Our Christmas Songbook - 6. Toss a Coin (Six Geese a Laying)

Toss a coin...

The plan was to watch the first season of The Witcher in preparation for the second to be aired on December seventeenth. “Do you want anything else?” I checked the coffee table. A large bowl of salted caramel popcorn, remote, toothpicks for the cubed cheese. Perfect.

“Dammit Zeus! Keep your furry paws away from the pecorino!” A loud indignant yowl came from the kitchen.

“Jack must have used the water sprayer.” I pushed Harry. “You’re next if you don’t move. The sofa belongs to us tonight.” Soulful brown eyes immediately pleaded with me. “Nope. Not a chance, you oversized plushy.” Dogs can look indignant. “I know, I know, Labrador retriever. Still a plushy.”

“Look what I found in the fridge!” Smiling like the proverbial cat that got the canary, Jack carried a plate with an assortment of cheese and two ice-cold cans of Christmas beer over to the couch.

“I found it at the small grocery store near work.” My man hates beer, except for Christmas beer. Between the end of November and New Year, Jack enjoys it if there’s a touch of cinnamon or other spices in it.

“I don’t think we’ve ever had St.Bernhard’s.” He plopped down on the couch and made himself comfortable and put his head in my lap. “Ready to toss a coin at the witcher?”

“Absolutely.” I grabbed the second can, and then Jack’s phone rang with an all too familiar ringtone. Supergirl.

He immediately jumped up. ”Felicity!”

“Isn’t she at her friend’s this weekend?” I might have asked it with a slightly whiny undertone.

“At Emma’s, yes. Maybe Jen told her to call me in the evening.”

I repressed a sigh. “And Jen can call you to confirm everything is okay without coming off like an overprotective mother hen while being on a love-fest weekend with the hubby. Yup, sounds likely.”

Jack narrowed his eyes at me, probably checking inwardly to see if I just insulted his sister, before he answered the call. “What can I do for my favorite niece on this fine Sa—”

“Uncle Jack!” Alarmed, Jack Immediately switched the speaker on and put the phone on the table. “Felicity! What happened?”

“They will all be killed, and Tom isn’t coming!” Someone cried loudly in the background.

“Where are you? Still at Emma’s?”

“Can you come?”

Instantly, Jack was in uncle-mode. Knowing he would be back in jeans and boots and out the door in five minutes tops if necessary, I collected our snacks and put the beer and the cheese back in the fridge. Otherwise, we would have come back to cat puke all over the place because of one cheese-stealing cat.

“Felicity, who’s crying?”

“E-Emma.”

“Okay. Try to concentrate and tell me what happened.” Jack lifted his hand placatingly as if Felicity could see him while pacing between the den and the kitchen.

“M-Mr. Michalski is going to murder Emma’s geese!”

The tension in Jack’s body released a fraction, and he breathed out, relieved. “Okay. Explain.”

“He gave Emma six eggs to brood them. Hatch them? Under a lamp.”

“Under an infrared lamp, yes. He has a poultry farm, right?”

“Whatever. He said they’re hers. Not only the eggs but the big geese too. He wanted her to sell them, but she would never do that! And-then-he-was-pissed-off-because-she-came-back-late-from-her-mom’s-on Sunday. She forgot her math homework, and they had to turn back!”

“Slow down, Feh.” Jack frowned. ”Who’s Tom?”

Felicity groaned. “Not important. Some guy from school. He said he’d help us, but he didn’t show. Are you coming? Her dad sold them to people to eat them at Christmas!” Jack looked at me questioningly. I only shrugged. What can I say? Uncle Jack is unstoppable. He was about to race to the rescue of six Christmas geese with or without me.

“And— Can you bring Hunter’s truck?”

“What? Why do we need Hunter’s truck?”

“For the horse trailer.”

“The horse— Felicity....”

“Can you just come? He thinks we’re watching a Frozen marathon in Emma’s room. We left the laptop on playing the movies. If he goes in the room, we’re busted.”

