.


Alright, so I'll TRY to update again today, but with it being Christmas Eve, I'm not really sure what we're going to do, so if I don't, I will most definitely tomorrow!

Merry Christmas, everyone! Don't forget to review, please!

-Robi