The Christmas Tree
by John McGroarty
Genre: Children
Swearwords: None.
Description: There was a new tree in the park. It had grown overnight, as if by magic. But what was it doing there?
_____________________________________________________________________
One day towards the end of November Zoe woke up early. Really really early, much too early for school. Something seemed to have stirred her from her slumber. The earth seemed to have shaken around her room. Zoe was a very lucky girl because she lived in a little house in a park at the very centre of a huge sprawling city. It was like living in the countryside or in the middle of a forest. Surrounded by nature and flowers and little animals and beasties on the wing and beasties on the hop. She jumped out of bed, opened the curtains, and looked out the window. There in the centre of the park there was a new tree. A new tree! It was still dark and Zoe had to strain her eyes to see it properly, but there was no doubt, the tree hadn’t been there when she went to bed the night before. Zoe knew all about trees as she and her friends were always climbing them, and because her dad’s job was to look after all the trees in the park.
“What a really strange thing to do, somebody must have planted it when I was asleep,” she said to herself. She yawned. She decided to investigate in the morning before going to school. And with that thought she got back into bed and drifted off to sleep to dream about trees. About elms, about oaks, about acorns, crab apple, peach and plum, but most of all about her favourite tree, the Christmas one!
The next morning, after gulping down her breakfast, she ran out the back door and reached the new tree in double quick time. Her dad was already there looking up into its branches. He had a puzzled look on his face. He kept shaking his head and saying, “It can’t be possible, it can’t be possible”.
“Dad,” said Zoe pulling on the sleeve of his jacket, “it’s a new tree, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is,” he said with a laugh of amazement.
“Somebody planted it during the night?” asked Zoe.
“No, Zoe, it has roots, deep roots. It grew.”
“It’s a pine tree, a Christmas tree, isn’t it, Dad?”
“Yes, a Christmas tree that has appeared from nowhere, and it’s early, it’s only the twenty-fifth of November,” he said shaking his head.
They stood looking at the Christmas tree in silence for a couple of minutes.
The tree had pinecones, but the strangest looking pinecones she had ever seen. They were all different shapes and sizes. While they were looking at the tree, one of the cones dropped onto the ground. It opened up, and inside there was a scooter. Zoe looked at her dad smiling. “How did it know I wanted a scooter for Christmas?” she said.
Her dad laughed. “Well, go and get it,” he said.
Zoe picked up the scooter and started to ride up and down the path. “It’s a real scooter, dad, look!”
Her shouts attracted some children who were on their way to school. They gathered round the tree and, as they looked up, the Christmas tree began to drop its cones one by one. Inside were lots of different toys for all the children. Teddy bears, dolls, train sets, little warriors, jigsaws, computer games, video consoles, bikes. Every toy that was ever thought of spilled out of the Christmas tree’s cones. The happy shouts of the children attracted the attention of more and more kids until the area around the tree was packed with happy laughing children.
Zoe and her dad pushed their way out of the crowd.
“I’d better phone my boss, and the police,” said Zoe’s dad beginning to look worried.
“I’ll see you tonight,” she shouted over her shoulder as she whizzed her way through groups of children on her way to school and a horrible morning of mixed fractions.
When Zoe got home that evening the police were controlling the park. There were queues of children stretching for miles. She explained to a plump police sergeant that she lived in the little house in the park and he escorted her to her back door. He was in a good mood and even let Zoe wear his hat as they walked along. Inside the house her dad and a group of men were gathered round the kitchen table scrutinising maps and studying weighty encyclopaedias.
Zoe went up to her room to do her homework. Even more mixed fractions. She couldn’t concentrate. She put her books aside and looked out of the window at the Christmas tree. It had grown since the morning, and Zoe couldn’t see its top. It stretched off into the clouds in the gathering dark. She got her scooter and went for a spin up and down the garden path until dinnertime.
At nine o’clock the park closed and many children went home disappointed. The park was really quiet now after the excitement of the day. There was a police tent with a brazier outside and some big lights illuminating the Christmas tree.
Zoe went to bed but couldn’t fall asleep. She got up and got dressed quickly. She slipped out of the house and went round to the other side of the tree. No sooner had she arrived than the tree let another cone drop with a scooter inside. A blue one this time.
“But I’ve already got a scooter,” she said out loud.
Yet another cone fell with a green scooter. And another.
“Stop it!” she shouted. The tree stopped dropping its cones. Zoe moved closer to the Christmas tree, into the branches. And before her eyes a little door appeared in the thick trunk. She opened the door and there was a ladder inside stretching off down the way into the darkness.
