Christmas at Stony Creek Read online

  Christmas at Stony Creek

  by Stephanie Greene

  Pictures by Chris Sheban

  Greenwillow Books

  For George, who always had faith in Pip

  —S. G.

  Contents

  Chapter One • Pip, Short for Pipsqueak

  Chapter Two • When Will Papa Be Home?

  Chapter Three • “I’m Still Hungry”

  Chapter Four • Two Days to Christmas

  Chapter Five • One Step at a Time

  Chapter Six • Owl!

  Chapter Seven • “It Was the Trap”

  Chapter Eight • “I’ll Go Tonight”

  Chapter Nine • Pip’s First Step

  Chapter Ten • Land’s End

  Chapter Eleven • It Might Just Work

  Chapter Twelve • The Best Christmas Ever

  Postscript

  About the Author and Illustrator

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  chapter 1

  Pip, Short for Pipsqueak

  They roasted the last chestnut the night Papa left home.

  He sat in his chair in front of the fireplace with Nibs and Nan tucked in on either side. Mama knitted in her chair across from him, her foot rocking Baby Finny asleep in the cradle.

  The three older children sprawled on the floor. The glow of the fire flickered over their faces. Will, with his injured leg, stared silently into the flames. Kit lay beside him, whittling his newest carving.

  Pip was the one with her head in a book.

  Pip was always the one with her head in a book.

  “Better look sharp, Pip,” Papa warned in his deep voice as he cracked the warm chestnut open, “or the greedy beggars you call your brothers and sisters won’t leave you a crumb.”

  “When is a mouse a bookworm?” said Kit. “When her name is Pip.”

  “Pip’s a worm. Pip’s a worm,” chanted Nibs and Nan, and giggled.

  Pip looked up at her father and smiled. He was the one who had named her Pip, short for Pipsqueak, when she was born.

  “You were so small we made a nest for you in a teacup,” he told her, again and again because she never got tired of hearing it. “We thought we had lost you until we heard a tiny squeak and saw two huge brown eyes looking up at us.”

  Pip was still small. She was quiet, too. It used to be that she was sometimes lonely in the midst of her boisterous family. She felt as if no one saw, or heard, her. Then, one day, Papa said, “You may not speak in a big voice, Pip, but I hear you, loud and clear.”

  Pip never felt lonely again.

  “It’s all right,” she told him now. “I don’t like chestnuts that much.”

  Papa knew she didn’t mean it. Everyone in the family loved the dense meat of the glossy nuts. They were a special treat. But there had been so few of them this winter. So little food of any kind.

  Pip would be glad to give her share to Will if it would help bring his old smile back.

  “Nonsense,” Papa said. He held the shell with the meat cut into equal pieces out to her. “There’s plenty to go around.”

  Pip took a morsel and held it up to her nose. The rich smell made her empty stomach grumble. She tucked it into her pocket for later.

  Papa looked around at his family, his kind face wreathed in a reassuring smile. “I’ll be home in two days with more food than you’ve ever seen,” he said. “Three days at the most. We’ll have a Christmas feast. Invite everyone we know.”

  “Hip, hip, hooray!” squealed Nibs and Nan.

  Papa tickled them, making them shriek with delight. Then Mama took them off to bed. Soon it was Pip’s bedtime, too.

  “Your brother may need your help finding food while I’m gone,” Papa said as he tucked the blankets snugly around her. “This snow is giving his leg a devil of a time.”

  I can’t! Pip wanted to cry. You have to be strong and brave to find food! I’m afraid!

  She longed to ask Papa about the spots of blood she had seen dotting his paws when he came home from digging for food in the deep snow that had covered the woods for weeks.

  And about the stories she had heard of the hungry animals roaming through the trees, stealing any food you were lucky enough to find.

  The look she saw in her father’s eyes stopped her.

  “Don’t worry, Papa,” she said. She patted his huge paw with her tiny one. “If Will can’t do it, I can.”

