Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe - Christmas Chaos - Mary Turlington and Polly Anderson’s Christmas Collision & Ferrets for Christmas

Episode Date: December 6, 2024

“He stuck his head in the dryer. It was not the wisest decision.”Today on the pod, two more stories of festive shenanigans. Mary and Polly try to outdo each other as the ultimate party planner, while the neighbourhood races to keep up. And in our second story, Sam smuggles home a fragrant guest for the Christmas holidays. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From the Apostrophe Podcast Network. Hello, I'm Jess Milton and this is Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe. Welcome. We have two Dave and Morley stories for you today. Two stories about Christmas chaos. Is there anything but chaos at Christmas? We're going to start with this one and surprise, surprise, it features Dave's neighborhood nemesis, Mary Turlington, rising to new heights of chaotic Christmas creativity. This is Stuart McLean with Mary Turlington and Polly Anderson's Christmas Collision. As everybody knows, Polly and Ted Anderson hold their annual Christmas party. They're at home on the second Saturday of every December. It is a tradition. The neighborhood event of the year.

Everyone marks the Anderson's Christmas party in their calendar months in advance. Everyone keeps the second Saturday in December free. Even Mary Turlington. Especially Mary Turlington. Especially Mary Turlington. Mary adores Polly's party, the fancy hors d'oeuvres, the exotic drinks, and that magical moment at the end of the night

when Ted lights the candles on the branches of the Anderson's tree and everyone gathers in the hall to sing carols. Now, of course, Mary wishes that it was her husband Bert and not Polly's husband Ted lighting those candles. Mary wishes that she was the one who hosted the grand neighborhood party. Because if you want to throw a gold medal party, it is hard to top Christmas. There's just no other holiday that offers the grandeur of it,

the thematic possibilities of decorations and music, costumes and food, presents and children. Christmas is kind of it, except for maybe a surprise party. Mary had always wanted a surprise party, but you can't throw a surprise party for yourself, although she had considered it. Believe me, Mary had considered all the options. The year her son Adam turned 12, for instance, Mary said to Bert, 13 next year. And Bert said, yeah, before you know it, we'll have a teenager. Mary said, I'd be wondering

about his bar mitzvah. Bert said, we're Presbyterian. And then one day, this fall, word got out that Polly wasn't going to throw her famous party this year. It was Gerda Loebier who told Mary, just an off-the-cuff remark, but the kind of off-the-cuff remark that has been known to start revolutions. Like most incendiary claims, it had a passing familiarity with truth. Polly had wondered aloud if people were tiring of her party. The Terriers didn't come last year, she said, or the Schellenbergers. Like most perfectionists, Polly was suffering a crisis of confidence. All she needed was some reassurance, and she got that in droves. But not before Mary had heard the siren song of her abdication.

And when a dancer hears music, she'll always find a floor to dance on. Especially if it's a tune she has been waiting to hear. When Mary heard Polly was vacillating, Mary jumped. With the best of intentions, mind you. Wouldn't be Christmas without a neighborhood party. And who better to step into the breach than her? And so it was, late in November, that everyone in the neighborhood

received two invitations. One from the Turlington's and one from the Anderson's, or more to the point, one from Mary and one from Polly, both for the second Saturday in December. The gracious thing, of course, would have been for Mary to cancel, to phone everyone and explain her mistake, reel in her invitations, maybe replace them with a New Year's levy or an Easter brunch or a bar mitzvah. But as the voice of grace whispered,

Mary didn't hear it. In Mary's mind, everyone was already coming to her party, and that was the end of that. Mary had moved on. She had already chosen her signature color. It's so obvious, she said to Bert after weeks of fussing. I can't believe it took me so long. The best color is no color at all. Obviously, said Bert, who didn't have a clue what she was talking about. White, said Mary, a white Christmas.

She would transform their house into a palace of white. The painters are coming tomorrow, she said to Bert. They're going to do the walls and the floors. Excellent, said Bert, thinking this wasn't excellent at all. She started working on the wreath the following weekend for the front door. It'll be the first thing up, she said, like a billboard on the edge of town. She worked on it for three days down in the basement. When she was finished, she called Bert and Adam to give her a hand.

