The Twelve Little Cakes Read Online Free PDF Page B

long as possible and would sometimes overbake me by accident. My dad loved to pretend he was asleep. He would snore theatrically and make his arms very heavy, and I would have to yell and wriggle like a fish before he would wake up and let me out of the oven.
    â€œIs the Baby Jesus coming?” I asked excitedly.
    â€œOf course he is,” my mother replied. “He’ll be here this afternoon and he’ll bring the Christmas tree with him.”
    â€œWill we see him?”
    â€œWe’ll try,” my mother smiled. “He’s very shy, you know. But we’ll definitely hear him. He always rings a bell when he comes to visit.”
    In Czechoslovakia, Christmas is celebrated on December 24, which is when families eat a big dinner and open their presents in front of the tree. When I was growing up, the Christmas season began with the arrival of Saint Mikulas on the “Angels and Devils Night” of December 5, and would climax with the Baby Jesus visiting each house on December 24, bringing not only presents but the Christmas tree as well. During the day, children watched fairy tales on TV (fairy tales were the mainstay of the Czech film industry during communism, as they were politically harmless and a lot of fun to make), and then the family spent the late afternoon waiting for the Baby Jesus to arrive.
    The magical appearance of the Christmas tree was one of the things I loved most. My parents would get my sister to take me for a walk, and as we made our way around the village, I would see Christmas trees in all of the neighbors’ windows. The Baby Jesus was obviously in the area, so I would beg Klara to take me home in time to see him, but she would always be too slow and we would arrive at the house at the exact moment that he was ringing his bell to signal his departure. I would race through the house trying to find him, but of course he would be gone, and then I would see the tree for the first time: all decorated and surrounded by presents. Each year, the tree would turn up in a different place in the house, so a big part of the fun was checking each room to see if it was there.
    Waiting for the Baby Jesus was so exciting, it was hard to sit still for the fairy tales. I loved all the Czech fairy tales, especially The Terribly Sad Princess, Cinderella, and even the Russian classic, Grandfather Frost, but it was difficult to concentrate when every sound in the house made me think that the Baby Jesus might be sneaking in upstairs. My parents were in the kitchen and my sister was reading a book in the living room, and I was afraid that we might not hear the bell and he would come and go without us seeing him. Every time I heard a noise, I would run to the front door. After I had done this a few times, I decided to go up to the bathroom and say hello to Mr. Carp.
    I trotted up to the second floor and snuck into the bathroom, this time closing the door behind me. I walked over to the bath and stood up on my tiptoes.
    â€œHello, Mr. Carp!” I said.
    I peeked over the rim of the tub and discovered that the bath was empty. The water had been drained and I could hear the Nedbals laughing in the room next door. My eyes welled with tears and I ran downstairs to tell my parents.
    My mum and dad were standing in front of the kitchen counter, and I dashed into the room and stopped dead in my tracks. My father’s sleeves were rolled up and his hands were covered in blood, and the carp was lying on a sheet of newspaper with its head cut off and its belly slit open. Its bulging eyes stared blankly at the ceiling as my dad took a knife and started to scale its headless body. I thought that the Nedbals had stolen the fish, but I couldn’t imagine that my parents had killed it. I turned around and ran back upstairs, finding myself in front of my grandmother’s door. I pressed my cheek against it and started to cry.
    â€œGranny, are you there?” I sobbed.
    I knocked but nobody