  “I know you can, my girl,” Papa said. He kissed her and stood up. “You can do anything in the world.”

  Pip clutched at a corner of his jacket. Papa was like a tall and gentle giant. Her very own gentle giant, who kept her safe.

  “Three days at the most?” she asked.

  “Three days at the most,” he promised.

  chapter 2

  When Will Papa Be Home?

  Pip, come back!” the other skaters called. “Come back!”

  “I can’t,” Pip cried. “I’m late!”

  She tucked her chin into her chest and ran. The wind sliced through her thin coat. Sleet pricked her face like icy nails.

  The last light of the day was fading from the sky.

  Pip never should have stopped to skate. She should have found food and gone straight home. But it had been so wonderful to glide and twirl across the pond, to whip around at the end of a long chain, happy and carefree like the tail of a kite.

  To forget, even for an hour.

  Pip had been having so much fun she hadn’t realized the time. Now she was late. Mama would be worried.

  And all Pip had found for dinner were a few seeds and a small piece of corncob.

  She started up the hill in front of her. The thin layer of ice covering the snow made the going treacherous. Suddenly Pip slipped and banged her head. Tears rushed to her eyes.

  Oh, where was Papa? she thought, as she struggled to her feet. Why didn’t he come home? Three days had become eight, and there was still no word from him.

  And where was Will? Why wasn’t he helping her?

  He was the oldest. And the bravest.

  At least he used to be brave. But not anymore.

  Not since his trip to the house perched at the edge of the cliff, overlooking the woods. Land’s End, it was called. Will had gone there with Uncle Hank last fall.

  When he came back, he was changed.

  He dragged his wounded leg behind him. He jumped every time he heard a loud noise. Will, the family joker, no longer laughed.

  And Uncle Hank was dead.

  Pip gave herself an angry shake. What would Uncle Hank have said if he had seen her standing here, crying? What about her promise to Papa?

  Pip struggled on.

  The sleet-covered snow made the going treacherous. For every two steps she took forward, she slid one step back. Oh, why didn’t you bring your walking stick? she scolded herself fiercely. You’ll never get home at this rate. The thought brought a sob to her throat.

  Then miraculously, through the gloom, Pip spotted a patch of bright green against the white. It was the tip of a Christmas fern, poking its head through the ice. Pip grabbed it and pulled herself forward.

  There was another fern, and another.

  Slowly she inched her way to the top of the slippery bank. A small, round window nestled in the roots of a tree was straight ahead. It was lit by a single candle.

  Home.

  Pip’s heart soared as she ran toward it. She could hardly wait to get inside. She’d throw herself into her mother’s arms and ask the questions that had been running through her mind all week. Where’s Papa? Why doesn’t he come back?

  What if he’s dead, like Uncle Hank?

  Mama would tell her not to
be silly. She’d say nothing would ever happen to Papa. That he’d be home tomorrow, for sure. They would feast on barley soup and hot corn fritters.

  Everything would be all right.

  The comforting warmth of home wafted over Pip’s face as she opened the front door. She heard her mother’s anxious voice.

  “Where have you been, Pip?” she called. “I’ve been worried sick.”

  And Pip knew that everything wasn’t all right, after all.

  “Sorry, Mama!”

  Pip hung her wet scarf on a peg beside the door and curved her mouth into a smile. Then she closed the door and shut out the night.

  chapter 3

  “I’m Still Hungry”

  I’m still hungry,” said Nibs.

  “Me, too,” said Nan.

  “Here. Have mine.” Pip pushed her plate across the table. “I’ve had enough,” she lied.

  Next to them, Will was eating with his head down. Kit was busy licking his plate.

  Finny pounded her cup on her high chair. “More! More!” she squealed.

  Her sweet face was so indignant Pip had to laugh.

  “Now, you hush.” Mama came out from the kitchen and stood wiping her paws on her apron as she looked around the table. “That’s all the food there is. You should be grateful for it.”

  “I know where there’s more,” Kit said in a low voice.

  “Kit…” Mama said quietly.