I need help, she said. They struggled up the stairs with that wreath as if they were carrying a sofa. It's a little bigger than your average wreath, said Bert, sweat pouring from his forehead. It was so oversized they couldn't fasten it to the front door. So they used pulleys and chains to suspend it from the door header. That should hold, said the consulting engineer. It was fine if all you were going to do was look at it from the sidewalk. But if you wanted to use the door, you had to crawl through the hole in the middle of the reef.

It's beautiful, said Bert, who knew which side his bread was buttered. As Mary homed in on party weekend with the intensity of a guided missile, the rest of the neighborhood watched its approach with growing anxiety. Lunchtime. The back booth of Kenny Wong's Cafe. Carl Loebier, Bertie Schellenberger, Jim Schofield, and Dave, who had summoned them together. The neighborhood was heading for a collision, and someone had to do something. So the four of them ate lunch, and they talked about what that something might be.

And of all the harebrained schemes they considered and could have settled on, of all the things, they settled on Dave's. They set up in the room over his store. They taped a large map of the neighborhood onto the ping-pong table he has up there. By the beginning of December, there were enough colored pins sticking in that map and lists stuck to the walls that that room looked like a military headquarters. We have the neighborhood divided into squads, said Dave. Each squad has a captain.

Each captain has a schedule. It was the first captain's meeting. Dave and Dorothy and Carl, well, there were at least 12 of them around the table. The plan was simple. Both Mary and Polly would be told the other party had been canceled. But in fact, everyone in the neighborhood would attend both parties simultaneously. How are we going to do that, said Carl, captain of squad one. You each have four families, said Dave. In a minute, Jim is going to hand out your maps and schedules. At their assigned times,

each captain was to slip their four families out the back door of whichever party they were at and rendezvous with the designated teenage drivers who would be standing by. The driver said, Dave, we'll ferry you back and forth. If everything went as planned, the squads would hop back and forth from one party to the other, and neither Mary nor Polly would be the wiser. Before you knew it, it was the second Saturday in December. 6 p.m. Look, there are Bert and Mary standing at their front door

in front of Mary's white wonderland. The walls and floors are painted palace white. The sofa and the chairs, the end tables and a dining room buffet are draped in white linen. There are platters of white canapes and pictures of frosty beverages everywhere. Look at Bert perspiring slightly in his white suit, his white leather shoes, his white top hat and gloves, and Mary in her set of white feathered angel wings. The two of them look as if they have been plucked off the top of a wedding cake. And there, a few blocks over and across the park,

on the other side of the neighborhood are Polly and Ted standing under a candy cane arch at their front door. Polly is handing each guest a festive cocktail as they arrive. And look, there's Dave standing in the room over his record store,

staring at the map on the ping pong table with a black walkie-talkie dangling from his wrist. He's bringing the radio up to his mouth. Squad one, he says, this is Big Turkey. Go. Carl and his squad of families, 12 people in all, are the lead-off group. They go in Polly's front door, throw back their cocktails, and on Dave's command, slip out the back. They run down the alley like a pack of refugees.

Heads ducked below the level of the back fence so they can't be seen. They're heading for the red garage at the end of the lane where the drivers are waiting to speed them the seven blocks over to Mary's. A mere 15 minutes after they went in Polly's front door, Mary is greeting them at her front door with one of her festive white wine spritzers. Carl peers at his drink, shrugs, and throws it back. Before you know it, Dave's on the radio

telling him it's time to head back again. Whoa, says Carl, as he staggers out the back door. Hang in there, says Dave. You're doing great. Out in the front yard, Bert is staring at Mary's wreath. It has been causing no end of trouble. I'm going to move it, says Bert. I'll put it back up in the morning. It took four of them to carry it. When they tilted it on its side to get it through the back gate, five-year-old Deirdre Llewellyn tumbled out into the snow. It's about time, said Deirdre with her hands on her hips. I've been stuck in there

for over an hour. Carl Loeb here and his squad were peering out from behind the garage as Bert and his team leaned the wreath against the back door. They were way too tipsy to navigate the reef, so Carl pried open a basement window and began funneling them through it one by one. By the time everyone was inside, it was time to head back to the Andersons again. Of course, each time a group moved from one house to the other, glasses of cheer were thrust into their hands, and everyone was getting, what do I say, exuberantly cheery. As Carl and his group tumbled out the back window,

