by Terry Deary
“Don’t tell me!” I said suddenly. “Let me guess!” And I headed for the door with L/M above it.
Sherlock nodded, but before he could say anything I beat him to it. “L/M Entry, my dear Sherlock!”
“Correct!”
I knocked. From behind the door came a frightened voice.
“Who’s there?”
“Docker!”
“Doctor Who?”
“No. Not Doctor Who, I’m Docker Watson!” “You can’t come in!”
“Why not?”
“Because you may be the great toy robber!”
Sherlock stepped forward. “I am the famous Sherlock Gnomes. I can solve anything!”
There was a muttering behind the door then another voice said, “Then solve this riddle . . . What is green, made of concrete and grows in fields?”
The gnomes let us in and dragged the great detective to a stool by a roaring log fire. Each one had his or her name on the front of their green overall.
“You have to help us!” Gnorman groaned. “Two hours to Christmas Day and Father Christmas is missing!”
“I can’t help you!” Sherlock gasped. “I’m too old to climb down chimneys!”
“Santa Claus is older than you!” Gnora the Gnome pointed out.
“Ah!” Sherlock said. “But he’s had stacks of practice!”
“We don’t want you to take his place,” Gnigel the Gnome said. “We want you to find him! Otherwise we’ll have to give all the dolls away to the kidnapper!”
“Kidnapper!” Sherlock scoffed. “What makes you think he’s been kidnapped?”
“We’ve had a note,” Gnora the Gnome said, and she pushed it into Sherlock’s hand.
“See, Sherlock!” I cried. “Ron Buppard! Rearrange the letters of Ron Buppard and what do you get?”
“Er . . . Barr Up Pond?” he suggested.
“No! It’s !Burp! Pardon!”
“But !Burp! Pardon can’t be the Great Toy Robber,” he objected.
“Why not?”
“Because he’s a kind old man . . . it says so in the letter!”
Which just goes to show. Even the world’s greatest detective can be pretty thick sometimes!
I dashed to the door. “Follow me!” I called to Sherlock and the gnomes.
I jumped on the sleigh with the red-nosed reindeer hitched up while the others piled on the sledge pulled by a cross-eyed reindeer.
It was a long drive to !Burp! Pardon’s house and Sherlock became bored. So he rummaged in one of the toy sacks and came out with a book to read.
“What are you reading?” I asked.
“The tale of the princess and the frogs!”
“I thought it was just one frog . . . the princess kissed it and it turned into a prince!”
“No-o!” Sherlock said.“This is different. In the first story the princess kissed a stupid frog.”
“What happened?”
“It turned into a tadpole!”
“What about the next story?”
“That’s about the greedy princess. She married a rich old frog then just waited for him to croak!”
At last we reached a lonely cottage standing in a field of snow. Moonlight glinted on a loaded sleigh, piled with sacks. And every sack was overflowing with dolls.
“We’ll have to be careful!” Sherlock whispered as we pulled up by the lighted window. We peered over the sill into the little room. A fire blazed in the hearth, and there was Santa Claus – tied to a chair with a white-bearded man in dark glasses sitting in front of him. !Burp! Pardon. The one who pinched my presents!
“You see!” I hissed. “!Burp! Pardon is the villain! It’s only half an hour to midnight. !Burp! pulls the arms off dolls. What will he do to Santa Claus?”
“You could be right, Watson!” Sherlock admitted.
“Santa Claus is just an ’armless old man,” I moaned.
“He will be if we don’t rescue him!” the Great Detective said grimly. “We need a plan!”
“Rush in and free him!” I suggested.
“Don’t be stupid,” Sherlock snapped.
“What do you suggest?” I asked.
Sherlock thought as precious minutes ticked away. “I think . . . we should rush in and free him!”
“Great idea!” I urged.
Sherlock slipped around the corner while I watched through the window.
Two minutes later the great detective returned.
Suddenly !Burp! Pardon’s voice carried through the window. “Twenty minutes, Santa!”
Santa shook his sad old head. “Ah, !Burp! Why are you doing this?”
“So that no one in the world can have a doll for Christmas!”
“But why? Why? Why?”