  “I do,” he insisted. “And I’m not afraid to go there.”

  “That’s enough!”

  Mama’s sharp voice echoed around the room like a shot. Nan and Nibs froze. Kit lowered his plate silently to the table. Only Will kept eating, bowing his head even lower.

  The rest of them stared at their mother, astonished.

  Mama never raised her voice to them. Never.

  “If anyone says another word about food, I don’t know what I’ll do,” she said. Her voice was shaking.

  No one said a word until Finny started to cry. The sound unfroze them all.

  Mama scooped Finny out of her high chair and carried her from the room. Pip stood up quietly. “Let’s do the dishes,” she said.

  Will pushed his chair away from the table and limped into the living room without looking back. Nan, Nibs, and Kit followed Pip into the kitchen.

  When the dishes were washed and put away, Pip helped the little girls into their nightgowns and read them a book. Then she went into her own room and shut the door. Her walking stick was lying in its place on the floor beside her bed. Pip picked it up.

  It was her special stick, long and straight, with a fork at the top like a Y. Uncle Hank had helped her make it last summer.

  He had shown Pip how to peel off the bark to reveal the slippery, silky wood underneath. How to sand it over and over again until the sharp knots became smooth humps and the stick was as smooth as glass.

  It looked delicate, but it was strong. Uncle Hank said there wasn’t another stick like it.

  “It’s hickory wood,” he told her as he turned it over in his gnarled paws. “Nothing’s stronger than hickory. This stick will come in mighty handy, you’ll see.”

  He was right.

  It had saved Pip from falling into Stony Creek when she slipped on Twig Bridge during the flood. It was the perfect thing to use when she played the proud king in games with Nan and Nibs. It had helped her scare off nasty Badger when he poked his nose into her hiding place during a game of hide-and-seek.

  One sharp rap! had sent him running.

  Uncle Hank never knew how right he had been, but Pip thanked him silently each time she felt the stick’s smooth strength. She ran her paws along it now as she thought about what Kit had said at dinner.

  She knew where she could find more food, too.

  At Land’s End. The people had built it last summer, cutting down trees and destroying the homes of countless animals to make room for it.

  Pip had never seen it, but she’d heard stories.

  The people who lived there had more food than they could eat, everyone said. They covered their tables with food. What they couldn’t eat, they threw into huge metal cans with locks.

  It was hard for Pip to imagine such riches. Having so much food you would throw some away.

  Uncle Hank and Will had gone up there to see it for themselves. When Will came back alone, Mama had made the rest of them, including Papa, promise they wouldn’t go near it.

  Promising had been easy for Pip. She never wanted to see Land’s End as long as she lived. But in the quiet of her room, holding the stick that gave her strength, she knew she might have to break her promise.

  If she didn’t go, Kit would.

  Pip couldn’t bear it if something were to happen to her other brother because she was afraid. If her father didn’t come home soon, she knew she would have to go.

  chapter 4

  Two Days to Christmas

  The sleet had stopped during the night. The morning sun ricocheted off the thin coat of ice that covered the ground, the rocks, the trees. The whole world glittered.

  Christmas was two days away. Pip didn’t know how they could celebrate it without Papa.

  “We have to, Pip,” Mama told her after lunch, while the twins and Finny were taking their naps. Pip and Mama were baking cookies with the nuts Mama had saved for Christmas sweets. “The twins would be so disappointed if we didn’t. Imagine what Papa would say.”

  Mama’s voice was firm. “We’ll go ahead and decorate the tree. We’ll plan a wonderful day. Papa will be home just in time, you’ll see.”

  She took Pip into her bedroom and showed her the acorn rattle filled with pebbles she had made for Finny. And the rag dolls for Nibs and Nan.

  Their button eyes didn’t match, and their bodies were flimsy from lack of stuffing. Pip knew her sisters would love them all the same.

  “Papa finished Will’s flute before he left,” said Mama, “but I don’t have anything for Kit. I was hoping you could find a stick for him. Teach him how to make one the way Uncle Hank taught you.”

