by Holly Black
“My dad. He works in the cafeteria, that’s why they let me go to school here. He’s always losing stuff, forgetting where he puts it, when he’s drunk. Sometimes he gets mad and blames me.” Jimmy winked. “Sometimes he’s right.”
“So let’s go already.” Tess headed for the stairs.
They went up, reminding each other to avoid the teachers, avoid the prefects and tattle-tales, not make a big deal of it, blend in, and—
“Eat all the treats!” Spencer cried, thrusting a fist in the air.
Then Lamont stopped them at the top of the stairs. “You guys … ” he said. “Look!”
The stairwell came up into a lobby, with the infirmary and nurse’s office one way, the school mail room another way, glass double doors opening onto the courtyard, and a glass side door opening onto a parking lot. It was the parking-lot door where Lamont pointed, and when they looked, they saw three people out there by a van with a light-up wreath hung on its front and cartoon reindeer decals along its side.
One of the people was a curvy girl, and another was a short midget guy. It was the third person, the jolly fat man with the white beard and the red suit, that riveted the kids where they stood.
“Santa,” Derp gasped.
Santa.
And two of his elves.
The short midget guy wore green pants with triangle hems, shoes with jingle bells on their curled-up toes, a red jacket, and a pointy hat with more jingle bells. The curvy girl had on candycane-striped tights, a short red skirt with a white fuzzy hem, a ruffled white top, candycane earrings, and a cute little cap.
Jolene, clutching Bunny-Hoo-Hoo, uttered a high-pitched greedy squeak as the two elves began unloading boxes from the back of the van.
Presents. The boxes were full of presents! Gift bags with tissue paper blooming out the tops. Packages wrapped in shiny foil or fancy paper, tied with ribbons or topped with bows. So many presents.
“You guys,” Lamont repeated. “You guys, I got a better idea.”
“Yeah,” Jimmy and Tess said together.
“Fuck yeah,” said Spencer.
Moments of hasty, hurried planning later, Jolene pranced out the side door. She pirouetted, made pretty-feet, waved, and chirped, “Santa! Hi, Santa, over here!”
Santa, in the process of poking his white-gloved thumbs at his phone, jumped and looked around. He seemed confused for a second, then put the phone in his coat pocket and went, “Ho, ho, ho, hello there little girl, Merry Christmas,” in a full, jolly voice. “Aren’t you a pretty darling?”
“I’m Jolene,” she said. “I’m our school Christmas princess.”
“I can see that you are, ho, ho, ho.”
“And this is Bunny-Hoo-Hoo.”
“Mr. Gregson said we should meet you out here,” said Jimmy, moving up beside Jolene. “In case you got lost again.”
“How come you got lost?” asked Derp. “Santa shouldn’t get lost.”
“Ho, ho, ho,” laughed Santa, patting his belly. “Santa’s elves are still getting used to our new GPS.”
“The reindeer never got lost?” Tess asked.
“That’s right, not my sleigh team.”
“C’mon in,” Lamont said, holding the side door wide open.
“Mr. Gregson said we could help you while everyone else is at the choir concert,” Jimmy added, as just then from the auditorium there drifted the sounds of a bunch of kids warbling their way through the first part of “Away in a Manger.”
“Well, isn’t that nice of you.” He chortled and mussed Jimmy’s hair. “And what’s your name, little boy?”
“Jimmy.”
“Jimmy. That’s a nice name. These are my helpers, Candy and Jingle.”
“Merry Christmas, kids.” Candy did a perky bounce that made Jolene’s eyes go all squinty and mean.
“Yeah,” said Jingle, lots less perky. He slammed the van’s back doors. “Merry Christmas.”
As they shuffled into the lobby, carrying boxes of presents, Santa went ho-ho-ho some more and asked the others’ names, asked if they’d been good little boys and girls. They all introduced themselves and said yes they had. When it was Minda’s turn, she just murmured, so Tess explained she was shy.
“It’s this way,” Lamont said. “Downstairs.”
“Downstairs?” asked Jingle. “You mean, like, in the basement?”
“In the rec room,” Jimmy said. “It’s all set up.”
“Santa’s workshop, and a tree, and everything,” said Tess.
“Why that’ll be wonderful,” Santa said.
“What’s that banging noise?” the candycane elf girl asked.
