Two days before Christmas and the snow finally came. Rather than tumbling down into a soft white blanket like it does in the movies, the snow pelted down that night. It piled itself into drifts that buried the garden gnomes and flower beds, painted the soggy brown landscape in shades of crisp white and gray.

Elanor’s mother had braved the storm to fetch the mail. Every year at Christmas, her great-grandmother made a point of sending the family a package, a special gift. This had, apparently, been going on for some time. Last year, Elanor’s mother had opened that year’s gift and wrinkled her nose. Inside the box were stacked old English workbooks. Elanor had been four years old that year. She didn’t understand what the thin, colourful things were, nor the even thinner white leaves which she found inside them. She tried turning out the lights to watch them light up, like she was used to, but it didn’t work.

Elanor had never met her great-grandmother. She wanted to, though. Her great-grandmother, she supposed, knew everything. The only contact she had with her was these yearly treasures that her mother disapproved of.

Elanor perched in a chair by the window, looking into the swirling snow. It was so pretty. She thought about how, tomorrow, she would go out and make a flock of snow angels in the yard. Just then, however, her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a key turning in the lock. Her mother came in with her collar pulled up to her ears and a dusting of snowflakes in her hair. She had a parcel tucked under her arm. Elanor scampered down from the armchair and up to her mother, grabbed the box and plopped down on the floor to open it. Her mother usually told her to wait until Christmas, but she didn’t seem to care this time, bustling into the spotless kitchen with all its buttons and timers and motion detectors. Elanor was left alone to peel off the tape and open her early, mysterious gift.

When she had done so, she lifted out a second box from the first, this one much smaller than the one before. It was very plain. This didn’t deter Elanor. Hardly able to control her impatience, she opened it and –

What was it?

“What junk did she send us this time?” sighed her mother, emerging from the kitchen with the remote control for the oven in hand. Her eyes widened. “Oh, my goodness. I had no idea they made those anymore.”

“What is it?” asked Elanor. Her mother reached for the object, but she clutched it to her. It was scratched, the design on it all but worn away. Elanor had decided it was pretty, anyway. It had belonged to her great-grandma. That was special.

“A pen,” said her mother. “You use it to write, on writing paper.” The strange, unknown words were alluring. Elanor wanted to try it out for herself.

“Do we have any?”

“Paper?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t think so, sweetheart. Not for a long time.” The oven beeped, the sound tugging her mother back to the kitchen. Examining the pen, Elanor found there was a cap she could take off. Underneath there was a short silver nib at the tip. She tried pressing her finger against it. To her surprise, some kind of black substance pooled on the top of her index, staining it. Fascinated, she held the object how she imagined it should be held against the brown stuff on the box. When she moved the “pen” against it, a black line bloomed across it. Elanor was enthralled by the fluidity of it. It was different from the feel of fingers on a screen.

She spent that evening scribbling, drawing lopsided stars and wonky lines, smiling faces and Christmas trees. It was the best present ever, she thought. What made it even better was that not one of her friends had one. Most of them had gotten the latest gadgets for Christmas.

This was a world of computer fonts and speech recognition. But in a few years, when she had learnt some letters and words, Elanor got out the English scribblers from the olden days. And she taught herself something they hadn’t taught her at school. She taught herself to write.