"—ing little brat?" asked Santa, standing outside of his newest toy factory while his chickens (acquired in the controversial Easter merger six years ago) fled in terror.
"I’ll tell you why you should be scared," snarled Rufus. "If you don’t surrender immediately, there will be wreaked a havoc like no havoc you’ve ever seen wreaked."
"Wreak…wreak…" said Slurpee.
Santa folded his arms. "I think not. I’ve survived accusations of overcommercialization. I’ve survived psychological testing that suggests I have a God Complex. What makes you think I’m going to be defeated by a wormy little twerp like…whoa, I didn’t see that ravenous snowman behind you! Does he bite?"
Rufus nodded.
"Ummm…okay, you win. But I won’t go quietly." Santa turned and ran, screaming "AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!" in his loudest voice.
"Victory is ours!" Rufus declared. "But it’s only July, and the fruits of my labors won’t be noticeable until decorations start going up in late September. So, Slurpee…destroy! Destroy! Destroy! Make it fall, wreck it all, make them faint, scrape the paint…gooooooo team evil!"
"Wreak," said Slurpee, as he began to destroy.
««—»»
A Special Note To Younger Readers: I know that the idea of a killer snowman destroying Santa’s workplace is kind of scary. Which is okay, because scary things happen in the world, and it’s best to learn to cope with them. But this is supposed to be a fun little story, and I don’t want to upset you by making you wonder whether or not Santa will survive. So I just want you to know that there’s no reason to be concerned, because Santa Claus doesn’t exist. He’s just a big lie your parents told you. See, there was nothing to worry about. Now back to the story, joined in progress:
««—»»
"—wearing a dress of hardened Play-Doh while licking the toenails of a plummeting lemming."
"That’s sick, Mrs. Claus," said her favorite elf, Spike, as he opened the door to the Hit The Fan Contingency Room. They quickly entered, and looked with the proper reverence at the pedestal upon which rested the urn containing those most heroic of disintegrated reindeer ashes.
The ashes of Howard, the Tenth Reindeer.
"He gave his life saving Christmas from the evil Edward Stinkwater," said Mrs. Claus, lifting the urn. "And now, if all goes well, he’ll be able to die for Christmas once again. Spike, recite the incantation."
"Rise," said Spike.
The urn began to tremble, the ground began to quake, the house began to shake, and suddenly the ashes rose and began to take form. There was some swirling and churning and bubbling and skeedaddling and snorkling, and suddenly there he stood, in all of his dramatic glory.
Howard, the Tenth Reindeer.
At that moment, the snowman burst into the room. Howard spoke his very first word since he’d made the ultimate sacrifice two long years ago: "Huh?"
And then Slurpee ate him.
"Well, damn," said Mrs. Claus.
"Foolish woman," laughed Rufus, stepping into the room. "I’ve defeated your pitiful elves and even your multi-class halflings! I’ve destroyed your toy factory and have strewn Beanie Baby parts all over the North Pole! The children of the world will all be weeping come December 25! Now, Slurpee…get her!"
"Stop!" shouted Santa, entering the room with his candy cane revolver. Rufus spun around, pulling out the coal pistol Santa had given him years ago. Mrs. Claus whipped out her tinsel gun. Spike yanked out his ornament boom-stick. Slurpee ate Spike.
Santa fired, hitting Rufus in the chest. Rufus fired, hitting himself in the chest. Mrs. Claus fired, hitting Rufus in the uvula. Had Spike not been eaten, he would have fired, hitting Mrs. Claus in the left earlobe.
As Rufus dropped to the floor in slow motion, Santa and Mrs. Claus opened fire on Slurpee, filling the air with a cacophony of glorious bang sounds and reducing the snowman to a melted Sno-Cone. Then they started shooting at the ceiling, overcome with firepower dementia.
Soon it was all over, and they stood victorious over the dying Rufus. "Thought you could beat us, didn’t ya?" asked Santa. "Thought you were soooooo tough, but gosh, if I look around the room I only see one person who’s mortally wounded, golly, whoever could it be, I wonder…oh, it’s you!"
Rufus forced a grin. "You may have beaten me, and my cousin Edward before me. But there’s one thing you haven’t beaten, and that’s the small nuclear device Slurpee and I brought along with us as a precaution against just this kind of situation. It’s going to explode in thirty seconds. Good night." And he died, bringing the official body count to eighty-seven, a new record for a story that was originally published as a Christmas card.
