by Foley, E. G.
Jake paused.
When he saw the haughty Frenchwoman directly underneath the spot where he knelt, he could not resist giving British Bob a bit of unseen help in the romance department. He slipped the Dusting Sugar out of his coat, flipped up the silver lid, and silently shook some out onto Mademoiselle Marie.
It swirled on the wind as it wafted down on her and mingled with the snowflakes dotting her dark velvet bonnet.
She put her keys away, none the wiser.
Merry Christmas, Bob, Jake thought with a roguish smile. Hope it helps.
Mademoiselle Marie walked off down the lamp-lit cobbled street, alone on Christmas Eve.
As soon as she had disappeared into the shadows, Jake stole back to Red and asked him to fly him down to the ground.
With people coming and going at odd hours, he did not want to risk being seen. The last thing he wanted was to get arrested and end up spending Christmas in the Clink. No magistrate would ever believe his story of breaking in simply to do a favor for Santa Claus.
No, his best chance at avoiding detection was to go in through the back. He could climb in through the kitchen window over the sink—he remembered it well from the night he had come here to kidnap Humbug.
In short order, Red glided him down into the alley behind the double-bakery building. Jake slid off his back and sneaked over to Chez Marie’s kitchen window. He used his telekinesis to unlock it through the glass, then he lifted up the sash.
The height of the window made it rather awkward. He summoned Red over to give him a boost.
But as Jake stepped on the Gryphon’s back, climbing in the window, he found himself wondering what Humbug’s fate had been after his meeting with Santa.
He never did hear if the wayward elf had been sent back to his old job in Mrs. Claus’s kitchen or if he had been put on reindeer stall-mucking duty, as he’d feared.
Then, squeezing through the window, Jake nearly put his foot down in a large pot full of soapy water. Apparently, it had been left to soak in the sink overnight. He fell into the kitchen with a low curse.
“Becaw?” Red pushed up onto his hind legs and peered through the window.
“I’m all right,” Jake whispered in annoyance. “Stay out of sight till I come out.”
As Red bobbed his head and flew away, Jake turned, hearing whispers from somewhere nearby.
“Rollio, look! Who’s that coming in the window?”
“What does it matter, Juniette? Forget him. We are about to take leave of this miserable world. Oh, brokenhearted sorrow—”
“But what if he’s a thief? Or a murderer?”
“So what if he is? We have resolved to die anyway.”
“Yes, but not like that! What if he steps on us? Oh, Rollio, I’m frightened! His feet are so very large.” She screamed. “He’s seen us! He’s coming this way!”
“Fear not, fair Juniette. I will protect you!” The gingerbread boy drew his tiny candy sword and brandished it as Jake warily approached. “Stay back, foul giant!”
Jake held up his hands in a token surrender. “Don’t worry, I only want to speak to you.” When he crouched down toward them, trying to look nonthreatening, Juniette shrieked once more and buried her pink-frosted head against her gingerbread boyfriend’s shoulder. “Please, don’t be afraid. Santa sent me. I’m here to help.”
“Santa, you say?” Rollio asked while Juniette abruptly stopped covering her candy-button eyes. “You don’t look like an elf to me.”
“Nevertheless.”
The gingerbread couple was standing on a low shelf above a milk pail.
Jake eyed the scene suspiciously. “Sorry if this sounds nosy, but I couldn’t help overhearing. What’s all this about you two killing yourselves?”
Rollio and Juniette exchanged a glance.
“We have no choice,” the ginger-boy said at last. “Our families have been feuding for ages. They forbid our love. We’ve tried to run away together many times, but some strange curse lies on our people and always prevents us from escaping together.”
“A curse?” Jake echoed.
Juniette nodded, apparently realizing he was not a threat after all. “We fall asleep when the sun rises. Then, when we awaken at nightfall, Rollio and I always find ourselves right back where we started, back at home with our families again—separated! There is no explanation.”
Actually, the explanation was fairly obvious to Jake.
