Gilmore and Bean seemed thoroughly upset by these absurd accusations. In a roundabout way, even Coral was standing up for us. We had worked so hard to make sure Christmas wasn’t ruined and these idiots thought we were working against Dad. I felt a sudden surge of affection for my elves.
‘If you need proof, why don’t you just contact the European factory?’ I asked. ‘We were just there. They’ll tell you everything.’
‘You may have fooled them, but you’re not going to fool us,’ one of the elves replied. ‘We are not going to let Christmas be cancelled.’
‘Okay, geniuses,’ I said, losing my temper. ‘What exactly is your plan here?’
‘We plan to save Christmas, of course,’ said an elf condescendingly. ‘We have everything under control.’
‘The toys have all been built,’ the female elf added. ‘Now all our elves are out looking for Santa. Once we find him, everything will be back to normal.’
‘And what if you don’t find him?’ I asked.
That was clearly the wrong thing to say. My question caused the four factory elves to glance at each other and look at me suspiciously.
‘I knew it!’ one of them exclaimed. ‘She kidnapped Santa!’
‘What!’ I cried.
‘It makes perfect sense,’ another elf agreed. ‘She has got her father out of the way. That gives her plenty of opportunity to go around the world and meet all the elves.’
‘She’s convincing all of them that she’s working for Santa!’ The first elf looked at me in horrified fascination. ‘Once all the elves are on her side, there will be nothing to stop her from taking over Santa’s kingdom.’
‘She already has the Pole elves on her team!’ a third elf cried. ‘The traitors!’
‘That is a brilliant plan,’ Coral admitted.
‘But it’s not true!’ I said exasperatedly.
I couldn’t believe these ridiculous elves. First they wouldn’t even believe that Santa was my dad. Then they decided I was trying to stage a Christmas coup. And now they’re convinced that I’ve gone and kidnapped him!
‘Do you know how exhausting it is, having to deal with organizing Christmas and sorting out the elves and visiting all the factories?’ I asked. ‘Why would I want all that responsibility?’
Of course, nobody believed me. They latched on to my innocent question as an admission of guilt. They were convinced that Bean, Gilmore and Coral were my co-conspirators and took them away to separate chambers to interrogate them. I was left alone in the room with a solitary factory elf for company. He paced across the room a few times and then turned to me sharply. ‘If you didn’t kidnap Santa, then where is he?’ he asked.
‘If I knew that, I wouldn’t be on this stupid quest, would I?’ I sighed.
‘Your quest to take over Christmas?’ he asked excitedly. He was probably thrilled that his suspect had broken down so easily.
‘My quest to save Christmas,’ I corrected him.
‘There is no point lying to us.’ He shook his head in irritation. ‘We already know the truth. We just want to hear it from you.’
‘You’ve heard the truth from me,’ I said.‘But all of you seem to have problems understanding the truth. Would you like me to draw you a diagram explaining it?’
‘Don’t try your tricks with me!’ the elf shouted. ‘Your quest has failed.We aren’t letting you go! You are not going to take over Christmas. Not on our watch.’
I sighed. The thing was that the crackpot elf was right. We had failed in our quest. I couldn’t see how we were going to get out of this mess. Even if we did somehow manage to escape, we would still be leaving behind a bunch of paranoid elves in charge of an entire continent. They already thought everyone was working against them. We would never be able to convince them that delivering the presents on time was in their best interests. They would just assume it was somehow part of our devious plot to take over Christmas.
‘What are we going to do?’ I wondered aloud.
The elf thought I was talking to him. ‘You could tell us what exactly you were planning,’ he answered.
‘I told you what we were doing!’ I said. ‘We were trying to make sure that children all over the world continue believing in Dad!’
‘You keep saying that,’ the elf grumbled.
‘Because it’s true!’
Just then, a group of elves I hadn’t seen before barged into the room. They began speaking to my interrogator in hushed tones. His eyes widened and he ran out of the room without another word.
‘What was that all about?’ I asked. In reply, the elves looked at me fearfully.
Oh great. Now they were scared of me. They probably thought I wanted to blow up the planet next.
We were almost out of days, we were no closer to finding Dad, we still had one more factory to visit and now not only was I imprisoned but I was also separated from my friends. Whose idea had this stupid quest been anyway?
There was a sudden flurry of activity at the door. I looked up and, with a start, saw a man walk into the room. His limbs were long and skinny, making him tower over the elves even more than a human usually would. He didn’t have the slightest wisp of hair on his head, which made his braided beard stand out in a shock of white. He was dressed in loose cotton clothes, which made him seem even thinner than he was.
‘Granddad!’ I cried.
20
Reasons why Granddad is the coolest Santa Claus in history:
1. He used to skydive off his sleigh.
2. He once challenged all the North Pole elves to a kite-flying contest. (He lost.)
3. Every year, he would select a village by throwing open the atlas and pointing at a name blindfolded. He would then fly a few elves there and sing Christmas songs outside everyone’s door.
4. When he was bored, he would build elaborate blanket forts at home.
5. One time, all the children in the world got gigantic rolls of bubble wrap as a Christmas present.
6. He would declare random days as costume parties where everyone was required to dress up. His favourite costumes included a banana suit, the back end of a horse and a fake moustache.
‘What are you doing here?’ I squealed.
Granddad swept me in a hug, then turned around and gave the elves his severest look. They stared sheepishly at the floor.
‘So you think my granddaughter is a secret villain?’ he asked sternly.
