MOUSE OF COMMONS. MOUSE OF LORDS.: A MOUSE OF COMMONS CHRISTMAS SPECIAL: THE DAY CHARLIE GRRR ATE CHRISTMAS!!!

Monday, December 24, 2007

A MOUSE OF COMMONS CHRISTMAS SPECIAL: THE DAY CHARLIE GRRR ATE CHRISTMAS!!!

To keep you all going until we return on 2nd January with the final 3 parts of GLADSTONE MCWHISKERS AND THE LOST CITY OF BEARCELONA we have a special Christmas story to be posted here and now ; we hope you enjoy it.

THE DAY CHARLIE GRRR ATE CHRISTMAS...
(A story by Paul Chandler for Christmas 2007)

Well, what a very strange Christmas it was that year...

The first I knew of any trouble that December day was when I heard my trusty woodlouse assistant, Oliver, pounding on my bedroom door early on Christmas Eve morning.

"Boss! Boss!" he cried. "Charlie's done something terrible..."

This was hardly news; it was really just a fact of life...

"What's he done now?!" I sighed, presuming that he'd probably accidentally wrapped himself up by mistake whilst wrapping his son Junior's presents up. "Don't tell me he's used all our supplies of sticky tape up again!?"

The bear had stuck himself to the ceiling earlier in the year as a birthday surprise. In the end the surprise had been on him as Ollie had arranged me a trip to see Shy Yeti performing in concert on the Isle of Wight and we'd not come home for two whole days and Charlie had been stuck to the ceiling for the whole weekend; eating nothing more than cobwebs and the dead toenails of untidy spiders.

But this time it wasn't anything to do with sticky tape...

"It's worse than that, boss..." replied Ollie and I was about to offer another guess when he came out with it all at once. "Charlie's only gone and EATEN Christmas..." he blurted.

There was silence after he'd said this - for, at least, thirty seconds whilst I tried to take it all in.

"He's done WHAT? Eaten Christmas? What on earth do you mean by that? Eaten all the food for Christmas dinner; do you mean?"

"Umm..." Ollie thought for a moment before replying. "Worse than that; really. Sure, he's eaten some of the food for tonight's banquet - but what's more he's eaten the tree - the tinsel - the fairy from the top of the tree and about 90% of the baubles too..." I was speechless and so Oliver continued after a quick pause. "He SAYS he did it all in his sleep..." he concluded.

"Of course he did..." I sighed. "...And I suppose now he expects us all to sort it out..."

There was more silence at this point and then Ollie finally gave his reluctant reply. "Well, erm - not exactly..." he explained. "He actually said that we weren't to worry and that he'd sort it all out..."

"Charlie said NOT to worry!?" I exclaimed, jumping up and pulling on my dressing gown in a hurry.

"That's right; he said not to worry..."

Now if anything was a cause for worry; Charlie telling us NOT to worry was a definitely an alarm call!!

We both recalled how he'd told everyone not to worry when he'd taken over the organisation of a mutual friend's Halloween party a year or so ago. Along the way he'd turned everyone into monsters with his cursed (and slightly over-baked) zompies.

The idea of him taking over the Westminster Christmas Eve Party was something that sent shivers of fear down my spine.

I began to wish that we hadn't volunteered to remain in Parliament care-takering the building for the holiday period. We'd been invited to spend Christmas in all sort of pleasant places; places where Charlie Grrr would have been too large to fit through the door, for instance.

"Ah!! Gladstone!! Oliver!!" beamed Charlie some minutes later. He was a portly old bear with pepper and salt brown light brown fur; a friendly growl and a belly almost twice the size of his head. What's more he far too large to have been clambering up and down Christmas trees after the decorations. "Hello! Hello!" he chorused jovially. "How are you!?" he continued, trying to look as calm about the whole matter as possible, as he plucked a bit of tinsel from his teeth.

"Not so good, to be honest..." I snapped. "What's all this mess? What have you done? What got into you?"

Charlie stared about the debris of the Great Hall. "Do you know what, I don't understand it either..." he replied and shrugged. "I did have the most curious dream where I had entered an eating competition; which I won, of course!! But well, I imagine I must have been sleep eating..." I was about to lecture him about how irresponsible he was and how much trouble it would take to sort everything out; when he suddenly made a surprise announcement. "Anyway - it'll all be sorted by the big meal tonight; I have it all in hand!"

"All in paw; ah yes - very good Ollie; very amusing..."

But I still wasn't amused by the idea of Charlie getting involved. "Charlie - you're not to cook for the people; last time you cooked you turned everyone into zompies and reverted yourself back into a cub in nappies..."

Charlie was obviously upset to have this matter brought up again; but he tried not to show it. "I shall not be cooking anything, I'll have you know, Gladstone..." he insisted as he led us both through into the kitchens when I was surprised to recognise the leading badger chef Jamie Cauliflower busying himself around the kitchen with several of his badger cub assistants. "Jamie is helping replace all the food I snaffled; although to be fair I didn't eat all of the food - it was actually the decorations that I took a fancy too in my sleep-walking state..." he explained, looking a bit dreamy as he thought back to what he had done. "Mmmm. Those baubles were ever so crunchy..." he sighed and before I had time to berate him he added. "I've bought new decorations; they were just delivered - so if you would like to come and tell me where to put them back up, then I'd be very much obliged..." he growled.

"Yes... Yes... Very well..." I agreed grumpily; I'd been hoping for an early night and a chance to curl up in my tail and eat cheese - but that didn't look like happening now.

I was about to suggest that Ollie came along to help out only to see that he had been put in charge of stirring something and looking after the pound coin that was to go in the Christmas pudding.

