“Looks like Gustav and Gizmo customized it a wee bit,” whispered Nails from inside the second saddlebag.
“Indubitably,” added the professor.
Virgilio didn’t hear them. He was laughing too hard.
His mother came bustling back into the room holding a small gift box.
“Is that for me?” said Christina. “You don’t have to give me …”
“Is from your father. You see?” She held up the box so Christina could read the gift tag: “To Christina Kringle, From Dad.”
“I don’t understand,” Christina stammered.
“Last Christmas. The fireman. He come here and bring Virgilio the toy train. But then, on his radio, he hears the 10-75. He has to leave."
Christina nodded. The dreaded 10-75. A notification of an emergency requiring an all-hands response.
“So,” Virgilio’s mother continued, “he have to run back to the fire truck fast. He forget his Santa sack and leave this here. Now, I think maybe he meant to give it to you.”
At long last.
Christina had stumbled upon the gift she had been searching for all year, the one her father had wanted to give her last Christmas!
“Feliz Navidad, Christina Kringle!” said the woman. Virgilio stopped playing on the floor, eager to see what Santa had brought Christina.
She caressed the box for a moment and studied the crappy tape job and jumbled wad of folded paper on the edges. That made her laugh a little. Her dad may have been a great Saint Nick but he was the world’s worst gift wrapper.
Christina carefully pulled off the ribbons and bow, then slowly peeled back the wrapping paper to reveal a simple white box. She opened it. Unruffled the tissue paper.
Inside, she found a felt green hat.
A jolly elf hat with a silver bell dangling off the pointy tip.
A small card was tucked into the hat’s crown. Christina immediately recognized her dad’s handwriting and read what he had written last Christmas:
Ho, Ho, Ho!
Next year, I want you to make
the Christmas Eve Run with me.
You can be ‘Santa’s Number One Elf.’
Merry Christmas, Christina Kringle.
Love always, Dad
Seventy-nine
On Christmas Day, the basement of the shoe shop was transformed into a jolly holiday festival.
Three dozen brownies held hands and danced around a tree they had made from pine scraps and tossed-away wreaths they’d found in the trash piles near all the city’s sidewalk Christmas tree stands.
Gustav and Gizmo had fixed some strings of lights Grandpa had given up on years ago and they were twinkling in the boughs of the magnificent hand-made evergreen tree. Bobbin, Spindle, and Spool created ornaments more splendorous than anything they ever whipped up for Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe. There were buckets of cream, mountains of cake, and rollicking fiddle music.
Over near the refreshment table (several shoe boxes lined up in a row and covered with one of grandpa’s favorite holiday ties for a tablecloth), Professor Pencilneck was regaling Flixie with tales of his Christmas Eve adventures.
“And then I said to my chum Nails, ‘Let’s see what this motor scooter can do! Give her the gas, man! Give her the gas.’ ”
“You’re so brave!” Flixie cooed and cuddled closer.
The professor’s eyeglasses fogged up. He tugged at his silken ascot. “Well, a brownie has to do what a brownie has to do.”
Meanwhile, Nails and Trixie were entertaining everybody with some sort of Scottish hammer dance.
When the jig ended and the fiddler took a bow. Christina, wearing her brand-new elf hat, clomped down the steep steps to the basement. She was toting two large shopping bags.
“Merry Christmas, everybody!” she said.
“Merry Christmas, Christina!” thirty-six brownies shouted in reply.
“I can’t thank you guys enough for all that you did to make last night happen. I wish you could have seen the looks on those kids’ faces. …”
“Quite touching,” said the professor.
“Even I was choking up,” said Nails.
“He may act tough,” said Trixie, “but deep down, here where it counts?” She tapped her heart. “He’s a cream puff.”
“Yeah,” said Nails. “Probably from all this cream I’ve been drinking!”
He swigged some more of the heavy stuff out of a thimble-sized mug and all the other brownies laughed.
“Well, to say thanks,” said Christina, “I bought everybody gifts.”
Suddenly, the basement went silent.
Professor Pencilneck took off his glasses and looked at Christina like she had just lost her mind. “Gifts?” he said.
“Yeah. Clothes.”
This time, the professor gulped. “Did you say, clothes?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, dear,” said Flixie.
“She must think we’re fools,” said Mops. “Either that or she wasn’t paying attention to our rules!”
Buckets nudged him in the ribs. “Quit rhyming all the time. This is serious!”
“Indeed. It’s making me delirious.’
Before Buckets could bop his friend again, Christina held up both shopping bags. “They were having a big sale at the toy store two blocks over. I practically cleaned out the doll clothes department. Here you go professor. A brand new tuxedo.”
He cheerlessly took the gift and shook his head in despair.
“I got new dresses for all the girls. Some cool coveralls for Gustav and Gizmo. Oh, Bobbin—how’d you like to dress up like a nurse?”
The professor had heard enough. “Christina, are you attempting to pay us for services rendered?”
“Yeah. Like I said, you guys did an amazing job.”
“We know. It’s what we do! But if you pay us …”
Christina smiled. “You have to leave?”
“Indubitably.”
“Well, when you go, do you think maybe you could move uptown?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“A lot of those people we met last night. The kids in the hospitals. The moms and dads trying to make ends meet. They need brownies even more than me and Grandpa.”
Professor Pencilneck smiled at Christina with great admiration.
“So that’s why …”
“Yeah.”
He bowed. “Well played, Christina. Well played.”
“Come on, Professor. Help me pass out the clothes.”
“Very well. It appears as if you purchased something for everybody.”
“Except us,” said Nails, taking Trixie’s hand. “We’re staying here.”
“Is that so?” said the professor.
“Well,” said Christina, “somebody has to stay and help Grandpa finish the work he leaves undone.”
“May we come visit?” asked Professor Pencilneck, surprising Flixie by taking her hand.
“Why sure,” said Trixie. “We’d love that!”
Nails cleared his throat. “Miss Lucci?” he said, trying to sound as dignified as the professor always did.
“Yes, Mister Nails?”
“My wife Trixie—”
The crowd gasped.
“We got married a little after midnight,” Trixie gushed, showing everybody the ring. “Turns out Mops over there is a part-time preacher! That’s why he rhymes all the time!”
The fiddler struck up a new tune. The bride and groom swirled around the dance floor. Professor Pencilneck came over to show Christina how nicely his new tuxedo fit.
“This coat is lovely,” he said. “But, Christina, I’m afraid, we don’t have any gift to give to you.”
Christina smiled. “Your already gave it to me, Professor. Merry Christmas!”
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the p
ublisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by Chris Grabenstein
Cover design by Neil Heacox
978-1-4804-5995-3
Published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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New York, NY 10014
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Don't Call Me Christina Kringle Page 15
