My Last Christmas Pageant

She used to attack my face.

It was usually how I woke up in the early morning to go to school. I would roll over in my bed, open my eyes, look past the wooden bars of my bunk bed and see a pair of eyes. Then I would see paws.

“Ow, Darling!” I cried out and rolled out of the way.

Like she cared about my suffering. She purred loudly and stuck her cold wet nose in my ear. I attempted to bat her away, but she was insistent.

It was seven in the morning so I laid in bed and went through youtube to see if any of my subscriptions had updated. She sat on my chest in between me and my phone, my other hand on her head. She had been insistent about receiving affection. After all, I stopped being dead so that meant Darling time.

“UUUgh, we have rehearsal today”, I bemoaned. She purred in response.

“At least it is my last year. I am so sick of doing the stupid pagent every year. Go In ThE cHuRcH. WaLk ArOuNd. SiNg aBoUt MARY and the rasin she pooped out and the people who HAD to harrass a newborn in the middle of the night... At least when I go to normal people high school I won’t have to do it ever again, isn’t that right, Darling”.

Darling blinked at me. For a kitten who came with a name that we couldn’t change, she didn’t seem to know it that well. I could have called her DumDum or Diddlykins and she still would have gazed at me with that happy expression and

She bumped her head into mine and slid her sleek, spotted body down my side. Silly little animal.

Another cat jumped up onto the cat tree beside my bed. It was Peanutbutter, the dumbest and most clueless cat in the house. He didn’t seem to notice we existed. The unusualness of him being there was reciprocated by Darling’s sudden flight. She bolted far away from him and hid in another part of my room.

I sat, equally as shocked as I had been when she woke me up. Peanutbutter cared so much less.

After I dressed in my school uniform, I kicked Peanutbutter and Echo, another cat, out of my room before I shut the door. Darling was alone in my room again. It had been open all night so she had probably hid in that cat tree to avoid assimilating.

“You know, we live in a house full of cats and dogs. You need to get used to them sometime”, I told her as I took her special, only for her, bag of cat food out of my drawer and filled the half empty bowl.

She gazed at me, wide eyed from her cat tree, her favorite hiding spot.

We had Darling for a couple months, after her quarantine in my room we had expected her to integrate well with the other cats. She obviously did not and stuck to my room. She was terrified of other cats.

She will get over it, they always do, I thought to myself.

I opened my door and set out for breakfast. A shirt knocked me in the face. It was a clean uniform shirt that mother had placed over the top of my door, not on the handle, over the door. I don’t have time. I had five minutes to eat breakfast. I can put it away tomorrow. I thought last week. I repeated that thought today.

I stepped through my door and unlatched the gate that kept the dogs, Mossey, Possum, Rooster, Mekun and Tiggy, out of my room. Since the food bowl and litter box were in there, they were forbidden. I also didn’t want them in there because they would steal my stuffed animals and rip them to pieces. I was not THE MOST fond of my mother’s dogs, but I tolerated them.

I closed the door. I closed the gate. I went to school.

“He sees you when your sleeping, he knows when you’re awake. He knows when you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness sake…” I sang with the others. I tilted my head manically to the side like an evil doll. It made my third time singing that song in the last couple minutes more interesting.

The alter in the church had been decorated for a nativity where several little children stood bored out of their minds in sheep, donkey and angel costumes. They didn’t have to sing. Me and half of my class did. The Pews had wreathes of glowing tree branches strapped to them and gold baubles hung from above. A repetitive nativity scene sat on the holy hot tub. The alter itself was covered in tinsel, christmas lights and several football stands for the third and fourth graders.

“I believe that’s enough”, Mrs. Caratie, our choir teacher who looked like a turtle, announced, “You need to sing a bit louder and remember to smile. Smile”.

No one smiled back at her when she demonstrated how to smile, one of the things Catholic school had failed to teach anyone.

“Alright, we are done here”, Our teacher rose behind Mrs. Caratie and towered over her like a massive, well dressed skyscraper, “LINE UP. And no flapping gums”.

We lined up as he commanded. I was the first to go, I had very little to clean up, my book and my desire to get the hell out of that church. My ADHD nagged endlessly at me, and kicked my brain with “I am bored. Lets go. Lets go. Move. Move. Move”.

Its voice reflected in my glare at my classmates. They were like Mrs. Caratie’s offspring, turtle slow. They decided to chat or to start taking off their christmas hats. The others filed behind me as I bounced under Mr. Picott’s chin.