“Uh, er, um,” said Derp.
Jimmy nudged him. “The pipes. Boiler room and stuff.”
“You sure?” Jingle looked around. “Sounds like someone pounding.”
“They make weird noises. Some kids think the place is haunted.”
“Hrm.” He didn’t seem convinced.
They started down the stairs. Behind Jingle’s back, Lamont and Jimmy shared an anxious grimace. If Miz Parker started hollering again, ooh they were gonna get it.
Then she did holler, and things happened fast.
“Hello? Is anybody out there? Help! I’m locked in!”
Santa, already most of the way to the detention hall door, paused and turned.
“What the—?” Jingle began.
Spencer tripped him at the same time as Lamont gave the short midget elf guy a great big hard push. His words turned into a startled squawk. He pitched headfirst down the steps. His box tumbled.
“Steve,” screamed Candy, dropping her box too.
Presents went flying, scattering everywhere in the hall. Jingle’s jingle bells jingled like crazy. There were some thick snapping sounds as he cartwheeled, and a meaty whump sound when he hit the cement.
“Oh, jeez, Steve, are you okay?”
“Get them in there.” Lamont jumped the rest of the way down.
“Ste—”
Jolene smacked Candy in the face with Bunny-Hoo-Hoo. “Shut up!”
Miz Parker banged on the door and hollered some more.
“This way, Santa.” Derp yanked at the back of Santa’s broad black belt.
Caught off-balance, Santa wobbled and fell on his butt. “Oof!”
It took four of them to sort of drag Santa the rest of the way into the room. Some super-Derp-strength would have been really useful.
Santa, dazed, seemed to think they were helping him. He blinked, perplexed, when he saw no special Santa’s-workshop or anything. “Wait, didn’t you say … ?”
They heaved him into a chair.
“What is this?” asked Santa. “What’s going on?”
Tess dashed over from Miz Parker’s desk with a roll of masking tape. It made long rippy-farty noises as she wound it around and around, taping Santa’s arms to the chair arms and legs to the chair legs.
“Now just a—” Santa said, blustering, puffing himself up. “What—”
“It was a trick, stupid,” Jimmy said.
“Good little children shouldn’t play tricks on Santa. You’ll end up on the naughty list for sure.”
“We already are,” Lamont said. “We already are on your damn naughty list.”
“See here—”
“Ow.” Candy cried. “Ow, my hair, let go of my—ow!” Jolene had her by a fistful of it, towing her along all bent over and flailing. “Let go of my hair, you brat!”
“I’m not a brat. Kayla’s a brat! Kayla’s a bratty-bratty-bratty-brat and so are you!”
“This is not funny.” Santa said. “Whatever you think you’re doing—”
His phone rang in his pocket. Everybody froze like they were playing statue-tag. When Lamont went to fish the phone out, Santa tried to twist away and almost knocked his chair over.
“It’s the school,” Lamont said, looking at the screen. “Probably Mr. Gregson wondering where Santa is.”
He tossed the phone to Tess, who caught it with a
gleeful whoop. In the same drawer where she’d found the tape, she’d also found a lighter and a bunch of stuff confiscated from earlier detentions, including one of her own old cap-guns, some firecrackers and a few packets of those snap-pop things. She untwisted the tiny knots of paper and poured until she had a gritty mound of gunpowder or whatever was in them.
In the hall, Spencer cackled. “I think the elf’s broken. Watch.” He poked.
Jingle twitched and groaned, scrabbling at the floor. Blood oozed from his leg, where a jagged part of bone stuck out through his sock.
“Hey!” Santa wasn’t jolly anymore. “Knock it off, kid.”
Spencer kept poking and laughing, like he did when he caught a spider or a beetle. Jingle kept twitching and groaning. Each twitch made the bells on his shoes jingle—his hat had fallen off and lay crumpled over by the drinking fountain.
Jolene tugged Candy to her knees. By now, the curvy candycane elf girl was blubbering, still trying to talk but crying as she did.
“Steve’s hurt, ow quit it, we have to call 9-1-1, let go of me owwwww.”
“I said shut up!” Jolene hauled off and smacked her again, not with Bunny-Hoo-Hoo but with a loud slap that left a vivid red mark on Candy’s cheek.
“That’s enough.” roared Santa. “You kids cut the crap, right now!”
