Arthur Christmas

by Justine Fontes

  “Of course, I do!” Grandsanta agreed hastily. “I was Santa, too!” His old eyes flickered over the young man, calculating exactly how to persuade him. “Think of your dad, lying awake, chewing his beard off worrying over this girl. Don’t you want to help for once? Make him proud?”

  Arthur was frozen. “I can’t! I just … I can’t. No … NO! I CAN’T!”

  Nevertheless, a few minutes later, Arthur found himself huddled in Eve’s foot well, clutching Gwen’s bike. As the ancient elevator lifted Eve out of the complex into the open air, Arthur shook like the faded flags marking the North Pole and flapping in the arctic wind.

  The eight beautiful young reindeer were now harnessed to the sleigh. As he held their reins, Grandsanta’s chest puffed with pride beneath his mothball-scented, old Santa suit.

  Dasher sat on the sleigh’s back seat, his nose excitedly sniffing the icy wind. Grandsanta looked back and asked his terrified passenger, “Ready?”

  Arthur’s buckteeth chattered with cold and fear, as he replied, “NO!”

  But Grandsanta flicked the reins anyway, and the eight reindeer trotted forward.

  Arthur felt the sleigh start to move and begged, “You promise not to go too fast?”

  Grandsanta’s response did not reassure the young man. “Woohoo!”

  “Or high! Or bumpy, I get travel sick!” Arthur reminded the old man. “And I’m allergic to snow!”

  “Ye baubles!” Grandsanta exclaimed. “And you a son of Santa?”

  As the sleigh picked up speed, it vibrated violently and loudly, like a washing machine with an unbalanced load. Grandsanta’s dentures rattled wildly.

  “Wait!” Arthur shouted, suddenly realizing he wasn’t wearing appropriate footgear. “My Christmas slippers!”

  But it was too late. The sleigh was on its way—and with only two hours to reach Trelew before sunrise.

  Grandsanta pulled a brass lever and a sparkly cloud of magic dust rained down over the reindeer. Instantly, their hooves left the ground as the deer floated into the air.

  “Dash! DASH! DAAAAASHHH!” Grandsanta cried, just as Arthur screamed, “STOP! STOP! STOOOOOP!”

  The reindeer obeyed the red-suited man with the reins, and their hearts beat with glee as they fulfilled their destiny.

  Grandsanta looked back at the North Pole and punched the air in defiant triumph. “See? Who’s Santa now?!” The sleigh climbed higher, toward a glorious moon, leaving a trail of glittering dust. “HO, HO, HO! WHOOHOO!!” the old man crooned, just before Eve suddenly plunged down, lurching and shaking. The young reindeer bucked wildly, pulling in all different directions.

  Arthur wailed into the wind, “AAAAAH! PUT ME DOWN!”

  Grandsanta roared with laughter. “What’s the matter, boy?”

  Arthur gasped for breath. “I’m … having a … heart attack …”

  Suddenly, Arthur was sick over the side of the sleigh.

  Grandsanta laughed and nodded at the reindeer. “Whoops! They’ve never flown before! Just gotta break ’em in! Now, now …”

  Grandsanta’s hands steadied the reins, and his withered lips pursed to produce a strange, silvery whistle. “COME AWAY! DASH AWAY!” he commanded.

  The skill of driving a flying sleigh came back to him, never lost, like riding a bike. The young reindeer fell into line. Their leaping strides assumed an easy rhythm.

  Dasher sat up and bleated with joy. Arthur found the courage to peek above the rim of the sleigh at the flying deer and the starry sky.

  Grandsanta encouraged him, “Look, Arthur, all those stars. We’re one of ’em now—a shooting star!”

  As the old man steered, momentum threw Arthur back onto the seat. A small object fell from the dashboard: a little nodding reindeer toy.

  Grandsanta’s eyes stared back over the years as he recalled, “Stuck that there for your dad when he was a boy.”

  Arthur tried to picture his large father as a small boy. “Dad … sat here?”

  Grandsanta nodded. “So did I. And my dad before me and his dad before him. Every young heir to the Pole gets took out by his father. Right back to Saint Nick!”

  Wind puffed out the mothball-scented suit, helping Arthur see the Santa his grandfather had once been. The old man recalled, “We Clauses used to be the only men in the world who could fly.”

  He waved at the world below. “It was a gift, from Santa to his eldest son, this great big ball wrapped in oceans and mountains. I remember the look on your father’s face when he saw it.”