“Because, when I was a little boy, no one ever let me have a doll for Christmas! They said that boys can’t have dolls! So I tore the legs off all the girls’ dolls – if I couldn’t have one then they couldn’t have them either! See!”
“That’s mean,” Santa said.
“I don’t care. And soon I’ll have all the dolls in the whole wide world! That’ll fettle them!” !Burp! cried.
“But if you don’t set me free then no one will get a present for Christmas this year!” Santa pleaded.
“And why should they?” !Burp! sniffed.
“Because we always give presents at Christmas,” Santa said gently.
“Since when?”
“Since nearly two thousand years ago . . . haven’t you ever heard the story of the first Christmas?” Santa asked. When !Burp! shook his head Santa went on, “I once wrote a poem about it. Do you want to hear it?”
!Burp! nodded. “You always did write great poems, Santa!” he said, and unfastened the ropes that held his old school mate.
Santa rubbed his wrists. Sherlock, the gnomes and the reindeer and I all gathered around the window to listen as Santa recited his story . . .
The angel just folded his wings and he grinned,
“Halo, lads! Get along to the tavern!
A baby is born, it’s the child of the Lord!
Take some prezzies and let the babe have ’em. . . please.”
“We cannot do that! You great feathered fool!”
Old Tom stood and started to shout.
“The sheep’ll get got by the greedy old wolf!”
But the angel said, “I’ll sort him out! . . . don’t worry.”
But still the old man he was fussing about.
“I haven’t got no gifts at all!”
But Jim said, “I’ll take the young baby me scarf,
And you, Tom, can give it the doll. . . if you like.”
The Angel said, “That’s very kind of you lads,
But don’t forget Joseph and Mary.”
So Jim said, “We’ll take them a nice little lamb –
That one there is all cuddly and hairy . . . and fat.”
The shepherds went trotting down Bethlehem Hill
And they followed the star where it shines.
“Look at that!” Tommy cried, “There’s three camels down there!
And they’ve parked them on two yellow lines . . . they’ll be for it!”
Now the shepherds felt shy as they crept in the back
Of the stable and saw who it were!
Three great kings standing there with their arms full of gifts,
Stuff like gold, frankincense and some myrrh . . . very posh!
Jim’s small lamb it went “Baa!”, mother Mary said, “Ahh!
Come on in! Put your gifts by the bed.”
Tommy said, “Sorry, lady, our gifts aren’t so grand
As them blokes with the towels round their heads!”
. . . he meant turbans.
Mary love
d Jimmy’s scarf, it would keep the child warm,
And the lamb’s wool could make her a frock!
“In fact, Joseph,” she said to her husband that night,
“We could even start up our own flock . . . think of that!”
(Now Joseph just smiled and he said, “Very nice,”
But the truth was his smile was a sham.
To be honest he’d looked at the gift and he’d thought,
“Tasty chops – or a nice leg of lamb! . . . yum, yum, yum!”)
Poor old Tommy felt sick as a six-year-old chip,
As he held out his wood doll so sad.
“Sorry, lady,” he groaned, “but the chap with the wings,
Never mentioned the babe was a lad
. . . he won’t want dolls!”
Mary smiled very kind at the shepherd so old
And the wood doll was really quite beautiful.
“It’s the thought, not the gift, that’s what matters,” she said.
“And who knows, but it might come in useful!” . . . she was right.
Meanwhile, back in the palace, bad King Herod had heard
Of a new king and he was real cross.
So he sent out his men for to find him and snatch him,
And make jolly sure he got lost . . . for good!
When the shepherds returned to their sheep in the hills,
Leaving Mary and Joseph in danger,
Twenty soldiers burst in to the stable that night
And they snatched up the babe from the manger . . . that was that!
But Joseph just laughed and his wife Mary smiled
As she slipped the babe from her cloak’s creases.
And the soldiers so dim never knew to this day. . . ’
Twas the wood doll that they’d chopped to pieces
. . . served them right!
So when Christmas time comes we remember the first, gifts
From good kings and shepherds in tatters.
And the words of the lady so wise when she said, “It’s the thought, not the gift, that’s what matters.”