He strained at the masking tape. A few strips popped. Lamont grabbed a pair of scissors from the desk drawer.
“Cut what crap?” he asked, making the scissors go k-snip, k-snip at the air.
Santa gaped. Santa sputtered.
Candy, who Jolene and Jimmy were taping to another chair, went on blubbering.
“She’s crying,” Minda whispered.
Nobody listened.
“Ready?” said Tess, who’d wedged Santa’s phone into the pile of gritty powder and surrounded it with a crisscross of firecrackers.
“What are you—hey! Don’t! That’s my—” Santa said.
Derp covered his ears.
Tess lit it up.
Ka-pang-ga-pow-ka-popopop! Flashes and sparks, the phone flip-jittering until it flip-jittered off the edge of the desk and landed on the floor with grey smoke-streamers drifting up from it.
“Yee-haw!” Tess cheered, doing a victory fist-pump.
Jolene stood in front of Candy, hands on her hips, bottom lip pouted. “Thinks she’s so pretty, look at her, thinks she’s so pretty, do you think she’s pretty?”
“Huh?” said Derp, taking his hands down from his ears.
“Stop this, you all just stop this—” Santa said.
“So she’s pretty, so what?” Jimmy said.
“Bet you want to kiss her, too.”
“Kiss her? What?”
“Dooooo you?”
“No. Gross.”
“Bouncing around with her big boopiedoops … ” Jolene hooked her fingers into the front of Candy’s ruffled top and tore it open. Candy recoiled so hard her chair almost went over backward, screeching.
“Leave her alone.” Santa yelled. “You kids are going to be in so much trouble—”
Lamont stabbed the scissors into Santa’s fat belly.
Everybody gasped.
No blood came out when Lamont pulled out the scissors. Only some puffs of white stuff.
“The heck?” Tess asked.
“Hey … ” Lamont said. His teeth ground together. “It’s a pillow. He’s got a pillow under his coat.”
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Santa thrashed in the chair. “Are you insane?”
Derp reached for Santa’s beard and it came right off. Derp held it, looked at it, and dropped it on the floor. He sniffled.
“Aw, crap.” said Jimmy. “All this and he’s not even the real Santa?”
“What?” Spencer came back in. “You’re shitting me. You’re effin’ shitting me. Not the real Santa?”
“Hey, look … ” Santa, or whoever he was, some pudgy man with no chin and brown stubble under the fake beard, tried to smile at them. “Let’s not do this, huh? Let’s find a way to—”
“You dirty liar.” Jimmy punched him in the nose. It didn’t go crunch and bleed, but the phony liar Santa yelped and his eyes watered.
Lamont taped his mouth shut and turned to the others. “Now what do we do?”
“He’ll tell on us,” Tess said.
“He better not,” said Jolene. “Or we’ll tell on him.”
“Tell on him what?” asked Derp.
“We’ll say he showed us his wee-wee.”
Santa choked. “Mmm-hrrgh-hmm.”
“He showed us his wee-wee,” she continued, “and said if we wanted presents, we had to touch it.”
Tess grimaced. “Eew. No way.”
“Yeah, no way, I’m not touching anybody’s dick,” said Spencer.
“Wee-wee,” said Jolene.
“Not touching that either.”
“You don’t have to really touch it. We just say that. We say he told us we had to touch it if we wanted presents. Or kiss it.”
“Eew,” Tess said again, louder.
“Omigod they’re crazy they’re all crazy, oh God,” sobbed Candy. Her head hung down, her hair all messy in her face, her top torn open so they could all see her bra.
“She’s still crying,” Minda said. “She should stop. She shouldn’t cry.”
From the hall, there was a struggling, jingling kind of sound. They looked. The short midget broken elf guy was trying to drag himself up the stairs by his arms. His legs, bowlegged to start with and all bent and crooked now, didn’t seem to want to move right. They left smears of blood like red snail-trails.
“Wuh-oh,” said Spencer. “Some buttwipe thinks he’s getting away. Bad Jingle.”
He ran over, climbed past the crawling green-suited figure, let him get halfway, then kicked him back down. Jingle bleated. His body went splinter-crunch splinter crunch on the steps. His shoes clinked and dinged. His head clonked on the floor like a bowling ball. He made a long juicy tootling fart.
