Chapter 11: Christmas Eve

"You two are in so much trouble!"

Mrs. Hawkins plowed through the bar. Stringy Christmas lights, detached in a drunken fight, flickered as she pulled Wendy and Jim inside. The children followed, disheveled, but safe. They had been dried, warmed, and interrogated by Admiral Triton's coast guard, then promptly returned to The Benbow.

"Nearly half drowned and frozen in the ocean!" Mrs. Hawkins fumed. She stopped at the counter. "In come the police and I have to close shop on one of the busiest days of the year to find that my son has been arrested for – "

"Mom it was no big deal!" Angrily, Jim gestured to Wendy. "We didn't do anything wrong! I didn't even get to save my surfer! Those dumb cops just arrested us because they were already looking for some murderer that left on a ship –"

"Jim!" Mrs. Hawkins raked a hand through her hair. "You almost killed yourself and Wendy! If you got hurt – that would kill me! Jim, I told you not to take out that solar surfer until your father – "

"— MY surfer worked!" Jim yelled. Wendy jumped. Jim's guard exploded like a gun shot. "Wen and I got it to work! I just forgot one thing but I DIDN'T NEED HIM!"

"—Jim! Do not raise your voice at me! I do not want you messing around in that garage aga—"

"—WE WEREN'T DOING ANYTHING WRONG!"

"James Pleadis Hawkins!" Mrs. Hawkins pointed at the stairwell. "Go to your room NOW!"

"NO!" Jim turned. Throwing aside chairs, he ran out of the inn. They heard the garage door slam, even from inside.

Flustered, Wendy turned.

Mrs. Hawkins rounded on her in a second. "Oh no you don't! You sit young lady! Your father is coming any minute to pi—"

Mrs. Hawkins stopped as Wendy immediately sat.

Taken aback, Mrs. Hawkins blinked. Casting a glance out the window, she lingered on the garage. Holding back tears, she turned quickly to the counter. For a moment, her shoulders gave. A tear fell. But, biting her tongue, Mrs. Hawkins rubbed away the tear. Slowly, she began to polish the counter. Work. It was the only way to forget.

Suddenly, she stopped. Startled, she looked down.

Wendy Darling, Mary Darling's little girl, was beside her. Silently, Wendy took a cloth and rubbed the counter.

Mrs. Hawkins smiled. Together they worked...just to be close to someone else.

They worked until Mr. Darling came for Wendy. And when Wendy left the Benbow, scolded and reprimanded -
"WHAT have you done to your hair?!" - she cast back a final glance.

Jim was sitting on the garage roof. Watching her leave.

That night Wendy could not sleep. It was not because her father and yelled, slammed a glass bottle on the table, and cried until she went to bed. It was not because Father Christmas was riding his magical sleigh across the midnight sky. It was not because she was thinking of the solar surfer, either as it soared in the sky or plunged into the ocean.

It was because she still did not know why Jim Hawkins understood her pain.

So, quietly, she crept into the magical Christmas Eve.

The Docks, so dirty by day, twinkled with frost by night. The ocean rocked calmly and the wind braided through her ringlets.

Gazing into the ocean, Wendy sighed.

Then, she saw it. The perfect Christmas present for Jim Hawkins.

"Oh…oh, oh, oh! Yes!"