Bully's Fantastic Christmas, Part 11

I hope you have your Christmas shopping done. Now boil up a pan of milk and make some homemade hot chocolate—not the kind in the little pouch, but real old-fashioned rich creamy hot chocolate with milk and marshmallows. Did you get your big mug full of delicious, creamy hot chocolate? You can have a cookie too. Now you're all ready to settle and read Part Eleven of "Bully's Fantastic Christmas." And if haven't already, you should first read Parts 1-10, right here! Now read on...

Part 11: It's in every one of us to be wise

It was cold in the tunnel, so cold that Effie's breath condensed in the air in front of her, two little steam-spouts huffing out of her snout. Frost formed little crystals on Bully's nose ring as he sat beside her. But the piglets apparently had no trouble keeping warm: while Effie rested, Bea, Dee and Vee bounded around like rubber kangaroos, their springy tails propelling them off of the floor, the walls, each other, and occasionally Bully; but they were so soft and bouncy, almost like little orange rubber balls, that Bully didn't mind at all. Together he and Effie caught their breaths from the long run, and Effie stretched out her legs and sighed in relaxation.

"Santa's coming tonight, Bully!" declared one of the piglets in excitement. "Santa's coming! Santa's coming!"

"Yay!" All three chimed in, and danced around, nearly tipping over Bully.

"Yes, dears," Effie said tiredly but patiently, "but you know that Santa brings nothing to naughty piglets who don't go to bed on time and who dance about all night." Immediately the three piglets stopped bouncing and stared at their mother as if to challenge the very notion that they were the sort to dance about all night. "It's long time you three were in bed. I'll take Bully home and be back before you're awake. And Santa will have been here by the time you get up."

"Awwwwww, Mom!" the three piglets sighed in dismay, but they reluctantly, slowly trotted off to a bare corner of the tunnel and huddled together. Bully watched as they snuggled against one another and Effie kissed them all goodnight.

"I'm c-c-c-cold, Mom!" Bea (or maybe Dee or Vee) said sleepily. "Hush, sweetie," Effie said softly. "Cuddle up by your sisters. They'll keep you warm." Bully watched in silence, and thought about his snug cushy bed in the bucket on the shelf back home, with his soft warm washcloth blanket and puffy marshmallow pillow, and his tiny hot water bottle when he was cold and his little slippers when he wanted to get up in the middle of the night to get a cup of water, and he felt suddenly guilty. He was cold even in his sweater and coat, and the piglets were...well, naked was the kindest word.

But in less time than it takes to tell it, they were snoring away, whistling through their snouts, visions of sugar plums almost visibly hanging over their sleeping little heads.

As he and Effie stood back and watched them sleep, Bully finally asked the question that had been nagging at his mind since he first set foot into the tunnel pig's cave. "But how ever, way down here, does Santa manage to find you?"

And the look Effie gave him, solemn and wise and very sad, answered his question before she even could.

"Santa doesn't go everywhere," Effie said simply.

"He has to!" Bully argued. "Santa is supposed to go everywhere!"

"He doesn't," Effie said quietly, "come into subway tunnels."

Nothing can shock anyone—most of all a little stuffed bull—more than the point-blank admission that someone who is supposed to do everything, simply can't. Effie sighed. "Santa Claus does not come and leave us presents," she said. "It's just the way it is. I imagine he can't be everywhere at once, or maybe he only comes to people who live above ground. Or I heard something once that makes a lot of sense: Santa brings you exactly one gift just one time in your lifetime. But he give it to when at that time in your life when you most need it. I've always liked that thought." Effie fell silent for a long time, staring at her piglets, and Bully stood beside her, sucking on his hoof.

"But you told them Santa was coming." Bully finally said, very quietly. "They believe in him. They believe he's coming."

Effie nodded. "there's nothing more precious than that belief. But what it all means is that I will simply have to go out, as I do each year, and find a present that I can bring home for them. Some gift I might find and tell sweet Bea, and Dee, and Vee, that it came from Santa." She tilted her head sideways at Bully. "Don't be shocked, Bully. Sometimes that's what you have to do for those who you love."

