The Ho Ho Ho Mystery

by Bob Burke

  Charles nodded once but never took his eyes off the displays in front of him.

  ‘OK, Charles. Can you tell us what happened?’

  ‘Sure. Santa’s private sleigh left here as scheduled at 21:00 hours. At 22:00 hours he contacted us to let us know that things were OK and that he was ascending to his cruising height. After that nothing, and he never arrived at Polar Central. That’s all I know.’

  ‘How long would the flight normally be?’

  ‘About three hours, give or take.’

  ‘And would it be unusual for Mr Claus to maintain radio silence for the duration?’

  ‘It depends. It was a routine flight, so apart from an occasional update we might not hear from him until he was beginning his approach to Polar Central, so it wouldn’t necessarily be a cause for concern. He does this run very regularly, you know.’

  ‘I see, OK. Thanks, Charles.’ He barely acknowledged me as he turned his attention back to his screens. I looked at Mrs Claus. ‘Mrs Cl … I mean Clarissa, this is a most peculiar case. I can find no evidence of any wrongdoing here nor can I explain your husband’s disappearance. Clearly he’s missing, but I can’t explain it. It is possible that I may be able to find out something by interviewing the staff at your North Pole base. How soon can you organise a flight for us since I’d like to start talking to them as soon as possible?’

  ‘You can leave right now,’ she said. ‘We have a number of private sleighs – state of the art – that we keep on standby for any sudden or unexpected departures. They’re very comfortable and should get you there in a matter of hours.’ Mrs Claus turned to Charles. ‘Ask the ground crew to prep Jingle Bells for an immediate departure to Polar Central.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he replied and issued orders into a nearby radio.

  As he spoke we were shepherded downstairs into an (admittedly very comfortable) departure lounge, where we were given heavy fur coats to wear – which didn’t bode too well for the journey ahead. Once we were warmly wrapped up we were taken to the sleigh.

  I have to confess at this point that I was expecting an open box with a hard wooden seat and large storage area; all sitting on top of two long, curved, metal skis with a team of smelly, flea-ridden reindeer attached to the front.

  The reality was so very different.

  A sleek red-and-white (of course) chassis, like a giant covered bobsleigh, rested on huge, sturdy-looking skis. To my relief there was no sign of outside seats so it looked as though we’d be inside – and warm, I hoped. Naturally it wasn’t all high-tech. I’d been expecting something like rocket-powered engines, so I was a tad disappointed to see a team of twelve reindeer being hooked up to the front of the sleigh, but at least they looked the part too: sleek, strong and very healthy looking. I just wasn’t too sure they’d manage to get the sleigh off the ground.

  Mrs Claus saw my look of uncertainty and quickly reassured me, ‘They’re Class Two reindeer; some low-level raw magic and power. Don’t worry; they’ll get us there without difficulty.’

  Magic: I knew there’d be magic involved somewhere. I didn’t share her confidence. Magic and me just didn’t mix. If something was going to go wrong with this craft, chances were it would be when I was travelling in it.

  Slowly and with a large degree of caution I approached the sleigh. As I did, a door in the side slid quietly open, revealing a luxurious interior. Large, comfortable-looking seats lined the walls and a plush carpet covered the floor. No prizes for guessing the colour scheme. Hey, maybe this wouldn’t be too bad after all.

  One of the ground crew approached. ‘Everyone inside please, we depart in five minutes.’

  We all entered and quickly strapped ourselves into the seats. I sank into mine and it surrounded me like I was in a hot bath. This was the life. If I didn’t know better I’d have thought I was in someone’s living room. Across from me Basili struggled with his seat belt and looked anxiously at me. I gave him a reassuring smile, but he didn’t seem too convinced. Maybe he didn’t like flying either – which was strange, considering he used to be a genie and spent most of the time when he popped out of his lamp hanging in the air with smoke for legs. I hoped for his sake we’d have an uneventful flight.

  Behind me Mrs Claus was talking to our in-flight steward and asking him to organise drinks and something to eat as soon as we were airborne. As he walked back to the galley, there was a sudden jolt and the sleigh began to move forward along the ramp. As we began to pick up speed, I noticed – somewhat nervously – that we were racing up the ramp towards the ceiling I’d seen earlier. The sleigh got faster and faster as we approached the blank wall ahead.