  Pip’s heart sank. More than anything, she wanted to stay home. To be there when Papa arrived. But she couldn’t let her mother down.

  “I can do that,” she said. “It would be a wonderful present for Kit.”

  “I knew I could count on you.” Mama gave her a quick hug. “I’ll finish the cookies myself,” she said. “Go now! You’ll have to hurry if you’re going to find a stick and be home before dusk.”

  Pip got her own stick and went outside. It would be hard to find the right piece of wood with so much snow and ice, but she knew exactly where to look.

  “Down at the bend in Stony Creek, where it branches off toward Silvermine Road, that’s the spot,” Uncle Hank had told her as he led her down the hill that day so long ago. “There’s an old shagbark hickory there. Got hit by lightning about ten years ago. Most folks think it’s dead, but it’s just fooling.”

  Remembering the way he had chuckled made Pip smile.

  “Folks came and got the nuts, but they left the most valuable part,” Uncle Hank said. “Hickory wood’s hard and strong. You remember that, Pip.”

  Yes, that was where she would go, Pip decided as she poked her stick through the icy snow. Maybe she’d find some dried berries on the blueberry bush she passed along the way. A treat for Nibs and Nan.

  But there was someone she needed to visit first.

  chapter 5

  One Step at a Time

  Aunt Pitty, are you there?” Pip scratched lightly on the door hidden in the bank in front of her. “It’s me, Pip.”

  “Why, of course it is,” a friendly voice said as the door creaked open. “Who else would it be?”

  Pip was wrapped in a soft embrace that smelled of apples and cinnamon. When Aunt Pitty finally held her out at arm’s length, the loving face of the old rabbit was creased in a welcoming smile.

  “I haven’t seen you in weeks,” said Aunt Pitty. “You’re as skinny as a willow whip. Come in and let me
get you something to eat.”

  She drew Pip into the warren and shut the door. Pip rested her stick against the wall and followed Aunt Pitty down a dry tunnel to the kitchen.

  “Of course, I haven’t been outside much myself lately. My rheumatism’s been acting up something terrible. Sit down, while I get you some apple cobbler.” Aunt Pitty bustled around the cozy kitchen while she talked. “There isn’t much, but I’m glad to share. Terrible winter, this. If it goes on much longer, I don’t know what we’ll all do.”

  She put a large bowl on the table in front of Pip and sat down across from her.

  “But you know that, don’t you?” she said, looking at Pip closely. “Eat, and tell me about the family.”

  Aunt Pitty had known Mama and Papa since long before Pip was born. She’d known Uncle Hank, too. She was the one who had come over to straighten Will’s leg after the accident.

  Aunt Pitty listened carefully as Pip told her about Papa.

  “Eight days, you say?” she said when Pip was through. “Well, it’s a long way, Pip, even in fine weather. I bet your Papa has found himself so many good things to eat, dragging all that goodness back home is what’s taking so long. Yep, I reckon that’s it.”

  “Do you think so?” said Pip. “Do you really think so, Aunt Pitty?”

  “Yes, I do,” Aunt Pitty said firmly. “And I suggest you think the same. It doesn’t do a body any good to think the worst.”

  She got up stiffly and went over to the counter to pull out a deep drawer. “Now, how’s the family set for food?”

  “There’s hardly anything left,” Pip said. “It’s up to me now, because of Will’s leg. But he’s so much better at finding it than I am.”

  “Nonsense,” said Aunt Pitty. “You’re as capable as anyone. It’s all in knowing where to look. Have you tried the banks along Turtle Pond?”

  “Yes. There’s nothing left.”

  “Hmm, how about Hollow Log? No, that’s no good. That greedy Badger told me he’d picked it clean.” Aunt Pitty sniffed. “Laughed about it, too.”

  She was busily stuffing things into a burlap bag. “I can give you some seeds and some berries,” she said, “but I’m clean out of nuts of any kind.”