Silent (but Deadly) Night

by Jo Nesbo

  Down in Oslo there weren’t so many people in the stores anymore. By now most people knew they didn’t need to burn through all their savings in order to celebrate Christmas, so they’d gone home instead to finish their final preparations. They were decorating Christmas trees, hanging Christmas stars in the windows, and setting out sheaves of grain for the songbirds.

  Soon Lisa, Nilly, and Doctor Proctor would be doing that as well. But right now they were sitting in the Santa workshop drinking no-skin hot chocolate—it wouldn’t form a skin on top or get clumps. Victor Proctor’s father, Doctor Hector, had invented it.

  “I almost feel a little sorry for Mr. Thrane, actually,” Lisa said. “Imagine having to go to jail on Little Christmas Eve.”

  “Kind of depends on how excited you are about spending Christmas with your family,” Nilly said, and then loudly slurped his cocoa.

  “Hmm,” Doctor Proctor said, contemplating Nilly thoughtfully.

  “Yes, yes,” Stanislaw said, and got up from the control panel and pushed his way through the six-foot-deep sea of wrapped presents that now covered the entire workshop. “Good thing we got more wrapping paper.”

  He patted one of the elf robots on the head, and it blinked contentedly back at him and proceeded to wrap more presents.

  “It’s just too bad we don’t have any more time soap,” Lisa said. “Without that we’re not going to be able to deliver the presents to all the children who had maybe hoped to get something tomorrow.”

  “Right?” Nilly said.

  “So, why are you still making presents, Stanislaw?”

  Stanislaw poured hot chocolate into his cup. “Hmm, good question.”

  They watched him while he took a looong drink then wiped his mouth. “Did you guys hear that?” he asked.

  “Hear what?”

  “Shh!”

  They listened. And there, they heard it: a møø! Yes, it was an authentic reindeer møø! But it didn’t come from the stall in the workshop where the jet reindeer were lying down chewing their cud. The sliding door that led out to the hangar cave creaked and then slid open. Cold air blew in and a round, red-cheeked face came into view in the doorway. It was a young man.

  “Guten Abend.” He smiled. “Ich bin Günther.”

  “Good evening, Günther.” Stanislaw smiled back. He walked over to Günther and flung out his arms. “I’m so glad to finally meet you.”

  The two gave each other a heartfelt hug that lasted for a long time.

  “They kind of look alike, don’t they?” Lisa whispered. “A little, anyway?”

  “They look a lot alike,” Doctor Proctor said.

  Stanislaw and Günther stood off by themselves for a bit, speaking German with each other. Then Stanislaw turned to our three friends.

  “Günther works as a letter carrier. He says he just about ran his bicycle off the road when a voice in his head claimed to be Santa Claus.”

  Günther laughed and said something quickly in German with a bunch of rolled Rs and plenty of dative and accusative. Stanislaw chuckled and nodded.

  “Günther said that at first he was shocked when this Santa Claus said he was summoning all his children into service,” Stanislaw explained. “But he felt a strange joy and eagerness when the voice said that in two hours a sleigh pulled by young jet reindeer would land right outside all their homes and fly them to Oslo as quick as a flash.”

  “And Günther believed that?” Doctor Proctor asked. “He didn’t think he was just losing his mind?”

  “He’s a Santa,” Stanislaw said, patting Günther on the shoulder. “He didn’t know it until now, but deep down inside he’s been waiting for this his whole life. When it finally happens, he’ll understand everything. He gets that he’s going to be Santa tonight and fly around with presents. Isn’t that so, Günther?”

  Günther nodded, smiling.

  “But just Günther isn’t going to be enough,” Lisa said. Stanislaw translated this for Günther, and they both laughed.

  “Komm hier!” Günther said, and waved for our friends to follow him. And they all walked out the door to the hangar cave in a collective herd.

  “Yowza!” Nilly blurted out.

  Because before them sat not one, but four, five, yes, six sleighs, all with teams of jet reindeer, and seated in five of the sleighs was a person who looked slightly confused but also very happy. Stanislaw walked around and embraced each one and talked a little with them.