Santa and Mrs. Claus hurried outside, where the nuclear device lay waiting, with a red digital readout conveniently informing them that 23 seconds remained. "Hand me my clippers," said Santa, opening the access panel. "The question is, do I cut the red wire, the blue wire, the yellow wire, the green wire, the white wire, the orange wire, the pink wire, the chartreuse wire, the periwinkle wire, or the wire with ‘Cut Me’ written on it?"
"The orange wire," said Mrs. Claus, "because it looks most like the ball of flame that will engulf us if you get it wrong."
Santa took a deep breath, positioned the clippers over the orange wire, and cut.
"Thank you for cutting the orange wire," said a perky recorded voice from within the nuclear device. "Armageddon has been averted."
"You did it!" shouted Mrs. Claus. "Christmas is saved!"
"We all did it," said Santa. "Well, I guess the people who got eaten by the snowman weren’t all that helpful, but everyone who survived did their share. Merry Christmas!"
Yes, once again, evil was defeated and the spirit of Christmas lived on. And so we bring to a close this tale.
The tale of Howard, the Tenth Reindeer.
Robert Shearman
GRANNY’S GRINNING
SARAH DIDN’T WANT the zombie, and she didn’t know anyone else who did. Apart from Graham, of course, but he was only four, he wanted everything; his Christmas list to Santa had run to so many sheets of paper that Daddy had said that Santa would need to take out a second mortgage on his igloo to get that lot, and everyone had laughed, even though Graham didn’t know what an igloo was, and Sarah was pretty sure that Santa didn’t live in an igloo anyway. Sarah had tried to point out to her little brother why the zombies were rubbish. “Look,” she said, showing him the picture in the catalogue, “there’s nothing to a zombie. They’re just the same as us. Except the skin is a bit greener, maybe. And the eyes have whitened a bit.” But Graham said that zombies were cool because zombies ate people when they were hungry, and when Sarah scoffed Graham burst into tears like always, and Mummy told Sarah to leave Graham alone, he was allowed to like zombies if he wanted to. Sarah thought that if it was all about eating people, she’d rather have a vampire: they sucked your blood for a start, which was so much neater somehow than just chomping down on someone’s flesh – and Sharon Weekes said that she’d tried out a friend’s vampire, and it was great, it wasn’t just the obvious stuff like the teeth growing, but your lips swelled up, they got redder and richer and plump, and if you closed your eyes and rubbed them together it felt just the same as if a boy were kissing you. As if Sharon Weekes would know: Sharon Weekes was covered in spots, and no boy had ever kissed her, if you even so much as touched Sharon her face would explode – but you know, whatever, the rubbing lips thing still sounded great. Sarah hadn’t written down her Christmas list like Graham had done, she’d simply told Santa that she’d like the vampire, please. Just the vampire, not the mummy, or the werewolf, or the demon. And definitely not the zombie.
Even before Granny had decided to stay, Sarah knew that this Christmas was going to be different. Mummy and Daddy said that if she and Graham wanted such expensive toys, then they’d have to put up with just one present this year. Once upon a time they’d have had tons of presents, and the carpet beneath the Christmas tree would have been strewn with brightly
wrapped parcels of different shapes and sizes; it’d have taken hours to open the lot. But that was before Daddy left his job because he wanted to “go it alone”, before the credit crunch, before those late-night arguments in the kitchen that Sarah wasn’t supposed to hear. Graham groused a little about only getting one present, but Daddy said something about a second mortgage, and this time he didn’t mention igloos, and this time nobody laughed. Usually the kitchen arguments were about money, but one night they were about Granny, and Sarah actually bothered to listen. “I thought she was staying with Sonia!” said Mummy. Sonia was Daddy’s sister, and she had a sad smile, and ever since Uncle Jim had left her for someone less ugly she had lived alone. “She says she’s fallen out with Sonia,” said Daddy, “she’s coming to spend Christmas with us instead.” “Oh, for Christ’s sake, for Christ’s sake,” said Mummy, and there was a banging of drawers. “Come on,” said Daddy, “she’s my Mummy, what was I supposed to say?” And then he added, “It might even work in our favour,” and Mummy had said it better bloody well should, and then Sarah couldn’t hear any more, perhaps because they’d shut the kitchen door, perhaps because Mummy was crying again.
