Reginald’s Christmas Carol
By Moira Laidlaw (with a little help from Charles Dickens!)
To my friends this Christmastime!
December 2005
Guyuan
Chapter One: In Which Reginald Scrooge Has An Unwelcome Visitor.
Neville Marley the Newt was dead to begin with. There was no doubt about that.
Reginald Scrooge knew he was dead of course. He’d worked with the old newt
for twenty years, and had found him at his desk slumped over in what he assumed
was an alcoholic daze, his tail like a dead weight across the floor until after the
third morning receiving no reply to his standard greeting of: ‘You won’t make
any money idling away the hours, Neville!’ he began to wonder whether there
was more to the silence than he had imagined. The funeral was a dull affair. Why
two voles were required to pull the cortege he had no idea. Voles don’t come
cheap. A groat a vole. Whatever next? Two groats probably, he thought grumpily
to himself.
After the funeral, he had repaired to the only local inn that had draught dragonflybeer on tap. A half-groat a tankard. Nectar but highway robbery as well! On the
verge of feeling merry, he was luckily still able to lapse into the consolation of
the miserable thought that dragonfly-unions were springing up all over the
Capital demanding their rights. ‘Bah, humbug!’ he said out loud, but no one was
listening, as no one ever did. And he didn’t care that no-one heard, because he
didn’t want them to anyway. All a waste of time, he thought to himself. A pity he
had to eat at all and couldn’t just sit in his office of a day and bring in the money.
So after his tankard of ale, and a bit of beetle pate on bread at a cost of a farthing,
he hopped hurriedly over to the office to begin his afternoon’s and evening’s
work.
And so he had been doing these seven years past when our story begins.
It was Christmas Eve. Outside in the streets there was a thick London Particular
covering the crowded and full roads in oozing sliminess. And particularly
unpleasant it is too, he thought to himself. A real pea-souper! I don’t know why
people can’t just clear all this mess up either, he reflected as he hopped over
boxes and packaging and all sorts of goods heaped up outside the shops.
Whatever is all this mess for? he wondered. Who needs hats in hatboxes and
books to read? he wondered, as he pored over the writing on the boxes, stacked
up like memories in a dusty attic.
‘Top of the afternoon to you my dear Sir!’ exclaimed a voice. ‘And to where
might you be a-going?’
‘Oh, knock off the quaintness!’ quipped Reginald sourly.
His interlocutor was a toad. Often to be seen in the area, Terence had something
of a reputation as a local wag. He would wear stridently loud clothes, adorn his
head with a bright kerchief, his loins with baggy breeches, and play the towncrier. Reginald, of course, couldn’t stand him because he was a toad. He also
disapproved of his lifestyle, never quite describing what aspects of the toad’s
habits and activities he disapproved of, but simply holding him roundly in
contempt to be on the safe side.
‘Get a job!’ he bawled at his cousin.
‘I have a job, cousin!’ Terence replied, waddling over to whisper in our hero’s
ear. ‘I don’t get any money for it, but I consider it a job nevertheless. My job is to
cheer travellers on their way. To make them feel happier after seeing me than
before.’
‘I would feel happier after seeing you drowning in the Thames, you wastrel!’ he
said dismissively, rubbing his ear free of the invasive breath.
‘Of course, dear Reginald Scrooge! Some amphibia are harder to cheer up than
others, that’s all.’
‘If I wanted to be cheered up, I’d hire a clown. Except of course I wouldn’t
because that would be a scandalous extravagance. Now GET A REAL JOB and
leave me alone!’
‘Buy me a chestnut, old bean!’ Terence said breathily, waddling quickly to keep
up with our hero. They were passing a chestnut-seller, roasting his wares over a
squalid handful of coals. ‘Ah, t’is a conflagration devoutly to be wished!’ he
intoned.
‘Oh, drop dead!’ said Reginald, pushing the toad aside and going on his way.
Terence sighed, but realised there was nothing at all to be gained from staying
any longer and waddled away to cheer up some other unwary traveller. His
stomach was rumbling with hunger. Maybe, if he were lucky, some visitor to the
Capital might give him a farthing for a handful of chestnuts.
Reginald Scrooge turned into his office-street and hopped over to his particular
block, and was just about to put the key into his lock, when all of a sudden a
voice at his side said loudly:
‘Spare a coin or two for the poor at Christmas, Mr. Scrooge!’
Reginald turned to see a large snake rearing beside him, with a smaller snake at
his side bearing a collecting box.
‘For the poor, Mr. Scrooge.’
‘Oh, for goodness sake! Your name’s Sidney, isn’t it?’
‘It is, dear Mr. Scrooge. Fancy you remembering. Sidney Snake’s my name and
this is my son Samuel.’