  “This is Miguel,” Stanislaw called out. “He’s a furniture mover in Salvador, Brazil, and he says he dropped the piano on his coworker’s foot when he heard the voice in his head. He’ll be delivering the Christmas presents throughout the state of Bahia in northeastern Brazil! And this is my daughter Betty. She was dressed as an elf in a toy store in Los Angeles when she heard my voice. She’ll be handling Santa Monica, Hollywood, and the rest of LA County. She actually has time to come in for some hot chocolate, since most of the families in her territory won’t open their presents until Christmas morning. Betty, I’m so happy to finally meet you.”

  The siblings greeted each other, conversed excitedly, and then gave one another a hug. And even though Stanislaw was laughing, tears were rolling down his cheeks.

  “Cool sleighs!” Nilly said, and walked over to inspect one of them. “I didn’t know they came in silver, too! But how much weight can these jet reindeer handle?”

  “They’re young. They can’t handle all the weight in the world. That’s why we have multiple sleighs,” Stanislaw said.

  “But even six Santas isn’t that many,” Doctor Proctor said. “Not when you have to fly everywhere in the world with—”

  “Look!” Lisa interrupted him. “Look!” Our friends turned around.

  Lisa had pushed aside the branches on the big fir tree. “Well, I never!” Doctor Proctor exclaimed in a hushed tone.

  “Cool,” Nilly whispered. “Or actually, double cool.”

  They were staring out over the fjord, enchanted. The sun was just setting on the horizon and coloring the sky orange and red. And way out there they saw dots approaching, dots that grew and became sleighs with miniature jet reindeer pulling them. There were a lot of them. And there were even more behind them. There were sleighs as far as the eye could see.

  “A whole armada of Santas is coming,” Lisa whispered, spellbound.

  Nilly took a breath and said, “Okay, maybe triple cool.”

  “It’s going to be crowded in here,” Stanislaw said. “We’d better start loading gifts onto the sleighs that are already here and getting them on their way so you can go home to your families.”

  “Couldn’t I stay here and help out?” Nilly asked. “Please?”

  “Sorry, Nilly, this is Santa work. We were born to do this, so we do it faster without help, you understand? Don’t you have things to do at home?”

  Nilly hung his head. “Apart from getting yelled at, I don’t know what that would be.”

  “Well,” Doctor Proctor said, and winked at Lisa, “I can think of one thing anyway. Come on, now. I think Juliette is waiting for us.”

  And as new sleighs landed on the takeoff and landing ramp, our three friends said good-bye to Stanislaw.

  They walked through the Santa workshop to the door that led to the train tunnel. Nilly walked slower than the other two, running his hand along the table, the fireplace, and the robots as if he knew this were the last time he would see them.

  “Are you coming?” Doctor Proctor asked from the doorway.

  “Soon,” Nilly said, and ran over to the stall where his reindeer were and hugged them.

  “Møø-rry Christmas,” he said.

  “Møø,” they replied.

  Nilly poured another cup of hot chocolate.

  “Haven’t you had enough hot chocolate yet?” Lisa asked.

  “Oh, it’s not for me,” Nilly said, and took the cup with him.

  They strolled through the train tunnel. A red glow shone in the darkness ahead of them.

 
; “Hi, Tommy,” Nilly said as they reached the glow. “Maybe this would taste good with your cigar?” He handed the cup of hot chocolate to the man, who stared at them with wide, terrified eyes.

  “Nothing to be scared of,” Nilly said. “I promise, there’s no skin on top and no clumps of cocoa powder.”

  “It’s not the skin or the clumps. I just wonder why you’re being so nice,” Tommy said. “It makes me r-r-really nervous.”

  “Because I’m pretty sure that if you found me sitting in a train tunnel someday you would bring me hot chocolate,” Nilly said.

  “And if you want to celebrate Christmas with us on Cannon Avenue, you’re invited, Tommy,” Doctor Proctor said.

  “Thanks for the invitation, but I prefer to be alone. And I have everything I want here.” Tommy grinned, took a drag from his cigar, and raised his hot chocolate.

  “Apart from a Christmas ham,” Nilly said.

  “Well,” Tommy said, “a miracle like that this year is more than a man can hope for.”

