Don't Call Me Christina Kringle

by Chris Grabenstein

  “Contraband? Evidence?”

  “You had a couple counterfeit Dumping Dinos in the bin, Dave. Not to mention an unlicensed Bopping Beano Bear.” He held up a doll. “This Wetty Betty? The logo’s wrong. You get these from China?”

  “No,” said Captain Dave. “People donated those toys so needy kids up in the projects or spending the holidays in the hospital could have some kind of Christmas.”

  “You’ll probably get them back,” said the younger cop.

  “When?”

  “January. February. Depends on when the case goes to court.”

  “But Christmas Eve is tomorrow!”

  “Maybe you should reach out to the guy who called in the complaint,” said the older cop as he closed the trunk lid. “See if you can talk him into backing off.”

  “Who was it? Ebenezer Scrooge?”

  “Nah. Tony Scungilli.”

  “The toy king? He’d do this to kids? He runs a toy store!”

  “I know. I guess that’s why he don’t want nobody getting free toys from Santy Claus.”

  Sixty

  In the foreman’s office at the candy-cane factory, the shopkeepers had gathered for an emergency meeting because Mister Fred wouldn’t put away his pistol.

  He kept it aimed at Mr. McCracken, who was seated behind a dented gray steel desk.

  “Fred,” said Delores Dingler, “calm down. Sip the soothing tea I had the brownies brew for you!”

  “No!” said Mister Fred, swinging his revolver to aim it at Ms. Dingler’s golden heap of hair. “I need Nails and Professor Pencilneck. The rest of you are getting your Christmas Eve merchandise. I want mine.”

  “Sacré bleu,” said the pastry chef. “Take zee two cowhands! Zey know how to work with leather. Zey will help you, how you say, milk your customers.”

  Now the pistol moved over to Frenchy. “Shut up! Or I’ll give you more holes than a flaky croissant!”

  Tony Scungilli laughed at that. “Come on, Fred. Who you trying to fool?” he scoffed. “That thing has a pearl handle and sequins glued to the barrel.”

  “I assure you,” said Mister Fred, “the bullets are not nearly as decorative. They’re made of lead and very lethal.”

  “But,” scoffed McCracken, “I know you, laddy. You’re a chicken-livered scaredy cat! You’d never fire it!”

  “Really?” said Mister Fred. “Is that so? You think I’m chicken?”

  “Bruck-bruck-bruck.”

  That’s when Mister Fred fired a round at the floor two inches in front of McCracken’s big floppy feet. The bullet ricocheted up off the hard concrete and pinged with a ding and a rattle into the steel sides of the desk.

  “Okay,” said the toy king, “do what you have to do, McCracken. Get Deadeye Fred here his two brownies. I’m going home.”

  “Me, too,” said Delores Dingler. “Busy day tomorrow.” She yawned.

  “Oui,” said the French chef. “I am leaving, too. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and I will, once again, have the finest Christmas cookies in town!”

  The other merchants left the office as well.

  It was just Mister Fred and Mr. McCracken.

  Mister Fred raised his weapon and aimed it at McCracken’s bulbous red nose. “I want my brownies! I want them now!”

  Sixty-one

  There was something about greedy shopkeepers enslaving brownies so they could rake in even more money over the holidays that made Christina’s simmering rage boil over.

  She not only hated Christmas, she loathed, abhorred, and despised it!

  She tore a cardboard Santa down from where it was taped to the wall and started ripping it apart.

  “Stupid Santa,” she said as she tore off the hat.

  “Oh, my,” gasped Professor Pencilneck, backing away from the furious frenzy of flying paper.

  Next, she tore down Frosty the Snowman. Ripped his corncob pipe from under his button nose.

  “Stupid snowman!”

  The blinking Christmas lights in the display window were her next target. She yanked them down, tugging hard to pop out the staples keeping them up.

  “Stupid lights.”

  Next she flipped over the holiday houses.

  “Stupid snow village.”

  And the manger scene.

  “Stupid wise men!”

  She punched the hollow plastic reindeer in his bright red nose.

