The Shark Around the Corner: A Christmas Short Story

The bells on Amelia’s Christmas wreath jingled as the front door opened and slammed shut.  “Grandma lost her phone again,” Kylee yelled from the entryway.

“I thought she was supposed to glue it to her forehead, so this didn’t keep happening,” Amelia responded.

Her ten-year-old niece giggled as she entered the kitchen. “She wants you to call her phone. Can I do it?”

Amelia looked up from the snowman sugar cookie she was frosting and nodded toward her phone on the counter. “Absolutely. Have a cookie, too.”

Wasn’t that part of the cool aunt creed? Spoil thy niece with screens and sugar at all opportunities, especially during the Christmas season.

“I’m going to Facetime her looking like a shark. She loves that,” Kylee said, biting into one of the snowman’s hats.

“Who wouldn’t? Ask Grandma if I can borrow a stick of butter while you’re at it.” That was one of the perks of living in a house two doors down from her mom in Cookeville, Tennessee. The downside, of course, was having to track down her mom’s phone at least once a week. The day her mom stopped losing her phone was the day her niece stopped loving sweets.

“She must’ve heard it. She’s answering.” Kylee clutched the phone close to her face. “Hi Grand—”

“Hello?” A male voice answered.

Kylee jabbed at the screen, ending the call. “I think I called the wrong number. Some weird guy just answered. I’ll try again.”

“Hello,” the same male voice from earlier answered.

“It’s Weird Guy again,” Kylee whispered. “What do I do?”

“Ask Weird Guy why he has Grandma’s phone,” Amelia said as she finished adding a carrot nose to the last snowman cookie.

“I don’t think my mom would want me talking to Weird Guy.”

“I found the phone in the parking lot behind the Plenty Bookshop, and to be fair, I don’t think my mom would want me talking to a shark.”

Kylee offered a cheeky grin, no doubt showing off her pointy cartoonish teeth. “I’m going to give you to my aunt now.”

“Probably wise,” Weird Guy responded.

The more Amelia heard him talk, the more familiar his voice sounded. Did she know Weird Guy?

“Here.” Kylee set the phone down. “I better go tell Grandma to stop searching the house for her phone since Weird Guy has it.”

“The name’s Ethan,” he called out. “You know, in case Weird Guy ever gets to be too much of a mouthful.”

Ethan? Couldn’t be . . . Amelia reached for a hand towel.

“Nice talking to you, Weird Guy,” Kylee yelled as she dashed out of the house, the bells on the front door clanging with her departure. She better not have knocked down the mistletoe.

Amelia finished toweling off her hands and picked up the phone. Then nearly dropped it. “Oh my goodness, it is you.” She’d recognize that dirty blond hair and handsome ruggedness anywhere. He’d always put her in mind of a young Steve McQueen.

“You know me?” Ethan said.

“Yeah, we were—” Supposed to go out on a date two years ago. She didn’t finish the sentence. Partly because it might sound pathetic that she was still thinking about their almost date from two years ago. But mostly because she was trying to figure out how to remove the shark head filter.

She clearly needed her niece to give her some FaceTime lessons.

“Wait a second. This isn’t Amelia, is it?”

She shook her sharky-looking head. “Who’s Amelia?”

“I knew I recognized those chompers.”

“Ha. For real though, how do you turn this filter off? I feel ridiculous.”

“Does this help?” Ethan’s face suddenly turned into a cartoonish mouse head.

She couldn’t help but laugh. “Yes. Now we can have a serious conversation like real adults.”

His cute mousey face smiled. “Maybe while we’re being serious adults you can tell me why you never wanted to go out with me.”

“What?” Her shark face somehow looked appropriately appalled. “I wanted to go out with you.”

“Then why’d you cancel our date with the vaguest excuse on the planet?”

“I had a stomach bug. My intestines wouldn’t stop exploding.” Obviously she felt more comfortable explaining things to a mouse than she did a Steve McQueen look-alike.  

His whiskers twitched with amusement. “I’m starting to see the merits now of keeping it vague.”

“For the record I was planning to call you to reschedule after I felt better, but then I heard your grandmother died. It seemed a bad time to see if you still wanted to go out on that date.”

“You kidding? Nothing would’ve made my grandma happier. Pretty sure her dying words were ‘For the love of Pete, take that Amelia doll out on a date.’”

“Then why didn’t you say anything when we bumped into each other last year at the grocery store?”

“Because all you seemed to want to talk about was the discount going on for pork chops.”

“It was an amazing discount. It deserved to be talked about. Also, I didn’t want you to feel pressured into asking me out again in case you weren’t still interested.”

“I was absolutely still interested.”

“Really? I was absolutely still interested too.”

His mousey face groaned. “I can’t believe I let that opportunity slip through my fingers.”

“It’s not too late to ask me out now.”

“No, I was talking about the pork chops. You were right. They haven’t been discounted like that since—”

She snapped her shark teeth at him.

He laughed. “So, what do you say, Jaws? Want to try for that date again this Saturday?”

“You’re lucky I think mice are cute.”

“Is that a yes?”

“It’s a yes.”

“Even if your intestines are exploding, you’ll go out with me?”

“Even if I have to wear a diaper, I’ll go out with you.” Again—the mouse filter was clearly making her say things she’d never say to Steve McQueen.

Her doorbell rang. “Hey, someone’s here. Mind if I call you back?”

“Not at all.”

When she opened the door, Ethan, looking not at all like a rodent and even better than Steve McQueen, stood on her front porch. “You’re here,” she stammered.

“I was in the neighborhood. Figured you’d want your mom’s phone back. Also . . .” He took a step closer. “I was thinking since neither of us is currently dealing with death or exploding intestines, maybe we should take advantage of this perfect moment. What do you think?”

He glanced above her.

Amelia followed his gaze to the mistletoe hanging above her doorway, then slowly lowered her eyes to peer straight into his baby blues. “I think not taking advantage of this perfect moment would be an even bigger tragedy than not taking advantage of discounted pork chops.”

“Spoken like a true shark.”

She tried to think of a witty comeback about a mouse, but when he dropped a sweet kiss to her lips and whispered, “Merry Christmas,” a witty comeback didn’t feel so important. She’d come up with one later. Like this Saturday when they finally went out on their first date.

THE END