Gunnar Shevestad staggered in the front door, scooped a plate of white asparagus from the dining room buffet, and pranced out again. What are you doing, said Mary as he danced by her. No worries, said Gooner. I'll be back. One boisterous squad declined their drive and set off cross-country. When they were last seen, they were carrying a pitcher of Mary's white wine spritzers and a plate of white chocolate rum balls.

They hadn't been heard of since. they hadn't been heard of since. Down in Mary's basement, an abandoned walkie-talkie crackled to life. Big Turkey to Squad 4? Over. Jim came on the radio instead. Jim said, we've lost Squad 4, Big Turkey. Squad 3 set off to find them.

Things were breaking down. The party had gone rogue. Faced with the growing difficulties of getting in and out of Mary's, everyone had settled at Polly's, and they were refusing to move. Except for Gooner, who had decided his contribution to the night was to get as many of Mary's snacks over to Polly's as possible. Mary had been tearing between the kitchen and the dining room all night. Each time she placed a fresh plate of appetizers on the buffet, there was Gooner to take them away.

Although there seemed to be fewer and fewer guests, she was running out of food. She couldn't figure it out. She knew something was going on. She opened the freezer. She pulled out the last plate of rum balls. As she set them on the counter, she thought she saw someone duck behind the garage. It had been happening all night.

And it was at that moment, a floor below her, that Rick Moore sat up, burped, and looked blearily around. Rick was the leader of the missing squad four. He'd come through the basement window an hour ago and promptly fallen asleep on the couch. Upstairs, Mary was arranging the rum balls on her last silver platter. Mary was arranging the rum balls on her last silver platter. She picked up the platter, moved it to one hand, smoothed her white skirt with the other, and then burst into the living room with a flourish to find the living room completely empty. Except for Rick, who had come upstairs and who blinked at her, grabbed her arm and said with a slur, Come on, we've got to get to the other place.

As he hustled the bewildered Mary out the door, he pointed at the rum balls and said, Bring the snacks and save Gunnar a trip. Five minutes later, they were standing in front of the Andersons' house. Mary couldn't believe it when Rick shoved her through the front door. Everyone was there. Finally, she understood what was going on And she felt a surge of affection After all these years Bert had organized her a surprise party Mary stood by the door staring at everyone

and waiting for them to yell, surprise! But instead, the room fell deathly silent. And that's when Polly flew out of the kitchen and the entire room swiveled as one. Oh good, said Polly when she saw Mary. Polly was the only one in the room who had no idea that something was amiss. I was wondering when you'd get here. Did you get something to eat? There are the most extraordinary treats. Gunnar really outdid himself this year. In that briefest of moments, a thousand expressions crossed Mary's face. Her shoulders tightened and then relaxed,

which looked like her angel wings had begun to flap. And then she smiled and she said, Thank you, Polly. You know I wouldn't miss one of your parties. Of course, she should have said that weeks ago. She should have said that when she realized she had been misinformed and Polly was still having her party. She should have stepped aside graciously. She was, as they say, a little late coming to the party.