"What can you find at this hour?" Even Bully knew that it was quite late, certainly long past the time when the stores were open.

Effie smiled slightly. "You'd be surprised at what people leave on the subway. Sometimes they drop gifts or food. Last year I found a whole bag of bagels. And the year before that a pretty pink umbrella. My," remembered Effie, her big eyes growing distant as she remembered, "how they loved looking at that umbrella."

"What about something to keep them warm?" Bully asked. "Don't they ever get a blanket, or little coats, or a big soft bed?"

"People don't usually drop bedding," Effie said. She sighed deeply and then turned. "Bully, we had better get you home, dear. It's getting late and I don't want your friends to worry about you. And it'll be quite late before..." She cut herself short and did not finish the sentence, but Bully realized with a gulp and an uncomfortable sense of guilt that if he hadn't taken up Effie's time carrying him home, Effie would have been long since home with a present for her piglets, spending her Christmas Eve as she should have—with her family. He remembered how much he had been looking forward to his Christmas Eve, safe at home in the warm, warm apartment on Eighth Avenue, sipping cold eggnog and gobbling warm cookies, lying on a soft pillow and gazing up at the beautiful tree with its sparkling ornaments, rainbow lights, and wonderful aroma of pine.

What happened then to Bully, he could never quite explain to anyone, even when he had been thinking quite hard about it for minutes at a time. He could never put it into words, but what happened made him almost gasp in realization. He suddenly, almost immediately, stopped feeling so very sorry for himself, and then, almost instantly afterwards, he felt the plastic Jim Hanley's Universe shopping bag he held in his hoof suddenly lessen in weight, as if he were no longer carrying such a heavy burden.

He held out his hoof without hesitation, without regret, without apprehension. "Here," Bully said, offering the Jim Hanley's bag to Effie. "I wish you'd give them this for Christmas. And say it came from Santa."

Effie blinked momentarily at the bag.

Bully opened it, and took out the three comic books in their Mylar bags, and held it them so that Effie could see.

Even in the dim, dull light of cave, the covers of the comics shone in their brilliant seventies Marvel-color. The bags sparkled like diamonds, and Bully turned them towards the gleaming light from the grate above to reflect it against the walls of the tunnel. Across the walls of Effie's and her piglets' home colored lights slid like rainbow fireflies as the covers of Marvel's Greatest Comics #35-37 picked up and magnified the light until it turned a small little pig cave into a magic cavern of light, sparkles, and a big purple Galactus shadow.

"Oh," said Effie, very quietly, her eyes wide. "Oh. Oh, Bully. I think they will enjoy reading these very much."

"Ummm." Bully said. "Well, here's the thing. I think they could be more useful in a diff'rent way." And he held his breath as he carefully unstuck the tape on the back of the bag that held the first comic, slid out Marvel's Greatest Comics #35, and with a short shaking sigh...he tore the comic book in half.

"Bully!" exclaimed Effie in surprise. "Your beautiful comic book..."

Bully trembled as he tore the comic again, the bright soft newsprint shredding in his hooves. Ripppppp. "It's a pretty good comic book," he said. Ripppppppp. "They might like reading them, maybe." Ripppppp. "But I thought maybe..." Rippppppp. "...it might be a little more use as a nest." He held up his arms, now overflowing with long curly strips of shredded four-color comic book. "See, you rip 'em up enough...and they make pretty good soft warm bedding, see?" He began to tuck hoof-fuls of shredded comic around the piglets. "See?"

