A Christmas Catastrophe - a story by Charlotte Asselin-Meisel

A Christmas Catastrophe Charlotte Asselin-Meisel

Fun Editorial

A CHRISTMAS CATASTROPHE

Preface As part of our creative writing class, we were assigned to write a Choose Your Own Adventure novel.

This was a first for many of us, at least for me it was.

Yet the aim of this class was to help us experiment with the English language and write freely without being constrained by too many rules. This project started out as one we would finish as a whole class. However, like most things in life, there were some quirks in the piecing together of one common story. We only had bits and pieces of a story, without having a common goal we were heading toward, which would explain the diversity in plotlines that didn’t necessarily go together. As a result, I could not wrap my head around how we would arrive at an ending if the reader would have to go back and forth between chapters. It just did not make sense to me.

Nevertheless, I still wanted to try writing an interactive story. So, I started over, using what we had already done and finding my ending first, so as to always know where the character was heading. I also developed the personality traits of the “You-character”.

In this case I really wanted to play on the seasonal aspect of the storyline.

It was very enriching to create something that we do not typically do in classrooms. Yet, I also could not see myself I

A CHRISTMAS CATASTROPHE

myself only taking what I had written, and wanted to include the creativity of my fellow students. I had fun reading and taking parts of other people’s stories that fit in with mine, although it was a struggle at first to have everything meld together and to find what went with the following adventure. Not losing hope, I mixed and matched some paragraphs, sometimes even just bits and pieces of sentences from my classmates’ texts.

I believe the results of these efforts were festively fruitful, made even better by the challenges I faced.

Moreover, being able to offer the choice to the reader was something I had never done before and demanded a lot of planning. However, all of these stages that went into the shaping of this story make for a very creative novel, as the reader will see!

So, it was with a sprinkle of work, a pinch of correcting of what was initially written, and a dash of Christmas cheer that I pieced together the adventure taking the character throughout the beautiful town of Mulhouse. I hope the reader will enjoy reading it!

II

Not again!

You’re flying over the town of Mulhouse ahead of your yearly trip to scope out the new itineraries.

You’re busy savoring your last chocolate chip cookie.

Before you know it, the reindeer veer left and you’re caught off balance! You catch yourself in time but you let go of the sleigh’s key in order to do so. It was either that or the cookie!

Will you find the key in time for Christmas?

Everyone is counting on you.

A CHRISTMAS CATASTROPHE

A CHRISTMAS CATASTROPHE

While you were flying over the town of Mulhouse, you dropped the keys that control the sleigh. Thanks to your trusted drivers’ quick reflexes, you manage to land swiftly and safely away from the eye of the public, but you find yourself in a neighboring town. You have nothing on you to help you out of your predicament.

So, you are going to have to get creative! Luckily, you have some experience getting in and out of places stealthily.

You enter a house nearby.

Everyone has left the house. You are all alone. You quickly run up the stairs to get to the girl’s room. So far, so good, you know where to go. However, you get to the door, and you’re confused. There are two beds, two closets and in the middle separating the two sides, straight across from the door, a window. You did not know that she shared a room. You see two beds, symmetrically identical in everything but color and objects. Which one is the right one? Think, think, think.

Still standing in the doorway, you ponder and try to look for clues that would indicate which side of the room in which you need to look. You see on top of the right-side bed a big green A on the wall. That’s not her initial, so you turn to the left side. It’s a small room but there is so much clutter, you don’t even know where to begin. The bed has a wrap-around shelf full of books, pictures, jewelry, knick-knacks - even chocolate! What you need could be anywhere at this point. Oh man, you did not imagine that it would be this tricky. You take a deep breath. You open the closet at the foot of the bed.