“Hey, Asher. Quit eating your hat. Let’s move”, Our teacher yelled across the room at a short blonde boy.

We laughed. Asher was not in fact eating his hat, but he had it near his mouth while he talked with a girl from another class. He smiled, embarrassed and tautled into the line.

“The real thing is tonight. I want you all here at six, no excuses, Ben”, he glared at another classmate of mine, a procrastinator that had been the butt of his procrastination jokes all year.

“Not get on with ya”, our teacher yelled and out we filed.

I tore for the back gate and exited it with my sister.

It was raining, the streets were black and mirror silver. The traffic was immeasurable. Either because all the schools got out or because tourists ogled the grocery store and the hundreth wine tasting store in town, this time of day was always busy. There was never any place to park outside the bakery where we always stopped to wait for her, so Mother was across the street in her tan truck.

My sister climbed in the front. I climbed into the back.

“So how was today”, I asked and stuffed my legs in the meagar space the truck provided my legs.

My mother turned to look at me. There was darkness in her eyes. The car felt like it had been flooded with black ice.

“What is it”? I asked.

“Darling is dead”.

Shock and disbelief injected into my veins, cold as the inside of that car. My brain tried to tackle it away.

“She was fine this morning”, I attempted.

She wasn’t sick. She was healthy. She wasn’t wobbling or breathing hard. Did she escape into the street? No my window screen is solid. How…

“You are joking”, I laughed nervously.

My mother was dead serious.

“How”? I asked.

“You left the door open to your room. I think MeKun got into your room and killed her”.

She moved the car out of the road and began her drive home. I sat there on the concrete car seat and flailed at my ADHD for a strip of memory that it hopefully hadn't chewed up yet. No I definitely closed the door. I remember because the shirt made it hard to do. And what about the gate? Its three feet tall? How did he get over it? And why Darling? She would have hid in the cat tree. That thing is SIX feet tall.

“How did you know it was MeKun”?

“He had blood on his face. There was blood everywhere. I was cleaning your room all day. I think he wanted to see us drive away or steal the food in there. You left the door open and he jumped over the gate and I don’t know! God damn it Jori why are you such a RETARD…”

I don’t remember what else she said, but she yelled at me the entire drive home with every obscenity she could muster. My mind does things like that, it erases all the cruel words from my memory. I remembered what she meant. She claimed that her dog MeKun killed that kitten and it was my fault.

When we got home I didn’t go inside. Not for hours. I stood in the rain and stared down the street.

My mother came outside and said.

“LOOK AT HER. LOOK WHAT YOU DID”.

She forced a bag in my face. The top open. Inside. Was the corpse of a dark brown kitten. Her weak, skinny little neck flopped hopelessly and her eyes stared dead at me. Endless fear froze in the curl of her lips over her teeth. Her sleek fur had been upturned and torn. Ice crystals sprouted like mold on the horror on her throat.

“She was so scared she shit herself. This is your fault, Jori. Your fault”.

When I did eventually go inside, I did it to get something for the Christmas pageant. If I wanted to go didn't matter, I displeased mother enough today, I would get no leniency.

When I entered it was like ice filled mist sat at my feet. It was my room. It was clean, nothing had changed, but the air felt full of horror and evil. No cats dared to enter. The food bowl was empty.

I grabbed what I needed in my closet and got out of that room as fast as I could.

MeKun stood under my mother, his whip thin tail wagged as she prepared him food with the other dogs. There was a stain under his chin, a stain I dared not look at.

We all entered with glowing sticks made of plastic and rainbow lights. We walked through the church while the speakers blared a peaceful song about the birth of Jesus. We criscrossed the maze of pews and entrances until we arrived at our seats at the end of the song.

The first graders started. They sang a song.

The nativity story started with a little girl who ran on stage in all white to yell at Ava dressed as Mary. The real Mary gazed blearily away at the floor which was covered with Poinsettias around her feet.

The second graders sang a song.

Ava and Luca as Joseph wandered around the church and drug a child wearing a donkey costume behind them.

The third graders sang a song.

The story and the songs traded places until the end where a speech was said by one of the honor roll students. Something about peace and love.

I don’t remember going to the stage. I don’t remember the song start. I sang.

I sang the same as the rest despite the massive tumor in my throat.

I sang despite the tears that ran down my face.

I sang until I broke in front of an entire church full of people.

I changed my wish to Santa last minute. All I wanted that Christmas was to wake up in the morning and for a little spotted brown kitten to attack my face.