ambush for Santa’s return.
After making sure the two of them were safely salted away, I got everyone together and quickly told them what had to be done. Their eyes all went wide, but they moved like jackrabbits. In fifteen minutes the sleigh, already packed solid, was piled twice as high with great sacks filled with toys. The Toy Shop was emptied. We harnessed a couple of back-up reindeer—Dentzen and Pintzen—to the rig for extra power. Fritz informed me that we had about an hour and a half to succeed. I pushed Shmitzy and the two apprentices who’d gone with me the first time into the front seat, and we made our take-off.
It was quite a ride. Everything went by in fast motion. The reindeer, though obviously straining under the mountainous weight, didn’t offer a squeak of complaint as they moved like lightning from rooftop to rooftop. We hauled two bags down each chimney—one filled with toys and one filled with stolen goods.
I’m almost sure we got all the stolen stuff back in the right place, though somebody probably ended up with an extra golf bag or can opener. If something looked like it didn’t belong in a particular place, I put it with the Christmas presents.
The only time we came close to being caught in the act was in one of the very last houses when a little girl walked sleepy-eyed into the room where I was madly stacking gifts. She took a long look at my baggy suit and dark beard, and stared suspiciously at me. “I’ve been dieting,” I said, and darted up the chimney.
We finished as the first crack of orange sunlight broke on the horizon. I tumbled into the sled, and the reindeer just barely managed to pull off the last roof and into the sky. Shmitzy and the two apprentices fell dead asleep in the rear, and I had to fight to keep my eyes open to guide us home.
When we touched down at the North Pole there was a cheering welcoming committee waiting, but I stumbled through them with a tired smile on my face and went to my office and fell asleep on top of my desk for twelve straight hours with the red suit still on, the legs and arms draped over the desk like a tablecloth. When I awoke it was broad daylight, and the North Pole had been pretty much cleaned up—at least, all the wreckage had been swept into high piles. I was proud of my elves.
Santa and Momma Claus, just as Fritz had predicted, awoke late in the day in apparently normal condition and were appropriately astounded by what they had done. Santa seemed quite depressed for a while, but I gave him the thumbs-up sign a few times and kept patting him on the back and before long he was rubbing his belly merrily once again and giving booming “Ho ho ho!”s that made me cringe. We drew up tentative plans to rebuild the North Pole.
We had a long conference with Fritz, who explained all the psychological implications and convolutions and repressed reasons why all of it had happened. None of us had the faintest idea what he was talking about, but the upshot was that he thought he understood why it had happened—why it
“I am positive the effects are not cumulative, and that once this so-called volcanic gush of bad feelings is expelled, it will not build up again for centuries. And I believe that by using precise psychological techniques we can bleed off these feelings before they build. I am certain of this.”
His lecture finally ended, Fritz gathered his notes together and prepared to leave.
Momma and Santa had sat very still through all of this, but when it was all over they nodded slowly in understanding. I saw them turn to one another and smile sheepishly, and this was all very touching until Santa’s smile suddenly widened into that horrible toothy grin and both their eyes went big and white. I could swear I heard Santa say “Heh-heh-heh.” But it was all over in a second, and Fritz missed it, and the two of them were as normal and healthy as one of Momma’s pies again. The sheepish smiles were back, and they even kissed and held hands.
I thought I’d imagined it until we were all leaving and Santa suddenly turned to me and winked, flashing his fangs. “Everything back to normal for another eight hundred years. Right, Gustav? All in my head, eh?”
I gulped, gave him the thumbs-up sign, and scooted by him as he whacked me on the can. His smile had turned back to normal by then.
That’s why I’m getting out of the North Pole tonight while the getting’s good. I’ve told Fritz and the rest of them, but they just won’t believe me. They think everything’s back on track.
Maybe I’ll buy a house in Florida.
Wherever it is, it won’t have a chimney.
Baby Boss and the Underground Hamsters
By Al Sarrantonio
REEL SEVEN
~ * ~
“Stop drooling!” Baby Boss snapped, in a fierce whisper. “You’re always drooling! And keep quiet!”
“
Squirmy cowered in fear as the hairy flat of Baby Boss’s right paw caught him flush on the head. He dropped to his knees, reeling, but continued to slobber and mewl.
~ * ~
“I said—!” Baby Boss began, then suddenly his rage turned to alarm and he pressed Squirmy tightly against the cavern wall.
“
Squirmy continued to whimper, and Baby Boss covered the slavering hamster’s mouth with his paw as he studied the cave gloom ahead.
From around the cavern corner came a happy clucking sound, and Doozy the Chicken appeared, her feathery dugs prominently displayed before her as she twirled her Magic Umbrella, which gave a sparkly luminescence to the dank, dreary cave.
“Cluck-CLUCK! Cluck cl-cl-cluck…” Doozy sang, until she spied Baby Boss and stopped dead in her tracks.
“You—!” she clucked.
“Yes, me!” Baby Boss snarled, jumping out into the center of the cave. Behind him, Squirmy’s drool-covered, asphyxiated body sank to the floor.
“I knew it would come to this…” Doozy avered.
“By all the chittering chipmunks in heaven, you’re right!”
Doozy twirled her umbrella, whose lights dimmed to a soft green glow. A target sight and trigger materialized from the instrument’s handle.
But Baby Boss’s twin six guns were already blazing, and Doozy disappeared in a cloud of brown feathers.
“CLUUUUUUUCK!” she cried, her last word cut off by the rain of deadly lead.
The walls of the cavern trembled and collapsed around Baby Boss’s ears.
“Oh, shit,” he muttered—
~ * ~
REEL EIGHT
~ * ~
“Ha!” Baby Boss cried, brushing dirt from his furry hamster torso as he stood in Hamster Central, the largest of all the underground caverns. “That was close!”
He strode with purpose to the Underground Hamster Alarm, and pushed the large, brightly lit button. Instantly the call went out, a high chirrupy squeal, and before long the Underground Hamsters were assembled before him expectantly.