But they also say, better late than never. The room slowly filled with chatter again. And as it did, Mary whispered something in Dave's ear, and Dave slipped out the door and headed back to her house to collect Bert and the snacks that Gunnar had missed. It was maybe an hour, maybe two later, before Polly finally put it all together. Everyone else was still around and about, still chatting away, but the night was clearly winding down. Polly had begun clearing up, and Mary was helping her, carrying what was left of the

white asparagus and the shortbread cookies into the kitchen. Polly had just picked up a plate of white fish pate when she realized Mary was in a white dress and snowflake pantyhose. That's when the penny dropped. Polly had considered doing a white theme herself, and having considered it, she had no trouble recognizing it. They were alone in the kitchen now, the two of them. Polly had just put a platter high on a shelf over the fridge. She turned and looked at Mary and said, next year, and this was the closest they would ever come to actually talking about this year,

to actually talking about this year. Next year, she said, let's do the party together. Your food, my house. It was a small act of grace, of generosity, but it came from the depths of Polly's heart. Mary was about to say something, but before she could, Ted appeared through the swinging door and said, It's time to light the tree. Where are the matches?

And Polly pointed at a drawer in the kitchen and said, You always take so long to get them going. Where's Bert? Get Bert to help you. As Ted went looking for Bert, Polly put her arm around Mary's waist and steered her through the door. When the caroling began, the two of them were standing together beside the tree. The night traditionally ends with that boisterous old carol, We Wish You a Merry Christmas. When they got to it, Polly leaned close to Mary and whispered, I love this one. Soon the entire room was dancing that dangerous line between singing and outright shouting. Oh, bring us some figgy pudding. Oh, bring us some figgy pudding.

Oh, bring us some figgy pudding and a cup of good cheer. pudding and a cup of good cheer. The Christmas season is many things to many people. To some, it's the story of the birth of Jesus, the story of peace and love and the triumph of life over darkness. To others, it's a time of goodwill and fellowship. Time to gather together with family and friends in schools and homes and in theaters.

Some just like the decorations, the lights, and the warmth they give in this cold, dark time. Others just like the music. Even the little ones were singing along now, stomping their feet and waving their hands in the air. And Mary and Polly, too, singing along at the top of their lungs. The night's escapades completely forgotten, the two of them doing what women are so good at doing, moving on, living with a little victory and a little defeat.

And if ever there need be proof of miracles, surely this would suffice. Here we go, said Polly, resting her arm on Mary's shoulder. Everyone now. We won't go until we get some. We won't go until we get some. We won't go until we get some. We won't go until we get some. We won't go until we get some. So bring it right here.

Thank you, everybody. That was the story we call Mary Turlington and Polly Anderson's Christmas Collision. And yes, that one definitely gets the prize for the longest story title ever. What were we thinking? It doesn't fit on an album. It doesn't print easily in a book. It's very difficult to say. Anyway, we recorded that story back in 2013. Welcome back. Time for our second story now. This is Ferrets for Christmas. In the middle of December, Sam arrived home from school with a cloth bag slung over his shoulder. Ten years old.

Honey, he called out as the door slapped shut behind him, I'm home. And then he scrambled up to his room before Morley could say anything. He didn't come down for an hour. Because there were only a few weeks left until Christmas, Morley didn't mention the cloth bag, didn't ask what Sam had been doing in his room with the door shut. This is, after all, a season for secrets. Sam closed his bedroom door behind him the next morning when he left for school. Promise you won't go in my bedroom, he said. I promise, said Morley, against her better

instincts. Before lunch, Morley went upstairs and stood in front of Sam's door. There was a hand-lettered sign taped to it. Do not enter. Top secret. This means you. This means you was underlined three times. There was a skull and crossbones drawn at the bottom of the page. On Saturday, there was a steady stream of Sam's pals through

the room, the kids ever so polite, the door ever so closed. They came and they went and they never said a word. It was driving Morley nuts, but a promise is a promise. On Sunday afternoon, when Sam was at hockey, Morley walked by his room with a load of laundry, and she thought she heard a noise, a scurrying sort of noise. Something was moving in there. Morley pressed her ear against the door, and Stephanie swanned by, her hair wrapped in a towel. He has the class ferret, she said archly. The ferret, said Morley. Of course, the ferret. And then, promise be damned, Morley opened the bedroom door. Not a wise decision. The ferret was perched on Sam's bedpost, glaring at her.

