The Christmas Thingy by F. Paul Wilson, Alan M. Clark Page A

play with.”
    Sometimes Jessica wishes her folks hadn’t moved here to England. The idea of living in London for a year while her parents write an important research paper seemed so exciting last summer. But they rented this big old Victorian mansion to live in, and it’s so far from where most of her classmates live that she hardly ever gets to see them.
    It’s not as if no one likes me, she thinks as she enters her bedroom with its high ceiling and huge bed. It’s just that I can’t do a lot of the things they do.
    Jessica knows she’s a normal little girl in every way except maybe that she likes monsters. Oh, yes...and her left leg doesn’t work. People tend to forget that because Jessica tends to forget it. Her left leg has never worked since the day she was born so she’s quite used to it. She has to wear a brace from her hip to her ankle to help hold her up. But she hardly ever thinks about it. She pulls on her brace every morning like other children pull on a sock.

     
    But it means she can’t ride a bike or walk very well with her braced leg, and since both her parents are doing research all day, she spends a lot of time after school alone.
    Not completely alone. There’s Mrs. Murgatroyd, of course, but she spends the whole day cooking and cleaning, so she’s no fun.
    To pass the time between the end of school and the time her mom and dad come home, Jessica watches movies on the DVD player. She watches only fantasy, science fiction, and monster films. Everything from Frankenstein to Godzilla to The Wizard of Oz to Star Wars to Gremlins , and back again. She loves monster films the best.
    But all the films in the world can’t take the place of one real friend. Jessica doesn’t tell her parents, but she’s very lonely here in England.
    And so, despite Mrs. Murgatroyd’s warning, Jessica decides to keep wishing for a little monster for Christmas. She knows it probably won’t matter anyway. Wishing hardly ever works, otherwise her left leg would have been as good as her right long ago, but she also knows that Christmas is a special time in the world, and unusual things can happen in this magical season.
    Very unusual things.
    ~~~
     
    “ What was that ?” Jessica says, sitting up in bed and looking around in the dark. It’s a chilly night in the first week of December.

     
    “Just the wind,” she tells herself. “I hope.”
    Despite her love of monsters and spooky movies—which she knows are only make-believe—Jessica isn’t terribly fond of being alone at night in her second floor bedroom. This room is old and dark, with high, carved ceilings and strange wallpaper. Not at all like her bedroom at home in America.
    She listens carefully and hears the usual faint little scratchings of the mice as they run up and down in the spaces inside her walls. She’s not afraid of mice—she’s seen a couple of them and they’re cute little things.

     
    But now, she hears a different sound. A rustling that seems to come from under her bed. Thinking it’s a mouse, she looks below with the flashlight she always keeps under her pillow (just in case there’s a power failure) but sees nothing.
    “Yep,” she sighs. “Just the wind.”
    ~~~
     
    The next afternoon after school, Jessica goes to her dresser and finds that both of the candy bars she always keeps in her top drawer (in case of snack attacks) are gone. Only the empty wrappers remain.
    The mice ate her candy!
    At least she thinks it was the mice. To find out for sure, she decides to set a trap. Not a hurting trap—a tasty trap.

     
    That night, sometime after dinner and before bedtime, while Mrs. Murgatroyd is clearing and cleaning up and Mom and Dad are having their coffee, Jessica places one of Mrs. Murgatroyd’s homemade donuts on a plate on the night stand next to her bed. She ties a string to the donut, and attaches the string to a bell. Then she turns out the light and waits outside her door.
    It’s not long—only minutes,