During the mid/late 70s, it was fairly common to share bedroom with you sibling, and I had to share a room with my sister. We had this cool bunk bed and you needed a ladder to get up top and the contraption almost reached the ceiling. As I remember, the bed was somewhat wobbly, so we always pretended it was stormy when I had to crawl into bed. I could barely reach the curtains to glance out at the snow covered landscape. Magic.
The snow had started to fall early in the morning, and by the time I woke up, a thin layer of snow was covering the grass. I love snow. You can see all the animals prints and the trees looks like they've grown a beard. My dad has always told me that when snow sticks to the ground, not melting, then winter is really here and it'll be really cold outside. But, I don't mind at all, as I just put on extra clothes.
So, I jumped up, knocking my head on the ceiling (again) and glided down the ladder. The wood used for the bed was covered with a varnish, so it made a screeching noise when bare skin rubs against and can make you skin burn if you slide fast down the ladder - which I did every morning. As a result, my hands a feet were use to the burning sensation and had developed hardened skin in strategic gliding areas.
Fast as a squirrel, I rammed my feet into my warm sheepskin slippers (standard kid wardrobe in Denmark) and legged into the living room. My dad had already put a fire, and was reading the newspaper in his armchair. It's amazing how he resembles Budha - except my dad had hair, was wearing jeans, white tank top a furry slippers like me, but he had the same belly.
I was so excited about the snow that I had completely forgotten about the Christmas calendar that my mum made every year, which is one small present every day until Christmas. I just stood there, hands on the window and starred at the snow, making large patches of mist on the window from my nostrils.
The landscape had transformed into this cotton filled scenary, with all kinds of animals prints. Starring long enough at the prints, i noticed an odd pair of animal prints in the snow. They didn't look like a bird, cat or other familiar animal prints, but rather like like shoe prints. Weird. I kneeled down to get a closer look, but couldn't a clear view.
Fast as a turtle, I ran to my room and got dressed. Thankfully it was Saturday, so no school. 45 minutes later, I was dressed to take on the coldest artic weather, thanks to my mu, who insisted that I wore the latest snow gear. Funnily enough, I could hardly walk and had difficulties keeping my balance, but made it to the garden where I had spooted the prints.
Again, I kneeled down to get a closer look. Thinking ahead, I had brought my magnifier glass, and aimed it at the prints. My lower jam dropped, as I realised they were actually footprints. It was so clear. Somebody had to see this, so I hobbled back to the backdoor and screamed for my dad to come out. He obviously refused, so I had to persuade my sister. She finally came outside.
Both of us knelt down in the snow, her with the magnifier glass. A few seconds went by and suddenly I was covered in snow. My sister had stod up and was kicking snow in my face. The prints were no longer there and she was really pissed that I had dragged her into the snow, forcing her to stare at the snow through the magnifying glass.
This was strange. Who had made those prints and who had removed them? It could only mean one thing, a new case for the coolest kid spy in our street.
I didn't get much of chance to invesitage this any further that Saturday, as my parents had made arrangements to go visit the grandparents. Those visits would often take most of the day and evening, and with the snow in the streets, the driving conditions would slow us down further.
When we finally arrived back to the house, late in the evening, it was too dark to go out and I had to go to bed. Lying in bed, I swore I could hear somebody rumbling in the attic - the scary bit was, we didn't have an attic, so it had to be a mouse or something small making the noise from within the ceiling.
Christmas village