Chapter 2:

Chapter 2

Mona's Christmas

With Christmas presents for their friends in their bags, Mona and Nia left the mall. In the front of the mall, they waited for Nia’s driver, after which they continued their journal to the address the elderly lady gave them.

“Why were we doing this again?”

Nia said, sitting with her hands crossed.

“Come on Nia, it has been a while since we have been on an adventure together like this!”

Mona pulled on her friend's cheeks in an attempt to make her look a bit less angry.

“Stop touching my face!”

Nia screamed.

Mona continued fumbling with the broken yo-yo in her hand.

“Maybe I can get one for Lisa too”

She said with a big smile on her face.

“Lisa who?”

“My little cousin Lisa is staying over at our house for Christmas”

Her friend started laughing.

“You are called Mona and your cousin is called Lisa, how interesting”

Mona glimpsed at her.

“So this makes you laugh, but my tickling doesn’t? You are such a bully”

“I am not a bully or anything. I just thought it was funny because the paint-”

Nia suddenly closed her mouth.

“Wait tickling, you didn’t tickle me-eeh!”

Before Nia could finish her sentence, her friend had started tickling her.

“Stop-haha stop-haha!”

“Seems like I was wrong, you do laugh when getting tickled”

The car turned around the corner, they drove through a narrow street with small, old houses. The driver slowed down, and the car came to a halt.

“Ladies, the address must be somewhere on the left of us.”

“Thank you, mister driver”

Mona said cheerfully as she left the car.

“Come, Nia, this will be fun!”

Reluctantly, Nia also left the car and started searching for the address.

“Number 26, number 28, number 30!”

“That one must be it!”

Mona pointed at a newer-looking house among the row of older houses.

“It is rude to point Mo-”

But her enthusiastic friend had already run up to the door.

“I have a bad feeling about this”

Nia whispered in Mona’s ear.

But she rang the bell regardless.

After a couple of minutes, the door opened.

The friends saw a young woman, holding an infant in her arms.

“Hello, how can I help you?”

“We are looking for an old man, he owns a shop in the shopping mall”

“He also used to be Santa”

She whispered, pointing to the baby.

The woman shook her head.

“I am sorry, but there is no elderly man living here, only me and my husband.”

Confused, Mona looked at the business card again, confirming this was in fact the right address.

“We moved in here two years ago, after building this new house here.”

“I told you this was wasting my time”

Nia whispered in Mona’s ear.

But then the woman started talking again.

“I think there lived an older guy here before us, I heard he moved to a nursing home on the opposite side of the city.”

“We had to forward him some mail, I think I still have his address somewhere.”

“Give me a second.”

The woman went inside and came back with another piece of paper with an address on it.

“This is the address of the nursing home he moved to”

The baby started crying.

“I have to tend to my little boy here”

She passed the piece of paper to the girls, after which she closed the door.

“Let’s go here next Nia!”

Her friend looked annoyed.

“Show me that piece of paper”

Nia studied it for a couple of seconds and then pushed it into Mona’s hand again.

“This is close to your house, I will drop you off and you can go by yourself”

Mona pleaded to Nia.

“Please can you just tell Mister Driver to go here?”

“I am starting to question your motivation for being friends Mona.”

“Using your rich friend for repeated free rides like this”

Mona rubbed the back of her head.

“Don’t forget about the free food…”

“You are not even trying to hide it or something!”

Mona glimpsed.

“Reactions like this are exactly why I like to spend time with you”

After Mona was dropped off at her house, she was immediately enthusiastically greeted by a cheerful guest.

“Welcome back, big cousin Mona!”

She jumped off the couch as soon as Mona walked into the living room.

“You are here already?”

Mona sighed, she threw her bag in the corner of the room and started putting her shoes on again.

“Where are you going, Mona?”

Her mom asked her with an angry-sounding voice.

“I just came here to drop off some presents, I need to go somewhere important”

Mona’s stepped into the hallway.

“Your little cousin arrived an hour ago, she has been excitingly waiting for you ever since.”

“You can’t ignore her like that.”

She whispered to her daughter.

“Well… I am sorry Mom, I guess I was stuck too much in my thoughts.”

Mona reentered the living room and invited her cousin Lisa to come with her.

“Let’s go on another adventure together Lisa!”

The two of them put on their shoes and coats and left the house through the front door. The nursery home was about a fifteen-minute walk away. Without the comfort of Nia’s car, the chill December wind gave her goosebumps.

“Let’s walk a little faster Lisa, I am freezing”

She rubbed her hands together in order to generate some heat.

“Don’t be stupid Mona, you won’t die from a little chill wind”

A serious expression formed on Mona’s face.

“I have a terrible illness called coldofobia, I may drop to the ground by the smallest spec of cold”.

“If that happens, just leave me lying, there is nothing you can do…”

Lisa started panicking.

“We need to get you warm, now!”

She started hugging her cousin, to keep her warm.

Mona started chuckling.

“Wait, coldofobia is that even…”

She stepped away from her.

“You aren’t making this up, right?”

Her big cousin started laughing harder.

“It’s so fun to mess with you.”

“But to your credit, you are getting smarter.”

“Soon enough, I have to find other ways to tease you.”

Lisa started smiling again.

“You don’t have to, you will always be funny to me.”

“It’s just the way you are.”

The girls turned the corner and could see a big concrete building looming in the distance.

