Chapter Six
Have Yourself a Multicultural Christmas

December 18th

"No! No! Please no! Not American Christmas music!" Tintin moaned, dashing to the radio.

"In the lane, snow is glistening…" the Captain was crooning from the breakfast table. "A beautiful sight, we're happy tonight…"

Tintin's hand hovered for a moment over the off button, but then he paused, turning to stare at the Captain. "Wait, how do you even know this song? I've never even heard it before."

"Then you don't listen to the radio, laddie," Chester commented, not looking up from buttering his toast.

"They're playing it everywhere," Haddock supplied. "It's a huge hit. Just came out."

"Maintenant, nous pouvons tous chanter des chants de Noël sans Dieu de l'Amérique," Tintin muttered, shaking his head desparingly. "C'est merveilleux… merveilleux…"1

The Captain knew a little French. Just enough to realise that Tintin was complaining about something, and being very sarcastic. "What was that?" he asked suspiciously.

"Oh, nothing…"

"Avez-vous été se plaindre?"2 the Captain pressed. He knew his accent was horrible, and he'd probably spoken in the wrong tense or something technical like that, but he liked responding to Tintin in French whenever the lad reverted like this. Besides being kind of fun, it was probably a power thing; he wanted Tintin to know that he, Haddock, knew French, and that he understood (almost) every word that the boy had just said.

Tintin "Moi? Plaindre? Vous plaisantez!"3

"Was that even… was that English?" Chester broke in, frowning.

They stared at Chester for a full ten seconds before realising that Chester wasn't used to French being thrown around like that.

"Uh… he was just complaining," Haddock explained, jabbing his thumb in Tintin's direction.

"Hmm," said Chester, looking unconvinced. "I see." But after a short pause, he shrugged nonchalantly and seemed to forget all about it. "So, er…"

"So what?" the Captain asked, standing up and moving his empty cup of tea to the sink. Tintin, previously lounging against the window, stepped forward and picked up the pot.

"All done with the tea, Captain?"

"Yep," said Captain Haddock.

"Aye," said Captain Chester.

Tintin looked between the two of them.

"I guess I'll clear it away, then," he finally said, aware that to clarify which Captain he had meant would possibly offend one of them. He would just have to be more careful in the future.

As Tintin placed the teapot in the sink, he could hear strains of the Captains' conversation from the breakfast room: "So, what's on the agenda for today?" Chester was asking.

"I don't know, what do you feel like doing?"

"Er… I noticed you didn't have a gingerbread house up."

"What? You suggesting that we decorate one?" Haddock burst out into laughter. "I haven't done that since I was a wee laddie!"

Wee laddie? Tintin thought, frowning.

"True…" Chester began, but the Captain cut him off.

"No, no, no, I fancy the idea, I really do, I really do," he replied quickly, laughing softly. Then he stood, and roared, "Nestor!"

"Coming, sir," the butler called from upstairs.

Tintin entered the breakfast room just in time to see Haddock clapping Chester on the shoulder, his shoulders still shaking with mirth. "Oh, Chester, m'boy, this is going to be grand…"

/

"Captain?" Tintin asked. "Can you please go tell Nestor we need more confectioner's sugar?"

Two chairs screeched backward as Chester and Haddock stood up. They looked at each other for a moment.

"I'll go," Chester finally said.

"'s awfully good of you," Haddock replied, sitting back down at the table.

Tintin dumped the last of the bag of powdered sugar into the mixing bowl, pulled a fork out of the drawer, and began stirring.

"Reminds me of… when was that? Four days ago?"

"You mean us with the bowls of icing?"

"Yep."

"I don't think I'm ever going to be able to eat another cookie without thinking—" the Captain began talking in a squeaky high voice— "'Crumbs, Captain!' Ha! Good times, good times."

Tintin shot a mock glare in Haddock's direction as he squeezed a couple drops of green food colouring into the bowl of icing. "I didn't say it like that. I was— Crumbs!"

"I know, that's just how I said it."

"No, I mean, crumbs, look at this!" Dropping the fork on the countertop, Tintin stared in horror at the bowl of icing. "This is… this is like…"

"That's like Castafiore Emerald green," the Captain finished hollowly.

They looked at each other for a moment, completely appalled, and then burst out laughing.

