Fifth Day of Christmas - 5 of 12 Fiction

Fifth Day of Christmas

            Timmy pulled an arm out of the covers and recoiled.  He couldn’t get it back under fast enough.  The double-paned window was lightly hazed over on the inside.  That meant only one thing.  The temperature dropped last night, dropped a lot.  Steeling himself to the inevitable, he swung one leg out of bed then the other.  Waiting a bit to acclimate to the room, he sat up pulling the covers up with him.  In only his briefs, he dashed over to the hook on his bedroom door to retrieve his robe he decided it was time to don pajamas for bed time like mom told him to do several days ago.

            Back from the bathroom and wrapped in his robe, Timmy rubbed the back of his hand on the window.  It was a deep gray out with snow falling in dime size flakes that danced in the air, teasing the ground before lighting.   The snow drifted up the side of the garage almost reaching the eve.  A second later he heard the muted sound of a snow blower.  Dad must be doing the driveway.  He rushed to get dressed.

            Attired to do battle with the elements, Timmy found dad on the third row in the drive way.  “Can I do that!,”  Timmy yelled.

            The blower throttled down to an idle, then stopped.  “What’s that?”

            “Can I do that?” 

            “I’ll finish the drive.  You can do the walk when I’m done.”

            “Okay.  Can I take it down to Mrs. Davenports?  She’s supposed to be home today.”

            “Sure.  Just check the gas before you head over there.”

            The snow plow had been down the road.  Black speckled snow was pushed up cover the curbs.  Timmy fetched a shovel from the garage and began to clear the ridge across the front of the driveway.  The whole snow clearing effort looked for not as the driveway turned white behind his dad’s efforts.  He learned that even with the blower when it snowed this hard it was the only way to get ahead of the weather.

            Timmy plowed a twenty-four-inch path down the middle of the sidewalk all the way to Mrs. Davenport’s house.  He opened the gate and jockeyed the machine until it lined up with the front door and engaged the rotors.  Snow flew across the yard until he reached the porch.  As he turned the blower around, he noticed the hardball size hole in the smaller window to the left of the front door.  He climbed the porch and looked at the break.  Shards ran up into the aluminum frame and he could see glass on the floor through the hole.  On the floor by the glass lay a fist size rock. 

            Burt did it.  Timmy was sure of it.  He jumped off the porch and immediately his feet flew out from under him.  Arching his back as he landed on the bottom step, he took the fall across the shoulders lessening the impact.  Rolling over he picked himself up and headed for home as fast as he felt safe to go.

            The car was gone. Oh no, dad went somewhere.  He flew through the mudroom and found dad in the kitchen.  “Dad, I thought you were gone.”

            “Nah, Mom took Sally to dance.  You need something?

            “Someone threw a rock through Mrs. Davenport’s window.  Can we do something?”

            “Of course, we can.  Let me suit up.”

            “What you going to do?”  Timmy ask as his dad measured the bottom pane of the window. 

            I’ve got some quarter-inch plywood in the garage.  We’ll cut a piece big enough to cover the aluminum and use a few nails to wedge it in place.  That will keep the elements out until the glass can be replaced.”  He stood up.  “That’s it.  Get the blower and put it away.”

            Timmy’s heart sank.  “Dad.  It was right here in front of the porch.”   There was number of large boot prints surrounded where Timmy had left the blower.  He could see where the blower had been dragged over the ridge of dirty snow left by the plow.  “I’m sorry, Dad.”

            Dad looked up and down the street.  “Come on.”  He didn’t say anything else on the walk home.

            When they reached the back door.  “Tim, go out in the garage and see if you can find that quarter-inch plywood.  It’s a half sheet, I think.  I’m going to call the police.  I’ll be out in a minute.”

            The police arrived at Mrs. Davenport’s just as Timmy and his dad finished mounting the plywood over the window.  The officer parked a couple lengths up the street and came down the trail Timmy had made with the blower.  An inch of new snow already covered the walk.

            “You Frank Dorset?”  The officer asked.

            “Yes.  Thanks for coming out.”

            “Could you show me some I.D.?”

            “Sure.”  Dad loosened his coat and dug in his back pocket and produced a card and handed it to the policeman.”

            The officer read off the information into the microphone clipped to his jacket pocket.  He handed the card back.  “Is this your house?”

            “Oh no.  My son.  Timmy,” he pointed, “ran the blower down here to clear Mrs. Davenport’s walk.  When he saw the broken window, he ran home to tell me.  It was stolen sometime between then and when we got back here.  Couldn’t been twenty minutes.”

            “I see.”  He jotted in his small notebook.  “Timmy, did you break the window?”

            What, why would he thing that?  Timmy was dumfounded. “Uh, uh….”

            “Timmy didn’t break the window.  He found it that way.  We just finished covering it.”

            The policeman took the details, make and model of the blower and promised to get back to them. 

            Timmy and his dad walked home.  “Why did he think I broke the window, Dad?”

            “He didn’t think you did. He was fishing. Don’t worry about it.”  Dad handed him the hammer and left-over nails.  “Put these away when we get home and come in for lunch.”

            After lunch, Timmy headed down to Mrs. Davenport.  She wasn’t home yet.  He walked around the side of her house to check the other windows and noticed the gas meter was turned off with a padlock on the valve.  That meant no gas.  His house’s furnace ran on gas, did her furnace?  Moving on, he didn’t find anymore broken windows. 

            There was a large pile of wood rounds that looked dumped in the backyard next to a piece of stump two-feet across.  An axe was stuck in it.  Timmy realized this was where the wood was split for the fireplace.  There were only a few split logs by the back door.  Mrs. Davenport would need more to stay warm.

            The snow had let up.  Timmy wiggled the axe free and stood a round on the stump and it with the axe.  The blade stuck in the wood and he beat the round back on the stump until the wood split.  The two halves split easier.  Timmy looked at his wrist watch, it was one o’clock.

            At one-twenty, he pulled off his stocking cap and unzipped his jacket.  The cold air rushed in and around his sweater.  It felt good.

            Three o’clock, Timmy gathered and stacked the wood by the back door.  He pulled a card out of his pocket and wedged it in the top log.  Timmy retrieved his stocking cap, and zipped up his coat and went around the corner of the house.  When he closed the gate and took a few steps up the sidewalk he saw an ambulance turn on to the street. 

            Mrs. Davenport was almost home.