You don’t see anything but clothes in it, so you move

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move on. Suddenly, you feel dizzy. Maybe running up those stairs was not the best idea. After all, you are not in that good of shape. You collapse onto the bed and that’s when you see it: the ceiling. It’s covered in clouds. Not real clouds, mind you, but painted ones, like in a nursery, and each of them has a different shape. You let your imagination run wild, without even noticing that you are now smiling and that your head no longer seems to be a problem. You can distinguish a rabbit - or is it a reindeer? If you turn your head the right way you see an angel, what looks like a hen sitting on a haystack, maybe even a heart, and wait… is that Mickey Mouse’s head? Focus! Don’t let yourself get distracted. You are on a mission.

You sit up. Everywhere you look there are books, but they are not ordered. Nothing here can help you and it would only be another waste of time, which you cannot afford. Your eyes dart here and there and then you find something interesting: a necklace is hanging in the air! You take a chair and take the necklace in your hands. It’s a compass. This might be what you were looking for to help you find the key.

If you are satisfied with your object, turn to page 7.

If you want to search another house, turn to page 10.

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A CHRISTMAS CATASTROPHE

The gallery is quite empty, you think to yourself. Just to make sure, you want to look at everything: every painting hanging on the wall, every room, every object displayed under glass. You really don’t see how this is going to help you find your key. Nevertheless, nothing can keep you down, even though the situation is looking rather desperate. You go around to the back rooms. It really is a maze! You turn so many corners trying to explore everything but dead ends keep appearing in front of you. You stop, lean against the wall and put your hand on it, almost falling onto the concrete floor as the wall opens into a door. You notice a keypad keeping the door shut... odd! This cannot be a coincidence. It must be Christmas magic. You figure you might as well try something out to access whatever is behind this mysterious door. So, you type in “1225”.

Bingo! That was lucky. You slowly push the door open, revealing a huge portal. It was somehow hidden in the wall the whole time. You are too scared to step into it, but too curious to turn back. Choosing curiosity, you reach your gloved hand into the portal, barely touching it to see if anything dangerous will happen.

Before you can even step back to see if your hand is intact, you are drawn into the mysterious swirls. You scream a loud “Ho”, but no one can really hear you.

Suddenly, you land.

If the portal leads you to a bedroom, turn to page 10.

If the portal leads you to the Christmas market, turn to page 5.

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The Mulhouse Christmas market is like a gem hidden in the center of town, protected by the sky-high buildings. But the day is slowly beginning to fade, and you still haven’t found the key you need to get back to the sleigh. Time is running out. At least you followed your instincts up to here (or so you think), so you might as well keep on looking. Oh, the smell of spices and Christmas cheer! You had almost forgotten what it felt like to have your lungs filled with crisp cold air and the scent of mulled wine. That is really the best part of your job: the wonderful scents, which all bring a wide smile to your face.

You decide to wander up and down the aisles between the cabins, still searching for a clue, but the smells are really starting to distract you. Your stomach is crying out to you, reminding you that you have not eaten in almost three hours now, ever since this whole adventure started. For once, the market is not too crowded and anyway, you blend in with the decor here.

You walk up to the sauerkraut and spaetzle stand for your portion of Alsatian Christmas specialties - yum!

Maybe you can kill two birds with one stone and ask the man serving you if he has seen anything that could help you find the key you lost. “No”, he answers with a chuckle, “but that reminds me of my grandma who was always misplacing her belongings. Do you know, she could not go two minutes without losing her glasses?”

You don’t think he was taking your problem seriously, and really, you can’t blame him. It does sound quite far-fetched. After a long conversation where you end up reminiscing about your wife and the laughs you had with your family when you used to go ice skating, you depart 5

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depart the stand without much useful information. You do, however, have a new friend.

If you decide to keep searching the Christmas market, turn to page 20.

If you decide to go to the skating rink, turn to page 8.

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You step out of the tramway at the top of the hill and arrive on the campus. You want to find the library, the place of knowledge and home to books and computers (but mostly books). You are not entirely sure of the accuracy of your thoughts, since you’ve been awake and traveling for a really long time now but you don’t have much else to go on. So, you set off; you cross through the parking lots, walking towards the buildings until you get on the main path. You walk all the way down until you see the bubble shaped building on your right.