  “Maybe so, maybe so,” Doctor Proctor said, and winked knowingly to Lisa and Nilly. “Good-bye, Tommy.”

  When our three friends emerged from the tunnel, they slowly strolled through the streets of the city and nodded, said hello, and wished people they didn’t know a merry Christmas.

  Out in front of city hall they managed to catch the streetcar that ran over toward Cannon Avenue.

  “Everyone is so happy,” Lisa said, smiling back at an elderly woman she’d given her seat to.

  “That’s what a proper Christmas does to people,” Doctor Proctor said. “What are you thinking about, Nilly?”

  Nilly had his button nose pressed against the streetcar window. He was staring longingly up at the sky.

  “Flying a sleigh,” he said. “It’s one of the most amazing things I’ve done in my whole life.”

  “Good. It’s important to appreciate all the fun things we have done, not just the fun things we’re going to do,” Doctor Proctor said.

  “But what if all the fun is behind us now and there’s no more ahead of us?” Nilly asked.

  “Pshaw,” Doctor Proctor said. “Nothing is more fun than a new adventure, right?”

  “Riiiiight . . . ,” Nilly and Lisa both said in unison.

  “And there are always new adventures ahead of us. That’s why they’re called new. Get it?”

  Lisa nodded. Nilly thought it over and then nodded as well.

  They got off the streetcar into the snowy weather and walked up Cannon Avenue. All the windows were lit up, but none were as warm and cozy as the lights in the windows of the crooked, slightly peculiar blue house that sat all the way at the end of the street. They stomped their feet and brushed the snow off themselves on the front steps, left their shoes in the entryway, and walked into the kitchen, where Juliette was stirring a pot of rice porridge.

  “I’m so excited to see you guys,” she said. “Tell me everything that happened.”

  And so they did while they gobbled up porridge and laughed and Nilly used his arms and legs to act out some of the things that had happened.

  When they were done, Juliette clapped her hands.

  “Mon Dieu, it sounds like you’ve saved Christmas for everyone!”

  “My modesty requires me to say that you’re exaggerating,” Nilly said, and then licked the last bits of rice porridge off his spoon. “But my honesty commands me to tell the truth: You are quite right. Nilly, Lisa, and Doctor Proctor saved Christmas for the western and eastern hemispheres. Or to be even more succinct than necessary: for the whole world.”

  Lisa laughed. Just then the cuckoo clock that Doctor Proctor must have nailed up on the wall sometime earlier in the day started to rumble.

  “Oh no!” Lisa gasped and ducked.

  The shutters popped open and a vampire giraffe head came out. But this time it reached only barely out of the opening, where it couldn’t do any harm, and snapped its mouth “cuckoo” ten times before disappearing back into the clock again.

  “I’m afraid the neck was lost in the explosion,” Doctor Proctor said. “But anyway, now it’s bedtime.”

  “Yeah.” Lisa yawned.

  “Already?” Nilly sighed. “Did we really remember to do everything we usually do on Little Christmas Eve?”

  “Eat rice porridge, tell the stories of all the things we’ve done together since we became friends, put some food out for the songbirds, put the star on top of the Christmas tree, and danced the Proctor dance. Yup, I think that’s pretty much it,” Juliette said. “I guess the only thing left is that you haven’t played ‘Silent Night’ on the trumpet yet.”

  “Oh, right. Yeah.” Nilly sighed. “I don’t have that trumpet anymore, so I can never play ‘Silent Night’ again.”

  “Remember: New adventures await us,” Doctor Proctor said.

  “Yes, that’s why they’re called new,” Lisa said.

  And with that the friends went their separate ways.

  When Nilly walked in the door of the yellow house, he yelled, “Hi. I’m home!” and went straight to his room.

  He lay down on his bed and stared at the ceiling. His door opened.

  “Nilly?”

  “Yes, Mom?” He sighed.

  She sat down on the edge of his bed. “Hey you. I’ve been doing some thinking. Well, not just some but quite a bit of thinking. And I’ve decided I need to ask you for a little pre-Christmas gift.”