‘I don’t care if it’s your daughter Sebastian. You tried to swindle money out of
me last year saying it was going to help the poor get off the streets. Didn’t work
though, did it, although I gave you a whole quarter of a groat? Still got poor on
the streets, don’t we? Still can’t move for poor people cluttering up the place, can
we? We should let them die and get rid of the surplus population, I say!
A pause. Sidney looked at him shocked, trying to think of a way through the
armour.
‘Oh dear, Mr. Scrooge,’ he tried again. ‘I don’t think you’ve quite grasped the
principle. It’s not as simple as that. And Mr. Scrooge, Sir, my little Samuel here
has septic fang, and hospital fees are extortionate these days.’
‘Well, cut the fang out, then for Heaven’s sake! At no cost either. Problem
solved.’ Reginald chuckled at his own wit. Samuel, however, started to cry.
‘I want to go home!’ he wailed. ‘If I only have one fang, everyone will laugh at
me. I want two fangs. Why can’t I have two fangs like everyone else, Father? I
want two fangs. I want…’
‘Want, want, want. Typical of the youth of today,’ our hero said sharply to the
little snake. He turned to the father again. ‘Just take the little hooligan home and
stop him getting in my way or I’ll call the weasels and have you both taken to the
poor-house. You should be grateful there is a poor-house. Wasn’t one in my day I
can tell you.’
Samuel and his son turned away hurriedly and slithered off home.
Reginald turned the handle to his office-door and for one moment had a strange
feeling of being watched, but shaking it off as one might an undigested piece of
beetle-pate, he walked into the dingy offices.
His nephew, Fred, suddenly appeared behind him. Reginald reserved a special
category of scorn for his relative who’d married a toad. A newt he might have
come to terms with. A salamander would have been just about bearable. But a
toad was beyond the pail. Yet still this nephew would come and bother him every
Christmas, with his good wishes and his happy, froggy face.
‘Merry Christmas Uncle!’ he said, helping Reginald to a seat, but our hero leapt
up again and made it clear that such greetings were a waste of time and he had
something better to do than listen to his imbecilic nephew witter on about
nothing.
‘Christmas isn’t nothing, my dear Uncle!’ exclaimed Fred, his honest, open face a
picture of merriment. ‘It’s why we live the rest of the year!’
‘Oh, stick it up your jumper, you poltroon!’ grumbled Reginald, ‘and get out of
my offices. This is a serious place of work. I haven’t got time to bandy words
with you.’
‘Uncle!’ Fred stopped a moment and then, taking a deep breath continued: ‘But I
shall not be annoyed. I shall keep my temper whatever you say to provoke me!’
‘Bully for you! But just keep it somewhere else, would you?’
‘Very well, Uncle, but I just wanted to say that the usual invitation is extended to
you this year to sup with us for Christmas lunch. How about it?’
‘Same reply as last year. GET OUT!’ he hollered, and laughing, Fred hopped out
onto the street.’
‘Good___’
The door crashed to.
‘And what are you looking at, Mr. Mole?’ asked Reginald as he hopped to his
desk and found his Mole-scribe sitting away from the window-light, straining his
eyes to read the script and copy it.
‘Nothing at all, Mr. Scrooge, Sir.’
‘I should think not indeed. I don’t pay you to look at things, Mr. Mole. I don’t
pay you to witter away your time like a child, Mr. Mole. I don’t pay good money
to have you looking at my business, Sir. I don’t pay…’
‘Mr. Scrooge, Sir!’ interrupted the mole nervously. ‘Actually, you do pay me to
look at things. I mean,’ he continued in agitation, ‘You do pay me to look at
manuscripts and look at them hard. You pay me to read them carefully, Sir. I
would say that looking at things is precisely what you do pay…’
‘You know what I mean. Now stop being insubordinate and get on with your
work or I’ll dock your wages this week. I suppose you’ll be wanting a holiday
tomorrow morning.’
‘And afternoon too Sir, if it’s convenient.’
‘Well it’s not convenient. It’s not at all convenient, but when did that ever stop
the greedy from trying to take advantage? When did anyone ever care about my
convenience? I suppose if I don’t give you the whole day you’ll feel hard-done
by as well.’
‘Well, it is Christmas,’ replied the mole softly. ‘And it does only happen once a
year.’
‘And you’ll want paying for it, no doubt, this day that only happens once a year?’
‘If you would be so kind, Sir.’
‘If you would be so kind, Sir,’ imitated Reginald derisively.
He sighed deeply. Every year it was the same. Every year his clerk expected
payment for no work at Christmas, as if this day were special. Every year he
himself, on the other hand, kept the country going by his hard work - while the
country, oblivious to his diligence and sacrifice and initiative, made merry and
drank the day away in frivolities and fripperies. He shook his head.
‘Well, I’ll expect you in first thing the next morning, otherwise you’ll be looking
for another job.’
‘Thank you, Sir,’ exclaimed the hapless mole. ‘How kind of you! I really am
most obliged.’