  ‘Shouldn’t there be a door or something?’ I shouted over my shoulder to Mrs Claus, who was lying back with her eyes closed, seemingly blissfully unaware of our imminent collision.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mr Pigg. I’m sure the pilot knows what he’s doing.’

  Outside, the scenery was passing by in a blur as the reindeer picked up speed, apparently oblivious to their impending doom.

  The ceiling got closer and closer and I got more and more scared. ‘Ohmigod, we’re all gonna die; we’re all gonna die; WE’RE ALL GONNA DIIIIAAAARGH.’ As I screamed in terror at our imminent collision with the ceiling, it suddenly split in two and the sleigh shot out through the opening. Through the window I got a blurred glimpse of the swimming pool parting on either side as we came up through it. Seconds later we’d left the ground behind us and hurtled into the night sky.

  ‘There,’ came a sleepy voice from behind me. ‘I told you he knew what he was doing.’

  5

  And Pigs Might Fly

  I sank back in my seat, sweating … well, um, like a pig actually. I was close to hyperventilating and tried to get my breathing under control before I passed out. Across the aisle Basili was studying me with interest, seemingly oblivious to what just happened.

  ‘You are well, Mr Harry?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ll live,’ I gasped. ‘But I don’t think I’ll be able to cope with any more scares like that.’

  Behind me, a gentle snoring sound suggested Mrs Claus was far less worried than either of us.

  ‘I am sure there will be no more incidents until after we are arriving at our destination.’ Basili unfastened his belt – which was clearly making him uncomfortable – let his seat back and closed his eyes. Seconds later he too was snoring, but much louder than the ladylike trilling from Mrs Claus. Great: snoring in stereo for the rest of the trip! I wondered if there was an in-flight movie; I could certainly do with some distraction.

  Unfortunately, it looked as though the nearest I was going to get to in-flight entertainment was looking out of the window. Mind you, judging by the speed at which the clouds passed by it seemed that the reindeer were moving at quite a clip. Maybe there was some germ of truth in what Mrs Claus had told me. If these were Class Two animals, I wondered how fast Class One reindeer could go. Idly musing on thoughts like this (and because I had nothing else to do – the current case proving to be completely devoid of any leads), I eventually sank into a light doze.

  A loud blaring brought me to my senses. The captain was shouting at us through the intercom. ‘Attention, passengers. Ground control has detected another craft approaching us at speed. We have as yet been unable to make contact with them. Please return to your seats and ensure your seat belts are securely fastened while we establish what is going on. Thank you.’

  Just as he finished there was a loud thud on the side of the sleigh as something made heavy contact. The impact caused the sleigh to lurch wildly and turn on its side. Before I could grab on to anything, I slid across the floor and smashed into the cabin door. Showing scant regard for safety regulations and quality construction, it swung open and I dropped out of the sleigh into the freezing night.

  I felt a trotter bang off something as I fell. Using whatever innate survival instincts I possessed (I certainly wasn’t doing this by design – trust me), my other trotter swung around and clung despe
rately to one of the sleigh’s landing skis. The sleigh careened wildly as it was hit again and I just managed to keep my grip. Almost immediately, Basili’s semi-conscious body fell out of the cabin above and plummeted past me. Using the same innate sense of self-preservation I’d used, his arms were stretched out trying to grab on to anything that might save him. Unfortunately for me, he wasn’t quite as good at it as I was. Instead of grabbing the ski, he wrapped an arm around my legs and clutched them tightly.

  I tried to look down at the ex-genie dangling from my legs. ‘Basili,’ I shouted, trying to be heard over the wind, ‘can you climb up my body and grab on to a ski?’

  ‘I do not think so, Mr Harry. I am barely feeling my hands. It is a most unusual and unpleasant sensation. Perhaps if I am letting go, you may be able to climb back in.’

  ‘Not an option, Basili,’ I muttered through gritted teeth. ‘We need to come up with something else – and quickly.’

