Thanks to Imma Vampire, Whippit, & 1DRTWINS for the Beta work on this chapter!
Thanks to Whippit's daughter for the jokes and inspiration.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No copyright infringement is intended.
Claire turned 9 on the 5th Aug 2012, Quil is still physically 16, but his ID shows that he really turned 22 on 2 Feb 2012.
Chapter 10 Merry Christmas
I could hardly wait for Christmas to arrive. I had been working on Claire's gift for months now, and I just knew she would love it. I nicknamed it "the dollhouse" merely for cover, but the only doll that would own this house was Claire.
Claire had been struggling with sharing a room with her older sister Skye. There seemed to be a bit of a shift in the sisterly dynamics after Claire's latest birthday. I guess something about Skye being twelve and Claire being nine had created more bickering between the two of them. I actually came over one evening in September to find a line of bright blue painters' tape marking off their room into two halves.
That was when I got the idea to build a tree house for Claire for Christmas. These girls needed some time apart from each other, and Claire needed a space of her own. Of course since putting on the roof and closing in the walls, I had slept in her tree house almost as much as my own house.
I was building it as fast as I could manage without detection. I would bring boards three or four at a time, spacing out the work throughout each day so that I wouldn't be discovered. I used as many weather-resistant materials as I could, mostly the ones involving plastics, to try to protect "the dollhouse" from being destroyed by the constant rainy conditions. Today's building material was linoleum.
Let me tell you that sneaking an eight-by-eight-foot roll of linoleum into the woods is not very easy. Boards can be explained fairly easily because the possibilities for their use are so varied. There is only one thing this type linoleum is used for, and that is flooring. Yet I somehow managed to get it to Claire's "dollhouse" without being detected.
There were certain times when I truly enjoyed my werewolf abilities. Strength and agility really came in handy building Claire's tree house, and today was no exception. I had built the tree house between two very large, old trees; bracing it mostly on the branches on one tree, and against the trunk of the second tree. The structure supporting the floor had an arch underneath and was flat on the top. Basically I had built a bridge between the two trees, and built the floor on top of the bridge using both the bridge and branches for support. The floor of the tree house was approximately fifteen feet above the ground so that the tree house would be obscured from the ground by the lower branches of the trees, and out of the peripheral vision of even the tallest Quileute walking through the forest.
I had measured very carefully each piece I used in building Claire's "dollhouse" so that the inside floor of the tree house measured exactly eight-by-eight feet square, so the piece of linoleum was supposed to fit precisely like the other pieces had, but whether the cut was off or it shrank with the glue, there was now a small gap in between the flooring and the walls on all sides. With only four days until Christmas I now needed to add baseboards to the "dollhouse." I glanced at the clock to check the time; I had an hour and forty-five minutes before I needed to be on patrol. I would be cutting it close, but I might have time to get them before patrol. I raced to the home improvement store and chose some plastic molded baseboards that would hold up to the weather and still look great. I got back to my house and dropped off my truck, using a tarp to cover the boards in the back of the truck.
I was a few minutes late, not too bad. I raced to the woods slipping out of my clothes and phasing before meeting up with the others.
Nice of you to grace us with your presence, Ken doll, Leah teased me as I caught up with them.
Sorry, I had to run an errand. It ran a little long, I thought back in response. I then thought about a picture of a dollhouse I had cut from a magazine and a set of plans for a dollhouse I had downloaded from the internet.
It's almost Christmas, aren't you done with that Barbie dream house yet? Embry's question came.
The taunting came like this steadily through the patrol. Luckily I had finished the Barbie-and-Ken-sized dollhouse a month ago. I know that Claire wouldn't be nearly as impressed or pleased with the Barbie-sized dollhouse as her tree house, but it was a present she could open in front of her family and the pack. Keeping the tree house a secret from the pack was difficult enough without the cover of the actual dollhouse.
oOo
It was half an hour past midnight on Christmas morning as I knocked lightly on Daniel and Sarah's door. I had told them of my gift of a dollhouse for Claire, and they had been so excited about it that Daniel had suggested I come over late on Christmas Eve to bring it over and set it up in the living room so Claire could see it first thing.