Today, the atmosphere is gloomy, moody and you wish you had stayed home so you could sit by the fire with a cup of cocoa and your favorite cookies, but you did not. Never mind, there is still something quite soothing about going to a library on a rainy day. The hall of the Learning Center, which is very bright, almost looks like a hospital. You try to walk in, but the door is closed. Just your luck, you apparently need a key card to get in.

If you decide to go to the second university campus instead, turn to page 13.

If you decide to wait for someone to come and open the door, turn to page 18.

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With the help a few friendly passersby giving you directions, you mosey on down to the skating rink, braving the cold winter wind. One thing is for certain: you are not used to doing this much exercise in one day! Once in the locker room, you lace up your skates, wobble carefully to the ice, avoiding some giggling children on your way, and prepare yourself mentally to glide like a swan on a frozen lake. It is somewhat unbelievable that you live in a Winter Wonderland every day of the year and yet have never laced up a pair of skates before.

You are a little uneasy and very much unsteady at first, looking more like a turkey than a swan. With it being so close to Christmas, there are so many families and couples out on the ice enjoying a seasonable activity. Meanwhile, you are struggling and the crowd around you is not helping you. You shift your weight from one side to the other, gradually moving forward in a not-so-graceful way but moving, nonetheless.

“This day is actually very pleasant, minus the key being lost,” you think to yourself “… wait the key!” You had completely lost sight of your mission. Taken by sudden panic, you try to cut through the wall of people spinning around you when suddenly, out of nowhere, comes a little boy with a plastic helmet on his head, zipping past everyone. Before you know it, your legs collapse, your bottom hits the ice, and you slide several feet until the wall brings you to a smashing halt. Ouch.

The next thing you know, you are sitting in a big red chair. The people have all gone and it is now warm and calm. You hear a fire crackling in the corner. You are home.

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home. How? Was this all a dream? You look down at your foot. It is in a cast. You guess not, thinking you must have broken it at that skating rink. But then, how did you get home? Your trusted elf comes in at that moment. “Ah you’re awake!” he says with a relieved face. “You shouldn’t have gone around Mulhouse like that you know, especially around this time of year. We got news of you losing the key. Luckily, Buddy had a tracker installed in it after what happened last year. But when we got to Mulhouse to bring you back, you had been your jolly old self and broke your foot while ice skating. You should have made better choices. Now you can’t deliver presents.”

You failed your mission.

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You’re in front of a plain white door, with a silvercolored door handle, you don’t know what is behind the door, you never typically go in bedrooms. You don’t even know what you are searching for. All you know is that something can help you find the key in this room. You finally muster up the courage to open the door and are instantly discouraged. You don’t know where anything could be and everything is so white and plain. Even the walls are a dull color. Maybe she has just recently taken some paintings or posters down, which would explain how the paint got torn off. “It shouldn’t be hard to find the answer,” you say to yourself.

In the left corner of her room, next to the door, is her desk with a big mirror placed on it. It looks like a modern vanity, but it isn’t too fancy. Next to it is her bed. It’s a big white bed that seems quite comfortable with a big pink blanket, oversized pillows and, of course, her teddy bear. It strikes you that she might have something hidden in her teddy bear, so no one would notice. You approach her bed to grab the teddy bear and search for a hidden zipper. There’s nothing there. You continue your search, going through her closet, which is in front of the bed. As you open it, a fresh smell permeates the room, and then you discover her clothes. Once again, there doesn’t seem to be anything useful. So you back up, closing the closet as you move, when suddenly your cookie-loving hips bump into her desk. You hit it so hard that the mirror placed on it falls over and breaks. You start writing a letter to apologize for the mess you’ve made. As you bend down to put your note on the broken mirror you notice 10

A CHRISTMAS CATASTROPHE

notice something weird. On the back of the mirror, more precisely in the upper left corner, there is a different shade of white. It is as if a piece of paper was glued on top of something to cover it. You try tearing the piece of paper off and discover a mysterious map.