“Dude,” Jimmy said, impressed. “Did you hear that?”
“Whew.” Spencer waved a hand in front of his face. “Did you smell that? Think he shit himself.”
Miz Parker wasn’t pounding and hollering anymore. Maybe she was afraid to. Maybe she hoped they forgot she was in the janitor’s closet.
Santa’s eyes bulged. His pudgy cheeks did too. Snot bubbled in and out of his nose.
“And pissed himself,” Spencer added, using his foot to roll Jingle over so they could all see the wet splotch on the front of his pants.
“Ste-e-e-eve … ” Candy kept blubbering.
“Make her stop,” Minda said and put her hands over her ears. “She’s crying, make her stop.”
“So she’s crying.” Jolene primped her hair and adjusted Bunny-Hoo-Hoo’s dress. “So she’s a crying-crying-crybaby, so what?”
“My brother cried a lot.”
“So?”
She glanced at Jingle. Tess and Jimmy had joined Spencer in the hall, all three laughing as they pushed the crippled elf around with their feet, playing soccer.
“He was stinky, too,” she said. “But the crying was worse. He cried all the time.” She shook her head as if to rid herself of the memory. “All the time.”
Lamont, who’d been listening, raised his eyebrows. “What’d you do about it?”
Minda stood up. Calm. She brushed her hair aside and let her gaze slide across them all. “I made him stop.”
“H-How?” asked Jolene.
“Yeah, how?” asked Derp.
“I’ll show you.”
She got one of the gift bags. The tag said ‘BOY’ on it but Minda didn’t care. Inside was a pack of rubber dinosaurs, which she didn’t care about either and indifferently tossed away. Derp picked it up.
“Dinosaurs! Can I have them?”
“Sure,” said Lamont when Minda didn’t reply.
Minda took the tissue paper that had been in the bag. It was holiday tissue paper, white sta
mped with green tree-shapes. She wadded it up and pressed the wad to Candy’s mouth.
Candy shook her head. Her lips were tight-shut now, tight-shut in a line. Minda twisted her dangly candycane earring.
“Ow!”
As soon as she opened her mouth to go ow, Minda stuffed in the wad of tissue paper. Candy tried to spit it out but Minda wouldn’t let her.
“Get more,” she told the others.
“Open the presents?” asked Derp, with a wide dopey-happy smile. “Really?”
“I’m next, I’m next, I pick next.” Jolene snatched up one marked ‘GIRL,’ found a plastic tiara-ring-necklace set, and squealed. She gave the tissue paper to Minda.
Seeing what they were doing, Jimmy, Tess and Spencer abandoned their soccer game to come help. Jingle had stopped moving anyway, just lay there all limp, so they were bored.
Gift bags and wrapping paper and ribbon and tags shredded in a greedy frenzy, revealing toy cars, fashion dolls, picture books, army guys, paint-by-numbers, bean-bag animals, sidewalk chalks, clay-dough, and more. Some of the gifts contained goodies—tins of cookies, chocolate, spicy Christmas gumdrops, caramel corn, peppermints.
And there was tissue paper. Lots and lots of holiday tissue paper. Red and green and white, plain and patterned, some with trees and some with stars or snowflakes, some with silver and gold speckles.
Piece by piece, wad by wad, Minda forced the tissue papers into Candy’s mouth.
Lamont watched, looking both concerned and kind of interested. “Is that what you did to your brother?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So you could have more presents?” asked Derp.
“It wasn’t Christmas then,” Minda said. “There weren’t presents. He just needed to stop crying.”
At first, when she couldn’t spit, Candy tried to swallow them down, but there were too many and Minda was too fast. Candy started to choke and gag. She threw up but the throw-up clogged with the papers. Some trickled out her nose. She lurched her whole body and the chair fell over with her still taped to it. Her face flushed, then turned purple.
Meanwhile, Santa did a huge Hulk-out effort that popped most of the tape holding him. He lunged partway to his feet, strips of tape flapping at his wrists, the chair scraping across the floor where one chairleg stayed stuck to his ankle.
Lamont lunged to his feet, too, with the scissors gripped tight in both hands. This time, he didn’t stab the steel blades into Santa’s fat pillow-belly. This time, he stabbed them at Santa’s face, but missed. The scissors went into Santa’s neck.