‘Bah, humbug!’ replied Reginald moodily.
Another few hours he worked on in the gloom before finally allowing his clerk to
leave for his annual holiday.
‘And mark what I said about punctuality on Boxing Day!’ he muttered as the
poor mole scurried out of the door.
‘Of course, Sir!’ the poor clerk said over his shoulder. Time to go home at last.
He never thought the day would end. He rushed off to the butcher’s to pick up the
scrag-end of stag-beetles he’d ordered for his family’s Christmas feast, leaving
Reginald to lock up.
Our hero made his way through the foggy streets, punctuated at intervals with a
dull lamplight. His rooms were at some distance from his offices, set in a backalley away from the thoroughfare of the Capital, preserved like the pages of a
mouldy book on an antique shelf. There was a whispering in the breeze. He
thought once or twice he heard his own name on the wind, and hurriedly drew his
old threadbare coat around his rounded shoulders. He felt as if he were being
followed, and quickened his hops until at last he reached the safe familiarity of
his own front-door. Drawing out his large key, he fitted it with trembling webs
into the lock, and tried to turn it clanking and squealing. All at once, he saw the
likeness of Neville Marley’s face seeming to loom out at him from the shiny
door-knob. He shrieked and dropped the key, retrieving it with trembling webs
and fitting it into the lock again. This time he wouldn’t look at the door-knob, and
without further ado, passed into the hallway. There were no letters on the halldesk addressed to him of course, because he had no friends to write to and no one
ever wrote to him. His bare rooms occupied half of the top floor. The rent was
reasonable, but sometimes with coals and wood added it mounted up, so he soon
realised he could do with very little warmth in his rooms, and would sit of a
winter’s evening huddled over a single candle-flame, all bundled in old woollens
he’d picked up in second-hand stores for a tenth of their original cost. The
thought of that kept him warmer at nights all by itself.
He chuckled now as he prepared his small supper of beetle sandwiches and flywater and thought over the years of savings he’d made: no fancy fitments, no
pretty purchases, no extravagant extremes of any kind for him. No Sir, he was an
example to frogs and other amphibia everywhere, especially toads. He could hold
up his head with the best of them. Never could anyone say Reginald Scrooge had
done a spontaneous action or committed a kindness to a living soul. Perhaps a
Stuart Scrooge had once done someone a good turn, or even a Maud Scrooge.
Perhaps a Gerald Scrooge had helped an old ferret over the road, or a certain
Mary Scrooge had dedicated a hospital to the poor salamanders of this parish or
the orphaned tadpoles of that prefecture. But Reginald Scrooge? Do a good turn
for another without payment? Never, Sir! No one could ever maintain that in his
presence and remain disabused of the notion forthwith. He took the line that all
creatures were thoroughly responsible for themselves. He had never taken
anything from anyone either. No money nor food, no kindness nor charity. Not
him! Neither borrower nor lender be, was his motto and he stuck to it. Whereas
others might be tempted to be soft, never he! Ferdinand Frog down the road was
famous for it. Sidney Snake was clearly training his family in cringing
dependence. Terence the Toad, was, as we’ve seen, infamous for it. But not our
own Reginald Scrooge. No Sir! He was truly the determinist’s dream! He lived
for himself, with himself and by himself alone.
Reginald Scrooge lit his candle in the evening gloom and flopped down into his
high-backed chair. Mm. He’d only bought that candle six weeks ago. How could
it be running down so quickly? Another candle would have to be purchased soon,
but if he extinguished the flame after his meal he could use the lamplight from
outside to guide his actions in preparing for bed. He grinned to himself. Another
groat saved.
He finished his sandwiches and beetle-water, and was cosily nodding off by the
dark grate, when he heard a metallic rattle approaching up the stairs. Whatever is
that at this time of night? There ought to be law against it! he thought angrily as
he turned in his chair the better to listen to the approaching commotion.
One, two, three, four. Trudging steps accompanied the metallic clatterings. They
were all drawing closer and growing louder. He shrank a little into his chair, but
the sounds came closer and closer. And at last there was a bulbous knocking on
the door.
One! Two! Three! Four!
Reginald hopped trembling across the room and opened the door to the
accompaniment of shrieking, un-oiled hinges.
On the threshold stood a tall, strangely familiar figure. A newt clearly, but pale
and shadowy. Rather like the picture of a newt than anything more corporeal. The
corridor behind seemed to be visible through it, stretching into the dark coldness
of a winter’s night.
‘Dontcha know me, Regi old boy?’ said the filmy figure, and its voice echoed
and rocked like a ghost-ship on a forgotten sea. Huge gusts of despair whooshed
around the figure. ‘Dontcha know me, old chap?’ the newt asked again
plaintively. ‘And ain’t ya gonna ask me in?’
‘Come in if you’re real. Come in if you’re not. What do I care?’ Reginald said
flatly. Perhaps his supper had disagreed with him after all.