She popped her head in cautiously and a light came on. Curiosity overcame her fear and she started to climb down the ladder. She climbed and climbed for what seemed like hours and then, just as she was starting to feel really tired and thought she couldn’t go on, she saw another door. She jumped down off the ladder and opened it.
She found herself in an enormous dormitory with thousands of beds. The silence was only broken by some light snoring. The light from the tunnel shone angled on the bed directly opposite where Zoe was standing. The person in the bed sat up. It was a little girl the same age as Zoe. More than that, she looked exactly like Zoe. Even down to the little freckles on her nose. It was like looking in a mirror.
“What are you doing here?” the little girl asked Zoe.
“I don’t really know, is this a dream?” said Zoe.
“No, and you shouldn’t be here,” said the little girl.
“Do you know me?” asked Zoe.
“No,” said the little girl, “but I always knew that you had to exist somewhere.”
“What’s your name?” Zoe asked her.
“It’s not important,” said the little girl.
“Yes it is! My name’s …”
The little girl interrupted Zoe, “No, don’t tell me, it’s not important either.”
Just then a siren sounded and all the sleepers woke up. Zoe was astonished; all the children getting out of the beds dreamily were like copies of all her classmates and all the children from the park.
“I have to go,” the little girl said.
All the children were moving towards two open doors at the end of the dormitory. Zoe caught hold of the little girl’s arm and walked along with her. The doors opened out onto a huge space full of machines and light and noise.
Zoe had to shout to make herself heard, “What happens here?”
“We make toys,” said the little girl.
There was a man distributing breakfast. He handed Zoe and the little girl a bowl of porridge.
“It’s good, nice and hot,” said the little girl.
Zoe looked round. There was a window behind them, just like the window in her bedroom. Outside there was a little city of huts with a stream running down the middle of the main street. There was a long queue of children waiting outside the factory gates.
“What do the children outside want?” she asked.
“It’s good, nice and warm,” said the little girl.
A whistle blew and all the children started to work.
“You have to go now,” the little girl said to Zoe.
“Please,” said Zoe, “come with me, I’ll give you one of my scooters if you like.”
“Oh, no,” said the little girl, “that isn’t allowed. Your part isn’t here, nor mine there.”
“What part? What do you mean?”
“Quick,” said the little girl, “here come the whistleblowers, run!”
Zoe began to run. She heard the whistles blowing all around her and the machines started to go faster and faster. The whistles and the machines were playing what sounded strangely like “jingle bells”. She ran past piles of toys; past children robotically packing toys into multi-coloured boxes; past endless docking bays with men filling lorries full of boxes. Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way. At last she made it to the dormitory and ran into the tunnel. She began to climb up the ladder and didn’t stop until she was out in the park looking up at the Christmas tree again. The door in the tree slammed shut and then disappeared.
Another cone dropped to the ground with a scooter inside. Zoe saw that there was a little piece of paper attached. It was a note.
“Don’t be sad, Merry Christmas, your friend,” it said.
Zoe left the scooter next to the tree and went into her house. She climbed into bed exhausted and holding the note fell into a dreamless sleep.
The next morning the queues started to form again. It said on the news that the government had announced a school holiday and that buses were arriving from all over the city full of children.
There were too many people and Zoe couldn’t go out to play. There were lots of children with their parents outside in the queues; even ones who had already received their gift from the Christmas tree. Some more than twice or three times! The tree was really high now, stretching up beyond the blue sky into the heavens. And even Zoe knew that a tree can never reach heaven. Not even a Christmas one. It was dropping cones with toys inside more and more quickly. And then it began to sway from side to side. It couldn’t support the weight of the cones. Finally it crashed to the ground. All the children and their parents ran into the branches to recover the toys. When all the toys had been collected the crowd started to move slowly out of the park.
The radio said that there would be school after all.
“Are you going to take one of your scooters to school?” Zoe’s dad asked Zoe.
“No, Dad,” she said, “I’m going to walk. Give the scooters back to the tree. I’ll wait till Christmas for one.”
She put the note from the little girl in her pocket. It meant more to her than all the scooters in the world. She began to smile and then she remembered. “Oh, no,” she said, “with all the excitement I forgot to do my homework!”
“Don’t worry,” laughed her dad, “you have the Christmas holidays to catch up. Merry Christmas, Zoe.”
“Yeah,” said Zoe thinking about all the pages of mixed fractions stretching out over the holidays, “Merry Christmas, Dad.”
Swearwords: None.
