.

Features > Unseen Christmas Tales: The Parkers by Steve

‘Twas a warm Christmas Eve as a minibus carrying various members of the Parker-Napier family crossed the border into Queensland. Driving the bus was Steve Parker, with his new bride Rebecca next to him. He remembered the many times he’d driven to Queensland with his late wife, Miranda, and realised what an annoying shrew she had been. As they passed the town of Whoopdiwoo and saw the cheese factory, he was reminded of Miranda’s tragic passing, but decided not to think about it too much.

Rebecca was blissfully happy, with her hand on Steve’s knee, listening to Dean Geyer’s new album. She smiled as she remembered the events that had led to her marrying Steve – it had originally been a drunken bet between her and Susan, but love had blossomed as she and Steve argued over whose house had the best doorbell and, within two weeks, they were standing in the registry office.

Behind Steve and Rebecca sat Bridget, Steve’s daughter, and her new boyfriend, Gary Montega. Bridget was determined that she would enjoy her first Christmas since divorcing Declan, who had cheated on her with a dog trainer named Heidi. Bridget watched her two-year-old son, Bob, named after the sadly-missed Ramsay Street dog, and remembered his traumatic birth which, in typical Parker style, had involved an air ambulance and a 48-piece marching band. At the back of the bus, Delcan eyed Bridget and Gary suspiciously, plotting his revenge on the man who had stolen his wife.

..

Elsewhere in the bus, Mickey Gannon told his pop, Lou Carpenter, about his recent exploits as a rent boy, after running away from Erinsborough for the 14th time. Lou just laughed.

Arriving in Oakey for the town’s annual reunion, everyone was agog at the giant Christmas tree that had been erected in the centre of town.

“Miranda would have loved that tree,” said Steve, with a note of sarcasm in his voice.

They arrived at Stuart and Sindi’s mansion and were greeted by a rendition of We Wish You A Merry Christmas, in four-part harmony, performed by the Parker septuplets, Bindi, Lindy, Randy, Mandy, Andy, Candy and John.

“Good to see you, Steve,” said Stuart, as Sindi twitched nervously in the background. The brothers shook hands and Rebecca introduced herself to everybody. She was upset when she heard Sindi mumble ‘I preferred Miranda actually’ while Kitty Parker, Rebecca’s recently-widowed mother-in-law, ushered everyone inside for some eggnog.

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” said Lou, as Kitty handed him a glass of eggnog and a plate of meat.
“I rarely leave the farm,” explained Kitty. “The last time was for my husband’s funeral, and I had to leave halfway through that to milk the cows.”
"Oh. Has anyone ever told you that you look just like matriarchal actress Melissa Jaffer?"

Lou laughed his trademark laugh, while Mickey announced that he was going exploring, but nobody heard him. Outside, a helicopter landed on the west paddock, and out stepped Ned and Kirsten, all ready for their Christmas Day wedding in Oakey. Everyone was slightly surprised to see that Kirsten was now black, due to a mix-up during her skin graft operation, but nobody said anything for fear of offending Ned, now the third richest person in Australia, after Dean Geyer and that horsey-faced one off Home & Away.

So anyway, everyone then spent the rest of the evening catching up. It wasn’t until around 11pm that they noticed that Mickey was missing.

“Don’t worry, he does this all the time,” explained Steve. “Last time we found him working the streets of Sydney, and the time before that, Karl and Izzy coincidentally bumped into him in Belgium, during their European tour.”

So everyone went to bed and they were all so tired that they failed to notice Sindi getting up to work on her explosive device in the shed.

The next morning, Mickey’s presents laid untouched under the tree, as everyone frantically prepared for the wedding. Sindi and Stuart smiled as the septuplets opened their gifts, before she explained that she had to go and do something, and ran off to the shed.

..

In the garden, Bridget watched as Bob played with his new tricycle and lolled as he fell off.
“Didge!” shouted Declan from an upstairs window.
“Shut up, Declan. And don’t call me Didge. Nobody calls me that anymore,” she responded with disdain.
“But Didge! I really need to talk to you! Can you come upstairs?” he replied.

Bridget left Bob with Steve and Rebecca and went upstairs, where she was stunned to find Gary dead, strangled with a pair of tights.

“Did you do this?” she asked Declan.
“No! I just came in here, looking for some more hair gel, when I found him like this!”
“Holy LOL” said a hysterical Bridget.
“Should we call the police?”
“No,” she responded quickly. “Let’s wait until everyone’s gone to church, then we’ll dispose of the body properly.”

“I can’t believe Bridget and Declan both came down with food poisoning,” said Steve, as he and Rebecca left with the wedding party.
“And where’s Sindi?”
“She went on ahead to sort out the flowers,” explained Stuart. “I don’t really understand it, she’s never been any good at flower arranging.”

Elsewhere, Bridget and Declan were dragging some bed sheets, containing Gary’s lifeless body, down to the river. As they were throwing the body into the river, Bridget was stunned to noticed a piece of cheese on Gary’s shirt.

“Oh my GOD,” she declared with little conviction, “we’ve got to stop the wedding!”

At the church, Rebecca and Steve sat together, as did Kitty and Lou.

“Would you like to come and live with me in Erinsborough?” Lou asked Kitty.
“No thanks,” came the reply.
“Please?”
“Oh OK.”

Just then, the ceremony began and everyone smiled a little bit as Kirsten walked up the aisle, closely followed by the septuplets, each dressed as a different Disney character. The wedding then got underway, but when the vicar asked if anyone had any objections, a voice was heard at the back of the church.

“I do.”

Everyone turned to look, and they were agog to find Miranda standing in the doorway, with Mickey standing next to her, an evil glint in his eye.

“That’s right. I’m alive,” she said, her expression barely changing. “You all thought I’d drowned in that vat of mozzarella, but I survived and I watched as you all moved on with your lives. A little too quickly, if you ask me. So I enlisted Mickey’s help to teach you all a lesson.”

..

“Indeeeed,” Mickey continued. “All those times I ran away, I was really visiting Miranda in the cave she was living in. I murdered Gary Montega and you lot will be next.”

Mickey reached into his pocket and pulled out a gun.

“WAIT!” came a scream from behind them. Everyone looked again and this time saw Sindi standing in the doorway. “You all forgot about me, didn’t you? Well, I’m afraid I never did recover from my little mental episode and I hate you all and I’m going to blow you up. I’ve spent the last three years building a bomb in the shed, and it’s wired to explode in one minute.”

Rebecca stood up to leave, but wasn’t quick enough, and Mickey shot her. But Mickey was in for a surprise, as Miranda suddenly slumped down on the floor, then he felt a spade hit him on the back of the head, and fell to the floor next to her.

“That’s for my mum!” declared Declan.

Bridget, meanwhile, ran over to Rebecca and, using a hair pin, began a complex operation on her stepmother.

“We need to get everyone out! There’s a bomb!” Steve shouted at his daughter.

“No, it’s fine. Declan defused it,” Bridget told him, as she finished saving Rebecca’s life. “We called the police and Sindi’s been arrested.”

“ZOMG, you’re amazing,” Rebecca told her.

“I know! And now we’ve remembered what a great team we made, so me and Declan are getting remarried. Right now.”

The wedding then became a triple ceremony and everyone cheered as Ned and Kirsten, Bridget and Declan and Lou and Kitty were married.

They even managed to smile awkwardly as Miranda and Mickey’s unconscious bodies were taken away by the police.

Back