  Arthur’s curiosity grew. He peeped past the flying reindeer to gaze at the beautiful world of moonlit snow, shimmering sea, towering icebergs, and the glowing green wonder of the Aurora Borealis!

  As Eve traveled farther south, the Northern Lights faded, and ice gave way to ocean. Grandsanta swooped closer to the water. Naturally drawn to the magic, narwhals leaped beside the sleigh. Arthur whooped with delight! “Fish with horns!”

  Grandsanta smiled and suggested, “Want to help me make a snowman?” Before Arthur could answer, he winked, then steered Eve right into a cloud bank!

  “No! Not y …,” Arthur protested too late.

  Steam blasted from a pipe as the sleigh swooped in crazy patterns. Arthur screamed, until Eve emerged from the clouds.

  When the young man looked back, his yell became a laugh. The clouds had been sculpted into a giant snowman!

  Grandsanta laughed, too. Arthur stared into the old man’s twinkling eyes and saw someone who was artistic, romantic … Santa!

  Arthur released his white-knuckled grip on Eve’s side just long enough to punch the air and cry, “Woohoo!”

  GRANDSANTA CHUCKLED, AND then he pulled out a brass sextant and a thick square of folded parchment.

  Arthur looked back at the fading snowman and wondered, “Could Dad do that?! Did he make a snowman for Steve?”

  The twinkle fled from Grandsanta’s eyes as the crabby old man returned. “Robot Roy? Ha! He took one look at Evie, said she was aerodynamically challenged and violated 11 safety codes!” Grandsanta shook his head. “Heck of a five-year-old he was. The next Santa and he’s never even sat in a sleigh!”

  Arthur’s eyes fell on the folded parchment. His voice choked with awe as he asked, “Is that?”

  Grandsanta nodded. “The map of the Clauses. Used every Christmas night in history!” The old man lifted the sextant to align it with the stars. “Whatever your brother says, Arthur, it’s the same old world!”

  But something terrifying appeared from the clouds! A big, saucer-shaped object!

  “WWWAAAHHH!” Arthur and Grandsanta screamed in unison.

  Grandsanta swerved at the last moment. Eve spiraled down.

  “Wh … what is it?!” Arthur gasped.

  Grandsanta tightened his grip on the reins and replied, “No idea! I’ve never seen it before!”

  As Eve broke out beneath the cloud, her passengers found themselves in a maze of skyscrapers! The big saucer was the tip of a skyscraper.

  Arthur exclaimed, “It’s a CITY!”

  Grandsanta tsk-tisked and grumbled. “A new ’un. They’re always putting these things up.”

  Arthur winced as the old man narrowly missed the glass and steel towers. Eve avoided a building, but clipped a satellite dish, smacked into a sign and snagged several cables.

  “Ahhh!” Arthur’s fear returned in full force.

  Grandsanta said, “I remember the first time I ran into Chicago! Ha, ha, ha, I’ll never forget …”

  Arthur’s fear grew even more urgent. He interrupted. “Chicago wasn’t on the map?! Whoa! Watch out for the …”

  He ducked just in time to avoid bashing his brains on a clock tower. Grandsanta turned the map around. Arthur cringed as the old man took his eyes off their obstacle course and said, “No, you draw it in, don’t you? Here, see …”

  Arthur panicked. “Whoa! Um. Just, um …”

  Grandsanta continued to stare at the ancient parchment. “Oh no, that’s Peking …”

>   “Um … ahead, there’s a …”

  Grandsanta steered the sleigh just in time to avoid smashing right into a glass building. Arthur saw a couple inside the skyscraper kissing under the mistletoe. “Uh oh! They can see us!” he fretted.

  “Well, pull the camouflage lever!” Grandsanta commanded. Then he pulled out a quill pen and muttered, “Better draw in a few of these ‘skyscratchers’ …”

  Arthur grabbed the lever. Painted wooden panels flapped down around the sleigh, disguising it as an old steam train. Unfortunately, they also completely obscured the view!

  Grandsanta cried, “Not that one! Can’t see a thing!”

  The “steam train” plummeted to the ground, smashing the camouflage panels into splinters.

  “Woohoo!” Grandsanta exclaimed, before returning to writing on the map. “So what’d they call this place?”

  Arthur looked up at the electronic sign just as the rising sleigh smacked into it: “Toronto Welcomes Careful Drivers. Your speed: 16,024 mph.”