Description: There was a new tree in the park. It had grown overnight, as if by magic. But what was it doing there?
_____________________________________________________________________
One day towards the end of November Zoe woke up early. Really really early, much too early for school. Something seemed to have stirred her from her slumber. The earth seemed to have shaken around her room. Zoe was a very lucky girl because she lived in a little house in a park at the very centre of a huge sprawling city. It was like living in the countryside or in the middle of a forest. Surrounded by nature and flowers and little animals and beasties on the wing and beasties on the hop. She jumped out of bed, opened the curtains, and looked out the window. There in the centre of the park there was a new tree. A new tree! It was still dark and Zoe had to strain her eyes to see it properly, but there was no doubt, the tree hadn’t been there when she went to bed the night before. Zoe knew all about trees as she and her friends were always climbing them, and because her dad’s job was to look after all the trees in the park.
“What a really strange thing to do, somebody must have planted it when I was asleep,” she said to herself. She yawned. She decided to investigate in the morning before going to school. And with that thought she got back into bed and drifted off to sleep to dream about trees. About elms, about oaks, about acorns, crab apple, peach and plum, but most of all about her favourite tree, the Christmas one!
The next morning, after gulping down her breakfast, she ran out the back door and reached the new tree in double quick time. Her dad was already there looking up into its branches. He had a puzzled look on his face. He kept shaking his head and saying, “It can’t be possible, it can’t be possible”.
“Dad,” said Zoe pulling on the sleeve of his jacket, “it’s a new tree, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is,” he said with a laugh of amazement.
“Somebody planted it during the night?” asked Zoe.
“No, Zoe, it has roots, deep roots. It grew.”
“It’s a pine tree, a Christmas tree, isn’t it, Dad?”
“Yes, a Christmas tree that has appeared from nowhere, and it’s early, it’s only the twenty-fifth of November,” he said shaking his head.
They stood looking at the Christmas tree in silence for a couple of minutes.
The tree had pinecones, but the strangest looking pinecones she had ever seen. They were all different shapes and sizes. While they were looking at the tree, one of the cones dropped onto the ground. It opened up, and inside there was a scooter. Zoe looked at her dad smiling. “How did it know I wanted a scooter for Christmas?” she said.
Her dad laughed. “Well, go and get it,” he said.
Zoe picked up the scooter and started to ride up and down the path. “It’s a real scooter, dad, look!”
Her shouts attracted some children who were on their way to school. They gathered round the tree and, as they looked up, the Christmas tree began to drop its cones one by one. Inside were lots of different toys for all the children. Teddy bears, dolls, train sets, little warriors, jigsaws, computer games, video consoles, bikes. Every toy that was ever thought of spilled out of the Christmas tree’s cones. The happy shouts of the children attracted the attention of more and more kids until the area around the tree was packed with happy laughing children.
Zoe and her dad pushed their way out of the crowd.
“I’d better phone my boss, and the police,” said Zoe’s dad beginning to look worried.
“I’ll see you tonight,” she shouted over her shoulder as she whizzed her way through groups of children on her way to school and a horrible morning of mixed fractions.
When Zoe got home that evening the police were controlling the park. There were queues of children stretching for miles. She explained to a plump police sergeant that she lived in the little house in the park and he escorted her to her back door. He was in a good mood and even let Zoe wear his hat as they walked along. Inside the house her dad and a group of men were gathered round the kitchen table scrutinising maps and studying weighty encyclopaedias.
Zoe went up to her room to do her homework. Even more mixed fractions. She couldn’t concentrate. She put her books aside and looked out of the window at the Christmas tree. It had grown since the morning, and Zoe couldn’t see its top. It stretched off into the clouds in the gathering dark. She got her scooter and went for a spin up and down the garden path until dinnertime.
At nine o’clock the park closed and many children went home disappointed. The park was really quiet now after the excitement of the day. There was a police tent with a brazier outside and some big lights illuminating the Christmas tree.
Zoe went to bed but couldn’t fall asleep. She got up and got dressed quickly. She slipped out of the house and went round to the other side of the tree. No sooner had she arrived than the tree let another cone drop with a scooter inside. A blue one this time.
“But I’ve already got a scooter,” she said out loud.
Yet another cone fell with a green scooter. And another.
“Stop it!” she shouted. The tree stopped dropping its cones. Zoe moved closer to the Christmas tree, into the branches. And before her eyes a little door appeared in the thick trunk. She opened the door and there was a ladder inside stretching off down the way into the darkness.
