Dangerous Christmas

• Nykita Lee Nicholls, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2009

On Christmas morning 2015, the children were running around excitedly with big smiles on their faces, waiting to open their Christmas presents. The parents, Lily and Kade of four children Lauren, Kira, Max and Blake had been woken up by the children’s excitement. The Grandparents of the children, Bella and Brett walked through the door just as the children were opening their presents from Santa.
The mother Lily realised there was one child missing, her daughter Kira. She walked into Kira’s bedroom and saw her crying on her bed. Lily asked what was wrong, Kira said that she had a nightmare that two men were going to come and ruin Christmas this year. Her mother told her that nothing bad was going to ruin Christmas because they were all safe. Kira stopped crying and went to open her presents. Kira opened her first present then forgot about her nightmare straight away.
The family were having a great time, playing with new toys and the adults were catching up on what has been happening. It was around lunch time when Lily (mother) and Bella (grandmother) started to get lunch out of the oven and set it out on the table. The children ate through their lunch as fast as a starving pig, because they knew if they ate all of their lunch they would be able to have Christmas pudding with lots of ice-cream. Everybody was hungry because they missed out on breakfast from all of the excitement.
After they had finished, all of the adults went out the back, to look at Lily and Kade’s new convertible car. The children were left alone inside playing with their new toys. A minute later the door bell rang, Kira screamed as loud as she could, the door bell reminded her about her nightmare. Max, the oldest child, went to Kira and made her stop screaming straight away. Max was Kira’s favourite sibling so she always listens to whatever he says.
Max told Blake to ask who it was at the door. A man with a dark voice said “Ummm this is Santa with more presents.” So right away Blake (the second
youngest) opened the door with lots of excitement and said “San… wait your not Santa, Santa wears red and white, not black.”
Two men walked in the door, Max jumped to his feet as fast as a bird. He stood there staring at them, hoping that is parents would return soon. Kira screamed again and said “You two are going to kill us, like in my nightmare, HELP! HELP! HELP!”
After a while the adults walked back inside.
Lily screamed and said “WHY? WHY? WHY?” There were three children lying dead on the carpet. Blood everywhere, knife holes in the children’s bodies. Kade ran outside and saw a car driving out of the driveway. He tried to memorise the license plate before it drove away. He kept saying the licence plate number over and over “AFL45T” until he wrote it down. Kade rang the police and ambulance, Lily was still crying about the death of her children.
When the police came they told Lily and Kade that the other half of the squad had caught the two men, and now they are being locked up for life.
The ambulance came and started to clear the criminal scene where the murder happened. One of the nurses came up to Lily and said, “I’m sorry about your three children is there anything I can do for you?”
Lily and Kade looked up quickly and said “Three! But we have four children.”
The nurse asked if they could tell them which one is missing; Lily was to upset so Kade looked.
After a minute he said, “Kira is missing, where is she.” Then suddenly a little cry for help came from Kira’s room. Lily ran as fast as she could, down the passage and into Kira’s room.
“I’m here sweetie, where are you?”
Lily said, “I’m here,” and out of the floor a trap door opened and Kira popped out and ran into her mother’s arms once again.
Now since the murder Kira, Lily and Kade have Christmas by themselves at home in a very special spot, the secret room under the trap door that saved Kira’s life. But Kira knew it was not just them having Christmas, because she always felt her three other siblings with her, that’s why she puts three extra chairs around the Christmas table.