If the map takes you to the skating rink, turn to page 19.

If you want to feed the reindeer, turn to page 17.

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This is a dead end. You have been deceived. The flying penguin was in fact just a rubber tire wrapped in a crimson scraf being hurled around by a bunch of teenage boys.

Their names will most likely be on your second list this year...

Turn to page 15.

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As you leave the library, you surprisingly have a spring in your step so you decide to walk to your next location instead of taking public transportation. You want to feel that nice breeze on your face hoping it will help your brain be more active. Arriving in front of the campus building, you expect the inside to be like the outside, quite small and condensed. You walk in through the sliding doors and pass another set of sliding doors and realize that the inside looks more like tunnels aboard a spacecraft straight out of a Star Wars movie. And you would know, you’ve seen so many of those toys in the workshop. Anyways, you see a sign for the Kunsthalle, but are confused because in Mulhouse apparently, they’ve decided to put a museum inside a university building. In your pocket, you feel the compass that you previously found, and you pull it out, hoping that it will help you. However, looking more closely, you see that the sign “Kunsthalle” has an arrow pointing up and you don’t need your compass after all.

Quickly you begin your ascent up the flight of stairs.

You arrive at the top, partially out of breath, and meet a woman in a blue dress: she will help you. “Excuse me ma’am, have you seen a key, by any chance? It fell from the sky some time this morning and I’m in a terrible pickle if I don’t find it soon,” you say with your usual cheerful gaze. “I do not speak English,” she replies with a strong French accent, followed by two words: “Omar Ba.” The woman points to her right. You let her lead you into this huge empty-looking room with cement floors and white walls. There is a stack of sandbags covering the entirety of the back wall. You have never seen any artwork like it before. You take a few steps closer 13

A CHRISTMAS CATASTROPHE

few steps closer and notice that there are three giant people subtly outlined on the bags: men in the middle and on the right, and a woman on the left. She is the only one not looking to the center but looking out the window instead. You grab your compass and hold it out in front of you. “Follow her gaze,” you think to yourself. You watch the little red hand spin and stop; it’s pointing north to the center of town. It’s possible that the magic of the key is attracting everything to it.

It’s either that or you’re getting everything wrong.

If you decide to keep looking a bit longer, turn to page 4.

If you decide to go to the center of town , turn to page 5.

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A whole day has almost gone by, and you’ve almost seen the whole town without finding the key. However, you haven’t been downtown yet. So, you are excited.

Christmas markets have always been your favorite places. For this trip, you take the tramway that drops you off right in front of the mall. You walk down the lit-up main street, taking in the joy on the faces of all of the pedestrians. Pulling out your magical map, you notice that the lights appear on it and are twinkling.

You also see the outline of the little wooden huts and you know that’s where you want to go. You pass a snack shack and the Nativity scene at the foot of a gigantic Christmas tree. Music is playing in the background, a children size, toylike train filled with tourists enjoying the ride chugs past you. And there it is: the main square with its lights, the magical garden, the quaint cabins, the colorfully illuminated church. It is breathtaking!

You notice that on your map the square got bigger, as if someone had zoomed in on it. You can see every person, every animal, every object down to the last detail - everything. “Wait a minute!” you exclaim.

“That means that if the key is here, it can be found on this wonderful map.” You start scanning the map, holding it up so close to your face and squinting, because your eyesight is just not what it used to be.

Compared to other Christmas markets, the one in Mulhouse is not very big but when you are looking for an object that is as small as a peanut, it is quite massive.

It is like looking for a needle in a haystack. At this point, you are just hoping that the key did not land on a roof or somewhere that you need to climb. You pray that this is not the case. You keep scanning every street on 15

A CHRISTMAS CATASTROPHE

on the map. You see people walking, some pigeons picking at chestnut shells on the ground, and in the corner of your map, you can follow the little train going down a side street. A practically unnoticeable golden glowing dot is moving along with the train.

Could it be? It must be! Without thinking a second longer, you bolt in the direction of the moving train.