Mademoiselle Marie and her workers were no doubt puzzled as to why they kept finding the gingerbread pair on the floor together in the morning. They probably thought it was some kind of prank.
Jake would’ve bet that Marie blamed Bob for it, while Bob probably blamed Marie. Meanwhile, the shop employees simply kept putting Rollio and Juniette back where they belonged in their separate displays.
“Every night we try to elope together, but the curse is too strong. We can’t go on this way!” Juniette said. “’Tis too painful.”
Rollio comforted her, but directed his words at Jake. “That is why we have decided to jump into this vat of milk and drown ourselves this very night. Then we shall dissolve and be together for all eternity!”
“Welcome, oblivion!” Juniette wailed most dramatically.
“But it’s Christmas Eve,” Jake protested.
“No matter! We’d rather die together—end it all—than live apart!” Rollio declared.
“Oh, blimey.” Jake rubbed his forehead. “Now listen here, you daft pastries. You mustn’t talk like that. Nobody’s killing themselves here. For your information, your relatives are at each other’s throats because they have been poisoned with Spiteful Spice. That’s what makes them fight.”
“Poisoned?” they cried.
“Santa sent me with this antidote.” Jake showed them the Dusting Sugar. “It’s guaranteed to make them sweeter, more agreeable. I think…if I give them an extra-large dose, it might just make them end this family feud, and reconcile.”
“Oh, can it really work?”
“Santa said it would, so let’s go try it. In the meanwhile, you two stay away from that milk pail. Follow me.”
Rollio and Juniette barely dared hope that the antidote might succeed, but at this point, they had nothing to lose. They climbed down from the supply shelf and followed at a safe distance, wary of the Jake’s giant feet.
He could hear their own tiny footsteps tapping along on the floor behind him as he left the kitchen and stalked out into the French pastry shop.
Moving stealthily down the dark aisle, Jake went toward the gingerbread display, taking care not to bump the Croquembouche Christmas tree on the end.
As he approached, he marveled to find Marie’s gingerbread Versailles in an uproar.
The fanciful meringue shepherdesses beat back Bob’s invading soldiers with their shepherd hooks, while their marshmallow sheep ran to and fro, bleating in distress.
The swans squawked in the blue-frosted fountain, trying to steer clear of long-haired courtiers clashing with the castle knights from downstairs.
Riders from a cookie cavalry whacked at enemy foot soldiers with their candy swizzle-stick sabers; the invaders, in turn, lobbed lemon-drop cannonballs at the walls of the gingerbread palace.
One bashed a hole in the clock tower.
Jake shook his head at the melee and took the Dusting Sugar out of his coat. Pouring a bunch of it into his hand, he stepped closer and, without warning, flung it all over them.
Not even he was sure what might happen next.
The Dusting Sugar enveloped the gingerbread Versailles for a moment in a thick cloud of fog. The angry battle sounds went quiet.
Jake heard some coughing here and there from inside the display, the confused whinny of a gingerbread warhorse.
As the sweet dust settled and (hopefully) began to work, there was a moment of stillness. Then little gingerbread soldiers started walking out of the clearing dust cloud. They wove back and forth on their frosted feet, stumbling and disoriented. One hiccupped.
Jake lifted his eyebrows.
“What happened?” one of Bob’s ginger knights asked the nearest French cookie courtier, who shrugged.
“Je ne sais pas, monsieur.”
Rollio was still climbing up the licorice rope that he had looped over a corner of the display table. He had let Juniette go ahead of him, so she arrived first.
The pink-haired gingerbread-girl hurried into Marie’s display to check on her family. “Papa? Papa!” she called toward the palace. “Are you alive?”
Movement stirred under the rubble where two peppermint-stick columns had collapsed in the siege, bringing down the elegant white-frosted portico.
“Papa!”
“Daughter! Is that you?” came a muffled replied.
Juniette ran to help free her father from the wreckage just as Rollio reached the summit, jumping onto the display table.
“Rollio, help me!” she cried over her shoulder. “Father’s trapped! I can’t budge it. It’s too heavy!”