  ‘Trust me, Mr Harry,’ came the strained voice from below. ‘I am thinking as fast as I can.’

  As I gamely struggled for inspiration, there came a voice from above asking what was, in the circumstances, possibly the most idiotic question I’d ever heard.

  ‘Are you two gentlemen OK?’ asked Mrs Claus, peering down from the open door.

  ‘Not really. Now if you would be so kind as to find something we can grab on to before we end up trying to fly of our own accord, we’d be really grateful.’

  ‘One moment, I’ll see what I can do.’ Her head disappeared back into the sleigh before I could point out that we really didn’t have the luxury of a moment to spare.

  ‘Hold on, Basili,’ I roared down to the genie. ‘Help may be on its way.’ As I did so, my trotters began to slip away from the skis. Frantically, I tried to hold on, but the strain was too much. My trotters protested at what they were being asked to do – they didn’t seem to think it was fair. Inch by inch they began to slide apart. I wasn’t going to manage it.

  Just as I was about to give way, Mrs Claus shouted down at us again. ‘Here, grab on to this.’ Something snaked past my shoulder and I grabbed on to a thick rope and held on to it as if my life depended on it (which it did).

  I was just thanking my lucky stars, lucky rabbit’s foot, lucky anything-else-lucky-I-had-in-my-possession when the big, ugly, hob-nailed boot of fate stamped down on me one more time. The sleigh skewed wildly as our attackers hit it once again. There was a scream and I saw a blur of red as something large fell past me. There was an almighty tug on my legs as if someone had attached something heavy – like, say, a truck – to them.

  Whatever chance I had of hanging on while Basili dangled from my legs had disappeared when Mrs Claus added her ample frame to the equation. Now, I could feel the rope sliding through my trotters as my arms finally gave up, shouted surrender and lay down their weapons. I didn’t know how long the rope was, but from the speed I slid down along it I didn’t think there was much more left to hold on to. This was it; this was the end.

  6

  The Soft Shoe Slingshot

  Or was it?

  I didn’t plummet down through the inky blackness and end up an unpleasant mess on the ground below (as I’d not unreasonably expected) but landed instead on something hard and metallic. Behind me I could hear Basili crying, ‘Thank the gods’, and, behind him again, Mrs Claus was just crying. I didn’t even bother trying to work out what had happened; I just lay where I was and breathed a heavy sigh of relief. From the speed of the wind across my face it seemed like we were on something that was moving fast – but what? When the surface underneath me lurched sharply and I saw us move towards the sleigh we’d just fallen from, I knew exactly where we were.

  Were we safe? Hell, no!

  Were we in a better position than before? Marginally – in the sense that we weren’t hanging off each other and facing certain death.

  Where exactly were we? We’d fallen on to the roof of the sleigh that had been attacking us!

  Was that better? Only if it flew in a straight line.

  I turned to my companions and broke the good news to them. From what I could see of their expressions they were less than gruntled too. Clearly they shared my opinion of our predicament.

  ‘Is there any way we can climb down and get into this sleigh?’ bellowed Mrs Claus.

  ‘I doubt it,’ I shouted back, trying to make myself heard over the howling wind. ‘If we let go of what we’re holding, we’ll be blown off. More to the point, do you really want to climb into a sleigh full of people who have been trying to kill us for the past ten minutes?’

  ‘Good point. So what do we do now?’

  The obvious answer (if any solution to this predicament could be called obvious) would be to get back to our own sleigh and try to escape from our attackers. Yeah, easy really; all we had to do was jump from one sleigh to another while travelling at great speed thousands of feet in the air. Easy!

  Of course, I had no idea where our sleigh was. If our pilot had any sense he was flying as far from our attackers as possible to preserve his hide. It’s what I’d have done.

  But he proved me wrong. There was a drumming sound from above and a flurry of hooves narrowly missed my head. I looked up and saw our sleigh hovering inches above me. Through the cockpit window our pilot was waving madly at us, urging us to get back in.

  I didn’t need a formal invitation. I grabbed the ski that was hanging above me and pulled myself up and back into the passenger section. Seconds later, the other two fell in on top of me and we lay on the floor gasping for breath.