She popped her head in cautiously and a light came on. Curiosity overcame her fear and she started to climb down the ladder. She climbed and climbed for what seemed like hours and then, just as she was starting to feel really tired and thought she couldn’t go on, she saw another door. She jumped down off the ladder and opened it.
She found herself in an enormous dormitory with thousands of beds. The silence was only broken by some light snoring. The light from the tunnel shone angled on the bed directly opposite where Zoe was standing. The person in the bed sat up. It was a little girl the same age as Zoe. More than that, she looked exactly like Zoe. Even down to the little freckles on her nose. It was like looking in a mirror.
“What are you doing here?” the little girl asked Zoe.
“I don’t really know, is this a dream?” said Zoe.
“No, and you shouldn’t be here,” said the little girl.
“Do you know me?” asked Zoe.
“No,” said the little girl, “but I always knew that you had to exist somewhere.”
“What’s your name?” Zoe asked her.
“It’s not important,” said the little girl.
“Yes it is! My name’s …”
The little girl interrupted Zoe, “No, don’t tell me, it’s not important either.”
Just then a siren sounded and all the sleepers woke up. Zoe was astonished; all the children getting out of the beds dreamily were like copies of all her classmates and all the children from the park.
“I have to go,” the little girl said.
All the children were moving towards two open doors at the end of the dormitory. Zoe caught hold of the little girl’s arm and walked along with her. The doors opened out onto a huge space full of machines and light and noise.
Zoe had to shout to make herself heard, “What happens here?”
“We make toys,” said the little girl.
There was a man distributing breakfast. He handed Zoe and the little girl a bowl of porridge.
“It’s good, nice and hot,” said the little girl.
Zoe looked round. There was a window behind them, just like the window in her bedroom. Outside there was a little city of huts with a stream running down the middle of the main street. There was a long queue of children waiting outside the factory gates.
“What do the children outside want?” she asked.
“It’s good, nice and warm,” said the little girl.
A whistle blew and all the children started to work.
“You have to go now,” the little girl said to Zoe.
“Please,” said Zoe, “come with me, I’ll give you one of my scooters if you like.”
“Oh, no,” said the little girl, “that isn’t allowed. Your part isn’t here, nor mine there.”
“What part? What do you mean?”
“Quick,” said the little girl, “here come the whistleblowers, run!”
Zoe began to run. She heard the whistles blowing all around her and the machines started to go faster and faster. The whistles and the machines were playing what sounded strangely like “jingle bells”. She ran past piles of toys; past children robotically packing toys into multi-coloured boxes; past endless docking bays with men filling lorries full of boxes. Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way. At last she made it to the dormitory and ran into the tunnel. She began to climb up the ladder and didn’t stop until she was out in the park looking up at the Christmas tree again. The door in the tree slammed shut and then disappeared.
Another cone dropped to the ground with a scooter inside. Zoe saw that there was a little piece of paper attached. It was a note.
“Don’t be sad, Merry Christmas, your friend,” it said.
Zoe left the scooter next to the tree and went into her house. She climbed into bed exhausted and holding the note fell into a dreamless sleep.
The next morning the queues started to form again. It said on the news that the government had announced a school holiday and that buses were arriving from all over the city full of children.
There were too many people and Zoe couldn’t go out to play. There were lots of children with their parents outside in the queues; even ones who had already received their gift from the Christmas tree. Some more than twice or three times! The tree was really high now, stretching up beyond the blue sky into the heavens. And even Zoe knew that a tree can never reach heaven. Not even a Christmas one. It was dropping cones with toys inside more and more quickly. And then it began to sway from side to side. It couldn’t support the weight of the cones. Finally it crashed to the ground. All the children and their parents ran into the branches to recover the toys. When all the toys had been collected the crowd started to move slowly out of the park.
The radio said that there would be school after all.
“Are you going to take one of your scooters to school?” Zoe’s dad asked Zoe.
“No, Dad,” she said, “I’m going to walk. Give the scooters back to the tree. I’ll wait till Christmas for one.”
She put the note from the little girl in her pocket. It meant more to her than all the scooters in the world. She began to smile and then she remembered. “Oh, no,” she said, “with all the excitement I forgot to do my homework!”
“Don’t worry,” laughed her dad, “you have the Christmas holidays to catch up. Merry Christmas, Zoe.”
“Yeah,” said Zoe thinking about all the pages of mixed fractions stretching out over the holidays, “Merry Christmas, Dad.”
About the Author
John McGroarty was born in Glasgow and now lives in Barcelona, where he works as an English teacher. He has been writing short stories for many years. His acclaimed long short story Rainbow is a McStorytellers publication.