By Jamie Kamlet
Nine-year-old Billy Bentley rarely got in trouble. All year he was careful not to do anything that even raised an adult’s eyebrow. So far, so good, which was why he wasn’t taking any chances going outside on Christmas Eve. So when his best friend Harry Porter called him and asked if they could meet at the playground, Billy told him, “No way, Jose.”
“I bet you’ll never guess what I have.” Harry wasn’t one to give up easily.
“A very large fish smoking a cigar,” Billy said.
“Nope. Guess again.”
“A pound of reindeer turds.”
“Ha! Nope. No reindeer for a thousand miles.”
“Then what?”
“A snowball.”
“A snowball? Really? From your freezer?”
“No, from snow.”
“From snow? How? There’s no snow in Laguna Beach.”
“I didn’t get it in Laguna Beach.”
“Then where?”
“Big Bear Lake. I went there last weekend.”
“Oh, that’s right. Cool. Can we FaceTime so I can see it?”
“You have to meet me at the beach to see it.”
“Harry, I told you, I’m not leaving my house today.”
“Not even to see the only snowball in Laguna Beach?”
“I’m not supposed to go out by myself when it’s dark.”
“Our parents are shopping together. If you meet me on the grass at Main Beach, which is only a block from your house, you can be home before them.”
Main Beach was not very crowded. After all, it was Christmas Eve. Harry had the snowball in his thermal lunch pack. He removed it reverently.
“Can I hold it?” Billy asked.
Harry handed it to him. “Be careful. It’s very soft.”
Billy cradled it in both hands. “How did you make it so soft?”
“I didn’t. Mother Nature did. I just kept it cold.”
“So what are you going to do with it?” Billy handed the snowball back.
“I’m going to make it go splat.”
Just then a bus came by. “I bet those passengers never had a snowball splat against their window before.” With that, Harry brought his arm back like he was pitching for the Los Angeles Dodgers and let the snowball fly.
“Harry, noooooo!” Billy shouted.
But it was too late. Only the snowball didn’t go splat, because the bus window was open. As they ran for their lives, Billy had visions of Santa replacing his Lego Super Mario Adventures with Luigi Starter Kit with chunks of coal. They stopped and hid behind a streetlight, breathing hard and shaking.
“Harry, why did you do that? You probably hit some poor Christmas shopper in the face!” Billy didn’t know if he wanted to cry or punch Harry.
“Who asked them to open a window?” Harry said. “The snowball was supposed to go
splat against a window.”
“I wanna go to the bus station and see if you hurt someone.”
“Are you crazy? The police might arrest us.”
For once Billy had the upper hand. Harry actually looked frightened. “No one can prove it was us,” Billy said.
“They’ll see our guilty faces and they’ll know.”
“I don’t care. If you hit someone, I wanna apologize.”
Harry followed five steps behind Billy, muttering, “Who asked them to open the window?”
When they got to the bus station between Ocean and Broadway, there were no police and no angry passengers.
They went back to Main Beach, and then they saw it. Right across from where the bus had passed them, next to BJ’s Pizza, was a brick wall with the melting remains of Harry’s snowball.
Harry looked at Billy. “The other window was also open!”
The snowball had gone right through the bus and out the other window.
“Someone wants us to get our presents this year,” Billy said.
They both laughed. They could hear sleigh bells already ringing in downtown Laguna Beach.
Jamie is a retired teacher who divides his time between Dana Point, where he hikes and runs with his dog Ramona and writes science fiction and humorous memoirs, and the Hudson Valley, N.Y.
