Catching Santa

by Marc Franco

“How do you know?” I asked.

  “I just know. Parents are the ones who send the final letter to Santa,” Shig said.

  “I can’t believe my parents tell Santa what to do.”

  “Fleep, you are living proof that I’m right. You’ve asked for a skateboard three years in a row,” Shig said. “And remember last year? You even mailed Santa magazine clipping of the exact skateboard just to be sure he didn’t get confused. Face it, nothing you’ve done has worked, and spamming Santa is not going to help.”

  Just then Rick and his skater pack rode over to us on their boards. And, to rub salt in an already infected wound, Rick showed up riding the very skateboard Fleep wanted.

  “Face it, your parents don’t want you to have one right now,” I said.

  “Have what?” Rick asked, removing his helmet.

  “A skateboard like yours,” Fleep said.

  “Who wants to give you one?”

  “Don’t answer that,” I said, warily studying Rick and his friends. I faced Fleep, stood inches from his nose and whispered, “I have a really bad feeling about this.”

  “No, it’s okay. Rick said he was sorry, remember?” Fleep said, real upbeat, then brushed me aside. I crossed my arms, shaking my head. Fleep was always so trusting, and it invariably got him in trouble.

  “Shig’s trying to tell me that my parents have to sign my letter,” he explained. Rick and his gang looked confused.

  “What are you talking about? What letter?” Rick said.

  “The letter to Santa! I keep asking for—”

  “Wait, you guys write letters to Santa?” Rick interrupted Fleep. He didn’t wait for our answer. Rick knew the answer. And with that, Rick and the rest of his gang fell to the ground, laughing hysterically. They were laughing so hard they couldn’t talk. My face flushed with frustration. Recess was happening all over, only this time it was a smaller crowd, and it involved all four of us.

  “All of you write letters to Santa? Goo-goo ga-ga, anyone?” Rick said, pretending to suck his thumb. “I told you there is no such thing as Santa.”

  I couldn’t believe Rick was doing it again, making a fool out of us. Just a couple of minutes ago, he had said he didn’t care what we believed. Well, I wasn’t going to back down.

  “Santa’s real. He’s as real as you or any of us,” I said.

  “Oh yeah, and so is the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny and, gee, let me think, who else? Oh, I got it— Yoda, he gives us free light sabers every May for Jedi Spirit Month.” Rick and his friends laughed stupidly. I really didn’t like them. “Look,” Rick said, as he stood up and brushed himself off. “Santa is a fake. Your parents buy the presents, wrap them the night before, and eat the cookies and drink the milk. Wow, you guys are dumb— still believing in Santa!”

  I stepped in closer to Rick. “Well, we believe in him, so whatever. You don’t want to believe in him, then don’t. But don’t try to tell us he’s not real.”

  “Prove it!” Rick said mockingly.

  “Yeah, right,” I said.

  “I mean it. Prove it, and I’ll give you this skateboard and whatever else I get for Christmas. In fact, we’ll give you all of our boards—right, guys?” Rick looked over at his friends. From their looks, none of them seemed eager to offer up their boards. “Come on, give me a break.

  There is no Santa Claus.”

  “How am I supposed to prove it?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.” He walked away, then stopped and stared at me for a moment “Catch him. That’ll prove that Santa is real and it’s not your parents who give you the presents!”

  From out of nowhere, Tiff walked up to Rick, grabbed him by the neck and shoved him to the ground.

  “Take it back—all of it,” Tiff demanded, standing over her brother. Rick looked up at his sister with devilish eyes, then at his friends, then back to his sister. He was embarrassed and, honestly, I felt good.

  Rick picked himself up and ran off, then stopped just before his house and shouted over to us, “Santa’s a fake! I hate him!”

  I shouted back, “IS NOT!”

  Tiff ignored her brother, said something to his friends to make them disperse, and then did something really odd. She walked over to Fleep and said gently, “Santa is not a fake. He is a real person, a special person. You believe that, right? Don’t listen to my brother. He doesn’t believe in Santa, because he never gets what he wants.”

