About two thousand years ago, In a far far away land, lived a boy.
It was Bevin's twelfth Christmas, a hot summers day and he had just received the mother of all presents, the one present that could change Christmas forever, the one thing that he had always wanted, a brand new mountain bike. It had gears and it was red, with off road tyres, no bells, no streamers, just a pure off-road stunt machine. It was to be his trusty steed, his trusty off road stead with twin shock gas compression suspension.
So all christmas morning Bevin spent either riding up and down the driveway or making ramps and planning stunts. Until his Uncle Dave and boring cousin Stacy arrived to ruin the day. He was told he wasn't allowed to ride his bike and he had to hang out with Stacy.
After lunch Bevin and his brother Kevin were chasing Stacy around the house with high pressure water pistols, when she went missing. They split up, she was pretty crafty.
Bevin went behind the house and he found Stacy standing behind a big gum tree holding a bunch of white helium balloons. She said they just fell from the sky and hit her in the head, but to be honest, that sounded a bit far fetched. I mean, seriously they could have fallen anywhere and they hit her in the head. Bevin knew that that was a very unlikely scenario, in all his twelve years he had learnt that everything: frisbees, kites, arrows, basketballs… everything always ended up on the roof of the house, it was like a giant magnet. And here was his cousin Stacy trying to tell him that these balloons hit her in the head. Well, it must have been some sort of Christmas miracle.
And there was something attached to the balloons, wrapped in white cloth, and it was wriggling.
It was some sort of delivery sent from above.
Attached to one of the balloons was a message.
Fragile, property of M & J, Bethlehem.
Well, there was a Bethlehem Street in Tarrabunga. Tarrabunga was the town where Bevin went to school, he knew the Street, it was the one with the squash court. But there was no number or actual address on the note. And as soon as he had read it, it slipped from Stacy's hand and floated off into the sky.
Bevin looked down at the wriggling white cloth, whatever it was it was important, and probably worth a lot of money. And he thought that there might be some sort of reward.
But It was a pretty strange way to have something delivered. I mean, It was a bit hit and miss relying on the weather and the wind patterns and then not having the exact address.
It's like whoever wanted this delivered was expecting some sort of Christmas miracle. And it had fallen into the right hands. I mean, this was the perfect mission. Stacy and Bevin were meant for this mission. It was their destiny.
Bevin went to the shed and grabbed his brand new trusty off road stead. And he tried to take the package from his cousin to deliver it himself, but she punched me in the nose and said, that she'd found it and that it was her responsibility to deliver it. So she jumped onto the handlebars of his new bike and she asked him to give her a ride. Well, it was a pretty long way to carry someone. I mean, Tarrabunga was at least 6 kilometres away, and that's a long way for a twelve year old. It was to be a journey of epic proportions.
On the way Bevin got quite frustrated with Stacy, it was quite a tense journey actually, she kept referring to his steed as a donkey, it was very irritating.
Up steep hills, down dusty dirt roads lined with grasshoppers and into town, the hustle bustle of Tarrabunga.
They made it. Bethlehem Street was hectic, full of christmas celebrations that spilt out onto the street. There where games of cricket in the street, bbq's on front lawns, kids running everywhere. Kites flying. It was very busy.
They went up to one house and a group of kids launched a full scale attack of water bombs at them. Stacy and Bevin dodged and weaved until they made it to the front door. Bevin knocked and a stern looking old man opened the door.
Stacy held the white cloth package out towards him. And he quickly said,
"What ever it is you're selling I'm not interested, we're trying to celebrate Christmas, we don't need you lot coming around interrupting our day."
And he slammed the door in their faces.
Back through the front gate, to the house next door.
At the next house Bevin knocked on the door… no answer… Stacy knocked… no answer… Bevin lifted his hand to try one more time and all of a sudden the door went soft, he looked up and realised that he'd just knocked on a very short lady's face.
Bevin apologised profusely and Stacy giggled. They held out the package and Stacy said
"Can you help us? we're trying to deliver this very important package, but we're not sure where to take it."
The very short lady interrupted her saying
"No I can't help you, we have enough stuff here already. You really have some nerve, you come to my house on christmas day, punch me in the face as I open the door and expect me to help you."
Bevin protested, "It was an accident, it's just that you have a low face, it's not my fault that your face is at knocking height…"
At that she slammed the door .
They turned around quickly and scurried over to the gate and slammed it behind them.
Feeling a little depress, Bevin thought that maybe they should give up put the wriggling package in the bin and go home, and just try to forget about the whole thing. But Stacy was really keen on the reward, and she convinced him to have one more try.
So they tried one more house. They stood outside, looking into the front window from the street. It was clearly some sort of fancy dress Christmas party, and everyone seemed to be having a good time. They knocked on the door and a kind man dressed as an Inn keeper answered the door. Stacy held out the package and said
"We're not trying to sell anything, we're just trying to deliver this miracle package. Does this belong to anyone here?"
"Well..." the kind Inn keeper said,
"...I'm afraid it's very busy here…"
As soon as they stepped inside, there was another knock at the door and three more guest arrive. It was a bit of an embarrassing situation, they had all dressed in the same costumes, with beards and robes and it seem they'd not actually been invited.
They where all following @brightstar on twitter who had lead them to the Facebook event. The Inn keeper said, "well, we didn't actually expected everyone who clicked attending to show up".
The three (internet savvy) men dressed up in robes and beards, each offered very expensive gifts, and they were let into the party.
Stacy and Bevin made their way through the party it was very noisy and they couldn't really speak to anyone. They were told they should probably head to the back shed where it was quieter and they could actually talk to people.
Stacy and Bevin made their way out to the shed, it was filled with guests dressed as animals.
All of a sudden, a whole bunch of sheep jumped over the back fence, followed by a lot of confused local farmers. The sheep stopped in the back yard beside an old trampoline. And Bevin heard the farmers saying that they were told to come to 31 Bethlehem Street by a message tied to a helium balloon.
"that was the same as us, Stacy got hit in the head by a helium balloon. And it told us to bring this package here, but at least you got an actual address, we were just told bethlehem"
Then Stacy held up the wriggling white cloth package and said
"Does this belong to anyone"
and at that moment, the music stopped and everyone dropped to their knees.
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| Better come up with a good story |
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