A Children’s

Christmas
StorySpecial to The Acorn
Silver Trails



 

 


Christmas

Story

Special to The Acorn

Silver Trails


"Mom!" Trevor called with alarm. "There’s something in the bathroom!"


In the kitchen preparing Christmas cookies Mom stopped and scratched an itch on her nose, leaving a dab of sprinkle-flecked dough. Then she grabbed the plunger and joined Trevor in the bathroom. Taped to the fridge door, Trevor’s Christmas wish list fluttered as she passed. It had only one item on it: "A pet of my own."


"G.I. Joe got his head stuck again attempting a daring underwater rescue?" she asked her son. Trevor was 8, her only child, bright and sweet with thick curly dark hair and large solemn brown eyes.


"No—look, Mom," he said, pointing at the floor where something had left about a half-dozen long lacy silver trails. They looked like the marks ice skaters left on the ice rink after performing their figure-eights.


Mom peered hard. Maybe tinsel from the Christmas tree had gotten tracked in somehow. But when she knelt to pick up one of the trails it was damp and sticky to the touch.


"Hmm," she said.


"Hmm," Trevor said.


They got down on their hands and knees to look closer. Suddenly Mom gasped.


"Ugh! Yuck!" she said, and pointed to where a silver trail led out into the hallway, attached to a formless slimy lump. "It’s a garden slug! It must have gotten inside when I carried in my African violet from the patio." The tender violet couldn’t stand the cool nights and Mom pampered it by putting it on a windowsill in the bathroom for winter.


"Let me get something to scoop him up," she said and went for a paper cup in the kitchen. When she got back Trevor was lying flattened on his stomach on the hallway floor, his nose almost touching the hideous-looking slug.


"Trev, move, let me get it," Mom said.


"He’s interesting," Trevor said, "and he makes these pretty silver trails. Can’t he stay?"


"Stay? Oh my," Mom said, looking at her boy who was watching the slug so intently. "He can stay only if he’s kept inside something at all times."


"Why?" Trevor asked. Mom didn’t say "because that ugly thing gives me the creeps!" though that was the truth. Instead she said, "Because he’s kind of a messy creature and also somebody might accidentally step on him and squish him."


Trevor shuddered at the thought, grabbed the cup and gently guided the slug inside it.


After that Trevor and the slug, whom he named Buddy—the name Trevor had been saving for a pet of his own—became great friends. Trevor brought him faded petunia blossoms and other treats from the garden which Buddy seemed to enjoy eating.


Dad was not real fond of Buddy but just said, "Make sure he never gets loose in any of Mom’s houseplants or there’ll be trouble!"


Buddy went everywhere with Trevor, parked inside a Tupperware container. Once Dad brought Trevor and Buddy to the beach to look at tidepools which held giant sea slugs that Dad said might be Buddy’s distant cousins. A park ranger came by and looked suspiciously at them.


"You are not removing any marine life from the tidepools?" he asked Trevor. "You know that’s against the law, young man. What’s that in your box?" he said. The ranger’s hat had a big stiff brim that shaded his stern face. Trevor peered up at him meekly then showed him Buddy.


"Yuck," the ranger said. "That’s an ugly old garden slug. Ick! Don’t let him loose in the ocean!" he said and hurried away.


"The saltwater’s probably not good for Buddy to be in," Dad said, "But here, he can go for a little boat trip." Carefully Dad set the Tupperware box into a little round pool and with Buddy inside it floated and bobbed in a gentle current.


"Buddy the Sailor!" Trevor cried. "Bet no other garden slugs visited the sea."


"I seriously doubt it," Dad agreed.


Buddy came along for a pre-Christmas dinner at Uncle Beau and Aunt Shelley’s house. Cousins Brianna and Tess screamed when they saw Buddy.


"Teenage girls are like that," Dad explained, replacing the lid on Buddy’s container.


"What a dumb pet!" Cousin Tess said.


"Wow, where’d you get him?" Cousin Tim asked. He was Tess’ twin. "I think he’s cool. Let’s let him poke around in my old lizard’s cage." And so Buddy got to wander through the former home of an iguana lizard.


"Must seem like a big forest to him," Mom said. Cousin Catherine came in to see who this Buddy fellow was. She was three and fearless.


"Can I pet him?" she asked.


"He’s kind of icky, I mean, sticky. Well, both," Trevor told her. Catherine didn’t mind. She rubbed her fingertips thoughtfully afterwards, left the room then came back with something hidden in her small fist. She reached down towards Buddy and opening her little hand she gently showered him with red and green beads from Aunt Shelley’s sewing box. Many of the tiny beads stuck to Buddy’s back.


"Buddy looks like one of those sea anemones we saw at the beach," Dad said. "Remember, Trev, the ones called ‘aggregate’ because broken bits of shells and stuff stuck to them?"


"They looked like pincushions!" Trevor said.


"I think Buddy looks like a Christmas ornament!" Mom said. "Great idea, Catherine!" And Cousin Catherine smiled proudly down at Buddy, who didn’t seem to mind being a Christmas ornament.


On Christmas morning a light rain fell. Dad got the fireplace going. Mom was busy cooking. Trevor and Buddy watched the rain through the big window overlooking the garden patio. Buddy was stuck to the glass, where he often stayed when he wanted to look outside. Trevor noticed a dozen or more slugs moving across the patio. Dad explained they loved moisture and were most active when it was raining or the lawn sprinklers were going. Trevor asked Dad if he thought Buddy ever missed being with his own kind, his friends and family.


"It’s really hard to guess what a slug might be thinking," Dad said. When Trevor peeled Buddy off the glass, Buddy squirmed as if he wanted to get right back to the glass and look out some more. Trevor went to the door then down the back steps to the patio and put Buddy down.


"Merry Christmas," he said softly. "Thanks for being my pet." After a little while Buddy was lost among all the other slugs; Trevor couldn’t even pick him out.


After a big Christmas brunch Mom and Dad slid an envelope across the dining room table towards Trevor’s plate. When he opened it Trevor found inside a photograph of Mom surrounded by puppies. They were black and white and round. Their fur looked fluffy and curly and soft. In the photo, Mom held some of the puppies in her arms and some had climbed up her shoulders and were licking her ears. Some were sitting near her feet and chewing her shoelaces with their tiny teeth. Others were trying to climb into her lap.


"You got to play with all these puppies," Trevor said with awe.


"And you get your chance this Saturday up at the Humane Society. They’ve got 15 new puppies and you get to pick out one of your own," Mom said.


"To keep?" Trevor asked, with even more awe. Mom and Dad looked at each other.


"Of course!" they said at the same time.


And while Trevor slept that night with the photo of Mom and all those puppies tucked under his pillow, happy slugs inched across the garden patio leaving silver trails in the rain.




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