‘Real!’ exclaimed the newt angrily? ‘Are you saying I’m not real?’ The creature
shook its metal appendages threateningly at Reginald. As it moved, the frog saw
where the clanking metal sounds were coming from: the newt was dragging a
chain, forged of old steel, longer and more torturous than any he had seen in his
life, behind him as he walked. The whole length of the corridor outside his
rooms, and the whole length of his room too, the chains stretched. He sat down
finally, this ethereal figure, in Reginald’s own high-backed chair.
‘It’s a long way to be dragging and heaving such a burden,’ the newt said sadly,
arranging his chains around him like skirts. ‘And a long time too.’
‘You’re a piece of undigested beetle!’ Reginald said to himself.
‘Not at all!’ replied the newt as if our hero had spoken out loud. ‘I’m just as real
as you, my old friend, although in a different dimension. Y’ know me as well,
Reginald. Ever the best o’ friends, aren’t we, Reginald? And y’ know why I’m
here.’
‘I am sure I have no idea what you are talking about!’ said Reginald gruffly,
flopping into a chair opposite his visitor. ‘And who made that chain for you, and
why do you carry it around in such a bombastic fashion?’
‘I made it for myself and it took years in the forging,’ replied the newt. ‘I carry it
around because I carved it for myself in life and thus I must carry it around for all
eternity in death. I’m Neville Marley, your partner. As well y’already know!’
Reginald was silent for a moment, fear making his eyes bulge even more. ‘But
how?…Why…? I don’t understand!’
‘It’s too late for me, Old Friend, but not for you. Although I’m told your chains
have become twice as long as mine now, were so even seven years ago and
you’ve been forging them a’ day and night since. But y’ve a chance to redeem
yersel’.’
‘Redeem? What do you mean redeem myself? I’m sure I’ve never done anything
that needs redeeming! Redeeming’s for the lower classes, not for me.’
‘You will have three visitors,’ continued the newt as if Reginald hadn’t spoken a
single word.
‘Three? Why three? And why should they come here? No one’s come here in
years!’
‘Three visitors,’ continued Neville Marley. ‘And they will help you. And you will
make them welcome.’
‘Well, they’d better like beetle soup then, because that’s all I’ve got left.’
‘Expect the first one at one o’clock the first night, the second at one o’clock the
next night and the final one at one o’clock on the third night.’ The spectre rose to
its feet, and painfully ambled to the door, dragging his clinking burden with him
across the floor.
Before passing through the door he called out sadly: ‘Remember me!’ his voice
echoing away into the fog of the Capital’s Particular.
‘Well, well, well,’ mumbled Reginald. ‘What a strange thing the mind is to play
such tricks on one! That’s the last time I’m going to that butcher’s for my beetles
in future.’
He snuffed out the candle and went to bed.
Chapter Two: In Which Reginald Meets The
First Spirit And Is Taken On An Adventure.
The clock struck one! BOOOOOOM!
‘What on earth…?’
Reginald Scrooge sat up in bed, his nightcap swinging wildly from side to side,
and the bobble hitting him smack in the face.
The room wasn’t as dark as one might have expected. Not at all! Rather it was
illuminated by a glow to his right. The words of his former partner came back to
him: you will be visited by three ghosts at the stroke of one o’clock.
‘Are you the spirit whose coming was foretold to me?’ he asked nervously,
hardly daring to look.
‘I am!’ replied the spectre. ‘Look at me, Reginald Scrooge. Look upon my face
and see there your own despair.’ The voice was mellow and sweet, not harsh as
he might have anticipated.
Reginald looked and was surprised to see sitting beside him a small toad in veils
and Christmas finery. About its squat neck was a scarf in all the colours of the
rainbow, and around its head was a wreathe of flowers in white and red silk. The
body was swathed in robes of the finest fabrics in primary colours and the glow
mentioned earlier seemed to emanate from these garments. The toad’s face was
ageless (ugly, naturally, being a toad’s) but without blemish. Warts of course
don’t count as blemishes to a toad, and in fact this one’s face was heavily
adorned with such lumps. Reginald repressed his natural gag-reflex.
‘Who are you?’ he asked tremblingly.
‘I am the ghost of Christmas Past,’ intoned the spirit languidly.
‘Long past?’
‘No, your past! We are going on a journey where you will see what you need to
see. The journey will take us over many different places and times.’
‘But how can I go dressed like this?’ Reginald asked.
‘Just take hold of my robes and we will fly together. What you are wearing will
keep you warm enough.’
Reginald did as he was told, and getting up from the bed, took hold of the
spectre’s clothes at the hem, and immediately felt himself to be rising in the air
and drifting towards the now open window.
Together they floated on high over the Capital, passing such landmarks as St.
Frog’s Cathedral, and the Newt’s Palace. The river wound glitteringly below
them, and then suddenly, Reginald’s stomach lurched upwards as they swooped
down through the walls of a poor dwelling place.