"Wow, I can't believe that thing! How big is it?" Daniel asked me as he opened the door to let me in with the dollhouse.
"Small enough to fit through the door," I joked back.
"If you walk sideways," Sarah tossed in. "You had better hurry and get that set before Claire wakes up again."
I began a soft chuckle, "Has she woken up already?" I knew of Claire's tendency to wake up several times throughout the night when she was excited about something the next day.
"You know Claire, just the usual once every hour to check and see if it's morning yet," Daniel said.
I set down the dollhouse to the side of the Christmas tree and let them know I had one more run out to my truck for the cover. I quickly returned with a dryer box wrapped in Christmas paper covered in snowmen and sporting a big red bow. I had cut the bottom off the box before I wrapped it so that it could be placed over the dollhouse with ease. I swiftly slipped the box over the doll house that was resting on the floor. "This is mostly so Claire won't see her present until it is revealed to her rather than in an hour when she wakes up again."
"You do know her," Sarah laughed. "Actually, she is on schedule to wake up in about fifteen more minutes, so we had better get to bed.
Daniel glanced out the window, turned to me and said, "Quil, it just started snowing. Were you headed back to your Mom's or your place? Because if no one is expecting you, you could just sleep on the spare bed in Marc's room if you'd like."
I had slept on the couch often enough that they had gotten an extra long twin size bed for me and put it in Marc's room. It was longer than the bed I had at my place so I often would nap here after spending the afternoon with Claire. "Actually I was hoping you would ask me to stay. I think I may be even more excited about this Christmas than Claire."
"Good, then we won't have to worry about you driving in the snow," Sarah said.
"Thanks. Hey, I was wondering about taking Claire for a ride if she wakes up early, would that be alright with you two?" I asked.
"Sure, and if you could arrange it so that we could sleep in until seven, that would be great!" Daniel said with an enthusiastic smile.
"Sure, no problem," I said as I grabbed the duffel bag I had brought in on my last trip, and headed towards Marc's room. I fell asleep almost the instant I hit the pillow, and woke what felt like seconds later to a soft, petite hand smoothing my hair back from my face.
"Quil, is it Christmas yet?" Claire whispered to me.
I glanced over at the clock to see that it read ten minutes past four. That would give me almost three hours to show Claire her real present. "Sure Claire," I whispered back, "Would you like to go for a ride first?"
She nodded excitedly.
I whispered, "Go get dressed and to make sure and get your coat, gloves, and hat. Be quiet and don't wake up Skye, okay?"
"Okay, Santa Quil, I'll be right back," She whispered to me.
I laughed at her new nickname for me as I got up to go for a run. I was sleeping in a pair of cutoff sweats, so I was ready to phase. I glanced out the window and noticed that there were about two inches of snow on the ground with a few light flurries falling. Claire was back in two minutes, all dressed for a ride outside in the winter weather. "Let's go," I whispered as soon as she came back.
"I have a surprise just for you Claire," I said with great suspense before opening the back door to a snow covered back yard.
"Wow, Quil! How did you DO this?" Claire asked in amazement as she took in the snow covering the trees and ground. "It looks like when Lucy went into wardrobe in the Chronicles of Narnia!"
I laughed softly and ruffled the hat on her head, "Magic my little wolf girl! I ordered up a white Christmas just for you...just kidding; it's just a lucky coincidence. You know I would if I could though, right?"
"Uh huh. Hurry and change, I have more jokes for you," Claire said loosing a little of the miniscule amount of patience she had this Christmas morning.
"Okay, but since there is snow on the ground, you are going to need to walk with me and wait in the woods just a bit. I can't have the paw-prints showing in the snow," I said as I picked her up and walked across the backyard and about ten feet into the forest, setting her down next to a large tree. "Wait here, I'll be right back," I told her as I went around to the other side of the tree, slipped of my sweats and phased.
Once Claire was on by back she began telling me her jokes. "A boy in my class told me this one, it is a dirty joke."
I stiffened a little and let out a short noise somewhere between a grunt and a growl. She is in fourth grade for Pete's sake. What little degenerate is telling her dirty jokes in the fourth grade?
"Michael fell in the mud," Claire told me and then burst out laughing.
