A Bird in the Hand

 “These things don’t match the tree…” Clarence’s younger sister, Sandra, complained as she held several gold-coloured baubles up to show him. Clarence was hanging a Christmas picture on the family-room wall but he stopped what he was doing to consider his sister's dilemma.

“Well…” He looked at the tree. It was still pretty bare but the baubles already on the tree were green and the ones his sister were holding were pink. They definitely wouldn’t look good together.

“Um… I don’t know. Use candycanes instead. We’ve got heaps.”

His sister screwed up her nose at the suggestion, but she couldn’t think of anything better so she didn’t whine.

As Sandra turned back to the tree, she looked at the large pile of Christmas presents sitting underneath it, tauntingly colourful and well-wrapped. “I wish we could open our presents early,” she said.

"I don’t think it’s fair that you get one early and I don’t.”

“Do you know what that present is?” Clarence asked with interest in his voice. His mum had announced to him just that morning that he should be expecting a special Christmas present to arrive the next day but she hadn’t told him what it would be yet and he was curious. “Mum looked awfully suspicious, like it was something I maybe wouldn’t really like or something.” Mrs. Star couldn’t keep a straight face at any time but this time Clarence was sure there had been something different in her expression.

“No.”

That night after dinner, Clarence was in his room playing “All I Want for Christmas is You” on his guitar when his mother entered. He was up to the second to last verse and Mrs. Star joined in singing -

“I hear those sleigh bells ringing,

Santa won’t you bring me the one I really need?

Won’t you please bring my baby to me?

Oh, I don’t want a lot for Christmas…”

At the end on the song, the lyrics dissolved into a fit of laughter as Mrs. Star giggled at her overenthusiastic and not entirely tuneful singing. Clarence smiled as he ended the last few notes. “That was beautiful, mum,” he grinned.

“If you say so.” Mrs. Star sat down on a chair next to Clarence.

“Why’d you choose that song?”

“I didn’t. It was just the next one in my book. Why do you ask?”

There had to be a reason his mum was visiting him like this and he was suspicious.

“Well, I thought maybe you were lonely. You wouldn’t mind a girlfriend would you?”

Clarence’s eyebrows rose. “What!?” he exclaimed.

“I’ll tell you what I arranged for you for that extra-special Christmas present I told you about if you’ll promise not to get mad at me.” She laughed a little bit nervously.

Clarence tilted his head, trying to work out if he should agree or not, but he was too interested in finding out what the surprise was to wait long. “I promise.”

“So, maybe you don’t think you’ve been doing this, but I’ve noticed you moping around a bit over the past year and I have a hunch about the reason. You’re twenty-one. You’re a bit of a loner in some ways, and even though you’re going to college, I’ve never seen you get interested in any of the girls there. In a way that wasn’t really a surprise to me. You prefer one-on-one conversations and you’ve always hated the classroom setting, right? Well, I thought I would try and help you out this Christmas and give you a chance to meet a nice girl and see what happens.”

Clarence was shaking his head by this point, not at all liking where this seemed to be going.

“I know you want a girl that’s just right for you, and I think I found one with potential. My friend Beatrice is going to be in town for Christmas and I was speaking to her on the phone a few days ago and she told me that she really wanted her daughter to have a good time, but she didn’t know anyone her age who would be able to show her around. It was a piece of cake to set the two of you up and she’s really happy that you’re going to step up because Bea and her husband wanted to do some Christmas shopping together.”

Clarence looked terrified.

“I organised for you to take Chelsea out for the whole day tomorrow. She’ll be waiting for you at the McDonald’s in the city, you know – by the Square. Apparently she doesn’t mind where she goes, so long as she gets to see the city. She doesn’t come here often.”

Mrs. Star couldn’t look Clarence in the eye. She knew how much he would hate this plan even before she committed the evil deed of setting it up. But she really did think that her son deserved a chance at a special relationship and she knew he was unlikely to try and forge one himself.