“Okay. We have to get dressed first. An hour.” Jack was already stepping out of his pajama pants. “You drive your truck, I navigate.” I knew it. So much for a relaxing evening watching TV. But Uncle Jack is kinda cute, even if he stole my hoodie.

“Slow down a bit. There’s a sign.” Jack squinted into the night. “Michalski Poultry. Live Christmas Geese. Shit, I almost feel like a knight all of a sudden.”

“Yeah, the golden knight of the holy goose.” I made some elaborate swirling moves with my hand and bowed.

“Geese,” the teacher in him corrected me.

“Of course.”

“I‘m calling Feh. Hey, sweetie. We’re at the access road to the farm.” After listening to her a little, he nodded. “Okay, I think I got it. Horse trailer on the left. What? Why?” He turned to me. “Felicity says we should switch off the headlights so Emma’s dad doesn’t see us coming if he, by chance, looks out of the window.”

“What? No! I’ve never been here before. I’m not driving blind.”

“She thinks the moonlight is bright enough. You can at least try it.”

“Okaay.” I switched the light off against my better knowledge and gut feeling. The things I did for that man and his spoiled niece. Even totaling my truck. The light wasn’t so bad, though. “Couldn’t we just have bought those geese? Talk to Emma’s dad or something? I feel like a geese-stealing villain.”

“My villain.” Jack pressed a kiss on my jaw. “I don’t think he’d sell them to us.” Jack pointed at a dark blob. “There’s the horse trailer.” Then he grinned at me. “And where would be the fun of that anyway?”

“You’re terrible, Jen is right.” I pushed my door open. As soon we were out of the truck, Felicity and Emma ran to us from some type of barn, both in their pajamas.

“I’m so glad you came!” She jump-hugged Jack.”You’re the bestestest uncle in the entire world.” Jack beamed at me proudly. “We have to hurry, though. Mr. Michalski said lights out at ten-thirty. He’ll probably check to make sure we’re in bed.” Felicity took Jack’s hand. ”Come on.”

Emma trailed behind us. “Dad’ll definitely check on us. And around eleven, he lets the dogs out.”

I flinched. “Dogs?”

She gestured broadly. “To guard the farm.”

“Well, shit.” I wasn’t afraid of dogs, but guard dogs were on an entirely different level than lazy retrievers.

“We already herded the geese into a separate part of the coop.” Felicity pulled us over to the barn. Emma gave me some brown bread. “First, you have to gain their trust. They respond well to treats! I kinda trained them.”

I looked at the bread in my hand. “Me? You know I’ve never had anything to do with geese?”

She waved her hand dismissively. “It’s easy. We’ll show you how it’s done.” I had my doubts.

At first, we watched Felicity feed one of the geese. She petted it carefully until it began to relax a little, all the while Emma crouched down. When the goose was busy eating, Emma pounced and pinned it down like a boss, in violet pajamas, that is. She cooed at the bird. “All’s good, Robin. We’re going to bring you to a safe place where Daddy can’t get to you.” She carried the goose to the horse trailer, which was filled high with shavings. “Be sure to protect your face with your hands before you do this. Ensure the wings are safely tucked against its sides before picking it up,” she lectured us.

“A goose called Robin?” Jack mouthed at me before he rubbed his hands.“Well, that didn’t look all that difficult.” He grinned at me. ”You ready to grab us some geese?”

”Sure.” I had a very bad feeling. When we went closer to the geese, they moved to the back of the stall.

Emma made weird purring sounds. “They’re sensitive creatures. If they feel threatened, they may even attack you.”

“Attack me?” I looked at Emma, horrified. “I’m a city person at heart.” I couldn’t believe the shit I always got into with Jack.

“Before a goose attacks you, it will give off some pretty obvious signals.” She counted on her fingers. “Hissing, flapping its wings, and/or standing very erect.” I was sure she meant to be reassuring. “Like dogs, geese can sense fear in people and are more likely to attack if they believe you are feeling nervous.”

“Holy shit. I am nervous!” I eyed the closest goose.

“Maybe you start with Anna. She’s pretty tame,” Felicity said casually.