  Well, I got what I wanted—proof that Rick was S.R. and that he wrote the e-mail. He had messed up big time by asking me to catch Santa, just like he’d done in the e-mail. That was proof enough for me. But one thing still bothered me. Was Tiff also part of Rick’s scam? It was hard to tell now. Judging by the way they got along, maybe she wasn’t helping her brother; I just wasn’t sure. But as I walked away, Tiff grabbed me.

  “Hey, Logan said you e-mailed someone about the curse?”

  Logan the blabbermouth, I thought.

  “I just want you to know that I’m glad you’re helping them, and I’m sorry about freaking out yesterday.”

  “It’s okay, we all freak out sometimes.”

  Tiff cracked an easy smile. “Cool, well let me know when you get a reply from the e-mail, okay?”

  Well, at least Miss Blabbermouth didn’t tell her yet that I’d gotten a reply. “Sure, no problem,” I said, lying through my teeth. Don’t get me wrong, I hated having to lie, but I had made up my mind. I wouldn’t tell her anything until I knew for sure whose side she was on.

  I’d been home for about thirty minutes when my doorbell rang. It was Shig, Fleep, and Logan. I’d been expecting they’d want to read the e-mail before we started movie night, and was surprised they hadn’t burst in earlier.

  “Wow, the temperature is dropping,” I shivered as I let the gang in.

  “Well it’s not cold enough for snowmen,” Logan said, unhinged.

  I shot her a puzzled look.

  “We would have been here sooner, but something happened. Follow me,” she said, then stormed past me with Shig and Fleep not far behind. They headed out back toward the pool, carrying what looked like twigs, black rocks, and some other stuff. Odd.

  “Sit down,” I said, motioning to some pillows.

  “I’m too freaked to sit,” Logan’s voice quaked.

  “Okay, what happened?” I said inquisitively and, honestly, a little worried.

  “Snowmen, oh-my-gosh, snowmen!” Logan said, hugging herself and rocking. “A snowman just came to my door.”

  I didn’t say anything. What do you say when your best friend tells you a snowman came to her door? Remember, we live in Central Florida.

  “The curse is real. This proves it,” Logan said, handing me two twigs, black coal, and a carrot. “See this?” She held up a wet, blue paper. “Do you know what this is?” Logan’s voice quaked as she shook the paper. I’d never seen her like this. She was beyond freaked out.

  “It’s a wet letter, a wet letter that’s melting. And do you want to know why it’s melting?” Logan was hyperactive.

  “Because it’s trick paper from a magic shop or something—I don’t know.”

  Logan caught her breath. “No, it’s not magic trick paper. It’s a curse letter … delivered by a snowman. Did you hear me, a snowman? We have five days …” Logan was hysterical. She started crying.

  “Will someone tell me what happened?” I said.

  “Logan, calm down. I’ll tell him,” Shig said, patting her on the shoulder.

  Shig did a parent scan. The coast was clear. My mom and dad were in the kitchen doing something. “She’s telling you the truth. Fleep and I also were just visited by a snowman.”

  I didn’t say anything at first. I just stared at Shig then said, “Do you know how crazy that sounds?”

  Shig leaned into me and said, “Yeah, I do, but it happened. I was in my house, walking past my front door when I saw him. He was on the other side of the glass, three snowballs high and about six feet tall … a snowman.” Shig pointed to the
twigs and the coal. “He had twigs for arms, and coal for his smiling mouth and eyes, and the carrot was his nose. The snowman looked like he was staring at me. At first I thought it was some kind of a joke. It’s not unlike someone from the police department to play a joke on my dad by making a snowman and leaving it at out front door; the fire department has a snowmaker too. I opened the door. That’s when I noticed the thing was moving. Scared to death, I quickly stepped back inside and slammed the door. I watched it for a few seconds. The snowman wasn’t just moving—he was alive. His arm, the right twig, was trying to open the door while the other twig held up the blue letter thing. I could tell he wanted to give it to me. Slowly, I cracked open the door just enough to snatch the letter. In that instant, the snowman melted, leaving this stuff behind. I bent over to pick up some of the coal when I heard a bloodcurdling scream come from Logan’s house. I sprinted to her front door just in time to see her snowman melt. Left behind were two twigs, a carrot and coal in a pool of water and …”

  “I was like … oh my gosh, did you see that? Did you see the snowman?” Logan interrupted Shig. “That’s when we remembered Fleep and took off to his house. Sure enough, he was outside holding a carrot and staring at twigs and coal in a pool of water.”