‘Where are we, Spirit?’ asked Reginald quietly.
‘Look!’ answered the ghost. ‘And learn!’
Reginald saw gradually some animals coming into focus in this strange place. It
was eerily familiar.
‘We cannot be seen by them, or heard by them,’ said the spirit mysteriously.
‘I know this place!’ said Reginald slowly. ‘It’s, oh my goodness, it’s my familyhome! And there’s Mother sitting by the empty grate, nursing a tadpole.’
There was a pause.
‘Am I that tadpole, Spirit?’
‘Look and learn,’ came the only response.
‘It’s me. It is me. I recognise that kink in the tail. I always had that kink. Mother
said it was a sure sign that I would lead a special life. She always favoured me,
you know. She would sit for many hours with me upon her lap, telling me stories.
Just like now.’
A pause.
‘Just like then, I mean.’ He grew silent, and wiped a tear away from his eye
hastily. ‘Mother, it’s me. It’s Reginald. Mother, can’t you hear me?’
His mother moved in her seat. Her webs were playing her up again and she
shifted her position on the chair to alleviate the pain.
‘And there’s Fredrick and Freda too,’ Reginald exclaimed suddenly, as two
younger frogs entered the room from the street. The harsh wind blew in swathes
over the sparse fitments, and everyone shuddered with the damp cold. The door
blew to.
‘We couldn’t find any wood I’m afraid, Mother, but never mind’ said Fredrick
coming over to the ill frog and kneeling at her feet, taking her back-webs and
rubbing them vigorously. ‘We’ll sing the Christmas carols so loudly, they’ll
warm us up, eh.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Freda, ‘but we did find these beetles,’ she continued, drawing a
small squishy package from her bosom. ‘Oh, don’t cry Mother. It’ll be all right,
you’ll see. At least we have each other.’
‘It’s little Reginald I’m worried about, not me,’ replied the Mother, tenderly
rocking her tadpole in her arms. ‘He’s not strong, you know. And I so want him
to grow up and become a good frog. I know he’s special.’
‘Oh Spirit, kind Spirit, please take me back home,’ pleaded our hero. ‘I can’t see
any more of this. Please, I’m begging you.’ Reginald wept openly now.
All at once, the scene changed. They were standing now on a snowy hill outside
of the Capital. Everything was dull in the evening gloom. The moon stood in an
eerie parabola above them, and cast an ethereal light over the scene. Rubbish
littered the ground; little voles and shrews traced patterns in the flotsam of their
homes. All at once, Reginald heard a familiar voice.
‘Septic Fang, it’s a killer you know.’ A long snake slithered into view, and
behind him a smaller and frailer one. Reginald instantly recognised Sidney and
his wife Serena.
‘It runs in our family. Uncle Samuel had it and died. You must remember.’
Sidney came to a halt and drew himself up to look out over the debris, looking for
anything he might salvage to sell for the hospital treatment. ‘The treatment is too
expensive for us. All we can do is make little Sally comfortable.’
‘I know, husband, but it’s a terrible thing to have a family doomed to Septic
Fang. It means our future children may get it too, and if they do, what then?’
‘We just have to hope they don’t get it, dear,’ Sidney replied sadly.
‘Tell me it isn’t what Samuel has,’ said Reginald urgently, clawing at the robes of
his guide. ‘Please tell me. I didn’t understand. I didn’t know.’
‘Well, cut the fang out, then for Heaven’s sake! At no cost either. Problem
solved.’ ‘Isn’t that your answer to the problem?’ said the spirit caustically.
Reginald shook his head. ‘Please take me home, Spirit. I understand why you
have brought me here. Just take me home now. Please’
Chapter Three: In Which Reginald Is Visited By The
Second Ghost And Learns Something About The Present.
The clock struck one. BOOOOOM!
‘Are you the second spirit, whose coming was foretold to me?’ asked Reginald as
he sat up in bed and contemplated the new visitor. The guest was a large weasel,
whose short-sightedness was compensated for by a pair of enormous glasses
perched on the end of its long whiskery nose. He was draped in Christmas finery
all over his portly body. In his hand he carried a staff with vine-leaves entwined
around its length. His head was crowned with a golden band, which flickered
fragments of fire about his person.
‘I am that spirit,’ boomed the voice. ‘I am the Ghost of Christmas Present.’
‘Then take me wherever you want to, and I will follow you.’
‘Let us go then, you and I…’
They flew out over the Capital again. Below him, Reginald could see
merrymakers drinking toasts to each other, clapping each other on the back in
festive revelry, eating, singing and having fun. Even in the poorest parts of the
city, he could see happiness and celebration all around.
Gradually they alighted in a lounge-sitting room. A poor but respectable room,
garnished with all manner of Christmas decorations and in the corner, an
enormous tree festooned with frogs, toads, newts and even salamanders. Each
artefact was adorned with tinsel, and surprisingly, Reginald found it a pleasing
sight.