The bird distrustfully eyed me back. Jack the idiot crouched down right beside her. ”Where is my pretty princess?” Of course, Anna flapped her wings, and he landed on his butt in a large pile of goose poo. Jack laughed his ass off. That was until Hans pecked him on the butt. Then it was our turn to laugh. “Ouch, damn it! Don’t damage the goods.” He rubbed his behind.

We managed to secure Anna eventually, without collecting any more bruises, and transferred her safely to the trailer. In the meantime, Felicity and Emma had caught the butt-biter.

On the way back, Emma got out her phone. “Shit! We have to slip back into the house asap. Do you think you think you can handle Elsa and Calanthe without us?” Jack and I nodded with more certainty than we felt. At least, I did. Then came the whopper. “Remember the dogs.”

I had totally forgotten about the dogs. “The slobber brigade, shit. Let’s hurry, Jack.” He looked around. “Which one is Calanthe?”

Emma pointed at a huge goose. “The one with the blue mark on her leg.” The girls were almost out the door when I remembered something. “Stop! Where do we bring the geese?”

“To Volker, Mom’s boyfriend. I’ll text you his address.”

“Why didn’t Volker come and get the geese?”

“He broke his leg.”

“Convenient,” I couldn’t help muttering.

At first, everything went well. The first goose was easy to handle. Maybe we got cocky, but Calanthe was our Waterloo. We threw a pillowcase over her head, which was supposed to calm her down. I held her under my arm, then she somehow turned her head, the pillowcase was gone, and she bit my nose. It hurt like a moth—so much. There was even a little blood.

We had just reunited Calanthe with her brethren when we heard the dogs bark in the too-close distance. We jumped in the truck, but not before I made Jack sit on a plastic bag with his goose poo butt. Otherwise, my truck would have smelled like shit forever. We headed out as fast and carefully as we could.

On the road, something dinged. Jack got his phone out. “It’s Volker’s address. It’s not far away. Thirty minutes, I guess.”

My nose stung, Jack’s butt hurt, and his left eye looked bruised. Let me say it was a rather unpleasant drive to Volker’s small, very scenic farm. When we drove up to the house, he was already waiting for us, leaning heavily on crutches. So, it hadn’t been a ruse, after all, the guy really broke his leg. After taking one look at our rather bedraggled appearance, he grinned. There might have been a tad bit of schadenfreude when he pointed us to a barn with plenty of running space on both the inside and the outside for the birds. Letting the geese out was much easier. They threw some dirty looks at us, then they trolled away. Fortunately, Volker assured us someone else would care for the horse trailer. Then, he offered us two bags of frozen vegetables with a shit-eating grin, the fucker. “For the way back.”

Finally home, dirty and bruised, we limped inside. Jack called us goose warriors, humming Toss a coin to Your Witcher. Everything stank of goose. After a much-needed shower, we weren’t even able to drink our beer but fell asleep totally exhausted. Until six am.

“Fucking Jen!” Jack grabbed his phone. “What the hell, Jen! Do you know what time it is?”

“Six am, and welcome to the club. I’m on the way to pick up Felicity. Apparently, there was a theft last night at the farm. Emma’s father called me at the ass-crack of dawn and asked me to pick Feh up.”

“You should really watch where you let your daughter stay overnight.” Jack winked at me.

“Emma’s father accused MY DAUGHTER of being involved IN GEESE theft. Do you happen to know anything about that?”

“Me?”

“Every time my daughter gets in trouble, you’re around.”

“Only to make sure she’s safe.”

“Whatever. Jack! Were you involved? I am in a very bad mood. I had to cancel my massage.”

“Hubby can massage you later.”

“It would have been a professional massage, including a sugar scrub! Now tell me!”

“All I can say is she’s probably planning to get a goose tattoo.” Jack snickered, then he hung up.

“Breakfast?” In my head I was seeing tons of eggs, pancakes, coffee, and freshly-squeezed orange juice, but then Jack moaned pitifully and rubbed his butt, waggling his eyebrows. “Kiss it and make it better?”