In her sleep, Vee (or Dee or Bea) stopped shivering and gave a little happy sigh of warm contentment, and snuggled in deeper in the nest of paper as Bully started shredding the second comic. Within a few minutes all three of the piglets were half-buried in a thick warm nest of Jack Kirby, piled up around their little orange bodies, their snorty orange snouts poking out of the pile. "And if there's anything that's better at Mylar for keeping things dry, I don't know what that is!" Bully explained, laying a Mylar bag as a blanket over each of the snoring little pigs. "There." He stood back with Effie to admire his handiwork. "Yeah, comics oughta be fun. But there are jus' some times that comics oughta be something more. "

As he looked at his precious favorite comics in the world ripped up into bedding, he did not feel as if he had lost a thing. In fact, his tired, weary, and guilty heart filled up with something—Bully wasn't sure what—but it was more wonderful than filling his tummy with cookies. He did not understand it—how could losing something he'd dreamed of for so very long make him feel so much better than having it? But even a little stuffed bull could realize that it didn't matter if he understood why it did or not.

It just did.

"Bully." Effie said, smiling, nuzzling his cheek with her snout. "They are so much warmer now. Thank you so much. This is the best Christmas ever."

"Yeah," said Bully softly.





The rest of the trip home flew past even faster than the run to York Street. Effie sprinted like she was a greyhound, and Bully felt so light and airy on her back as he rode that he wondered if maybe Effie could—like reindeer—actually fly him home.

She only spoke to him once during the trip. "Close your eyes, dear," she said, as they left Carroll Street, and Bully obediently squeezed them shut and held on tightly as Effie quickened her pace. A few seconds later a cold wind cut across Bully's face, and he realized that they were outdoors—the subway emerged above ground on elevated tracks several stories above the ground—but he held close to Effie and her warm skin kept him comfortable. He peeked only just for a second—and immediately regretted it, looking down through the open tracks as Effie effortlessly sprinted down the open railway bridge, five stories above the ground, that ran between Smitty-Nine and Fourth Avenue.

Bully gave a quiet squeak of alarm and squeezed his eyes shut again, more tightly than before. But sure-footed Effie did not miss a step, and only a few moments later Bully grew warm again, and even when Effie stopped, quickly but easily, without the screeching, sparking halt to their last run, he didn't open his eyes until he heard her say "Bully?"

He looked up and the first thing he saw was the big black subway sign: 7 AVE.

"Oh!" Bully exclaimed in excitement. "Oh oh oh oh!"

"Oh, yes, Bully," smiled Effie. "You're almost home."

She walked up the long deserted steps with him, around the tight turn in the stairs and emerging onto the corner of Eighth and Ninth near Dizzy's Café. Bully and Effie stood in the entrance to the subway, staring up at the sky. It had finally stopped snowing, and although it was cold, neither one shivered in the winter chill. Above the sky was unclouded and black as velvet, and for once the bright sparkling lights above them were not police helicopters over Brooklyn, but stars—huge shimmering crystal stars shining down on a cold clear Christmas Eve night.

It was very, very quiet. No one was out and about. "Well," said Bully, "I have to go now."

"Goodbye, Bully." Effie smiled.

"Goodbye, Effie." Bully turned and began hopping down the sidewalk towards home. But he had gone barely half a dozen steps before he turned around to see Effie still smiling at him, and with a whirl and a rush he was back beside her again, his sweater-clad fuzzy arms hugging her around the neck. "Thank you," he whispered, holding the tunnel pig tightly.

"Thank you, Bully." Effie smiled, kissing him with her warm moist snout. "Thank you."

"Will I see you again?" Bully asked.

Effie's eyes twinkled. "Next time you're on the subway, and it gets delayed in the station..."

"Yes?" prompted Bully.

"Well, then go to the front and look out the window. And wave hi hi hi to me." She cleared her throat, drawing a long sniffling breath up her snout as if she might be catching a cold in the winter air. "Goodbye, Bully."

Bully turned again. "Merry Christmas, Effie."

"Merry Christmas, Bully."

He walked down the street, and when he turned around one last time, Effie was gone, back down to the subway, back down to the tracks. He shoved his hooves into his jacket pockets to keep them warm...

...and discovered a small slip of paper in one pocket.

He took it out and examined it carefully under the street lamp. It was a small shred of a comic book page that obviously had fallen into his pocket as he made the piglets' bed. It was barely the size of a postage stamp. There wasn't even any pictures on it, just a word balloon in Sam Rosen's bold lettering:

"For here...on this lonely little world...I have found what men call...conscience!"