‘Where is this place?’ he asked nervously.
‘It’s your nephew’s dwelling,’ answered the ghost in a booming voice. Reginald
winced and wondered if others could overhear, but of course, no one else knew
they were there.
‘They seem so happy,’ said Reginald in an awed undertone.
‘They are. Look deeper.’
Reginald studied the assembled throng. On each face he witnessed good cheer
and benevolence. Siblings were playing harmoniously with siblings. Tadpoles
were included in all the games. No one was left out. Froglets danced around the
centre of the room with toadlets. Fred’s wife, Theresa Toad, stood by the table on
which had been placed all their sparse Christmas fare and gazed around in love at
her family. Fred joined her and put his web around her, squeezing her close.
Reginald wiped away a tear.
‘I don’t understand how there is such goodwill when they are as poor as churchvoles,’ he began wistfully.
‘Don’t you?’ the spirit asked gently.
Suddenly, the scene changed and they were standing in the cold, windswept
streets. Pieces of paper flurried around them, and the wind cuts their faces to red
swollenness. There, at the end of the avenue, on the corner, sat a lonely figure.
‘Who is that?’ asked Reginald, trembling with fear.
‘Let us see,’ replied the Ghost of Christmas Present.
They floated closer and all at once Reginald recognised Terence Toad, sitting
disconsolately alone on a high stone, tears dripping off the end of his warty face.
‘Doesn’t he have anywhere to go?’ Reginald asked frowning.
Still got poor on the streets, don’t we? Still can’t move for poor people cluttering
up the place, can we? We should let them die and get rid of the surplus
population, I say! ‘Weren’t those your words, Reginald Scrooge?’ asked the
ghost in a dangerous undertone.
The scene shifted again, and this time Reginald found himself in a tiny room,
unlit by more than a single candle. He recognised his mole-clerk and his wife
bending over a bed.
‘Hush, wife. We need to let him sleep.’
‘I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to him. Why couldn’t you ask your
employer for help?’
‘I really couldn’t dear. He doesn’t share our values and certainly wouldn’t give us
any money to help us.’
‘But he might always be ill if we don’t have enough medicine to cure him.’
‘I didn’t know he had a sick child,’ muttered Reginald. ‘I mean, I can’t be blamed
if I didn’t know, can I?’
The ghost looked at him and raised his shaggy eyebrows.
‘But perhaps I could have asked, I suppose,’ Reginald conceded unhappily. ‘Will
the child die?’ he asked tentatively.
‘I can tell you no one’s secrets but your own,’ the spirit answered.
‘Oh Spirit, I didn’t mean it!’ Reginald protested. ‘I didn’t realise. I didn’t
understand then. But I understand now.’ He clutched the spirit’s arm. ‘Oh, dear
Spirit, I don’t know what powers you have, but I will change. I want to change.
Please help me to start again! I am so sorry for what I have done.’
He looked pleadingly up at the spirit’s face, but saw nothing but his own bed. He
sank down under the covers and once more, fell asleep.
Chapter Four: In Which Reginald Meets The
Final Spirit And Learns What The Future Could Hold.
BOOOOOM!
‘And you are the Ghost of Christmas Future, I suppose,’ Reginald Scrooge said,
sitting up and turning to the figure beside him. This figure was unlike the others,
as it was dressed all in black in a long robe, its head cowled in a tapering hood.
Reginald could make out no features on this spirit’s face, and turned his face
away in fear.
‘Lead me and I will follow,’ he simply said, getting out of bed and walking
towards the window where the lone figure awaited him.
The Ghost of Christmas Future pointed outwards towards the city. Together they
rose and went out into the darkling night, stars twinkling at their journey over
streets as they flew over blackness, oozing waters, dying vegetation and then all
at once a small dwelling place.
Reginald had never been to this part of the city. All around him he was appalled
at the stench, at the poverty, at the looks of abandoned tadpoles, toadlets and
newts. All around him were the signs of neglect and despair – in their eyes, in
their sordid clothes and their swollen, un-nurtured bellies.
‘Where is this dreadful place?’ he asked the ghost, looking around at the small
room, but the only response was a pointing towards a group of snakes, huddled
around each other by the dead fire.
‘Don’t grieve so, Serena,’ said a familiar voice. ‘Samuel wouldn’t have wanted
it.’
‘No more he would,’ counselled another. ‘He was always a lovely little snake.
And think of the agony that’s been spared him. Septic Fang is such a terrible way
to die if it runs its course. Better he died before the Great Pain struck him. Try to
think of it that way?’
‘Samuel’s dead? Does this mean Samuel’s dead?’ asked Reginald urgently. But
no reply made the cloaked figure by his side, simply pointing instead to the
father, Sidney.
