Boomer's First White Christmas by Sharon Giltrow #StoryAdventCalendar

Boomer’s First White Christmas

By Sharon Giltrow

G’day!  My name’s Boomer and I am a grey kangaroo – one of only six living in the New York City zoo. We are part of the Australian Animal exhibition and we flew thousands of kilometres to get here on the flying kangaroo. No, not a real flying kangaroo – that’s what we Aussies call Qantas our Australian airline. We kangaroos can’t fly but boy can we bound.  You see this tail, and these back legs? They are strong and perfect for bounding, and that’s just what we do.

We bound from one tree to another, stopping for a nose wiggle and a nibble on some grass.  And can you believe it? – The people here love it. Some of them watch us for hours, and we don’t really do anything exciting. I feel bad for them; we really aren’t that interesting. I would be watching the penguins – those guys sure know how to entertain.

Anyway, I like it here in New York City. It’s exciting, always something happening, and they have these lovely trees. When we first arrived, the leaves were a deep green, and then they turned all shades of golden. Much more interesting than plain old gum trees like we have back home.

It is a little bit cold here, and it has been getting colder. The mob, that’s what we call ourselves, have been spending more time amongst the rocks and we’re all a bit sleepier; not our usual bounding, booming selves. 

And now all the leaves have fallen off. There’s piles of them everywhere. At first, it was fun. We would lay down and make leaf angels and jump right into the middle of the pile, but now it’s getting a bit eerie. None of the other animals seem to mind though, but come to think of it, I haven’t see old Reginald the Rhino out and about in a while, and, Barry the Bear, I haven’t seen him in days. And the ducks are gone – they just up and flew away a couple of days ago. On no! What’s happening? I’m starting to panic. It’s too quiet. 

Calm down, Boomer old mate. You’re a kangaroo of the world; it’s just different here. Wait! What’s that floating down? It looks like a butterfly. It’s so pretty and so white. Oh, it’s landing on me. Oh, its cold – it’s sticking to my fur. Oh, here comes some more. It’s so beautiful. What is it? I’ll ask Ma.  

“Ma, Ma come look at this. It’s some kind of white dust.”

“Oh darling, don’t you know what that is? It’s snow! It’s Christmas, and, in New York City, it snows at Christmas.”

“Really? Snow at Christmastime? Ma, I’m scared. What if we freeze?”

“Boomer, it will be okay. The people will look after us. Come on, Boomer, let’s go find somewhere warm.”

*****

This story is part of the 2014 Story Advent Calendar, with stories written by a variety of authors.