"Yeah," Bully said quietly.





The rest of the trip home was the easiest part of his journey that day. Though there was snow on the ground deeper than Bully was tall, the footsteps of hundreds of people on the sidewalk had crushed and tamped it down, so that Bully could stroll home with no more difficulty than he had running from the kitchen to the living room. He climbed the long steps of the apartment building and headed up to the second floor. He tiptoed carefully on the landing—he didn't want to run into Mister Victor tonight and tell him his ten dollar bill was gone. There would be time to handle that problem tomorrow. But there was no sign of the next-door neighbor, and by the time he opened the door to Apartment 6 and slipped inside, he was humming gently to himself.

"Bully!" exclaimed Snuckles when Bully slipped quietly into the living room beneath the big Christmas tree. "Where've you been?"

"Chee, kid!" Blackie declared. "We thought you'da bin moidered!"

"I'm home," Bully said simply, and that was all the explanation that his friends needed.

"But where's your Christmas gifts?" Snuckles asked, staring pointedly at Bully. "It's almost Christmas!"

Bully nodded solemnly as he climbed up onto the shelf and began dragging a cardboard box onto the floor. "Yeah, it is. So I don't have much time. I've got to get my Christmas gifts for everyone ready before Santa comes."

"Whatcha gonna do, Bully?" asked Blackie.

Bully just smiled at his friends and opened the box of crayons. "Go to bed, you guys. I'll see you tomorrow."





He worked hard and quickly, his tongue tight against the inside of his cheek as he drew with fierce concentration and fevered inspiration, his crayons sliding against the paper in elaborate, beautiful patterns and designs, as if he had swallowed a Spirograph. With his huge crayon set at his side and a stack of paper before him, he lay on his stomach beneath the Christmas tree and drew comics, in all the colors he could imagine, creating a little comic book for everyone.

For Blackie he wrote and drew the adventures of a tough little guy bear on the mean streets of Brooklyn, and called it Newsbear Legion. Marshall got a pink-and-lavender fantasy comic entitled Magic Pony Adventures. He hummed the theme to The Magnificent Seven as he carefully sketched and colored a gunfighter shootout in a western comic for Ox called Tex Ox, Cuddliest Gun in the West. Walt the Swimming Cow got an adventure of Aquamoo. Snuckles: The Amazing Adventures of a Pig in a Fancy, Fancy, Very Soft Sweater.

He only paused once, on smelling what surely must have been home-baked Christmas sugar cookies. Yes, they were! Bully's tummy growled—until that moment he'd forgotten he'd had nothing to eat since lunchtime.

Alongside a large glass of milk, there were three cookies arranged neatly on the Spider-Man collectible plate, sitting on the corner of the coffee table. Bully stared at the cookies for a few minutes, his nose peeking up over the edge of the table, and at last he decided that Santa, at least the Santa that Bully had seen in pictures and on television, could probably stand to cut down a little on his fat gram intake, and so Bully took one of the cookies and ate at it while he drew, nibbling on it so furiously that it wasn't until he looked up that he realized he had eaten a second cookie as well. He stared with just a little bit of guilt at the solitary cookie left—and with more will power that he had imagined himself capable of, he turned away. He would leave at least one cookie for Santa, he decided. Yummy though they may be.

On his last few homemade comic books his speed and pace slowed, and Bully found himself yawning and rubbing his eyes in between crayon-strokes. Just color in a few more lines, he told himself, then tie them all up with ribbon and label them and put them under the tree. Then I can go to bed. And then Santa can come. But as he finished the last comic, having to concentrate so very hard to try and sleepily remember how to spell "bamf," he decided he could close his eyes for just a few minutes, and then once he'd rested them for just those few minutes, he'd get up and cut up some ribbon and tie up his drawings in just a few minutes, in just a few...

Zzzzzzzz...


Tomorrow: Let's see if Bully can tie up all the loose ends in the conclusion of "Bully's Fantastic Christmas"!