  Grandsanta wrote, “Tor … on … to.”

  Arthur exclaimed, “Toronto’s in CANADA!”

  This did not surprise the old man. “The Santas always come through Canada! Nobody lives here!”

  But everywhere Arthur looked was crowded with buildings full of windows, streets, cars, stores, and more “sky-scratchers.”

  The sleigh bounced into a giant inflatable Santa decorating the top of a tall building. The young reindeers’ antlers became tangled in garlands of fake elves, pulling open a front panel on the sleigh.

  Grandsanta frantically swiped at the garland, but suddenly came face to face with a real elf!

  “Ahhh!” Bryony exclaimed.

  “Ye baubles, an elf!” the startled old man shouted.

  “Bryony Shelfley, Wrapping Operative Grade 3!” She carried the kit of a field wrapping elf and offered, “There’s a small trauma to your gift wrap, sir. But I can fix it!”

  Grandsanta scowled, “A stowaway!”

  “I can wrap anything, sir! With three bits of sticky tape! Three!” Bryony added with her usual enthusiasm.

  “Good. Wrap yourself a parachute,” the old man quipped as he tossed Bryony out of the sleigh.

  The elf screamed! And so did Arthur. “Grandsanta!”

  Bryony simultaneously activated both of her shoulder-mounted tape guns and attached herself to the speeding sleigh. Still, she swung wildly off Eve’s back, like a doll tied to a bicycle.

  Arthur rushed over to help and pulled the elf back into the sleigh.

  Grandsanta seemed completely indifferent to Bryony’s brush with doom. He folded the map and reported, “Toronto, present and correct.”

  Bryony pointed out the front of the sleigh. “Not quite, sir. You’ve lost a reindeer.”

  In the confusion of their rooftop crash, Grandsanta and Arthur had not noticed the harness snap, releasing one of the reindeer. The bewildered animal freed itself from beneath the deflated Santa and emerged in a Toronto city park.

  Meanwhile, back at the North Pole, Steve woke to the BEEP BEEP of his Hoho3000. He groggily pressed a button and Peter appeared on the screen. “Hello?” Steve asked.

  “Bryony Shelfley,” Peter said, “never returned to her barracks, sir. Security tracked her to Sector 19. And … we think Arthur was here.”

  Steve wondered why Security suspected his brother was involved. “Arthur?”

  “Someone left a door open,” Peter explained.

  Steve groaned as Peter stepped back to reveal the old sleigh barn, with its doors open to the exit tunnel. Behind him a security elf lay pinned to the floor by a polar bear. Behind them, seals and birds flapped.

  “But the old sleigh barn was sealed decades ago, after that terrible night Grandsanta sneaked out and … Thank goodness, he’s too old to cause any more trouble,” Steve muttered.

  “Bash it with a brick!” Grandsanta urged Arthur, “Go on!”

  Eve was stopped at a tractor dealership in Dayton, Idaho: 1,660 miles in the wrong direction and with only an hour and a half left till dawn in Trelew, England.

  “Grab its antlers and tug!” the old man shouted, as Arthur struggled to free the metal reindeer from the logo on the remote building’s roof.

  “It’s stuck!” Arthur exclaimed. “Ow! The snow … Sorry, it’s my allergy.”

  Grandsanta sighed, wishing for the strength of his youth. “Come on, lad! You’re as useless as a cheese chopstick!”

  Then suddenly, the metal deer broke free of the sign. “Got it!” Arthur gasped. But then he saw its other side: It was hollow, only half a deer!

  Grandsanta shrugged. “It’ll have to do. Pass it down to me.”

  Arthur felt confused. “But … don’t we need a whole one? You know, to balance the sleigh?”

  “Oh, it won’t balance the sleigh,” Grandsanta replied. “If anything, it’ll slow us down.”

  Bryony tried to get their attention. But the two Clauses ignored the elf.

  “So why are we taking it?” Arthur wondered.

  “It’s for Gwen,” Grandsanta explained. “Eight beautiful reindeer. That’s what she’s dreaming of—the jingly bells, the sleigh on the roof, and Santa coming down the chimbley, ho, ho …” A fit of coughing interrupted his laugh.

  Arthur still felt uncertain. “Yeah … but …”

  Grandsanta ranted, “That’s what the kids want, not some spaceship! We’re giving her the star treatment.”

  Bryony interrupted their discussion with urgent news. “We have a Waker, sir. With a gun!”