The room smelled like a weasel hole. Morley slammed the door shut and leaned her back against it. They had a family council that night. It's going back, said Dave. The ferret was sound asleep, draped around Sam's neck like a scarf. He has a name. His name is Ralph, said Sam, chucking the ferret under the chin. The ferret didn't move. Because it's dead, said Stephanie. It smells dead, said Dave. His name is Ralph, said Sam again, peevishly. Name is Ralph, said Sam again, peevishly.

No way, said Dave. No ferrets allowed. He looked at Morley, right? Now, the positions you take on questions of public policy are informed by many things. One of those things is past experience. Two Decembers ago, Morley organized the Christmas pageant at Sam's school. The principal, Nancy Cassidy, had been more than decent about what had happened that night. Morley didn't especially want a ferret in her house over the holidays, but she felt like she owed the school.

She didn't want to be thought of as unreliable. She was sitting opposite Dave, but she was staring at her hands. She said, it is Christmas, Dave. This is what you do at Christmas, isn't it? You put yourself out. You open your home to people without a place to go. Dave couldn't believe what he was hearing. He pointed at the comatose ferret draped around Sam's neck. That is not a people, he said. That is a vermin. There's no room at the inn.

Morley smiled ruefully. Couldn't we make a little manger in the basement for Ralph, she asked. A manger, said Dave. A manger. Kenny Wong thinks he has a rat in the basement of his restaurant. Maybe the rat would like to come for Christmas. Maybe we could make a manger for the rat. Thanks, Dad, said Sam. Dave built a ferret cage in the basement that afternoon.

What else could he do? When Sam carried Ralph downstairs, the ferret cage in the basement that afternoon. What else could he do? When Sam carried Ralph downstairs, the ferret was still asleep, still draped around his neck. Do you want to try? asked Sam. He lifted Ralph off his neck and held him out like a stuffed toy. He won't wake up. Dave looked at the limp ferret and shook his head. Morley said, I'll try. Sam positioned the sleeping ferret around his mother's neck. It was lighter than she'd expected and softer. As the ferret around her. She ran her hands self-consciously through her hair.

What do you think, she asked Dave, striking a pose. Beautiful, said Dave. Wait till we get you the rat. said Dave. Wait till we get you the rat. Morley passed the ferret back to Sam and Sam took it downstairs. Galway the cat hissed at them on their way past her dish. Arthur the dog looked away. For five years now, Dave and Morley have been sharing the responsibility of Christmas dinner. Morley does the vegetables and the dessert. You know what Dave does. Dave cooks the turkey. Since that infamous Christmas four years ago when Dave cooked butch in the convection oven of the Plaza Hotel, cooking the Christmas turkey has become a big deal for Dave. This year, Dave ordered a turkey from a butcher he'd read about in a local gourmet magazine.

A 22-pound, organically raised, free-range bird. You get a 12-pound bird, said Dave to Morley the afternoon he placed his order, and all you're paying for is bones and skin and not a whole lot more. He'd driven across town to check the butcher out. I'm going to marinate it overnight, he said, in brine. McHale told me if we do that, we won't even have to carve it. We'll just have to speak to it firmly and it'll fall apart. McHale said, Morley, my butcher, said Dave, rubbing his hands together gleefully. It took Ralph the ferret six hours to figure out how to open the cage in the basement.

Ralph woke just before dawn, had a drink of water and something to eat, and then fiddled with a latch on his cage and the door swung open. Ralph wandered around the basement for a while and then he curled up in the pocket of a downed ski jacket, which was lying on the floor, and he fell asleep again. Dave came downstairs two hours later. He picked the jacket up and threw it in the dryer. He wanted to fluff the down up. He pushed the start button.

He walked away. He only got as far as the stairs. There was a thumping coming out of the dryer. The sort of thumping you hear when you try to dry a pair of sneakers. There was a squealing, grinding sound, too. Dave walked back, squatted, and peered through its four paws extended, looked like one of those cats that you see stuck to the back of car windows. He opened the dryer door. The room was abruptly silent. He peered in. There was no sign of or sound from the ferret.