  “Stupid Rudolph.”

  “Christina?” said her grandpa warily as she started throttling the animated carpenter elf, trying to stop its hammer arm from grinding up and down.

  “Take it easy,” said Nails. “That big guy looks like my cousin Louie!”

  She let go and spun around to face Grandpa, Nails, and Professor Pencilneck.

  “I hate all this Christmas crap!”

  “But why, Christina?” asked her baffled grandfather. “Why?”

  “Because my stupid father loved it so much, he even named me after the dumb day I was born on!”

  “That’s right,” said Grandpa, smiling feebly. “Christmas Day! You were our miracle baby!”

  “Your folks named you after Christmas?” said the professor, pushing his spectacles up his nose. “Why, Christina, how absolutely marvelous!”

  She stormed over to the counter. Glared at the little man in his fancy clothes. “Marvelous? Really?”

  “Indubitably.”

  “Except you’re forgetting one little thing, aren’t you smarty pants?”

  “Oh?” He nervously tugged at his cravat.

  “My mother died the day I was born! So my totally out-to-lunch father names me after Christmas? What was he thinking? Naming me after the day my mother died?”

  “Ouch,” said Nails.

  “Well,” offered the professor, “perhaps your father chose to remember the gift he received that Christmas instead of what was taken away.”

  “A gift?”

  “Why, yes. You!”

  That made Christina furious!

  She swung her arm sideways, aiming to violently whack the geeky like twerp right off the countertop but the professor, who was quite nimble and quick, moved to jump up over her arm as it sailed sideways. So, instead of knocking the brainy brownie for a loop, Christina’s arm smashed into the cluttered basket near the cash register and sent a month’s worth of bills and papers flying in a blizzard of paper.

  Then she heard a sharp snap and crunch as her skinny little friend landed hard on his extremely bony butt.

  Sixty-two

  Professor Pencilneck groaned in pain and rubbed the seat of his pants.

  Christina gasped, horrified by what she had just done.

  Nails swung over to the countertop on one of the strings of Christmas lights Christina had ripped out of the wall. He hopped off the swinging vine to defend his friend. “Don’t you hurt him, kid!” He shouted angrily, raising his hammer.

  “I am so sorry,” Christina stammered, her voice choked with tears. “Are you okay, Professor?”

  “I shall survive,” he said, standing up and dusting off his trousers. “I believe the incident only crushed my pride.”

  Meanwhile, Grandpa was sitting on his stool and sobbing. “Your father, my son, he was not stupid. He was a good boy. A good man.”

  “I know, Grandpa. I’m sorry I said those terrible things. They just came out.”

  Grandpa waved his hand dismissively and shuffled over to the shop window. He started picking up the scattered pieces of the nativity scene.

  “Where is the camel?” he muttered, creaking down to his hands and knees so he could crawl across the floor and collect the scattered crèche characters. “Here he is. Hello, Humpy.”

  Christina had to smile: Only her Grandpa would give names to all his Italian terra cotta Nativity figurines.

  “Here’s Simba,” she said, picking up the robed magi riding his saddled elephant.

  “Good, good. Thank you, Christina. Now, we just need to find Kneeling Murray.”

  That’s what grandpa ca
lled the miniature statue of the wise man who brought the Baby Jesus a gift of myrrh and posed for the scene in a perpetual kneel.

  “This him?” said Nails, as he and the professor pushed a chipped figure out from under the counter.

  “I’m afraid Kneeling Murray lost his jaunty turban,” added the professor.

  “No problem,” said Nails. “Little glue, he’ll be good as new.”

  Christina sat back on her heels and remembered how much her father always loved the story of the three wise men who celebrated Christmas by giving gifts and never asked for anything in return.

  “I am so sorry, you guys,” she sobbed. “I didn’t mean to lash out at you like that, Professor. I’m the stupid one.”

  Professor Pencilneck strode over, took off his top hat, and extended his hand to shake Christina’s finger. “Apology accepted. The holidays can be a quite stressful time.”

  Christina nodded and turned to her grandfather. “Grandpa? I didn’t mean to say all that terrible stuff about Mom and Dad. It just came out.”