"We'll just, uh… paint bushes on the side of the gingerbread house?" Tintin said hopefully.

"Aye, that we will," the Captain chortled, wiping away a tear. After a moment, he settled back into the chair with a big sigh, still softly chuckling. "Ah, laddie… that was great…"

Laddie? Tintin's frown was even deeper this time. Where is this coming from?

"Did I miss the party?" Chester asked jokingly, coming into the room with a bag of powdered sugar.

"Not a bit," Haddock chortled. "Come on! Let's get this started!"

/

Decorating a gingerbread house was easy.

Right?

At least, it was supposed to be. In fact, Tintin, Chester and Haddock were so certain that it was supposed to be easy that they immediately felt like freaks of nature when they began attempting to decorate the fragrant little brown house in front of them.

And furthermore, they couldn't even begin to decide what it should look like—which probably contributed to the problem quite a bit.

"Right," Tintin said finally. "I take the front and left side, Captain Chester takes the back and right side, and Captain Haddock takes the roof."

"Why does Haddock get the roof?" Chester objected, looking up from the pile of candy decorations to glare at Tintin.

"Because—because—okay, you take the roof."

"I didn't say I wanted the roof," Chester pointed out.

"What?"

"I'll take the roof, thank you," Haddock said quickly. "Chester, do what Tintin says. He has good ideas."

Chester regarded Tintin with new interest. "Really? Oh, aye! I remember that little trick with the fuel oil, back in… where was it? Oh yes, Greenland, of course."

"Akureyri," Tintin clarified. "We were on our way to Greenland."

"Aye, Akuru—er, Akurirey, yes, that was it," Chester said dismissively. "Uh… oh! Haddock, I just remembered: you didn't drink then, did you? Ah!" He slapped his palm down on the table, making Snowy jump. "You were the president of the S.S.S.!"

Glancing down at the bottle of Loch Lomond on the table, Tintin could barely hide his grin.

"Oh… well, that," Haddock said vaguely, his gaze following Tintin's. "Yes, well… er… I sort of, uh, resigned…"

"Resigned?" Tintin asked mischievously.

"Er… well, there was this… er…" He carefully took a sip of whisky and frowned, sighing heavily as he set the cup down. "Well, there was a lot of fuss and bother, and I was more or less kicked off the, er… well, no reason to dwell on the past!"

Chester nodded solemnly. "Aye, not when there's the future to be lookin' to."

"Especially when one's future involves gingerbread houses. Do we have icing?"

"Coming, Captain," Tintin said meekly, shaking his head and laughing softly as he made his way to the kitchen.

/

What a mess, Tintin thought despairingly.

To be fair, Haddock and Chester were very…er, creative artists. Tintin had to admit he wouldn't have thought of putting a runway on the roof for Santa's reindeer. Considering Haddock wasn't too into art, the detail he'd put into it was amazing— there were even yellow sprinkle lights and tiny red cinnamon beacons. Chester's side looked like something out of a Robert Louis Stevenson story. Tintin's side was the only one that looked traditional at all, though he had to admit he had been thinking of Russia when he'd been making it, so it definitely had a Eastern European/Asian feel. It was a good thing his other friends hadn't come, he thought, and just imagined what that would have been like: Chang's side would be a traditional Chinese home, Alcazar's would be some barracks, and Castafiore's side would be—well, Tintin couldn't even imagine that, nor did he want to, but he was pretty sure it would involve chandeliers, marble, and nude statues of gods and goddesses.

"No, Snowy," Tintin said, grabbing his dog by the waist and lifting him off of the table. "No licking the icing!" Snowy whimpered, but allowed himself to be carried off. Tintin knelt down, looking at the dog's muzzle. The entire thing was streaked with red and green. "Oh, Snowy…"

But something he saw made him forget all about Snowy and icing.

Captain Haddock had written "CRUMBS" on Tintin's side of the gingerbread house.

"No!" Tintin gasped. "When did he even do that?"

He'd written it with icing, so it would be fairly easy to scrape off, but that didn't change the fact:

"Captain, I'll get you for this!"

Chester and Haddock were both gone upstairs. Tintin listened for the Captain to reply, but there was only a long, confused silence.

"Get me for what?" Chester finally shouted.