  BANG! A shot shattered the still air. Bob, the tractor dealer, stood outside his house in his pajamas, rifle raised to aim at the roof. The logo-deer clattered to the ground, knocking over the ladder, leaving Arthur stranded.

  Ignoring his grandson’s predicament, Grandsanta hobbled to the sleigh, where the panicked reindeer skittered.

  Arthur screamed, “Grandsanta!”

  Bob walked slowly closer to the roof, his gun still aimed at the mysterious thieves. “Who … who’s there?” he called out.

  Backlit by the remains of the sign, with his big feet, skinny limbs and tight hood, Arthur looked like an alien. His words only added to Bob’s confusion, “Um … Peace and goodwill! We are on a vital mission …”

  Bob’s flashlight beam played over Arthur’s feet. Thanks to the reindeer slippers, they looked large and furry. Then the beam found Arthur’s bucktoothed face, barely visible inside his hood, and blotchy from cold and his snow allergy.

  Arthur went on, “Our … uh … craft has to travel round the world in less than an hour!”

  Terrified beyond reason, Bob fired again. BANG! Tangled in strings of Christmas lights from the sign, the deer took off, pulling the sleigh in a circle, trailing flashing twinkle lights.

  Grandsanta released a cloud of magic dust, and the sleigh rose up like a blinking, spinning UFO!

  Bob’s jaw dropped in shock as the “alien” grabbed onto the back of the UFO and flew away, shouting, “Sorry we can’t pay. Where I come from, we don’t have money!”

  Stunned, Bob watched the glittering, glowing craft until it disappeared into a cloud.

  ARTHUR STARED DOWN past the metal deer dangling from Eve’s harness to the Atlantic Ocean far below. He had never seen anything as big as this ocean. “Do you think we should stop and ask someone for directions?”

  “Pishywibble!” Grandsanta replied. “We’re nearly there! See, I take the North Star there as a fixed point …” He pointed out a bright spot adding, “Then I plot my bearings from … um …”

  Grandsanta’s voice trailed off as the “North Star” moved swiftly across the sky!

  “That’s a plane, sir,” Bryony said.

  “Insubordination!” Grandsanta shouted angrily. “I’ll have you harpooned, elf!”

  Arthur tugged at his parka. “I thought it would be chillier near England.” He glanced at a palm-fringed island below.

  “Uh, globular warming,” Grandsanta muttered. Then he
exclaimed, “Ha! Land ahoy! Told you!”

  The sleigh swooped down toward the coast. But as they neared land, Arthur marveled at the waving green grass, balmy breeze, and lilting cicadas’ song.

  “Wow, England,” Arthur remarked as the sleigh settled down on the lush grass. A large, exotic bug crawled over his shoulder.

  Grandsanta looked around and finally conceded “Maybe we pulled to the right a bit; we’re a reindeer short. France!” He climbed down and hobbled off the sleigh, shouting, “BONJOUR! OU EST LE BOULANGERIE?”

  “BBBRRRRRMPHHH!” An elephant trumpeted loudly.

  Arthur was puzzled. “They have elephants in France?”

  Grandsanta did not yet want to admit his mistake, so he fibbed. “The odd stray. They breed in the drains.”

  Then he consulted his ancient parchment and pushed aside a scraggly bush. Beyond it stretched a vast plain full of giraffes, elephants, meerkats, and other African wild life. Grandsanta clung to his lie. “Paris Zoo!”

  He walked forward, with Arthur and Bryony on his heels. But even Arthur was having trouble believing the old man. “We landed in the zoo?”

  “Um … if we did … then this is the lion enclosure!” Bryony observed nervously.

  A pride of lions had begun to circle them!

  “They won’t eat me—I’m Santa!” Grandsanta declared. Then he tried to command the beasts. “Lie down!”

  The nearest lion growled. The deep, ferocious rumble shook the old man’s confidence. He stepped back and said, “Um … right … call the keeper!”

  Arthur grabbed the map and unfolded it, trying to figure out where they were. His eyes widened as he read the antique and alarming entries. “How old is this? Constantinople? Atlantis? ‘Here be CANNIBALS?’”

  “You got to watch out for cannibals,” Grandsanta declared.

  As the hungry lions closed in on the travelers, Arthur was becoming frantic. “This isn’t France, is it?”

  “Course, it is!”

  “Technically, it’s known as Africa,” Bryony began with the continent, and then became more specific. “The Serengeti National Park, in the country of Tanzania.”