When they came closer to the building, Lisa asked her cousin.

“Is that where we are going?”

Mona nodded her head.

“Yes, that is where our adventure leads us to today.”

“Isn’t that… an old people home?”

“It says it on the sign”

Lisa pointed to a big sign hanging above the big glass rotating door.

But Mona reassured her cousin.

“Someone important lives in there, someone who knows the answer to a matter of life and death question! ”

The girls entered the revolving door and walked up to the reception desk. The entrance area was a big white room, scattered around where some groups of elderly people sitting on a bench or walking behind a walker. The room was filled with a typical old-people smell.

Mona pulled the piece of paper out of her pocket and laid it down on the desk.

“Excuse me, we are looking for this man”

She passed the piece of paper over to the receptionist, who adjusted her glasses and then moved the paper closer to her face.

“Good afternoon. Let me look this up on the computer”

The woman punched in some words on the keyboard and after a few mouse clicks, she looked up to the girls again.

“Yes, he lives here in room 313, it’s located on the third floor.”

“May I ask you how you're related, are you family of his?”

“Something like that”

Mona said.

Lisa looked at her with a worried face, but Mona signed her to keep still.

“Please use our elevator, he should be in his room.”

The receptionist pointed to a big metal door.

Mona and Lisa thanked the woman and walked up to the elevator.

They pushed the button and waited for the metal carriage to arrive.

“Can I press the button, Mona?”

“You can’t, it’s too high for you”

Lisa laughed.

“No silly, I have grown, look I can do this”

She reached her arm and accidentally hit the button to go to the highest floor.

“Oh no, this is terrible! What do I do?”

Mona walked up to the buttons and unpressed the “8”.

She turned around, glimpsing at Lisa.

“Please don’t mess up this time”

“I can do this big cousin Mona!”

Her hand pressed the “3” button and the elevator door closed.

The girls walked through a long narrow hallway lined by many doors.

“309”

“311”

“313!”

Lisa said out loud, after which she cheerfully at Mona.

“This is it right? Can I ring the bell?”

Mona nodded.

After ringing the bell, it took a couple of seconds for someone to arrive at the door.

The handle rotated and with a squeak, the door swung open.

In the opening stood an elderly man, he looked a bit surprised.

“Good afternoon girls!”

“What do I owe this visit to?”

Mona tried to answer, but the man kept talking.

“You aren’t here to sell me something right?”

“I’d love to buy your cookies, but the doctor says I have to keep to my diet.”

“So only one please”

Mona started chuckling, rubbing the back of her head.

“I am afraid we forgot to bring some”

The man laughed.

“Lucikly for you girls, I have a big tin of cookies standing on the table”

“Why don’t you come in?”

Mona and Lisa took off their shoes and walked into the old man's room. The room was richly decorated with all kinds of Christmas knick-knacks. In the corner stood an out-of-proportionally big Christmas tree.

“Please sit down on the couch”

The girls sat down and were handed a cookie from the tin.

“So tell me, what brings you here today?”

Mona fiddles with her pocket and pulls out the Christmas-themed yo-yo.

“Does this toy ring any bells?”

“Toy.. toy”

The man took a closer look.

“Isn’t that…”

His face lit up.

“A Christmas yoyo?”

“You still held onto that?”

Mona nodded.

“Wait I remember you”

“Weren’t you aren’t that girl with that yellow monster plushy that couldn’t stop crying?”

The man laughed.

“Stop you are embarrassing me”

Mona pointed at Lisa who was still nibbling on the cookie.

“So it is you? Isn’t that amazing…”

“I remember you were too scared to sit on my lap at first. But once you did, I couldn’t get you off!”

“That’s when I handed you that toy”

Lisa looked confused.

“Christmas - sitting on lap - toys”

She mumbled.

“Are you, like… Santa?”

The man laughed.

“I used to be.”

“Even old people like Santa have to retire eventually”

“So there is no more Santa?”

A short silence befell the room.

“I... I knew Santa didn’t exist okay!”

Mona petted her head.

“He does actually, Santa is everywhere you know?”

Lisa softly nodded her head.

“I know he is”

Mona explained to the former mall Santa that the toy was broken.

“Do you know where I can get a new one?”

“The internet?”

The man responded.

“You can buy anything there right?”

He picked up a tablet lying in a drawer.

“Youngsters like you know a lot better how to use these than me”

He handed Mona the tablet.

She typed in “Christmas yo-yo”

The first result was the exact same one that she got that day.

“This really takes away the magic…”

She mumbled.

“I should have thought of this myself”

Mona said while rubbing her head.

“Thank you for helping us, Santa!”

She said to the man.

“No, thank you two for coming here and keeping the Christmas spirit alive”

“You see… here in the building we don’t celebrate the holidays. I asked the caregivers many times, but they kept saying that elderly people don’t care for Western traditions like these.”

“But in fact, I know that most people here love to have a christmas party.”

“Sadly, I am too old to organize one, putting up these decorations is the best I can do.”

“That’s terrible!”

Lisa exclaimed.

“We have to do something, Mona!”

“Can’t we talk to them and make them change their mind?”

The man sighed.

“I’ll save you the effort, it’s notoriously difficult to get them to do anything”

“It’s still worth the shot. Right? Mona?”

Lisa looked at her with big puppy eyes.

“We can ask them… if you insist”

“That would be awesome”