It was a relief to see that Charlie hadn't actually eaten the whole Christmas tree - although he was right that he had demolished all the decorations and I was concerned when he began to give the new box of baubles the eye as I passed them up to the bear.

"Can't I just try one!?" he growled sadly at one point. "You know - just to see if they taste okay - I mean, it wouldn't be very good if they'd gone off, now would it?"

"NO!!" I exclaimed. "Baubles don't go off and they don't need to taste good to be good at their job; which is basically to hang on the ends of the branches of Christmas trees and just sparkle!!" I explained, sounding quite cross again.

"Oh..." Charlie replied. "Oh, I see... Is that so... What a pity..."

I couldn't help feeling a little bit sorry for the bear; but in the end I went well beyond the course of duty in helping him put the room back into shape. At one point I was swinging dangerously up in the rafters putting the tinsel up because Charlie was too heavy; and so he just stood on the floor below and applauded every few minutes and promised to catch me should I fall. In the end we ran out of sticky tap and some dustmites; including my good friend's Laura and Paola had to be asked to come and hold the last of the decorations up by hand. It was quite a scary task because any breeze occasionally caused some of them to lose their grips and then their other friends had to waft them back in the right direction.

Quite quickly the hall began to look quite festive once again and I found myself stranded up on top of the tree. Charlie seemed quite distracted because his son; Charlie Junior had arrived and they appeared to be comparing fancy dress outfits; one of santa and the other that of a Christmas fairy. Junior was the spitting image of his father; although his fur was a darker brown and his belly was only just beginning to develop. It had to be said; that out of the two of them it was Junior who was the more responsible.

"Hello Uncle Gladstone!!" he called, waving to me where I perched at the top of the tree; I attempted to wave back, but almost fell off so remained still until help came.

"You're not getting me wearing that..." I insisted; indicating the fairy costume as a couple of fire-flies brought me safely down to earth; but Charlie Senior didn't appear to be paying very much attention to me.

"Sorry Gladstone, old thing..." he apologised. "We have to go and get ready. Don't worry; the fairy costume isn't for you..."

I was concerned about Charlie getting his son to dress as the fairy and sit at the top of the tree in case he fell off; or worse still - in case he decided that he might take a fancy to eating baubles like his father. However, in the end I didn't get much chance to say so.

"The hall looks very nice, Uncle Gladstone..." Junior assured me as they both hurried passed, but I was almost too exhausted to reply.

It was then that I suddenly realised that it had been a while since I'd last seen Oliver and so once the bears were gone I hurried back through into the kitchen. However, when I asked Jamie Cauliflower where Ollie was he seemed a trifle vacant and unsure of how to answer. They were almost done with preparing the food now and the first guests were arriving; very soon they would be serving up the starters and it wasn't the best time to be discussing with me the whereabouts of my lost louse assistant.

"The last time I saw him he was over there..." was his only (and very vague) reply.

On the table where I'd last seen him there sat a steaming Christmas pudding and several trays of cooling mince pies.

Desparately I shot up the table leg and began to call out Ollie's name. Could it be that he had somehow ended up in the mince pies? Maybe he had taken a nap under one of the uncooked pastry lids or what if he'd fallen into the Christmas pudding still holding the one pound coin; it wouldn't be the first time that the louse had fallen into food; he'd nearly drowned in a gravy boat in Barcelona not so very long ago...

The only trouble was that this time the pies and pudding had been cooked; which could only mean that had poor Ollie fallen asleep in the unbaked pastry then...

"Hi boss!!" exclaimed a cheerful voice in my ear. "So, what are we looking for?"

"YOU, OLLIE!!" I exclaimed, too pleased to see him to sound cross. "I thought you'd fallen into the dessert and got cooked!"

"Ooooops..." replied the louse, who appeared to be holding a new roll of sticky tape. "I just nipped down to the shops to get more of this; sounded like you needed it - I used the coin that was supposed to go in the pudding. I've got 27 pence changes and I was just going to chuck that in when I got back; but it took me slightly lnger than I expected because I a bunch of carol singing weevils demanded that I listened to them sing "Once in Royal David's City..." before I came back inside.

"Never mind..." I sighed, simply glad that he was all in one piece.

"Ho... Ho... Ho..." boomed a voice, out in the festive hall and it sounded as if the guests were now starting to arrive.

"Shall we go and see Charlie do his santa impression!?" I grinned, rather relishing the idea of seeing the plump bear dress up in such a manner.

"I think he'll rather suit a big white bushy beard..." agreed Oliver.

But as it happened we were both surprised; because it was little Charlie Junior as Santa out in the hall; busily handing out presents to the new arrivals.

"But where's big Charlie, boss!?" Ollie enquired and I was about to presume that he'd simply wandered off somewhere to find food when all of a sudden I saw him...

There he was; up on top of the newly decorated Christmas tree - dressed as a fairy with a face full of candy cane and mistletoe; causing the top of the tree to loll sideways rather worryingly as he snored his way through the songs that the carol singing weevils were singing down on the hall floor below.

Perhaps I should have been cross again; but quite honestly I just didn't have the energy.

"Charlie looks lovely up there dressed like a little fairy, doesn't he boss!?" Ollie giggled. "He looks absolutely beautiful!!"

"You're right..." I agreed. "One might almost say he looked bear-utiful..." I added with a laugh. "Yes, absolutely bearutiful indeed, Ollie..."

It really had to be said; that despite Charlie Grrr's worrying appetite - in the end we really did have a most pleasant Christmas that year...

This story was written between Saturday 22nd and Monday 24th December 2007.

The photos that follow are part of my own Christmas experience in 2007 + a little bit of Charlie! Charlie is currently vacationing in Mexico with Mr Neph so apologises for not being able to pose for any new Christmas photos.