The old snake sat apart from the others, staring into the empty grate. His voice
had failed him. All he could do was sit and stare ahead and wonder what might
have been.
‘Could I have saved him, Spirit? Please tell me, could I have saved him?’ And
suddenly words rang in his ears although no mortal voiced them:
It’s not at all convenient, but when did that ever stop the greedy from trying to
take advantage? When did anyone ever care about my convenience?
He bowed his head in shame.
‘Are these things which are going to happen? Must they happen, Spirit? Can the
events you are showing me here be changed, if only I take more trouble and try to
prevent them? Please, Spirit. Tell me if I can change them.’
But the ghost simply pointed to a new horizon.
‘All right. I understand. What else do you want me to see, Spirit. Take me. I am
ready.’
All at once, the vista changed, and they were at a graveyard, or at least that’s
what Reginald supposed from the bare earth and the scattering of tombstones.
Two gravediggers were digging a hole. A body-sized bundle lay beside the
growing hole, and Reginald turned his face away in aversion.
The spirit pointed, however, and Reginald looked back in trepidation.
‘Whose grave, spirit?’ he asked, but answer came there none.
Then he heard voices. The gravediggers were having a conversation.
‘Surprised ‘e died, I am!’ said the first.
‘Yeah. We all thought ‘e’d live forever. A right miser ‘e were.’
‘Not going to be a big affair eggsactly, is it?’ quipped the first with a throaty
chuckle. ‘No one to mourn ‘im!’
‘Whose grave, Spirit?’ asked Reginald again, but the spirit only raised its arm and
pointed.
‘Hoarded all ‘is gold, and what for, eh? Won’t do ‘e much good now, will it?’
Both laughed out loud, one of them leaning on his spade and wiping his forehead,
rocking with merriment. He stooped down suddenly and picked up a small skull
he had found in the earth.
‘’Ey, look at this ‘ere! It’s a frog’s skull as well. Fancy that, eh? Well, the old
‘un’ll be cosy then, won’t ‘e?’
He kicked the skull aside and began to dig again.
‘I don’t care wot’s wot, as long as we gets our money,’ the other said darkly,
falling to his task with a vengeance.
‘Yeah, and I were lucky, me. Got me a pouch of money off of ‘im before they
dressed ‘im for burial. Enough for a few tankards of ale, I can tell e.’
‘I ‘ope you’ll be magnannermus enough to give me some of that there drinking
monies.’
‘’Appen,’ replied the other smugly.
‘Whose grave, Spirit?’ Reginald asked again, but the spirit simply pointed at the
gravestone at that very minute being raised to head the grave.
Trembling, the frog hopped to the slab of stone and read the words inscribed
there out loud:
Here lies Reginald Scrooge, miser of this parish!
‘No, Spirit, oh no, please! I’ve seen and I’ve understood. You and your esteemed
colleagues have taken me from the past into this future, and I can see the pattern,
Sir. I understand your meaning. But please tell me it doesn’t have to be like this.’
The pointing arm wavered.
‘I can change. I can change, Spirit. I swear to you I can change. I can take this
opportunity and alter the course of events. If only you’ll give me another chance.
Why, if you didn’t want me to change, did you tell me these things and allow me
this special chance? Please, let me change, Spirit. Please let me atone for what I
have done!’
He fell at the ghost’s feet and reached out for him. Away in his hands came the
ghost’s raiment, turning as he clutched at it, into his own bedpost.
Chapter Five: In Which Reginald Shows He Is A New Frog
And Can Keep Christmas In His Heart All The Year Round.
Yes, it was his own bedpost. His own bedpost. Reginald cried out loud:
‘Thank you Spirits. Thank you! I will keep Christmas in my heart all year round.
I will help little Fred’s child and Terence Toad. I will settle the hospital bills for
Samuel Snake. I will see what other good I can do in this world. Thank you,
Spirits. Oh thank you from the bottom of my heart.’
He leapt out of bed and flung open the shutters to the sounds of bells ringing
from St. Frog’s Cathedral. He listened for a few minutes, drinking in the cold
morning air and the sounds of hustle and bustle below. He looked down to see the
early morning thoroughfare of jostling people, carts, horse-drawn wagons and
newspaper vendors calling out for passers-by to purchase: ‘Get your ‘Toad’s
Tribune’ here!’ ‘Buy your ‘Frog’s Freelance’.’ ‘A mere mite for ‘Mole’s Mail’.’
‘You, Sir!’ called Reginald to the streets below, at a fruit and vegetable seller
waddling along with his cart.
‘Yes?’ asked the vendor, looking up quizzically. ‘What d’ yer want?’
‘Oh, sorry to trouble you, my dear Mr. Toad, but I’m in a bit of a quandary here,
you know!’
‘’Appen!’ replied the amphibian, making as if to go on again.
‘No, Sir, just a moment,’ called Reginald. ‘I just want to know what day it is.’