It caught me so off guard that I began coughing with laughter to the point where Claire had to lean over and really tighten her legs and hands around me to stay on my shaking wolf form.
"You liked that one!" Claire stated with satisfaction. "Okay, here is a scary one," She began. "It was a stormy night and the flights were closed. There was only one hotel near the airport with any rooms left, and at that hotel there were three people that still needed a room. The first guy asked for a room and they told him there is only one room left but it is haunted. He said 'I am so tired, and I need to get sleep. I have a meeting for work tomorrow so I'll take it.' He got the key and went into the room. He lay down on the bed and he heard a soft chanting, 'If the log rolls over then we'll all be dead.' He got so scared he ran out the window and fell to the ground. The ambulance came and took him to the hospital. When the second guy saw it, he got up from the chair he was trying to sleep in and said, 'I'll take the room if it's available now.' And the hotel worker was shocked and told him that the room was haunted, and some guy was just so scared that he jumped out of the window from that room. But the guy said he had been traveling for two days and hadn't been able to sleep, and he really needed a bed. So he got the key and went into the room. As soon as he lay down on the bed, he heard a soft chanting 'If the log rolls over then we'll all be dead.' He got so scared that he ran out of the window. The ambulance came and took away the second guy. Then the third guy goes in and he hears the same chanting. 'If the log rolls over then we'll all be dead.' He went near the bathroom door and he heard it even louder 'If the log rolls over then we'll all be dead.' He went into the bathroom and saw three ants on a piece of poop who were chanting 'If the log rolls over then we'll all be dead.' So he flushed the toilet and went to sleep." Claire finished her second joke giggling like crazy.
I shook my head and laughed at how much she was enjoying herself. I think Embry had told that joke to us on patrol just last month. I guess he has the sense of humor of a fourth grader.
"Okay I have one more joke, and this one is a blonde joke," Claire began. "A blonde is riding on her skateboard with old-fashioned headphones on. She goes to a beauty salon and asks for a haircut. She tells the stylist 'You cannot take off my headphones or I will totally die.' The hairstylist agrees and gets to work. The headphones were in the way so the stylist took them off. The blonde immediately died. The stylist was so confused about how they had really kept the blonde alive. When she put the headphones on she heard 'breathe in, breathe out.'" Claire erupted with laughter again at the idea of someone being so silly. I'd have to tell that one to Jacob, he regularly enjoyed taunting Rosalie with blond jokes.
As we reached the tree house I was coughing with laughter at Claire's amusement with her own jokes. I knelt on the ground indicating it was time for her to slide down so I could change back into my human form. I made the change, excited to show Claire her new "dollhouse."
"So are you ready for your present?" I asked almost bouncing in my excitement.
"Yeah!" Claire exclaimed immediately looking around for where I might have hidden a gift for her to open.
It was then that I noticed my mistake. I had built the ladder for a six-foot, five-inch werewolf not a nine-year old little girl. "Claire, I didn't exactly plan this just right, so I will need to carry you to your gift."
She looked at me with a slightly confused smile on her face. I picked her up against my chest and had her wrap her legs around my waist and her arms around my neck. It was too risky to be fifteen feet in the air with Claire at my back. If she slipped, it would be much more difficult to catch her falling off my back than slipping down from the front of me. "Hold on tight Claire, I'm going to climb this tree."
It was at that point that Claire looked up into the tree and could see parts of the underside of the bridge structure and floor. She inhaled a deep breath of awe, "Is it…did you make me a tree house?" She almost squealed with excitement as she hugged my neck with all her might.
I chuckled at her reaction to the idea of a tree house, I knew once she saw it she would be even more excited. I climbed the fifteen feet up to Claire's "dollhouse" in seconds and came up through the hole in the floor. I helped Claire off my neck and onto the tree-house floor. She stood completely still in total shock until I told her, "Claire, you need to move so I can come in too."
"Oh sorry," Claire said in a daze as she moved away from the entry and towards the center of the room.
"Do you like it Claire?" I asked her with a smug smile knowing she did.
She ran to me and hugged me around the waist, "Is this tree house really mine? Did you make this for me?" She asked into my abdomen.