  “No, Mom, you can’t have the pocket watch or the Animals You Wish Didn’t Exist book!”

  “That’s not what I was going to ask you for, my boy. I need to ask for something bigger.”

  “Bigger?”

  “Yes, I need to ask you to forgive me for being so grumpy and self-centered. The constipation . . . well, you know. And while you think about whether or not you’re going to forgive me, here’s an early Christmas present to you from me. And Lisa.”

  Nilly’s mother held up a small black suitcase that looked brand-new. Nilly took it in astonishment and opened it.

  “My trumpet!” he yelled. “With a new mouthpiece!”

  “I found the guy I sold it to,” his mother said, “and explained to him how foolish I’d been. So he let me buy it back. Plus, I bought a case so you don’t have to keep it hanging on the wall.”

  “Thank you! Thank you so much, Mom!” He took out the trumpet.

  She stood up and said, “Good night.”

  “Mom?”

  “Yes?”

  “Come here.”

  He sat up and then stood up on the bed and gave her a good, long hug, the kind you might usually save until Christmas.

  “Does that mean I’m forgiven?” his mom asked with tears in her eyes.

  “Of course,” he said. “I know it’s not always easy being my mother.”

  “Good thing you’re not big on holding grudges,” she said.

  “Or, as some might say, I’m not big, period,” he joked.

  She laughed and wiped away her tears. “We’ll have a lovely Christmas, Nilly. Just wait and see.”

  After his mother left his room, Nilly walked over to the window, opened it, and put his trumpet to his lips. Then, as the snow gently covered Cannon Avenue with a beautiful crystalline carpet, he played “Silent Night” so peacefully and quietly that he knew he wouldn’t wake anyone. Only those who really wanted to hear would hear. And when he was finished, he put his trumpet back into its beautiful new case, got undressed, put on his pajamas, and went to bed.

  Then he closed his eyes, smiled happily, and immediately started dreaming of new adventures.

  And they all lived happily ever—no, wait! There actually seems to be one very short chapter left.

  It’s After Midnight,

  so It’s December Twenty-Fourth and Christmas Eve Has Only Just Barely Begun

  A NOISE WOKE Nilly up. He stared at his ceiling. It had been the sound of an animal. He was completely sure of that. He stared at the spine of Animals You Wish Didn’t Exist. But no, something to
ld him that this had been the sound of an animal you actually wished did exist. And then there was a distant scratchy sound: “Headquarters to Nilly!”

  Nilly leaped out of bed, ran over to the window, and pulled the curtain aside.

  And there, bobbing in midair in the moonlight, was a silver sleigh heaped full of gift-wrapped presents. There were six juvenile jet reindeer harnessed to it, treading air impatiently.

  “Møø,” they said.

  “Headquarters to Nilly.” The sound was coming from the earpiece sitting atop of the mound of presents. Nilly grabbed it and pushed it into his ear.

  “Nilly here!”

  “Hi, Nilly.” It was Stanislaw’s voice. “It looks like we’re one Santa short. We need someone to deliver presents in southern Portugal. Do you think you can help us?”

  “Yiiippyyy!”

  And there! That’s where this Christmas story ends, as a little red-haired boy lowers the reins, whispers “møø,” and there’s a whoosh through the air. And people who look up into the sky see a glowing streak traveling over the city from somewhere above Cannon Avenue. Those of them who haven’t read this book might think it’s a shooting star, a comet, a satellite, or the flight from Paris. Something boooring. But you and I, we know what it is. We look at each other and wink, but we don’t say anything. Because no one would believe us anyway.

  About the Author

  Author photo by Peter Knutson

  JO NESBØ is the most successful Norwegian author of all time. He has sold more than 20 million copies of his novels, and his Doctor Proctor series has been translated into more than thirtyfive languages. The first book in the series, Doctor Proctor’s Fart Powder, sold more copies in his native Norway than any other children’s book debut.

  MIKE LOWERY’s work has been in galleries and publications worldwide. He has illustrated several books for children and young adults, including Ribbit Rabbit and The Gingerbread Man: Loose in the School. He is a professor of illustration at the Savannah College of Art and Design, and he lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with his wife and daughter.