He was huge and warm and kind and WHAT??? What did he say? Had Teresa heard right?
“What kind of dolly would you like for Christmas, Teresa?” Santa repeated the question. “A cuddly baby doll or maybe a Barbie? You choose and I’ll see what I can do. Your Mum and Dad say you’ve been very good this year so I think you’ll be delighted on Christmas morning.”
Not if you bring me a poxy doll thought Teresa. She stared unblinking at the smiling, patronising person before her. A Doll! He was supposed to be all knowing (or was that the Pope?) Anyway he was supposed to know what each child wanted for Christmas all round the world. well, he certainly had gotten her wrong. She did not want a plastic replica of a human being unless it had Great Expectations written down its arms and Tom Sawyer displayed on its back. She felt the rise of righteous anger growing in her tummy, struggling to explode from her mouth.
“Teresa,” her Mother whispered, “Santa is talking to you. Don’t be rude. Answer him.”
But the child couldn’t She  just stretched out her hand for the dreaded present because she knew without a shadow of a doubt what it contained. Some kind of synthetic figure with staring eyes and movable limbs.
“Thank you, Santa,” was all she could manage, clenching her teeth to prevent the escape of the words she would like to say. Disappointment deep in her soul, Teresa watched as her brother sat on Santa’s knee, listened to his greedy, childish ramblings and felt her heart break as Josh was handed a flat, book-shaped parcel. She knew it was a book. Her avid readers intuition decreed it so. Josh was five! He couldn’t read yet! She knew what would happen to the precious pages. Crayoned, pencilled, torn, tossed aside like used wrapping. She could weep. She did weep.
“Teresa,” scolded her Mother, ” don’t be so ungrateful. Open your present now.”
And so she did. A Doll! A bride doll, for goodness sake! Complete with big blue eyes, golden hair and frothy wedding dress. Yeuch!
Her brother had already opened his the second he got it. No thank you for Santa, just an impatient ripping and tearing of paper,a glance at the contents which was then thrown to the ground. Teresa reached down for the precious pages, it was a pop up book of Gullivers Travels. Oh how Teresa would love to step into those pages, lose herself in the words. emerge excited and elated, full of the hero’s adventures. She would place herself in his shoes as she turned the pages, transportation to a different world, a different era, acting out her fantasies through the joy of reading.
The weight of it felt good in her arms but it was snatched away from her as her brother waved it about yelling, ” I wanted a truck. A big red truck. That’s a stupid Santa.”
” Santa will bring you a red truck for Christmas.” His Mother soothed him.
Why did she do that Teresa wondered. If that had been her she would have nbeen grounded and her present confiscated. She was treated so differently. It hurt sometimes. Was it because he was younger? Teresa didn’t think so. She didn’t really want to think of the other reason. Was she loved less? He sulked for a while but retained hold of his book as they sat down to the lovely meal their parents had treated them to. The lump in Teresa’s throat prevented her from enjoying any of it. It tasted like cardboard and she had trouble swallowing. She was relieved when they left the café.
Their bus for home arrived on time and everyone trooped aboard, finding seats near each other. Teresa sat facing Josh, a witness to his slow destruction of his Santa gift. Corners ripped, figures torn. She had to do something and fast.
“Josh, would you like to hold my dolly.”
“No.”
“You can comb her hair.”
“No.”
How about I turn her into GI Joe with new trousers and shirt.” Teresa really had no idea how she was going to do that.
“N-n-n, what?”
“yeah, get rid of the dress, cut her hair, make her into a real wee soldier.”
Teresa’s fingers were crossed so tightly she might have trouble getting them uncrossed again. Please, oh, please.
“You help me, Teresa?”
“Of course I will. Here you hold her and I’ll just take that big heavy book of you.”
“Alright. I don’t like it anyway. Can’t read the words and the pictures keep popping up. I can’t get them down again. Look.”
And to Teresa’s horror attempted to flatten the pop up with a hefty smack which resulted in a torn figure.
“Okay, okay, Josh, don’t worry. Just hand it over and I’ll fix it.”
Slowly Josh proferred the book, Teresa’s heart skipped a bit as he hesitated.
“Soldier, Josh, brave soldier, to go with your other ones.”
The book slipped silently into Teresa’s waiting arms as if it belonged there. She held it tightly close to her chest and smiled, a contented smile, drowning in the knowledge that it was now hers and she could read it as many times as she liked.
Happiness hot from the pressing fingers of her little brother. But fate is fickle. As years later Josh becomes the writer and the journalist and Teresa nursed her babies, none of which were plastic and none of which became soldiers, heroes yes!