  ‘No time,’ I urged. ‘We need to get strapped in now. I don’t know about you two, but I certainly wouldn’t care for a repeat of that little adventure.’

  For big people they could move fast when they wanted. Both of them were in their seats and buckled before I’d even stood back up. Once I was secure I grabbed the armrests and held on as if my life depended on it – which, when you think about it, it did. There was no way I was falling out of that door again. No thank you very much.

  Mrs Claus spoke to the pilot and the gist of the long conversation was ‘Get us the hell out of here as fast as you can.’ I couldn’t make out all of his reply but I did pick up the words ‘faster than us’ and ‘reindeer getting tired’. No matter how I juggled the phrases in my head, I couldn’t make them into a sentence that didn’t mean bad news for us.

  ‘Are we in trouble?’ I asked.

  ‘You mean worse trouble than we’re already in? Marginally. The pilot doesn’t think he can get away; the reindeer are tiring and we’ve taken a fair bit of damage.’

  ‘But that other sleigh must be having problems too. Surely in all the battering it gave us, it must have taken a dent or two? What about its reindeer? They must be tired too.’

  ‘Ah, but I’m told that their sleigh is one of those new-fangled jet-powered ones. No reindeer to tire, I’m afraid. Unless they run out of fuel soon, we don’t stand a chance.’

  Mrs Claus waved frantically in the direction of the still-open door. ‘Brace yourselves, here they come again.’

  ‘Sod this for a game of skittles,’ I exclaimed, partly in frustration but mostly in anger. I wasn’t sure if there was anything I could do but I wasn’t just going to sit there and wait for us to fall out of the sky. I unbuckled my seat belt and stood up carefully – ever mindful of the gaping hole where the door used to be. Looking around the cabin, I saw another door in the rear wall. ‘What’s in there?’ I asked.

  ‘Just some light luggage for me, some raw materials for the toy factory and other bits and pieces. Nothing important. Why do you ask?’ said Mrs Claus.

  I scrambled back and pulled the door open. ‘Because I’m fed up with waiting to be bumped out of the sky. I’m going to try to fight back. There might be nothing I can do but I’ll feel a whole heap better.’

  I examined the contents of the luggage area. Mrs Claus was right. There didn’t seem to be much that I could use as a weapon. Large crates were stacked
neatly and fastened to the walls. Just in front of them was a mountain of suitcases that filled the rest of room. ‘Light luggage’ indeed. If this was what she took for an overnight trip to the North Pole, I shuddered to think what she might need for a two-week vacation.

  Nope, nothing useful here. I banged my fist against the door in frustration and, just as I was about to give up, a thought struck me.

  Suitcases!

  I grabbed a medium-sized one and hefted it. Heavy – but I could still carry it. Maybe … just maybe.

  I dragged it across the floor towards the open door. Mrs Claus saw me. ‘Hey, what are you doing with that suitcase? It’s mine.’ I chose to ignore her. At the door I clung to the frame and waited. In the distance I could see the large dark shape of the jet sleigh moving rapidly in our direction once more.

  I lifted the case and swung it gently once or twice to get the balance right. The sleigh grew bigger as it neared our ailing craft. ‘Strap yourselves in guys; we’re in for some chop,’ came the captain’s voice over the intercom. I ignored him; I was through with strapping myself in.

  The dark outline of the approaching sleigh was completely blocking out what little starlight there was. I waited for my opportunity and, with what little strength I had left, I flung the suitcase out of the door and straight at it. It made a satisfying contact and I heard the engine tone change from a low growl to a high-pitched and strangled whine – the kind of sound that suggested I had done some damage. I watched the sleigh began to spin wildly over and over like a nuclear-powered spinning top. Whoever was in it was going to be very sick, very soon. Whirling madly, it careened wildly away from us, out of control and no longer a threat.

  Of course, there was a knock-on effect too (there always is). As the turbine shredded the suitcase, it flung bits of shoes in all directions – like leather machine-gun bullets. There was a shriek of anguish from behind me. It sounded like Mrs Claus had been hit by the shrapnel.