‘What day it is?’ replied the toad scornfully. ‘Why, it’s Christmas Day of
course!’
‘To be sure. Goodness gracious me! The spirits did it all in one night.’
‘Yeah, spirits usually will,’ mumbled the toad and waddled on his way.
Suddenly below him, down on the street, a small rabbit was hurrying somewhere,
clearly on a mission. Reginald called out to him.
‘Hey, Sonny! Where are you off to, my bonny young lad?’
The rabbit stopped and looked up at the window.
‘Wot?’
‘Oh, a clever boy to be sure,’ Reginald giggled to himself.
‘Going boy, going. Where are you going?’
‘To the bakers’ Sir,’ replied the rabbit. ‘Seeing as it’s Christmas and all, I’ve stuff
to do, like!’
‘An excellent buck! What clever features! What luxuriant whiskers he’ll have
when he’s older.’
‘Sir?’
‘Do you know the baker’s in Vole Street? The one next to the cobblers?’
‘I do, Sir!’
‘I say again, an excellent child. Well, I want you to go there and purchase the
huge cake in the window. You know the one?’
‘With worm-icing? That one? It costs a bomb that one.’
‘Indeed, that one! And buy it, my dear child. And bring it back. And if that
excellent vendor, Mr. Shrew can box it, bring it and send me the receipt all in five
minutes, I’ll give you a sixpence. Have you got that?’ He threw some coins down
onto the pavement below, and the little rabbit bustled about in picking them up.
‘Yes Sir, indeed Sir,’ he replied merrily and hopped off as fast as his legs would
spring him!
‘I’ll send the cake to Fred’s family, and I’ll go to the hospital now and enquire
about Samuel. Glory be! It’s Christmas Day! I haven’t missed it after all!’
And happily, after directing the cake anonymously to his nephew’s home,
Reginald hopped out of his lodgings, greeting everyone he saw with a ‘Merry
Christmas, Sir,’ and a ‘Happy New Year to you, my dear woman,’ or even,
‘Seasonal Felicitations, good Mother!’ All the animals he met smiled at his
enthusiasm, and those who knew him put it all down to something he’d eaten or
drunk! He spent the day finding out more about the people where he lived and
lending a helping hand to all those who needed it.
On the morrow he awoke early so that he might arrive at the office before his
clerk, but what with passing on a groat to a toadlet here, or patting a salamander
on the head there, he didn’t make as rapid progress towards his offices as he had
anticipated. The streets were bustling with renewed business after Christmas.
Reginald Scrooge now hopped along vigorously, rubbing his webs in delicious
anticipation of the scene ahead.
He had only just arrived when Mr. Mole, seventeen minutes late, hung up his
coat, scarf, gloves and hat on the coat-stand. Reginald busied himself at his desk,
and looked up, his frown etching feigned cruelty into the corners of his face.
‘And what time of day do you call this, Mole?’ he boomed.
‘Sorry, Sir. I apologise for my tardiness, but it is only once a year, Sir. We made
rather merry yesterday, Sir, although the molette’s ill. She sat up in bed last night.
First time for months. We didn’t want to leave her, Sir. You do understand, don’t
you?’
‘Understand? Understand?’
Reginald approached the cowering clerk.
‘I’ll tell you what I understand,’ he thundered, and raised his hand.
‘Now, Mr. Scrooge, Sir, I…’
Suddenly, the mole found his hand being shaken vigorously.
‘I understand you need help with your family, Mr. Mole. I understand I’m going
to raise your salary, Mr. Mole. I understand I’m going to do everything I can to
make your lives easier, Mr. Mole. I understand I have been a bad employer and
that I will change from now on, Mr. Mole. I understand that we are all
responsible for each other, Mr. Mole. And a merry Christmas to you. And may all
your Christmases bring you fulfilment and joy. God bless you, Mr. Mole!’
The clerk pumped his hand up and down with the frog’s web, and gasped with
shock and delight.
‘Why, thank you, Sir. Thank you! And God bless you too, Sir!’
And so it was. Reginald Scrooge was as good as his word. He got to know his
sister-in-law better and to assist Fred’s ailing family. And as for Samuel Snake
(who didn’t die, and whose Septic Fang turned out to be the benevolent kind) he
became like a second father – once he’d convinced the little fellow to stop using
his Uncle Reginald as target-fang-practice. To Terence Toad he became a
benefactor, and the toad was often seen about the streets in his loud garb,
cheering travellers on their way without the worry of earning any money, and
waddling happily about before going home to some new lodgings to a hot meal
prepared by his mysteriously-employed housekeeper.
And as he grew older, Reginald Scrooge would often sit with great-nephews and
nieces, or some of the many toadlets he adopted, and recount the tale of the
selfish frog, who late in the day finally grew up to love his fellow creatures, and
spend much time of every day in helping them.
THE END