Uh-oh, thought Dave. He stuck his head in the dryer. Not a wise decision. The ferret burst through the door like a wolverine on steroids. All Dave saw was a blur of fur sailing by his face, and then absolutely nothing. He looked around. The ferret was gone. Everyone joined the search. They looked everywhere, but as far as they could see, the house was ferretless. There was a vacancy of ferrets, a ferret void. As far as ferrets were concerned, there was nothing, not, zero, goose egg, zilch, sweet Fanny Adams. The ferret was more than gone.

It was all gone. Don't worry, said Dave. I'm sure he'll come back. Not certain where Ralph would come back, Morley spent an hour the next morning taping ferret warnings around the house. Check for ferret, it said on the oven and the washing machine in the dryer. Ferret check, it said on the toaster oven and the microwave and the stereo.

By the end of the week, checking for the ferret had become an unconscious reflex. Before she turned on the oven, Morley would rattle the door, ferret, ferret, ferret. Morley was terrified that she might have to return Sam to school after the holidays with a dead ferret stuck under his arm, which, said Dave, would be a darn sight better than not finding the body. finding the body. Morley was the first to spot Ralph. She saw him on the weekend. Well, she didn't really see him. What she saw was a flash of fur in her peripheral vision. I'm pretty sure it was Ralph, she said. It was definitely fur. From that moment, their days were punctuated with glimpses of fur on the fly. They'd go into a room and turn on a light,

and they wouldn't as much see as they would sense the vanishing ball of fur. The ferret was moving through their house like a trout swimming up a stream. They saw flashes of him and the occasional ripple on the surface, but that was all. At night, they'd be lying in bed, and they'd'd hear scurry, scurry, scurry, smash. And they'd get up and they'd go downstairs and the Christmas tree would be swinging wildly back and forth. And there'd be an assortment of ornaments lying on the ground. Three mornings in a row, Morley came down and found someone had been digging in the pot of her eucalyptus tree.

The dirt flung all over the hall. The first time this happened, Arthur the dog saw her coming and began to back away, almost holding up his paws as if to say, It wasn't me. The week before Christmas, Dave had an idea. I have an idea, he said.

If I knew where it slept, I could get it. I was thinking I could track it to its den. You could track it to its den, said Marley. If it left tracks, said Dave. That night when everyone was in bed, Dave went downstairs and he took the flower sifter and he sprinkled icing sugar over the kitchen floor. It was such satisfying work that he did the hallway and the dining room too. And when he'd finished, the house looked pleasingly seasonal. As if there'd been a light dusting of snow. He slept fitfully, and he ran downstairs at 6.30 the next morning, and he opened the kitchen door full of hope,

and there, there was Arthur, licking the last bit of sugar off the floor. floor. Arthur looked at him, burped, took two unsteady steps, vomited, and fell over. That was the night that Morley said, I think the ferret is pregnant. It was suppertime. Dave stared at her blankly. I can just tell, said Morley. You can just tell, said Dave. Mothers know these things, said Morley. These things about a ferret, said Dave. I saw him yesterday. He's getting bigger. He took one of my oven mitts. I think he's making a nest. Sam, who had been listening with growing dismay, said,

Excuse me? Ralph can't have babies. Men can't have babies. It was more a question than a statement of fact. Can they? He said it in a small voice, his hand moving unconsciously towards his stomach. The next morning, Morley was cleaning Sam's bedroom and she came across a crumpled letter from his school. She took it downstairs and smoothed it out on the kitchen table. Thought you'd like to see this, she said to Dave.

There was a brochure attached to the letter. The brochure was called Caring for Your Ferret. Dave began on page three, finding a lost ferret. The first place to look for your lost ferret, said the brochure, is in places the ferret couldn't possibly go. They love little holes. Crawl around on your stomach and look for holes in the floor, under cabinets. It's living in our walls, said Dave. No way, said Morley. You aren't cutting any holes in the walls.

I wasn't even thinking of that, said Dave. He took the brochure into the living room and sat down. There was a paragraph called Missing Objects. Ferrets love to swipe things and drag them into the most inaccessible location possible. Protect your keys and wallet or you'll always be missing them. Hey, said Dave, maybe we've had a ferret for years. Maybe you have a ferret. It was like living with a poltergeist.

