Have a Jolly Collie Christmas by Rosie A. Point

Author:Rosie A. Point [Point, Rosie A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rosie A. Point

11

I locked the living room door again, and Dixie and I started down the stairs, pausing plenty of times along the way to check for splodges of gravy. There were none, but surely, Mint and Julep would’ve found them and licked them up in the interim. I’d been looking after the collies, but there was plenty of down time in between where they’d do their own thing. And they had free reign in Grandma Park’s cabin.

“I wonder if there’s gravy in the study?” I asked Dixie.

It was such a ludicrous-sounding question, even to me, that I let out a tiny, hiccuping laugh. Apparently, I was sleep-deprived on top of everything else.

We entered the darkened downstairs living room, and navigated past the dark shapes of furniture. I kicked the end of the coffee table and yelped. One of the collies let out a rough half-bark in the darkness.

“It’s just me,” I whispered. “Don’t worry.”

Mint and Julep appeared, the patches of white on their coats approaching in the gloom.

“Hello, sweethearts.” I petted them, enjoying the licks I received in return. “I didn’t want to wake you, but… have you had any gravy lately?”

Mint and Julep followed Dixie and I as we headed into the kitchen. The lights were off, except for a sliver of illumination beneath the pantry door. Strange. Why would Grandma Park have left the pantry lights on and kept the kitchen lights off?

I headed for the pantry door, my slippers silent on the kitchen tiles. Mint, Julep, Dixie, and I stopped at the pantry, listening, the dogs silent.

Something shifted in the pantry, and a gentle sob rang out.

There’s a woman in there! A woman crying.

I held my breath.

What did I do? Call out to check if they were OK? Open the pantry door without announcing myself first?

I glanced down at the dogs, but they didn’t provide me with any answers. Even Dixie sat, waiting for me to make my decision.

Here goes nothing.

I grasped the doorknob and burst into the pantry, blinking at the influx of light.

Shelly, the mousy-haired daughter of the victim, let out a horrified shriek and lifted her hand in one swift motion, brown liquid spattered across the pantry floor. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” she sobbed, her cheeks smeared with brown.

Mint and Julep barreled into the pantry and set to work licking up the spilled gravy. Because that was what it was.

It took me a second to absorb all the details of what I’d just walked into, but Shelly sat on a tiny wooden stool among the shelves of dried food in the pantry, an open Tupperware on her lap. It was filled with leftovers from lunch. She gripped a half-eaten turkey leg in her left hand, the end of it dripping with gravy.

“What?” she asked. “You’ve never seen a pregnant woman eat turkey before?”

“You’re pregnant?”

Shelly nodded, dolefully. “Pregnant, irritated, and hungry. I’ve been craving gravy every day this week.”

“Craving gravy.”

“Yes. Don’t look at me like that,” Shelly said. “There are plenty of women who have weird cravings.

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