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Sarah Sues Santa – P.J. Leonard

Chapter Nine: Second, Third, Forth Hand

The only thing Sarah could hear was her breath. It was fast, but it was getting slower. In the dark,
she had time to think about what had happened. That house...my parents were so rich there...but
were they happy? Sarah certainly hadn't been. What did Santa want her to go to that house for? Was
she supposed to have done something? Seen something? Learned something? Well, the only thing
that she learned from that was that Santa gave a lot of presents to rich people. Why? What did they
do to deserve all of those gifts? Her rich-version parents had not been nice people. The whole
experience just made Sarah even surer that Santa was being unfair. I'm still going to sue you, no
matter what happens. Just you wait, Mr. Claus!
Sarah reached out and felt her soft duvet again. Curious, she touched her chest. Sure enough, all of
those warm winter clothes were gone, replaced by her usual pyjamas. Taking a deep breath, she
grabbed a handful of her duvet and pulled it aside.
Once again, she was in her bedroom. Her real bedroom. Morning light streamed in through the
window, flakes of snow floating past. She checked her clock. 7:30am, 25th of December. Christmas
morning again...Sarah sat up and rubbed her forehead. Another Christmas? She loved Christmas but
she wasn't sure how much more present opening and slices of turkey she could take. She'd always
liked that song that talked about it wishing it was Christmas every day, but now she didn’t agree.
Slowly, she stepped out of her bed and tip toed to the door. She placed a shaking hand on the handle
and pulled.
There was no long corridor outside. In fact, there was barely any landing at all. Only two plain
white doors were up here along with Sarah's own bedroom door. The bottom of the doors were
covered in scratches, and the floor didn't have a carpet, only bare floorboards. Just like my real
house! But this was slightly different. In Sarah's real house, Mum and Dad had spent weeks
cleaning and polishing the floorboards to get them looking nice. In this house, though, the wood
looked rough and was covered in splashes of old paint: it just looked as though they'd forgotten to
lay a carpet.
Slowly, Sarah turned to face her bedroom. It had changed again. It was as different from the
bedroom in the rich house as it could get. It was tiny, barely big enough for her to lie down in. An
old mattress and bedsheet were squeezed into one side. The closet was gone, replaced by an old
chest of drawers that looked like it wasn't even secondhand, but possibly third or fourth hand. It
creaked when Sarah opened it. Inside, the clothes looked plain and simple, and Sarah instantly
spotted holes in two different shirts.
"Sarah!" Her Mum called, "You awake dear?"
"Y-Yes!" Sarah stammered.
"Come on down quickly, dear!" She said in a cheerful sing-song sort of voice, "I want to see you
open your presents!"
Sarah slipped into a pair of jeans, shirt and jumper. The jeans were a little long and the jumper was
just a little bit too big, but they were comfortable. She headed out of her tiny bedroom and down the
stairs. Every single step creaked and one step was even broken, covered in tiny splinters of wood.
She looked up at the wall. There weren't pictures in frames like in her real house, but plain photos
stuck to the wall with sticky tape. She was a little bit scared of what she’d see in the living room:
part of her longed to dash back to her bedroom or to run straight out of the door and for the postbox.
Come on, she told herself, be brave. You have to see this, just like Santa told you.
She reached the bottom of the stairs and nearly jumped right back up them when something dark
and fuzzy dashed out from the pile of smelly shoes in the corner. "Tinder!" Sarah gasped. It was the
same cat, but he seemed thinner, his fur more wild and clumpy.

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