I laughed and picked her up like I used to when she was a toddler holding her with my left arm over my left hip while pointing things out to her with my right hand. I turned so we were facing the way we had entered. "Sure my little wolf girl, look at the sign." There on the pale, bubble-gum pink walls I had painted letters that read "Claire's Dollhouse" on the wall over the entry.
"Oh my goodness!" She shouted, "It's really for me!" She hugged my neck, and I gave her a quick hug back. "But Quil, why did you say dollhouse instead of tree house?"
"Well, I knew you needed some space to yourself. A place where you could color without Marc eating your crayons; where Skye can't bother you with the smell of her nail polish." She crinkled her nose at the thought. "If we called it a tree house, Skye and the wolves might know to look for it out here. If we call it your "dollhouse," then they will just think we are talking about some little toy. They won't know you have a real tree house, and then this can be your special place."
"You know everything about me Quil!" Claire said looking at me with gratitude and admiration.
"So are you ready for the big tour?" I joked with her turning to the rest of the tree house.
"Sure! Let me down so I can see it!" She said wriggling down out of my arms and running to the middle of the room.
I began with the sign over the entry on the west wall and worked in a counter-clockwise direction showing Claire the features of her "dollhouse". Along the south wall there was a white, plastic dresser with four drawers that had bright pink knobs. Next to the dresser, there were two very large bright pink totes; above the totes there was a window with a white shade.
"What are in these?" Claire asked pointing to the dresser and totes.
"Why don't you open them and see?" I responded with a smile.
She opened the top dresser drawer to find an assortment of art supplies; the second held flashlights, batteries, lanterns, and tools left over from my building; the third had a variety of board games and a couple of puzzles; and the fourth had picnic supplies including a tablecloth, plastic cups, paper plates, trash bags and disposable flatware. "We can eat here?" Claire asked upon seeing the last drawer.
"Sure Claire, we'll just have to bring the food with us. We don't want to store any food here or we'll never be able to keep the wolves out," I told Claire with a wink.
Claire opened the first bright pink tote to find a new stuffed wolf very similar to her Quil wolf toy, and a few other random toys. "So this one must be the toy box," Claire stated with certainty. Before opening the other tote and looking at me with a questioning look.
"That tote has an air mattress and bedding for when I was out here building late into the night and needed to get some sleep," I explained.
"Cool, I can sleep out here?" Claire asked excitedly, walking over to the window to look out.
"Well, maybe not for a few years. You are a bit young to be sleeping in the woods alone at night." Claire gave a shiver at the thought of being alone in the woods.
"Quil, we are really high up in the air!" Claire commented with delight at seeing the ground below.
"So you like that part? I thought it should be high enough so any werewolf walking by won't be able to notice it without trying hard to find it. And if they are looking for a 'dollhouse,' they won't be looking fifteen up in the air, will they?" I gave her a conspiratorial wink.
Claire giggled at me then turned around to check out the white plastic patio table and two chairs. "These are like the ones in Aunt Emily's backyard!"
"Yup, that's how I knew they would be strong enough to hold me, and light enough to carry all the way out here," I said sitting down in one of the chairs.
Claire looked out the second window, then up at the purple butterfly clock on the north wall. "Do we have time to work on a puzzle? I love putting together puzzles on Christmas!"
"Absolutely my little wolf girl! Your dad said we could let him sleep in until seven if we wanted. You can go choose one out of the dresser."
Claire went to the third drawer and pulled out a one-thousand piece puzzle of a wolf. "I like this one the best," she said bringing over the puzzle and dumping it onto the table.
We sat putting together the puzzle and making small talk until it was time to go back. "Is it really time to go?" Claire asked a little disappointed.
"You mean you'd rather sit here doing a puzzle with me than open your gifts from Santa Claus?" I asked her incredulously.
"Oh! I was having so much fun that I totally forgot it was Christmas!" Claire said, surprised that she could forget something so important.
"Claire, how could you forget about Christmas?" I asked her in a teasing way before tousling her hair and picking her up for the monkey hug needed to get her down from her "dollhouse." I knew at that moment I had given her the ultimate gift! One that could make her forget all thoughts of Christmas and all her other gifts she would receive. Now that is quite an accomplishment!