One night, Dave and Morley were watching the news on television when a plastic shopping bag humped its way quickly through the room. Another night, a creature with a body of fur and the head of a cardboard toilet paper tube careened by them, bouncing off the furniture and walls before it disappeared down the hall. You never knew what was going to happen next. Galway the cat began licking her paws neurotically. Arthur wouldn't stay in a room by himself. He whined incessantly if anyone tried to leave him home alone. And then it was quiet. No one saw Ralph in the days before Christmas.

I'm worried, said Sam at supper. On the morning of Christmas Eve, Dave went into the basement to prepare the turkey marinade. He'd got a new plastic garbage pail for the job. And he wrestled the turkey into the brine and he came upstairs glowing. This, he said, is going to be the best ever. After lunch, he went and picked up Morley's mother, Nancy. Nancy was going to spend Christmas with them. Nancy was waiting in the apartment lobby with her coat on and two bags of presents at her feet. She was wearing a hat with a net veil and a fur stole.

I found it in the attic when I moved, she said. Roy gave it to me for Christmas, the year we were married. When they got there, Dave hung the stole on the coat rack by the front door. After supper, he got the turkey out of the basement and brought it upstairs. He put it in the kitchen sink to drain. They had torch air for dinner, and after they finished it, everyone disappeared to their rooms to wrap presents. Nancy sat on the couch listening to carols with Arthur snuggled beside her.

As one by one, the family drifted downstairs to put their parcels under the tree. Dave was coming downstairs with the camera when something fell over in the kitchen. Dave, who was heading for the tree, changed directions. He flung the kitchen door open, and there was Ralph, the missing ferret, perched on the back of Dave's 22-pound marinated turkey. He had the drumstick in his mouth. He looked like a painting by Robert Bateman. Robert Bateman. The ferret stared at Dave, neither of them moved, and then the ferret burped. In his shock, Dave snapped a picture.

You're right, Morley will say in January when they get the film developed, it does look like a Bateman. But they won't get the film developed for weeks. On Christmas Eve when she came into the kitchen and Morley saw the gnawed carcass, it didn't look like art to her. It looked like another Christmas down the drain. She felt a wave of despair wash over her. Family gathered around the sink like they were gathering around a grave.

Sam was amazed. Look how much he ate, he said. Stephanie pushed Sam away from the sink. You can even see the wishbone, she added. Everyone turned and looked at Dave. His pride and joy, his carefully marinated delicacy was ruined. They expected an explosion. Nothing to worry about, said Dave with exaggerated calmness. I know where we can get a turkey.

On Christmas Day, said Morley. No, said Dave, tonight. It'll be frozen solid, said Morley. You can thaw turkey in no time if you know the right technique, said Dave. How does he know that, said Stephanie. I've lived a long life, said Dave. On Christmas morning, they didn't wake until 8 o'clock. I can't believe it, said Dave, sleeping in on Christmas. They actually had to wake Sam up.

They opened their stockings upstairs, and at a quarter of nine, they headed down the stairs in a line, with Morley in the lead, the kids following, Dave bringing up the rear. Morley was halfway down the stairs when she stopped unexpectedly. Uh-oh, she said. Sam bumped into Morley. Stephanie bumped into Sam. Dave bumped into Stephanie. Uh-oh, thought Dave. Dave couldn't see the living room, couldn't see Arthur and Ralph the ferret snuggled together at the base of the tree, Galway curled up not a foot away, couldn't see the nest of shredded Christmas paper between them and the trio of mewling ferret babies.

Four, said Morley, pointing to the baby everyone had missed, the ferret that had climbed onto Arthur's back and was lying there sucking gently on the dog's ear. It was maybe the best Christmas ever. Everyone so taken with the ferret babies that they had to keep reminding one another to open presents. The house filled with a sense of peace and great goodwill. Ralph was back, and clearly she was here to stay. Sam could return triumphantly to school with her and her brood. After dinner, they sat around the tree and sang carols and watched the baby ferret nuzzling Arthur. Ralph had disappeared, but no one seemed to mind, least of all Arthur. At 10 o'clock, Nancy said she had to go.

