Nicholas Dexter Claus never actually said straight out that he was Santa, but now it was perfectly obvious to us. It was a wonder we had not realized it before. What had confused us was his crew cut and the way he had shaved off his beard, and his somewhat grouchy personality.

"Mr. Santa?" my sister said in a very small voice. "We're really sorry. Really."

He heaved a sigh.

"Do you like hot chocolate, Mr. Santa?" Lila asked. "My brother, Willie, he makes good hot chocolate."

"Eh." Santa waved his hand.

I went over to the stove and got a pot of water heating. I added three packets of instant cocoa to the water. My hands were shaking, and I spilled powdered cocoa all over.

"Hang on! Cocoa is coming, Mr. Santa," my sister said. "Willie!" she whispered. "Hurry up!" I put three steaming mugs of hot chocolate on the dinette table.

Santa sighed and struggled up from the recliner, then waddled over to our dining nook. The trailer shook as he moved. With a couple of serious grunts, and some creaking of the trailer, Santa squeezed himself behind the dinette table and settled down there. He could barely wedge himself in the nook. His belly bulged over the table and rested on it, making it sag so much I thought it would break. My sister and I slipped into the nook and sat facing him with our mugs of cocoa.

Lila folded her hands. "Mr. Santa?"

"Yeah?"

"Try some of Willie's cocoa. I love cocoa, ‘specially in a blizzard."

He touched his mug, then shook his hand.

"Careful, it's hot," I said.

"How come you're grumpy, Mr. Santa?" Lila asked.

"Because there's not many kids who truly believe in me anymore. It would make you grumpy, too."

"I believe in you," Lila said.

"Your brother doesn't."

"Yeah, I do."

"Uh-uh, Santa. Willie said I was retarded ‘cause I believed in you. Ow!"

I had kicked her under the table.

The spirit of Santa Claus fixed his stare on me. "Kick your sister again, boy, and you will regret it."

Lila gave me a smirk.

"Did you see that, Santa? She stuck her tongue out at me."

He gave us a stare. "There are two different types of coal. Anthracite coal and bituminous coal. Children like you get to pick."

That shut us up.

Santa blew on his cocoa and took a little slurp of it. It disappeared down his throat—now that was a neat trick, I thought, for a ghost. In the dinette window, the snow was whirling down and piling up against the glass. "The other thing that's got me down," he went on, "is the delivery job every Christmas Eve. It's getting to be a nightmare. Kids wanting more and more stuff." He erupted in a whiny voice. "'Dear Santa, I want a cherry-red Stingray bicycle with a banana seat, PLUS I want a BB gun so I can kill a whole load of frogs.' ‘Dear Santa, I want two Barbies plus I want a Ken doll even if Ken is a dork, and plus do NOT forget to bring me the electric Easy-Bake Oven with all the different mixes, PLUS---.'"He sighed and ran his hand over his crew cut. "It seems as if nobody cares about the important things."

"Like what?" I asked.

He put down his mug and laid his great hands on the table. "Like giving when you have nothing left to give, boy." He scratched the curly white hair on his chest, which poked up through the neck of his shirt. His suspenders were bright red: why hadn't I noticed that before?

Print Version

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Excerpted from The Boat of Dreams by Richard Preston. Copyright 2003 by Richard Preston. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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