Most Christmases they’d spend on their own, just Sarah with Mummy and Daddy and Graham. And on Boxing Day they’d get into the car and drive down the motorway to see Granny and Granddad. Granny looked a little like Daddy, but older and slightly more feminine. And Granddad smelled of cigarettes even though he’d given up before Sarah was born. Granny and Granddad would give out presents, and Sarah and Graham would say thank you no matter what they got. And they’d have another Christmas meal, just like the day before, except this time the turkey would be drier, and there’d be brussels sprouts rather than sausages. There wouldn’t be a Boxing Day like that again. Partly because on the way home last year Mummy had said she could never spend another Christmas like that, and it had taken all of Daddy’s best efforts to calm her down in the Little Chef -but mostly, Sarah supposed, because Granddad was dead. That was bound to make a difference. They’d all been to the funeral, Sarah hadn’t even missed school because it was during the summer holidays, and Graham had made a nuisance of himself during the service asking if Granddad was a ghost now and going to come back from the grave. And during the whole thing Granny had sat there on the pew, all by herself, she didn’t want anyone sitting next to her, not even Aunt Sonia, and Aunt Sonia was her favourite. And she’d cried, tears were streaming down her face, and Sarah had never seen Granny like that before, her face was always set fast like granite, and now with all the tears it had become soft and fat and pulpy and just a little frightening.
Four days before Christmas Daddy brought home a tree. “One of Santa’s elves coming through!” he laughed, as he lugged it into the sitting room. It was enormous, and Graham and Sarah loved it, its upper branches scraped against the ceiling: they couldn’t have put the fairy on the top like usual, she’d have broken her spine. Graham and Sarah began to cover it with balls and tinsel and electric lights, and Mummy said, “How much did that cost? I thought the point was to be a bit more economical this year,” and Daddy said he knew what he was doing, he knew how to play the situation. They were going to give Granny the best Christmas she’d ever had! And he asked everyone to listen carefully, and then told them that this was a very important Christmas, it was the first Granny would have without Granddad. And she was likely to be a bit sad, and maybe a bit grumpy, but they’d all have to make allowances. It was to be her Christmas this year, whatever she wanted, it was all about making Granny happy, Granny would get the biggest slice of turkey, Granny got to choose which James Bond film to watch in the afternoon, the one on BBC1 or the one on ITV. Could he count on Graham and Sarah for that? Could he count on them to play along? And they both said yes, and Daddy was so pleased, they were so good he’d put their presents under the tree right away. He fetched two parcels, the same size, the same shape, flat boxes, one wrapped in blue paper and the other in pink. “Now, no peeking until the big day!” he laughed, but Graham couldn’t help it, he kept turning his present over and over, and shaking it, and wondering what was inside, was it a demon, was it a zombie? And Sarah had to get on with decorating the tree all by herself, but that was all right, Graham hadn’t been much use, she did a better job with him out of the way.
And that was just the start of the work! The next few days were frantic! Mummy insisted that Granny come into a house as spotless and tidy as could be, that this time she wouldn’t be able to find a thing wrong with it. And she made Sarah and Graham clean even the rooms that Granny wouldn’t be seeing in the first place! It was all for Granny, that’s what they were told, all for Granny – and if Graham sulked about that (and he did a little), Daddy said that one day someone close to him would die, and then he could have a special Christmas where everyone would run around after him, and Graham cheered up at that. On Christmas Eve Daddy said he was very proud of his children, and that he had a treat for them both. Early the next morning he’d be picking Granny up from her home in the country – it was a four-and-a-half hour journey there and back, and that they’d been so good they were allowed to come along for the trip! Graham got very excited, and shouted a lot. And Mummy said that it was okay to take Graham, but she needed Sarah at home, there was still work for Sarah to do. And Sarah wasn’t stupid, the idea of a long drive to Granny’s didn’t sound much like fun to her, but it had been offered as a treat, and it hurt her to be denied a treat. Daddy glared at Mummy, and Mummy glared right back, and for a thrilling moment Sarah thought they might have an argument – but they only ever did that in the kitchen, they still believed the kids didn’t know – and then Daddy relaxed, and then laughed, and ruffled Graham’s hair, and said it’d be a treat for the boys then, just the boys, and laughed once more. So that was all right.