  “Fleep’s story was the same as mine and Logan’s,” Shig said.

  “Except I didn’t scream,” Fleep said as he reached down, grabbed the carrot and bit into it.

  “Gross, that was his nose,” Logan said, now a little calmer.

  Fleep quickly spit out chunks of carrot while Logan and Shig stared at me. I didn’t say anything. I was thinking. I knew they weren’t kidding around. I’ve seen Logan cry and she wasn’t faking it. She was really worked up over this snowman business.

  “Let me see one of the letters,” I said.

  Logan handed me her letter. I examined the blue paper. It was wet and felt sponge-like. The text was written in a fancy white cursive. The bottom part of the letter, the part that was supposedly melting, really was disintegrating. I could see tiny specs of the paper slowly dissolving and forming into drops of liquid. The letter read:

  With great sadness I deliver, to you, your curse letter. The letter will melt in just five days. Lift the curse by then or it permanently stays. Only the Pole can help you.

  “Creepy, but explainable. Here, look.” I showed them the letter. “The bottom part, here,” I pointed to the drop that was forming. “This paper has to be made of some type of dissolving material. Add a little water to it and bam, you’ve got a melting letter.” Shig and Fleep were examining their letters.

  “Let me see that,” Logan demanded.

  I handed Logan her letter. “I bet if you tear off the dissolving part, it will stop melting.”

  “Interesting,” Shig said, already tearing his letter. We watched and waited.

  “It worked. It’s stopped melting,” Shig said after another minute.

  “Trick paper from a magic shop,” I said matter-of-factly. Fleep quickly tore off the lower section of his letter. Logan didn’t. She held on tightly to her letter, then went into a tirade.

  “Are you guys insane? You just shortened your curse time. The paper was going to melt in five days. Who knows how much time you have left now that you’ve torn it. I’m not tearing this thing, no way,” Logan said.

  “Come on, Logan. I think I did a pretty good job of explaining the paper,” I said.

  “You can’t explain the snowman. It moved. It was alive,” Logan said.

  “Whatever, Rick probably built the snowmen, wrote the letter and rigged a timer to melt them,” I said.

  “Rick built the snowmen? With what snow?” she demanded.

  “A snow-making machine,” I said. “The fire department has a snow-making machine. Remember, my dad’s a fireman. Come on, Shig; help me out here.”

  “Okay, but it doesn’t explain the thing melting before my very eyes,” Shig said.

  “Look, sometimes, when you are excited about something, you end up seeing things. Your brain does it. Trust me, I’ve seen it on TV.”

  “I don’t know … maybe,” Shig said, unsure. “Well, what about the Pole?”

  “The what?” I asked.

  “The letter says that only the Pole can help. Who is the Pole?” Logan asked.

  “I don’t know and don’t care. Come on. Let’s go. Do you want to read the e-mail or not?” I said. Tired of snowman talk, I took the gang up to my room.

  “Before you read this e-mail, you have to promise not to tell Tiff about it,” I announced as we settled in around the computer.

  “Why?” Logan asked.

  “Because I’m trying to prove her brother sent the e-mail and you’ll mess things up by telling her. Okay?”

  “Not that it matters, he didn’t. But whatever, I promise,” Logan said, followed by two more promises, one from Shig and one from Fleep.

  I opened the e-mail then stood back and studied their faces as they read. Enthralled was the simplest way to put it. That didn’t matter though. All I needed was one of them—just one of them to say that they thought the e-mail was from Rick. Then we’d counter his hoax somehow.

  They took their time reading, I think because they were trying to figure out the words they didn’t know. Finally Logan spun around in the chair and stared at me, wide-eyed.

  “Okay, I am officially freaked! Print it,” she said, pressing buttons on my printer.

  “Stop that,” I said.

  “I know how to turn on a stupid printer. Just print it.”

  “You know how to turn on a printer, but can’t press print yourself?” I mocked.