Chelsea is a lovely girl. I’ve spoken to her a few times before when I went over there for weddings and she’s thoughtful and easy-going and she’ll be delightful to spend time with. And you can trust me on that. You’ll have a great time.”

“Mum,” Clarence whined. “It’s not her that I’m worried about. It’s me! I’m stupid to hang around. I’ll spoil her day and probably even her whole trip with any of my luck.” He frowned. “Can you cancel it?”

“I can’t cancel it. Everything’s planned out already. Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re a great guy, a wonderful person and you will make her day special.”

“And you’re my mum. You can’t see how inept I really am.”

“Don’t be so negative, darling. Merry Christmas!” Mrs. star left the room with a “please forgive me” smile and Clarence got busy looking up places he could go the next day.

--=-=-=--

Clarence pulled his car up at the street curb. He was outside a restaurant that was well lit with Christmas lights. Just down the street was the McDonalds that Chelsea was supposed to be waiting at. He took a deep, deep breath and mentally rehearsed what he was going to say (for the eighth time) and then stepped out of the car onto the road. As he headed along the footpath to the McDonalds he heard the lively tune of Frosty the Snowman playing in the restaurant. Just a few seconds later, a new voice joined in on the chorus and he looked up to see a brown-haired girl striding towards him singing “thumpety thump thump, thumpety thump thump, look at Frosty go…”

“Hello! Are you Clarence Star?” Clarence nodded, happily surprised by the girl’s enthusiasm and appearance. She was wearing a red short-sleeve shirt decorated with Christmas baubles, faded jeans and no make-up. “It’s nice to meet you. I hope you don’t mind showing me around today. It’ll be so much more fun being with someone than going out on my own.”

“Well we’ll see if that’s true,” Clarence smiled noncommittally.

“Oh, I’m positive we’ll have a good time.” Chelsea’s smile was much more genuine than Clarence’s but he noticed that she didn’t seem disappointed with her first impression of him which encouraged him somewhat.

“I suppose your mum told you my name?”

“Yes, she did.”

“Great. I’m excited about seeing the sights here. I haven’t been here since I was twelve. I’m twenty now so that was eight years ago.”

“Um, I looked up some places that we could go, but do you have anything you want to do specifically?”

“You had to look places up?” she asked with a laugh. “You live here, don’t you?”

“Yeah, but I don’t really go out to places that often. I prefer the quieter scene.”

“Oh, fair enough.” She thought and then continued, “I don’t have anything in particular I would like to do so whatever you decide is fine. What is your absolute favourite place to be that’s around here?”

Clarence fought off the urge to say the library and looked up at the sky while he thought for a while. “My absolute favourite place… I like the botanical gardens we have, but you’ve probably got those where you’re from anyway… Oh, there is one place that I absolutely loved when I went there a couple of years ago, but it’s not something I should be showing you.” He smiled.

“What is it?”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter.” He turned away, trying to avoid having to continue talking about it, but Chelsea followed him.

“No… What is this place?”

“It’s…” he was going to say it, but as he tried to it just seemed far too risky and he said, “It’s stupid.”

“I like stupid.”

“Sounds like a T-Shirt slogan.”

“It does, but you have to tell me… Where’s the best place of all to visit in your opinion??”

“Grr…” There was no ignoring the persistent girl. “It’s an old multi-story brick building that was used as a shelter for homeless women and an unofficial orphanage school. It’s been out of use for ages, but a little Filipino church uses the downstairs rooms to meet in.”

Clarence was imagining how ironically pleased he would be when his mother found out about this disastrous social error he had already committed when he was shocked to hear, "That sounds absolutely lovely! Will you take me there? Are you allowed to walk around in the building and explore and do stuff?"

 “Wait, you want to go there?” He had to make sure.

“Oh yeah. It sounds great!”

“Well, we can… IF you really want to…”

“Let’s go!”

Chelsea started walking towards Clarence’s car and as he turned to follow her a large smile grew on his face. Things probably weren’t going to be as bad as he had imagined after all.