First thing Christmas morning, still hours before sunrise, Daddy and Graham set off to fetch Granny. Graham was so sleepy he forgot to be excited. “Goodbye then!” said Daddy cheerily; “Goodbye,” said Mummy, and then suddenly pulled him into a tight hug. “It’ll all be all right,” said Daddy. “Of course it will,” said Mummy, “off you go!” She waved them off, and then turned to Sarah, who was waving along beside her. Mummy said, “We’ve only got a few hours to make everything perfect,” and Sarah nodded, and went to the cupboard for the vacuum cleaner. “No, no,” said Mummy, “to make you perfect. My perfect little girl.” And Mummy took Sarah by the hand, and smiled at her kindly, and led her to her own bedroom. “We’re going to make you such a pretty girl,” said Mummy, “they’ll all see how pretty you can be. You’ll like that, won’t you? You can wear your nice dress. You’d like your new dress. Won’t you?” Sarah didn’t like her new dress, it was hard to romp about playing a vampire in it, it was hard to play at anything in it, but Mummy was insistent. “And we’ll give you some nice jewellery,” she said. “This is a necklace of mine. It’s pretty. It’s gold. Do you like it? My Mummy gave it to me. Just as I’m now giving it to you. Do you remember my Mummy? Do you remember the Other Granny?” Sarah didn’t, but said that she did, and Mummy smiled. “She had some earrings too, shall we try you out with those? Shall we see what that’s like?” And the earrings were much heavier than the plain studs Sarah was used to, they stretched her lobes out like chewing gum, they seemed to Sarah to stretch out her entire face. “Isn’t that pretty?” said Mummy, and when Sarah said they hurt a bit, Mummy said she’d get used to it. Then Mummy took Sarah by the chin, and gave her a dab of lipstick – and Sarah never wore make-up, not like the girls who sat on the back row of the school bus, not even like Sharon Weekes, Mummy had always said it made them look cheap. Sarah reminded her of this, and Mummy didn’t reply, and so Sarah then asked if this was all for Granny, and Mummy said, “Yes, it’s all for Granny,” and then corrected herself, “it’s for all of them, let’s remind them what a pretty girl you are, what a pretty woman you could grow up to be. Always remember that you could have been a pretty woman.” And then she wanted to give Sarah so
me nail varnish, nothing too much, nothing too red, just something clear and sparkling. But Sarah had had enough, she looked in the mirror and she didn’t recognize the person looking back at her, she looked so much older, and greasy and plastic, she looked just like Mummy. And tears were in her eyes, and she looked behind her reflection at Mummy’s reflection, and there were tears in Mummy’s eyes too – and Mummy said she was sorry, and took off the earrings, and wiped away the lipstick with a tissue. “I’m sorry,” she said again, and said that Sarah needn’t dress up if she didn’t want to, it was her Christmas too, not just Granny’s. And Sarah felt bad, and although she didn’t much like the necklace she asked if she could keep it on, she lied and said it made her look pretty – and Mummy beamed a smile so wide, and gave her a hug, and said of course she could wear the necklace, anything for her darling, anything she wanted.
The first thing Granny said was, “I haven’t brought you any presents, so don’t expect any.” “Come on in,” said Daddy, laughing, “and make yourself at home!”, and Granny sniffed as if she found that prospect particularly unappealing. “Hello, Mrs Forbes,” said Mummy. “Hello, Granny,” said Sarah, and she felt the most extraordinary urge to curtsey. Graham trailed behind, unusually quiet, obviously quelled by a greater force than his own. “Can I get you some tea, Mrs Forbes?” said Mummy. “We’ve got you all sorts, Earl Grey, Lapsang Souchong, Ceylon . . .” “I’d like some tea, not an interrogation,” said Granny. She went into the lounge, and when she sat down in Daddy’s armchair she sent all the scatter cushions tumbling, she didn’t notice how carefully they’d been arranged and plumped. “Do you like the tree, Mummy?” Daddy asked, and Granny studied it briefly, and said it was too big, and she hoped he’d bought it on discount. Daddy started to say something about how the tree was just to keep the children happy, as if it were really their fault, but then Mummy arrived with the tea; Granny took her cup, sipped at it, and winced. “Would you like your presents, Mummy? We’ve got you presents.” And at the mention of presents, Graham perked up: “Presents!” he said, “presents!” “Not your presents yet, old chap,” laughed Daddy amiably, “Granny first, remember?” And Granny sighed and said she had no interest in presents, she could see nothing to celebrate – but she didn’t want to spoil anyone else’s fun, obviously, and so if they had presents to give her now would be as good a time to put up with them as any. Daddy had bought a few gifts, and labelled a couple from Sarah and Graham. It turned out that they’d bought Granny some perfume, “Your favourite, isn’t it?” asked Daddy, “and with their very own pocket money too!” “What use have I got with perfume now that Arthur’s dead?” said Granny curtly. And tilted her face forwards so that Sarah and Graham could kiss it, by way of a thank you.
Gift-Wrapped & Toe-Tagged: A Melee of Misc. Holiday Anthology Page 15