The Last Train Home

Chapter Twenty-Five

I awoke the next morning to Goose whining from her basket.

Early morning sunlight streamed in through the window and I stifled a yawn, rolling onto my side and staring at the wicker basket in the corner of my room. Goose's head popped up over the edge of the basket and she whined again, clearly unhappy about still being in the basket and wanting to explore a little more. I stretched my arms out behind me and kicked the blanket off my legs, cringing back from the cold air the second it hit my bare legs.

Goose watched me scramble off the bed and grab some clothes from my dresser. Back home, Mum always required that we look our best on Christmas day and, despite being away from home, I ended up grabbing my best dress and a pair of wool stockings. I changed quickly, welcoming the warmth that came from the stockings. Good whined again.

"Alright, alright," I said. I shook my head and ran a brush through my hair, tying a ribbon in my hair. "Come on then you."

I bent down and scooped Goose out of the basket, holding her in my arms and leaving my bedroom. Noise travelled up the stairs from the kitchen as I made my way down them, Goose scrambling to get out of my arms so she could go on a sniff around the house and no doubt find a place to go to the bathroom. Jonathan appeared from behind a wall with a large grin on his face and a paper hat jammed onto his head at a lopsided angle.

"Merry Christmas!" he exclaimed. "Where's my present?"

"Leave the girl alone, she only just got up," Barabara said.

"Where is it?"

"Still upstairs," I said. "This one wanted to be let out of her basket and I only have one pair of hands."

"Take her outside so she can do her business and then we get to breakfast and presents. I don't want to be spending my Christmas morning cleaning up dog mess."

"Right. On it."

Goose looked at me and I walked over to the front door, stopping long enough to slip my feet into a pair of wellington boots. I stepped outside the door and put Goose on the grass just outside the door. She sniffed around a little before pausing and going about her usual doggy business on a small patch of grass not far from the door but just far enough that Barbara wouldn't complain. Once finished I carried her back inside.

I kicked the wellingtons off and left them by the front door, walking over to a small blanket we had put out the night before. Goose immediately started to sniff everything she could get to from that blanket and even tipped off the edge of it so she could venture a little further around the room. Her adventure came to an abrupt halt when Barbara put a small bowl of food in front of her. Food mattered more than an adventure.

Before I could go back upstairs and fetch the sign, we settled down to a breakfast of sausages, scrambled eggs, bacon and toast. It wasn't all that different from a usual breakfast, except for Jonathan demanding that I pull a Christmas cracker with him so I could wear one of the paper hats so he wouldn't feel left out. The hat kept slipping over my eyes so I couldn't see, but I left it.

Once we finished breakfast, I darted upstairs to get the sign from under my bed. I ended up lying flat on my stomach, crawling beneath the bed frame to uncover the frame that I had pushed too far underneath. When I managed to get a hold of it, I wriggled backwards and returned downstairs where Jonathan looked expectantly at the dust sheet that covered the sign.

"You can wait," Barabara said upon seeing Jonathan's eagerness to find out what I had been working on.

Jonathan huffed and I couldn't help but notice that he looked like a child. "Fine."

"Honestly, you're like a child."

"Well, it is Christmas." He winked at me before going over to the Christmas tree and pulling out a small, book-like present wrapped in brown paper and tied with a piece of string. "This is for you."