“I’ll get that.” Jake felt a bit like his old friend, Snorri the Giant, as he reached into the display and easily lifted the roof of the broken portico off Juniette’s father. “There you are.”
She helped the little Sun King to his feet, but cried out in dismay to find one of his arms had cracked off.
“Oh, it’s nothing, dear,” he said. “A little royal icing, and I shall be good as new, I promise. I do have a question, though.”
“What’s that, Papa?”
“Perhaps I got knocked on the head very hard, because, for the life of me, I can’t remember why we are having this war in the first place.”
“Neither can I,” the leader of the invading knights replied, lifting his little silver-frosted helmet as he approached.
“Father!” Rollio ran toward him.
“Son! I thought you ran away.”
“I came back, Father—but there’s something I must say!” He turned to all the gingerbread people and drew himself up in defiance. “Juniette and I love each other. We want to be together, no matter what!”
“B-but, son, these are our enemies!” his father spluttered. “We despise each other!”
“But why?”
Rollio’s father scratched his head. He looked confused, clearly still feeling the effects of the Dusting Sugar. “We must have had a reason… Actually, now that we’re all calm, these Frenchies don’t really seem half bad.”
“And you British do not seem like the buffoons we always assumed.”
“Maybe we could all just get along for once,” Juniette said firmly.
“We could try, I suppose. The truth is, I don’t really feel like fighting anymore.” Rollio’s father threw down his candy sword. “It does grow boring, even for a noble knight.”
“I agree.” The Sun King turned to his courtiers. “Lay down your arms! Well, if you still have them.”
“Oh, poor Papa.” Juniette picked up her father’s broken arm so it would not be lost amid the rubble, then she gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Please let me marry Rollio! I love him.”
“Oh, very well. If that is truly your wish, then you may have my blessing.”
“Hooray!” cheered several of the gingerbread folk on both sides as Rollio and Juniette rushed together, united at last.
“Thank goodness all that’s over,” someone said while the little cookies applauded.
“I’m so happy, I just want to dance!” one of the courtiers shouted gleefully.
“Me too!” said a knight. “Let’s have a party!
Santa’s Dusting Sugar had obviously worked, perhaps a little too well. The gingerbread people turned not just sweet and happy, but downright silly, in fact.
They started dancing around like you might expect gingerbread cookies to do if they somehow came magically to life. Even the gingerbread horses gamboled and cavorted. The fluffy marshmallow sheep came out of hiding, no longer frightened, and started bouncing to and fro. The swans squawked, the shepherdesses skipped around the fountain, and a few of the knights did back flips, which was very risky, crispy as they were.
But this was no time for a party.
For, as Jake looked on, his brow furrowed with the dawning of a dark thought, he realized he could not just leave them here.
Bizarre as it seemed, these gingerbread folk had become sentient beings, and soon, Christmas would be done.
Blast it, he had not planned on this. Indeed, time was of the essence. If he did not get a move on it, he’d be late to the Nativity.
Still, something had to be done to keep them safe. He racked his brain until the answer came.
Of course.
Looming over them, he cleared his throat to get their attention amid their celebrations. “Ahem! Excuse me—”
“Ahhh! Look! Giant!”
They had not even noticed him till then, but instant screams erupted.
“Run for your life!”
“No, no, it’s all right, he’s a friendly giant,” Rollio and Juniette assured their startled kinfolk. “Even if he is a burglar,” Juniette added under her breath.
He ignored her accusation. “My name’s Jake, and Santa Claus sent me here to help you.”
“Santa?” Murmurs full of wonder traveled through the crowd as the gingerbread people marveled at this news.
“I’m glad you’ve got the whole war business sorted out, but we’ve got trouble,” Jake informed them. “Tomorrow’s Christmas, y’see—”
“Hooray for Christmas!” they cheered.
“No! Not in your case, anyway. Think about it,” he said. “Nobody needs a gingerbread display after Christmas is over. I’d give you lot till Twelfth Night, tops. Then these bakers are either going to throw you away or let their customers eat you.”
A collective gasp of horror rose from the gingerbread folk.