Dave was lying on the couch in a post-dinner stupor. He struggled to get up, but Nancy said, Don't get up, I've called a taxi. Dave watched from the couch as she kissed Sam goodbye. Now don't get ahead of me. He watched Nancy hug Morley. He watched her blow a kiss to Stephanie and get into her coat and hat and pick up her fur muffler off the coat rack and drop it around her neck.

Dave squinted at her and struggled to get up, but his body wouldn't respond. He tried to say something. He tried to say, That's not your fur muffler, Nancy. But no sound came out of his mouth. All he was able to do was lie on the couch and watch in horror as Nancy reached into her purse and brought out the large gold brooch she used to hold her stolen place. Good night.

Good night. Which is when the ferret sneezed. Or as far as Nancy was concerned, her fur stole sneezed. Nancy looked at her stole. Her stole was looking back at her. Nancy blinked. Her stole blinked back. She screamed and jumped in the air, and Ralph, who could see the brooch heading towards her belly, scrambled down Nancy's leg and ripped out of the room like a bat out of hell. She didn't come back at all that night. But there was only so much Arthur could do to supplicate the quartet of mewling ferret babies. Ralph sulked back to feed the kits the next day.

They were all happily ensconced in the cage in the basement. Dave took the lock off the door, and Ralph was free to come and go as she pleased. On the Tuesday morning after New Year's, Morley will drive Sam to school. The family of ferrets will travel in a cardboard box on the back seat. When they arrive, Sam will carry the box regally into his classroom. Morley will see him on his way, but by the time he's opening the box, she'll be sitting on the bench in front of the principal's office. When she's finally ushered in, Morley and Nancy Cassidy will have a heated discussion about ferret gestation periods. After they finish, Morley will make her way to Sam's

classroom, but she'll find the door closed and she will not knock. So she will not know what an impression Ralph and his three babies made on the grade six class. She'll go home and spend the rest of the morning at her desk, and only after lunch, when she goes upstairs to get a sweater, will she notice the sign on Sam's closed door. Do not enter. Top secret. This means you. So good. That part at the end with the pin, it gets me every time. Like I flinch every single time. That was Ferrets for Christmas. That's an old one from one of the very early Vinyl Cafe Christmas concerts. All right, that's it for today.

But we'll be back here next week with another festive Dave and Morley story, including one about a mysterious Christmas gift. Christmas gift. Because the book had arrived without a card or note or return address. Even the postmark was smudged. There was absolutely nothing to give any clue as to where or, more importantly, from whom the book had come. Could have come from anyone, from whom the book had come. Could have come from anyone, but there wasn't anyone ready to admit it. Morley, not wanting to let the gift go unacknowledged,

checked with everyone she could think of. She checked with all her family, and Dave's mother, Margaret in Cape Breton, and his sister Annie in Halifax, and cousin Dorothy in England, she asked each of them about the book, and a whole bunch of others, and no one seemed to know what she was talking about. Dave asked around too, or said he would, and he did think about doing that. and he did think about doing that.

But, well, when you thought about it, when you considered all of the people in his past who were capable of this sort of thing, of sending something off without a card or anything, either on purpose or more likely not, not on purpose, I mean, where were you going to start? Or more worryingly, where were you going to stop? So eventually they gave up.

And the book sat on the dining room table through the holidays. And it nagged at them every time they walked by it. Why them? And why that book? They took to calling it the mystery book, but that wasn't what it was really called. The book's title was The Encyclopedia of Forgotten Places.

That's next week on the pod. I hope you'll join us. Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe is part of the Apostrophe Podcast Network. The recording engineer is top secret Greg DeCloot. Theme music is by Danny Michelle and the show is produced by Louise Curtis, Greg DeCloot, and me, Jess Milton. Let's meet again next week. Until then, so long for now.