Chapter Sixty-Seven
The following morning Jennifer rolled out of bed very early. She made sure not to wake Genghis, who was curled up under the blankets of her bed. She quietly opened her closet door and took out a shopping bag. She walked into the living room and turned on the Christmas tree lights, knelt down, and opened the shopping bag. She took out two colorfully wrapped Christmas presents and put them under the tree, then went into the kitchen and put coffee on.
When the coffee was ready she trotted up the hall, swung open both bedroom doors, and shouted, “Get up! Get up! Get up! Merry Christmas, guys. Come on! Santa came last night.”
Jeff was neatly tucked under his covers and looked up from his pillow. “I thought he was made up.”
Genghis walked into the hall. “He was in the apartment? Isn’t that breaking and entering?”
Jeff stepped into the hall, pulling on his red plaid bathrobe. “I locked up last night! How is that possible?”
“No sillies, just get out here.” She grabbed the remote for the television and selected the Music Choice channel of holiday classics. Nat King Cole was crooning “O Come All Ye Faithful” as she pointed Jeff and Genghis to the gifts that were under the tree and said, “Merry Christmas guys.”
“Twinkie! Did you do this?” Jeff asked with a grin.
“Well, of course. Now, come on and sit on the floor. That’s how it’s done.” She then ran into the kitchen and grabbed their mugs and brought the coffee out to them and sat on the floor as well.
“Twinkie, we understand the tradition and the reason behind it,” Genghis said. “But we didn’t get anything for you. I didn’t even know it was today!”
“That’s not the point!” she said as she reached under the tree and handed Jeff his present. “Merry Christmas.” She then took Genghis’s and handed it to him. “And Merry Christmas to you.”
Jeff was smiling big as he opened his present. It was a book. “Thank you, Twinkie.” He read the cover of the thick paperback, The Complete Book of United States History by American Education Publishing.
“I remembered once you said that a good IPF agent always learns as much as he can about his present surroundings so he can perform at his optimal best.”
“That’s absolutely right, Twinkie,” Jeff said, as he leafed through the book of elaborately drawn maps and colorful artwork. “Thank you so much.”
“Genghis, go ahead,” Jennifer said. “Your turn.”
Genghis took a claw, and traced it under the fold of the taped wrapping paper, and tore it off. “Oh, Twink!” It was a set of DVD’s: The Three Stooges CollectionVolume One, 1934 to 1936.
“Soy-tainly! Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!” Genghis called out in a perfect imitation of Curly Howard that made Jennifer laugh hard. “Twinkie, this is great!” Genghis said as he got up and clasped onto her lap in the only way he knew how to hug her. She responded with a big bear hug of her own and rolled onto her back taking him with her.
“I was kind of nervous,” she said from the floor. “I was hoping you guys would like ‘em.”
Jeff was reading some of the book's chapters titles – “The First Americans” and “New Frontiers.” He looked at Jennifer. “This is wonderful, Twinkie. Thank you.”
“You're welcome!” Jennifer said, as she got up from rubbing Genghis’s belly, “I’m going to make us a big Christmas breakfast.” She disappeared into the kitchen.
Genghis sat on his haunches and asked Jeff, “How many times does this Christmas thing come around in a year?”
“I’m not sure, but the next time we’ll have to do something really special for Twinkie.”
“Yeah, Jeff, I agree,” Genghis said, as he looked out the living room window and saw something piled on top of the deck's railing. “Hey! What’s that?” He got up, and walked to the window, hopped up, an placed his front paws on the windowsill, Jeff joined him. The front yard was blanketed in white, with little flakes falling and riding the wind. “Is this what happens when those little flakes pile up on the ground?”
“That’s a whole lot of flakes!” Jeff said. “Do you think they're toxic?”
“Nah, can't be. I haven't read anything about high concentrations of ammonia or anything else like that in Earth's atmosphere.”
“Well, I guess if there was ammonia present, we'd know about it by now.”
“Yeah, with that whole burning of the respiratory tract thing.”
“And the sudden and instant death by asphyxiation.” Jeff said.
Jennifer came up behind them and got on her tippy toes to look over Jeff’s shoulder. “Oh, COOL!” They both jumped, not knowing she had come up behind them. “It snowed!” She ran up the hall. When she returned, she was carrying Jeff’s coat and putting on her own. She tossed it to Jeff. “Come on!” And as if by call in request, Bing Crosby started singing “White Christmas” on the Music Choice channel.
Jennifer opened the front door and the cold air rushed in with some flurries with it. “Let’s go!” She ran down the side stairs of the apartment.
“Oh! We gotta see this,” Genghis said, as he went for the door, with Jeff following.
The sky above was gray and the sun was not quite over the horizon yet, but it was showing its influences. The eastern sky was ablaze in orange and purple, with shafts of yellow shooting skyward. Jeff and Genghis walked down the stairs and stopped at the bottom landing. Jeff stuck his slippered foot out and started probing the snow on the ground. “Seems to be a strange consistency,” Jeff said, breath thick in the cold air. “Could be water-based. Certainly isn't ammonia-based.”
Genghis hopped up on his hind legs and placed his front paws in the middle of Jeff’s back. “One way to find out!”
And pushed.
Jeff went forward, lost his footing, and fell face first into a foot of snow. Genghis hopped over Jeff’s prone body as he heard Jennifer laughing. Genghis bounded up and down toward