  “I know. The holidays. They make people crazy.”

  She reached out her hand. Grandpa took it. “You really are a gift, Christina,” he said. “The best Christmas present anybody ever gave me.”

  And that’s when Nails started sniffling and pretending like he wasn’t.

  Then he blew his nose into his sleeve. Very loudly.

  He sounded like a honking goose.

  Finally, everybody quit weeping because they were too busy laughing.

  “I guess I better clean this mess up, huh?” said Christiana.

  “Hang on, we’ll help,” said Nails. “Where’s Mops, Broom, and Buckets when you need ’em, huh?”

  The professor speared a scrap of litter with his cane. “I believe all three are currently being held prisoner by Mr. Donald McCracken.”

  “Don’t worry you guys,” said Christina, picking up the chipped wise man and his broken-off turban. “We’ll find them. We’ll find them all. Mops, Broom. Buckets, Flixie, Trixie …”

  “How?” said Nails.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe we’ll go next door. Ask Ms. Dingler a few questions. And we’ll go back to that candy-cane factory and toy store; everywhere we went on our wild goose chase. Those people have to be involved in this. So don’t worry. Your friends will be home for Christmas, I promise!”

  “Then we better make certain their home looks nice!” said the professor, spearing some more of the trash strewn across the floor.

  Grandpa started picking up the scattered bills and letters that had gone flying when Christina smacked the wire basket off the counter.

  Nails analyzed the damage to the broken wise man.

  “Clean fracture line,” he said to Christina. “Come on. Let’s haul him into the back room. Put him on the operating table. Glue his head back together.”

  “Oh, my,” said Grandpa. “What is this?”

  Christina looked over and saw he was holding a bright red envelope. On its front, in glitter letters, was written “Santa Claus, North Pole.”

  “That kid!” said Christina, remembering.

  “What kid?” said Nails.

  “He brought his letter to Santa here to store, just like all the kids used to do. See, they’d bring their letters to Grandpa …”

  “And I would give them to Nicky!” He smiled, remembering the joy of Christmases past. “I was Santa’s poppa! All the kids knew this.”

  “And,” said Christina, “my dad made sure whoever wrote a letter to Santa got something off the fire truck on Christmas Eve.” She tucked the letter into the back pocket of her pants. “I’ll run this over to the firehouse first thing in the morning. Captain Dave will make sure the boy gets a toy.”

  Suddenly, the telephone near the cash register started ringing.

  Christina glanced at the wall clock. “It’s one a.m.”

  “And still they call,” said Grandpa, shaking his head. “Fix my shoes, fix my shoes …”

  The phone kept jangling.

  “I’ll get it,” said Christina. “Hello, Giuseppe’s Old World Shoe Repair Shop. How may I help you? What? I’m sorry. There’s no one here by those names.”

  She quickly covered up the mouthpiece and turned to Nails and Professor Pencilneck.

  “He wants you two!”

  Sixty-three

  Back at the candy-cane factory, Donald McCracken had his floppy ear glued to the telephone, his beady eyes to the muzzle of Mister Fred’s pistol.

  “You bring me the wee ones, Nails and Professor Pencilneck, and I will give you and your grandfather a satchel filled with cash—enough money to pay the rent and keep your shop open all year, without the illegal assistance of brownies. What?”

  McCracken smiled. Winked at Mister Fred.

  “Don’t worry, lassie. The two shoemakers will be well provided for. That’s right. I found them a wonderful new home filled with cream and cake and, most importantly, love!”

  McCracken didn’t let the silly girl hear him, but he was sniggering when he said “love.”

  Sixty-four

  It was just before dawn when Christina returned to the candy-cane factory on Warren Street.

  As instructed, she went around to the rear loading dock with her bulky backpack. She was also carrying her violin case.

  She set the book bag down, unzippered the top flap, and looked down at Nails and Professor Pencilneck, the two little men who had worked such wonders for her and her grandfather. They were wearing fluorescent orange jumpsuits, which Grandpa had quickly sewed together with material cut out of an old hunting cap. Their tiny hands and ankles were shackled together with chains made out of Christina’s old necklaces and charm bracelets.