  “I’m not touching your computer. Last time I did, you had a hissy fit.”

  “Stop saying I have hissy fits. Girls have hissy fits, not boys!”

  “Just print it,” Logan demanded.

  “No, I’m not wasting ink.”

  “Jakob, please,” she begged.

  “Fine!” I said, rolling my eyes.

  I didn’t want to argue with Logan anymore. She was my friend and the bickering was getting old, but it was hard dealing with someone as thick headed as her. In her mind, she was right and I was wrong, even if I was only trying to protect her from Rick. Maybe with a little nudging on my part, my friends would come to the same conclusion I had: that Rick was orchestrating all of this. I reached past Fleep and printed the e-mail, then handed it to Logan. She began reading.

  “The e-mail’s author, S.R., tells us to catch ‘the portly man,’” she said as she walked over to the end table beside the printer. There was just enough room to sit down. “And notice how S.R. doesn’t mention Santa by name, not once,” she said, referring to the e-mail. “That’s odd and—”

  I interrupted Logan. It was time to throw her some bait.

  “Yeah, you are right, it is odd. And what about S.R. instructing me to catch Santa and then Rick telling me to do the same thing? It’s almost like it’s too much of a, a …” Come on, one of you, say coincidence, I thought.

  “… a sign that we should do it,” Fleep said.

  Ugh! I glanced over at Shig. He was smiling but in an anxious way, like he had something to say and couldn’t wait to say it. Spit it out, I thought.

  “I know who …” Shig began, but Logan held up her index finger to shush him then looked over at me.

  “Have you looked up the words?”

  I shot her a blank stare.

  “The words. The big ones, the ones we don’t know the meanings of,” Logan said, shaking the printed e-mail in exasperation. She stepped over to the computer chair, brushed Fleep aside, then sat and logged onto the Internet. “We need to substitute the words we don’t know with ones we do and then reread it. Trust me, it will make more sense.”

  This was a complete waste of time. It’s a hoax, a trick, a scam. Look those words up, Logan. I ambled over and glanced at the computer screen. Logan was logging onto Webster.com, and had a pencil and the printed e-mail in front of her.

  “I’ve c
ircled all the words we don’t know or are not sure of: esteemed, bamboozle, euphoric, tedious, recant, and portly.”

  “Wait a minute,” I barked at the back of her head. “How do you know what words we don’t know?”

  She sighed, then grabbed the paper and held it over her head, still looking at the screen.

  “If I don’t know them, then you definitely don’t,” she said, as condescendingly as she could. Ugh, she didn’t even have the decency to offend me to my face. Why did I put up with her? She was so arrogant, but also so right. Maybe that’s why.

  “Oh wait, portly is … fat!” Shig blurted.

  “Are you sure?” Logan asked.

  “Pretty sure.”

  “That’s not good enough—we have to be sure,” Logan snapped. She was quick, and within seconds had her first word looked up and substituted on paper.

  “Here,” Logan said a couple of minutes later, shoving the e-mail into my chest as she got up from my chair. “Read it with the new words, please. Oh, and substitute the name Santa whenever it references ‘he’ and ‘him’.”

  I liked the please. It definitely helped to ease the pain of her pushiness. I cleared my throat and began.

  Dear Stormtrooper TK421,

  I, the [respected] S.R. will help you. Please respond with details of the event in which you denied your belief in [Santa.] Time is against you, Stormtrooper TK421. There are only five days before [Santa] takes to the sky to [trick] the children of the earth. Of course, you wish to participate in that evening’s [joyous] event; therefore, you must do exactly as I say or there will be no presents for you … FOREVER!

  First, you must [take back] your disbelief to the person who asked you if you believe. That is a simple task; the next is not. You must then get that person to believe in [Santa]. I know of only one way to do this and, unfortunately, it has never been done before. You will be the first to lift the curse if you are successful.

  What must you do, you ask? Well, my young boy, you must catch and present [Santa] to the unbeliever! I can help you catch the [fat] man. I offer my services. If you so choose and accept them, I will need the full names of your parents (including your mother’s maiden name). We must hurry if we are to formulate a plan and catch [Santa].