Read Online Don't Call Me Christina Kringle by Chris Grabenstein - Free Book Online

up and clicking his heels. “Over on the other side of town. Giuseppe’s Shoe Shop. The old man is a genius! An old-world craftsman!”
    â€œDo you think he could make my shoes look like that?” asked the woman behind him in line.
    â€œOf course! Because Giuseppe Lucci takes shoe leather and spins it into gold.”
    Now people were staring at him.
    â€œReally?” asked a man in very dowdy loafers.
    â€œIf you don’t believe me, go see for yourself! Here’s his address!” The man in the trench coat passed out the little cards he had printed up on his home computer.
    And so, word spread about Giuseppe Lucci, the world-class cobbler nobody had ever heard of before.

Twenty-four
    On Monday morning, Giuseppe was inside his shop with Mr. Bailey, the banker.
    The CLOSED sign still hung in the window. He had not switched on the electric Christmas extravaganza in the window. His weary eyes were riveted on the stuffed angel doll Mr. Bailey had just handed him.
    â€œWhy is this angel wearing a fireman’s hat?” he asked.
    â€œHe’s a fireman angel,” said the banker, trying to remember the spiel Ms. Dingler had spun about the angels dangling off her memory tree. “So your loved ones who are dead can still come home for the holidays.”
    â€œThis fireman angel,” said Giuseppe, turning the lacy doll around in his weathered hands, “… where is his halo? Underneath his fireman’s hat? I no see no halo. …”
    â€œMaybe he lost it in a fire! Maybe it melted. I don’t know. Frankly, I don’t care.” The banker snapped his briefcase shut. “Just give it to your granddaughter.”
    â€œChristina?”
    â€œYes. It’s a Christmas gift. From the shopkeeper next door.”
    â€œOh. Perhaps you should take it back. Christina no like Christmas no more.”
    â€œThen just stick in on that tree.”
    â€œOh, no. That is the shoe tree.”
    â€œSo? Put the angel up top.”
    Giuseppe shook his head. “No. The shoes, they are special.”
    â€œWhy? Because you run a shoe shop?”
    â€œThose bronzed booties, on the bottom?”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œThey were my son’s. When he was a baby.”
    â€œFascinating. Now then …”
    â€œMy son love Christmas. All his life. So do I.”
    â€œFine. Great. Whatever.” He tossed the angel on the counter so he could get down to business. “Now then, Mr. Giuseppe Lucci, you are hereby notified that you are delinquent and in default on your loan. If we do not receive payment in full by Wednesday of this week, that is in forty-eight hours, we will be forced to forthwith ask you to vacate these aforementioned premises.”
    â€œYou want I should go on vacation?”
    â€œNo!” said Mr. Bailey who wanted to pull out his hair. “I want you out of here!”
    He slapped the foreclosure papers down on top of the angel.
    The store bells jingled.
    â€œExcuse me,” said the lady entering the shop. “Can you do anything with these?” She held up a pair of high heels.
    A stockbroker burst through the door and shoved his way past the lady. He had his loafers off. A crowd of about a dozen others trailed him through the door. They were all holding up their shoes. Some carried pastry boxes.
    â€œWait a minute,” said the pushy broker. “I was here first.”
    â€œNo you were not,” protested the lady who had come into the store before him. “I was here before you.”
    â€œDoesn’t matter. I had the idea first!”
    â€œNo you did not! I did!”
    â€œCan it, sister,” said the broker. “Old man, I will pay you one thousand dollars to fix my shoes like you fixed that other guy’s!”
    â€œI’ll pay you eleven hundred!” countered the lady.
    â€œI’ve got twelve hundred,” shouted someone else.
    Now there were about twenty people jammed into the