You should be able to cut it off before it enters the square again. You make it to the street corner just in time to stop the train.

Conveniently, the way you are dressed have the tourists thinking that this stop is part of the entertainment. You prayed for the key not to be up high. While it actually is, your prayers were answered in a way because, luckily, no climbing is required to reach this roof. In the blink of an eye, you firmly have the key in your hand. You found it, and you had fun doing so.

Despite the day starting out auspiciously, in the end, you had a good time. You never really get the opportunity to visit towns around Christmas time. So, maybe it was a good thing that you lost the key to the sleigh. You should think about doing it more often.

THE END

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You pull a bag of carrots out of your hat, because that is where you keep your carrots. Dasher, Dancer, Pranzer, Vixon, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen all welcome you with wide nostrils and a grin. Rudolph is the happiest of them all. He’s so happy that his nose starts glowing, so much so that he looks like your Chrsitmas morning alarm clock.

You feed them one by one, stroking their muzzles.

CHOMP, CHOMP, CHOMP ...

Anyways, you continue your mission.

Turn to page 19.

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You hadn’t noticed how freezing it had become outside because your brain was working so hard, but your limbs were definitely starting to feel the stiffness.

With the bright lights shining through those two doors, and the television screens flickering with announcements, time seems to have lost its grip on you for a second. Finally, you see a middle-aged man walking towards the building. He kindly opens the door for you. To be honest, you don’t actually know why you are here. The library was just the first place that popped into your head. But you haven’t even used the compass you found yet.

Anyways, you make your way to the fiction section.

You scan through the bookshelves, looking for something, anything, to help. A book on the middle shelf catches your attention. It is an unusual shape: sort of more square-like than the typical rectangular shape of a book and it is rather small. It’s a novel by Margaret Atwood called Bones and Murder. “That’s disconcerting”, you think to yourself. You sincerely hope that this is not where your adventure will lead you. You didn’t sign up for this. Something feels off. You open the book. You flip through the pages a couple of times before noticing a piece of paper inside the pages. You take it out and realize that it’s not just some piece of paper: it is a ticket for the Olympic skating rink right down the street.

If you go to the skating rink, turn to page 8.

If you think you need a new object, turn to page 10.

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Delighted with your findings, you follow the map, which is telling you to move towards the skating rink. It glows and plays a sweet Christmas tune with every step you take in the right direction. One thing is for certain: it is a lot faster traveling through the sky than it is on solid ground. After a long melodious walk, you finally arrive in front of the Olympic skating rink. You take a deep breath and let out a sigh of relief. You can’t wait to fix your mess, find that silly key, and get back to your elves!

In the locker room, you lace up your skates, wobble carefully to the ice, avoiding some giggling children, and prepare yourself mentally to glide like a swan on a frozen lake. It is somewhat unbelievable that you live in a Winter Wonderland every day of the year and yet have never laced up a pair of skates before. You are a little uneasy and very much unsteady at first. Luckily, on the ice you find a plastic penguin that you lean on to help you skate upright. In no time, you are zooming past couples, spinning around in circles.

After a good half hour (time flies when you are having fun), you need a break! So you exit the ice and take a seat on the benches. That’s when you see it: right in front of you is a huge sign for the Mulhouse Christmas market, and you’re in luck: it starts today!

Suddenly you hear someone shout: “Hey! There’s a flying penguin outside! Come and see!”

If you want to see a flying penguin, turn to page 12.

If you choose to go to the market, turn to page 15.

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You wander aimlessly, you have no idea where you are going. Every street looks the same, the arrow in your compass has stopped turning. It most likely is broken. You are lost in Mulhouse.

You must go to the skating rink.

Turn to page 8.

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Index Text 7.................................................................................page 2 Text 4B..............................................................................page 4 Text 2C..............................................................................page 7 Text 5...............................................................................page 10

Some modifications were made to these texts so that they would fit the common narrative of the novel. Only 3 sentences of text 7 were used and incorporated into the chapter on page 2.

21

Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good night!