“But don’t worry,” Jake said. “I’m not going to let any of that happen of you. We need to evacuate both your towns, then I’ll bring you to a safe location, where you can be resettled in a new home. Just let me get a box.”
“But my people down at the castle will be left behind!” Rollio’s father cried.
“No worries, I’m headed there next. I’ll get them, too. But we don’t have much time, so everybody, please prepare to evacuate the bakery in an orderly fashion.”
“Can my sheep come, too?” one of the shepherdesses asked with a pretty flutter of her lashes.
“And the horses?” a knight called.
“Squawk!”
“Of course. Swans, too. You only have to leave your buildings behind. But don’t worry. Where I’m taking you, we have an excellent cook who can make you a whole new town, whatever you like. It may not be as fancy as all this, but at least you’ll be safe there to, er, live out your lives.”
Which was still completely odd, if you thought about it. Jake chose not to. Instead, he ran to the kitchen to fetch one of the large pasteboard cake boxes he had seen on the supply shelf.
He folded it into shape, then left it on the side of the display table so the gingerbread people could get in.
While Juniette organized the evacuation, Rollio showed Jake the secret way down into Bob’s British Bakery. It turned out that his kinsmen had been using an old servant staircase as their invasion route. The gingerbread men were thinly rolled enough to be able to fit under the crack at the bottom of the drafty door.
Jake suspected that Bob and Marie used to visit each other through this stairwell during slow moments in the workday—at least, until they had ended their courtship.
Now the door to the stairwell was padlocked, but this was of little consequence to a skilled former thief.
“Better take me with you,” Rollio said while Jake picked the lock with a small nail he had brought along for that very purpose, just in case. “It’ll save time. My kinsmen might not trust you, but if I go, I’ll let them know it’s all right and that you’re telling the truth.”
“Good enough,” Jake murmured. As soon as he had lifted
the padlock off the door, he bent down and picked up the gingerbread boy, setting him on his shoulder.
Rollio braced himself, hanging on to Jake’s scarf. “Ready!”
“Let’s go.” Jake opened the door cautiously. The stairwell was dark and a bit cobwebby, but he did not hesitate. Creeping down the stairs, he winced when one of them creaked.
Then he froze when he saw a feeble light shining in the shop below.
“Someone’s still here!” Rollio whispered.
“Shh!” Maybe someone just forgot to blow out the lantern.
The bottom of the stairwell did not have a door, so, inching closer, Jake was able to steal a cautious glance around the corner into the lower shop.
Blast. He clenched his jaw at what he saw.
British Bob was still at work, poring over his bookkeeping ledgers on the counter by the light of a single candle. Well, that’s sad. He looked moody, scowling down at his work, but that was no surprise.
Nobody liked being alone on Christmas Eve.
Jake, however, did not like getting arrested. Nor did he relish the thought of being attacked as an intruder by a former army officer. British Bob looked tough.
Feeling a light tap on his shoulder, Jake glanced at Rollio. The gingerbread boy pointed at the jar of Dusting Sugar.
Jake nodded.
Silently, he took it out of his coat, poured some into his hand, and then blew it into the air in Bob’s direction.
It whispered down lightly onto his head and shoulders, so fine a powder that he didn’t even feel it.
Jake held his breath, waiting to see what would happen.
Once more, it didn’t take long to start working.
Bob let out a weary sigh that nearly snuffed his candle flame. He put his quill pen down after a moment, rubbed his eyes, then stared off into space, his ledger books forgotten.
“Oh, Marie,” he said softly to himself.
With a yawn and a stretch, he rose to take a break. He unlocked his shop door and stepped out to get some fresh air.
As he gazed up at the stars, forlorn, Jake darted across the rustic-themed bakery and threw Dusting Sugar on the remaining castle knights and soldiers. They went silly, as expected—which made him wonder if the Dusting Sugar was a form of fairy dust, which could have a similar effect. Gladwin had said, after all, that Santa was technically an elf (obviously one of the large variety) and elves were related to fairies.