The Equestrian Polar Express
On Hearth's Warming Eve, many years ago, I lay quietly in my bed. I did not rustle the sheets. I breathed slowly and silently. I was listening for a sound - a sound a friend had told me I would never hear - the ringing bell of Santa's sleigh.
"There is no Santa," my friend had insisted, but I knew she was wrong.
Late that night I did hear sounds, though not of ringing bells. From outside came the sounds of hissing steam and squeaking metal. I looked through my window and saw a train, standing perfectly still in front of my house.
It was wrapped in an apron of steam. Snowflakes feel lightly around it. A grey unicorn conductor, with black hair, yellow eyes and a hole puncher cutie mark, stood at the open door of one of the cars. He levitated out a large pocket watch from his vest and then looked up at my window. I quickly slipped on my vest and headband, and tiphoofed down the stairs and out the door.
"All Aboard," the conductor cried out and I ran up to him.
"Well," he said, "ya coming?"
"Where?" I asked him.
"Why to the North Pole of course," was his answer, "This is the Polar Express!"
I took his outstretched hoof and he helped me aboard.
The train was filled with other children, some were dressed, others weren't. My friends, the Cutie Mark Crusaders, were near the back. We sang winter carols and ate candies with nougat centers as white as snow. We drank hot coco as thick and rich as melted chocolate bars. Outside, the lights of towns and villages flickered in the distance as the Polar Express raced northward.
Soon there were no more lights to be seen. We traveled through cold, dark forests, where lean lupus' roamed and white-tailed rabbits hid from our train as it thundered through the quiet wilderness.
We climbed mountains so high it seemed as if we could scrape the moon. But the Polar Express never slowed down. Faster and faster we went along, rolling over peaks and through valleys like a car on a roller coaster.
The mountains turned into hills, the hills into snow covered plains. We crossed over a barren desert of ice - the Great Polar Ice Cap. Light appeared in the distance. They looked like the lights of a strange ocean liner sailing on a frozen sea. "There," said the conductor, "is the North Pole."
The North Pole. It was a huge city standing alone at the top of the world, filled with factories where every Hearth's Warming toy was made.
At first, we saw no elf ponies.
"They are gathering at the center of the city," The conductor told us. "That is where Santa will give the first gift of the Hearth's Warming."
"Who receives the first gift?" we all asked.
The conductor answered: "He will choose one of you."
"Look," shouted one of the children, "The elf ponies!"
Outside we saw hundreds of elf ponies. As our train drew closer to the center of the North Pole, we slowed to a crawl, so crowded were the streets with Santa's helpers. When the Polar Express could go no farther, we stopped and the conductor lead us outside.
We pressed through the crowd to the edge of a large, open circle. In front of us stood Santa's sleigh. The reindeer were excited. They pranced and paced, ringing the silver sleigh bells that hung from their harnesses. It was a magical sound, like nothing I ever heard.
Across the circle, the elf ponies moved apart and Santa Hooves appeared. The elf ponies cheered wildly. He marched over to us and, pointing to me, said: "Let's have this filly here."
He jumped into his sleigh and the conductor levitated me up. I sat between his forelegs and he asked: "Now, what would you like for Hearth's Warming."
I knew that I could have any gift I could imagine. But the thing I wanted most for Hearth's Warming was not inside Santa's giant bag. What I wanted more than anything was one silver from Santa's sleigh.
When I asked, Santa smiled. Then he gave me a hug and told and elf unicorn to cut a bell from a reindeer's harness. The elf unicorn tossed it up to Santa, and he stood, levitating the bell high above him, and called out: "The first gift of Hearth's Warming!"
A clock struck midnight as the elf ponies roared their approval. Santa passed the bell to me, and I put it in my vest pocket. The conductor helped me down from the sleigh.
Santa shouted out the reindeer's names and cracked his whip. His team charge forward and climbed into the air. Santa circled once above us, and Rudolph and Arrow nodded twice before they all disappeared into the cold, dark polar sky.
As soon as we were back inside the Polar Express, the other children asked to see the bell. I reached my magic into my pocket, but the only thing I felt was a hole. I had lost the silver bell from Santa Hooves's sleigh. "Let's hurry outside and look for it," one of the colts said. But the train gave a sudden lurch and started moving. We were on our way home.
It broke my heart to lose the bell. When the train reached my house, I sadly left the the other children. I stood at my doorway and waved goodbye. The conductor said something from the moving train, but I couldn't hear him.
"What?" I yelled out.
He used his magic to amplify his voice. "HAPPY HEARTH'S WARMING," he shouted. The Polar Express let out a loud blast from it's whistle and sped away.
On Hearth's Warming morning my big brother Spike and I opened our presents. When it looked as if everything had been unwrapped, Spike found one last small box behind the tree. It had my name on it, and inside was the silver bell!
There was also a note: "Found this one the seat of my sleigh. Better fix that hole in your pocket." Signed, "Mr, H."
I shook the bell. It made the most beautiful my brother and I had ever heard.
But my mother said, "Oh, that's too bad."
"Yes," said my father, "it's broken."
When I'd shaken the bell, my parents had not heard a sound.
At one time most of my friends could hear the bell, but as the years passed, it fell silent for all of them. Even Spike found one Hearth's Warming that he could not longer hear its sweet sound. Though I've grown old the bell still rings for me, as it for all who truly believe.