Tintin rolled his eyes. "The other Captain!" Feeling as if his threat had just lost a lot of it's potency, he called up, "Where's Captain Haddock?"

"Right here, laddie," Haddock said, stepping in from the back door. His face was flushed with the cold, and he looked a little wind-swept. "Just saying hello to Cuthb… what's the matter with you?"

Tintin had meant to chastise the Captain for writing on his gingerbread house. His mouth opened to tell him the words. But instead, what came out was, "You never call me 'laddie.'"

"Don't I?" he asked carelessly. Pulling off his scarf and flinging it on the countertop, he took a step closer to the gingerbread house, squinting a little to look at it. "Aye, this is quite a beaut', that's for sure…"

"Captain!" Tintin stamped his foot in frustration.

"What?!" Chester shouted from upstairs.

"I don't. Mean. YOU!"

"What's burning you up?" Captain Haddock asked, pausing to frown at Tintin as he lit his pipe.

"Well said!" Chester called.

"Why are you talking like that?" After a moment, he remembered his other complaint: "And why did you write 'Crumbs' on my side of the gingerbread house?"

"Because it's funny!" Haddock chortled.

"It's funny to talk like you just got off a boat from Scotland?" Tintin asked, now completely baffled.

"No, no, the house. And I don't talk like that! Look, laddie—"

"Lad. I mean Tintin!"

"Okay, okay, I'll just call you 'Tintin' from now on. Does that make you happy?"

Tintin paused to think. "Okay, that's fine."

"Okay. But look, I'm English. I know we go back in forth in French and all, and I'm probably losing my accent or whatever—"

"You never had an accent," Tintin scoffed.

"I mean a British accent."

There was an awkward silence.

"Oh."

The Captain finally rested his pipe on the table and turned to face Tintin, giving the lad his full attention. "But speaking in French, that doesn't change who I am, or where I come from. You use weird French and Flemish slang all the time, heck, your name is Flemish slang. I'm not asking you to change that."

"Yeah, I know…" Tintin mentally attempted to formulate the words he needed to say. That is, he knew what he wanted to say, but he had absolutely no idea how to say it.

I don't want to lose you.

Would it really be that hard to say? Yes, said a forlorn voice inside of him. Because it's weird. And he wouldn't even know what you meant.

"Everything all right?"

"I'm fine," Tintin replied. "I need to take Snowy for a walk."

/

Taking Snowy for a walk ended up equalling Tintin resting against the side of the house while Snowy scampered over the lawn, licking up snow and barking like a mad dog when it started melting on his tongue. It was funny to watch, except Tintin wasn't in a laughing mood. Idly twisting a piece of straw beneath his fingertips, he kept his eyes on Snowy but let his mind wander.

He seriously wanted to tell the Captain why he was getting stressed. There were more reasons than one. He went through the list mentally. I'm upset because you're talking like Chester and I don't want you to change. I'm upset because I think you're trying to be my father and I don't want our relationship to change. I'm upset because this is the first Christmas I've spent with anybody other than Snowy and it makes me remember back then. And I don't want that to happen.

So how was he supposed to tell the Captain this again?

Ah, hang it, he thought, tossing the piece of straw aside. There's no way I could tell him that.

Besides, trying to tell the Captain why, exactly, he didn't want the man to be his father, or why he didn't want to celebrate Christmas with a family, would mean questions. Questions about his past that he just couldn't and wouldn't answer. And having those between them… their friendship would only go downhill from there. And that was the last thing Tintin ever, ever wanted to happen.

Author's Note: Lol, I tried singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," only with the name of this chapter's title. It didn't work, but my brother thought it was pretty funny, so I guess it was a win :D I diehard wanted to do this chapter about singing, since I'm performing Handel's Messiah at an opera house today with like 10000 other people. Yeah, I'm just cool like that.

Oh, by the way, in case you're like, "You put Chester in the story but you're not doing anything with him!" just wait, okay? He'll become more important later, in chapter…uh… eight, I think. BUT I WON'T POST IT UNTIL YOU GIVE ME A REVIEW! BWAHAHA!

Just kidding. Lol! But I do like reviews. Think about how much you like reviews and then double that. That's how much I like them.

Translations:

1 Now everybody can sing godless Christmas songs from America. That's wonderful… wonderful…

2 Were you complaining?

3 Me? Complain? You're joking!