THE GHOST OF CHIRSTMAS PRESENT

He didn’t know how much later, but it was a goodly amount of time, he heard a bell strike two. “Now what,” he muttered, with untold forbearing.

“Come on up Cap!” the cheerful voice of a young girl said, echoing from the hallway above his room. “Know me better.”

“What the?” He said, his natural curiosity and obsessive protectiveness of his ship propelling him up the hatch and out the door. When he reached the hallway he was affronted by a host of wonderful smells, Turkey, cranberry sauce, Yams, green beans, Ham, Apple Pie, walnuts, ale, and more smells so sweet he couldn’t even name them all. And again the voice, which was very familiar and yet, he knew he’d never heard it before, called out “Come on in, Cap, and know me better!”

“Who,” Mal asked, steping causiously into the kitchen, which was magically filled with a feast of real food large enough to feed a goodly sized town. “Exactly are you?”

“Well, I’m the ghost a Christmas present!” The voice said cheerily from some location Mal couldn’t quite see. “Get it, it’s a pun!”

“Very clever,” Mal said, trying to sound like the girl’s voice alone didn’t warm his heart and make him want to laugh for sheer joy. “Where exactly are you?”

“Oh, I’m right here!” the voice said as a pretty young girl with a round face, brown eyes and brown hair adorned with silver Christmas tinsel popped her head out from behind the kitchen. She had oven mitts on and in her hands she was holding a tray of gingerbread cookies in all sorts of shapes. Mal knew, in his heart that this girl was Kaylee Frye, and he knew that he loved her dearly as a sister. But how he knew these things mystified, him, because he’d never meet the girl before. “Wanna cookie?”

“You don’ look like any ghost I’ve ever seen, nor heard tell of.”

“Well,” the girl said smiling at him broadly. “I’m a very special ghost.”

“Are you now, little specter?”

“Yes I am cap’in,” she said, bowing her head. “An’ yer gonna come with me and see all the great things you mi