. . . Merry Christmas!
And Santa Claus finished his poem as the clock creaked around to midnight. The only sound was the soft sniffle of !Burp! Pardon.
“What did you say happened to the doll? Chopped to pieces!” he sighed.
“Turned out to be a valuable gift after all – even for a boy, didn’t it?” Santa Claus smiled.
“Poor doll,” the gnome in the dark glasses groaned.
“I thought you hated dolls – pulled their legs off,” Santa argued.
“Only out of spite – only ’cos no one let me have one,” !Burp! muttered miserably. “I hate to think that I’m as rotten as that nasty Herod! Poor doll!”
“Ho! No!” Santa said cheerily. “There’ll always be plenty of dolls . . .” then the smile slid from his face, “except this year, of course.”
Midnight started to strike.
!Burp! Pardon looked at Santa guiltily. “It’s Christmas morning! The children will be waking up in a couple of hours . . . and finding their stockings empty!” he murmured.
Santa nodded sadly. “Even if I set off now I’d be struggling to make it before morning. Not without some help!”
“I’ll help!” !Burp! cried. “My sleigh is outside . . . and I’m faster than you!”
As they hurried out into the snowy night Sherlock and I slid back into the shadows.
“Look!” Santa cried. “Here’s my Rudolph! And all of my gnomes! With your help, !Burp!, we might just make it!”
Santa and !Burp! jumped aboard their sleighs. With a cry of “Hi-ho, Rudolph, away!” and a jingling of bells they rode off into the night.
So Sherlock Gnomes had saved Christmas for the children – with a little help from me, Docker Watson, and a lot of help from Santa’s Christmas poem. The trouble was we were stuck at the North Pole.
I asked, “How do we get home, Gnomes?”
Even the great detective didn’t have the answer to everything. “Walk, I suppose.”
And we set off to walk back to Felixstowe. There was snow on the ground, snow in the sky and snow as far as the eye could see. But, with the great Sherlock Gnomes for company, I was never bored.
“I spy with my little eye something beginning with ‘S’.” I said.
After just half an hour Sherlock had guessed it. “Snow!” he exclaimed.
“Amazing, my dear Gnomes,” I gasped.
“Elementary, my dear Watson,” he shrugged.
“But how did you guess?” I asked.
“Because I am the world’s greatest detective,” he smiled.
I shook my head in wonder at the great man’s talent. “My turn,” he said as we came to the edge of a forest full of Christmas trees. “I spy with my little eye something beginning with ‘S’.”
“Er . . . snow?”
“No.”
“Er . . . Sherlock?”
“No.”
“Er . . . six-ton sausage roll?”
“There isn’t one,” Sherlock pointed out.
“No – but if there was I’d eat it all,” I groaned. “Alright, Sherlock, I give up. What do you spy with your little eye beginning with ‘S’?”
He pointed at a fir tree. “Shrub!”
And the world’s greatest detective and I went home for a cup of tea . . . sitting by a Christmas tree loaded with presents for the kids.
Santa had made it after all.
* * *
So now you know how Christmas almost ended with no toys,
How the children nearly woke up to disaster.
‘But thanks to Father Christmas and his gnomes (and Rudolph too)
He whizzed around the world just that bit faster.
Remember, then, that Christmas time’s not fun, for everyone.
So don’t just think of getting – think of giving.
If people cruel or jealous try to make your life too, hard,
Then you should try forgetting – and forgiving.
* * *
Scholastic Children’s Books,
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First published in the UK by Scholastic Ltd, 2000
This electronic edition published, 2013
Father Christmas Joke Book
First published in the UK by Scholastic Publications Ltd, 1990
Text copyright © Terry Deary, 1990
Illustrations copyright © Stuart Trotter, 1990
The Great Father Christmas Robbery
First published in the UK by Scholastic Publications Ltd, 1991
Text copyright © Terry Deary, 1991
Illustrations copyright © Stuart Trotter, 1991
Cover illustration by Andrew Pinder
© Scholastic Ltd, 2013
All rights reserved. Moral rights asserted.
eISBN 978 1407 14432 0
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