  “You guys sure about this?” she asked.

  “Do not despair,” said the professor. “We shall be fine.”

  “It’s the only way, kid,” added Nails.

  Suddenly, a barn-sized door slid open, revealing the darkness inside the factory.

  “Here we go,” said Christina as she slung the pack up to her back.

  “Don’t forget your violin, kid,” said Nails.

  “We’re very much looking forward to finally hearing you play a jolly, rollicking tune!” added the professor.

  “Inside, lassie!” snarled a voice from somewhere inside the factory. “Now!”

  “That’s him,” whispered Christina. “McCracken.”

  “Yeah,” said Nails from inside the carrier. “We know.”

  “Go on in,” urged the professor. “We are eager to see our old friends.

  Christina took in a deep breath and slowly entered the darkness.

  Sixty-five

  As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, Christina could make out a row of stacked cages filled with huddled brownies.

  Even in the dim light, she recognized her friends. Trixie and Flixie. Buckets, Mops, and Broom. Gustav and Gizmo.

  “They get one hour off at sunrise,” said the lanky man who stepped into the morning sunshine pooling beneath a dingy skylight. He carried a battered attaché case and, judging by his thick Scottish accent, had to be Donald McCracken.

  Trailing McCracken was a pudgy man in a tight-fitting two-piece sweatsuit made out of clingy fabric that hugged his rolling potbelly. The chubby man had what appeared to be a sparkling silver pistol aimed at the back of McCracken’s head.

  “Careful, tubby,” said a familiarly annoying voice close to the floor. “You almost stepped on my heel!”

  Looking down, Christina saw an uncaged brownie who looked vaguely familiar.

  Because the last time she had seen him, Smoothie had oily black hair! Now, he was bald with a bad comb-over and sporting pointy-tipped ears.

  “Smoothie?” she said.

  He gave her a sleazy wink and a double-finger snap-clap. “That’s my name, don’t wear it out. You bring any of those sparkly sugar cookies with ya, kid?”

  “More importantly,” shouted the pudgy man, his voice ringing off the factory wal
ls, “did you bring me my brownies?”

  “Did you bring me the money for my grandfather?” Christina shouted back.

  The chubby man motioned with his pistol for McCracken to snap open his briefcase.

  He undid the latches and held up the attaché so Christina could see that it was filled with wrapped bundles of cash.

  “Okay,” she said, slipping off her backpack and placing it on the floor. “Let’s do this thing.”

  She unzipped the top of her bag. Nails and Professor Pencilneck slowly climbed out, their heads hanging low, their chain links clinking.

  “As you can see, I made them some new clothes. Orange prison jumpsuits. So, even if they wanted to stay at grandpa’s, they’d have to leave.”

  “Well done, lassie,” said McCracken, closing up the money bag and placing it on the floor halfway between Christina and the chubby man with the gun. “You learn fast.”

  As Professor Pencilneck and Nails shuffled across the floor, Christina followed after them, toting her violin case.

  When they reached the halfway point, Nails turned around and sniffled back a tear welling up in his eye.

  “So long, Christina. It was nice knowin’ ya.”

  “And,” added Professor Pencilneck, “a genuine pleasure spending time with you. Thank you once again for allowing we two weary travelers to tarry beneath your roof, if only for a spell.”

  “Hello, Mister Fred,” Nails called out to the chubby man with the gun thirty feet away.

  The professor clicked his heels and bowed. “Mister Fred.”

  “Welcome back, boys!” said Mister Fred cheerily. “You two cuties are just in time for Christmas!”

  Suddenly, Christina slapped her forehead. “Whoops,” she said.

  “What?” said Mister Fred.

  “Is there some problem with the money, lassie?” inquired McCracken.

  “No, the money’s fine. But, when you guys called last night I was in the middle of a violin lesson.”

  “So?” said Mister Fred.

  “I never finished it! And since these guys were technically still my brownies last night, I believe they have to help me finish the lesson.”