‘We were just being cautious,’ my interrogator elf muttered. He had slunk in behind Granddad and now looked thoroughly ashamed of himself. I guess Granddad had already told the elves exactly what he thought of them. None of them were making eye contact with anything other than the tiles on the floor.
‘There are other ways of displaying caution,’ Granddad said. ‘Accusing my granddaughter of kidnapping my son is not one of them.’
He looked at me and his expression softened. ‘You all right, El?’ Granddad was the only one who called me that. I nodded happily.
‘Then let’s go get the others,’ he said and led me out of the room.The elves walked behind us, their eyes downcast. We gathered Bean, Gilmore and Coral and stood in the reception room, where Granddad proceeded to scold all the non-Pole elves in sight.
‘We were just looking out for Santa, Santa.’
‘That’s Santa Senior to you, miss! And looking out for Douglas means looking out for his family!’
‘We were going to let them go, Santa Senior.’
‘You shouldn’t have been holding them captive in the first place!’
By the time he was done with them, they all looked like they wanted the floor to open and swallow them up.
‘And make sure you don’t disappoint the kids,’ he said. ‘Leave the search parties up to us. Take care of the gift deliveries.’
The elves nodded and went to instruct their colleagues on the new plan of action. Granddad turned to us and grinned.
‘That should take care of them,’ he chuckled. ‘Now tell me what you have been up to.
’
The five of us settled on the couch and told Granddad about our trip so far. He laughed at all our stories and smiled affectionately when we talked about the other elves we had met.
‘I haven’t visited the factories in a long time,’ he said wistfully.‘Once we get this Douglas mess sorted, I’m taking my motorcycle on a world tour again.’
Granddad wasn’t a normal grandfather even by the Claus family standards. Once he retired from his Santa duties, he realized that while he had spent his entire life going around the world, he had never had time to make any friends while he was there. So he put together a magical motorcycle (it flies when he needs it to) and began to ride around the globe. While he now has friends in nearly every corner of the planet, he currently lives in a small village in the Himalayas. When I had once asked him what he did there, he told me he organized music festivals when he wasn’t teaching the village kids geography.
‘How did you know where to find us?’ I asked him.
‘Avery managed to catch me on the radio just as I returned home last night,’ he answered. ‘Good thing Nepal’s not too far. Else it would have taken me much longer to get here.’
‘Lucky for us you came here when you did,’ I said gratefully. ‘We would have been stuck here if it hadn’t been for you. And our quest would have been a complete failure!’
‘You lot weren’t doing too badly,’ Granddad said.‘Your exploits have been excellent! You’re all grown up, El.’
I blushed and tried to change the subject. Granddad smiled and turned to the elves. They had been acting unnaturally shy around him. Even Coral was behaving himself.
‘Gilmore, Coral, Bean, you’re rockstars!’ Granddad beamed at them. ‘I’m so proud of all of you! If even one of you had been left behind, the mission would have crumbled long ago.’
‘Th-thank you, Santa Senior,’ Gilmore stammered.
Bean shuffled her feet. ‘It was nothing,’ she mumbled bashfully.
‘I just wanted to teach those brats a lesson,’ Coral said gruffly.
‘I hope you don’t mind an old bloke tagging along,’ Granddad said.
My eyes lit up. ‘You’re coming with us to Australia?’
I asked.
‘If you don’t mind,’ Granddad nodded. ‘Wouldn’t want to miss out on all the fun.’
Bean and Gilmore began exclaiming excitedly. Coral muttered that it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to have Granddad along. I beamed. Wait till I told Avery! He would be thrilled to hear Granddad was helping us. And then I realized something.
‘Granddad, I really, really want you to come with us,’ I said slowly.
‘But?’
‘But I think Avery could use your help more,’ I sighed. ‘He has had absolutely no luck finding anything on Dad. He sounded really low the last time we spoke.’
‘Hmm,’ Granddad mused. ‘If you’re sure?’
I nodded glumly. Having Granddad along would have been the best thing that had happened to us. But Avery really needed him.
‘I have these three,’ I said, trying to sound upbeat. ‘Don’t worry about us. We have everything under control. Don’t we?’
The elves looked as deflated as I felt, but they agreed with me.
‘Then it’s time we hightail it out of here.’ Granddad stood up and dusted off his pants. ‘My motorcycle’s parked outside. Where’s the sleigh?’
I remembered the building next door and the closed-for-the-night elevators. Even though Coral had fixed one of them, a ride to the roof on a flying motorcycle sounded much more exciting than a ride on a recently-repaired elevator.
‘Granddad, I think we’re going to need a lift.’
21
Things that will kill you in Australia:
1. The Funnel Web Spiders are not only poisonous but sometimes they will run at you and bite without any provocation.
2. Of the top ten most venomous snakes in the world, six are found in Australia.
3. Even if the Box Jellyfish’s sting doesn’t kill you (an anti- venom doesn’t exist yet), it will still leave you in excruciating pain and with a horribly ugly scar.
4. The Stone Fish lives underwater and looks like a harmless rock, until you step on it, which is when you discover why it’s one of the world’s most poisonous fishes.
5. Australia has deadly butterflies.
I was deeply regretting my decision to research Australia as a way of getting my mind off Granddad. As far as I could figure out, the only things that wouldn’t kill you in that crazy country were the sheep. Even the seasons were upside down. It was currently the Australian summer, which meant that there was very little chance of the dangerous creatures freezing to death.
Our trip to Australia had been uneventful so far, except for my unfortunate virtual foray into Australia’s killer wildlife. Coral had spent the journey sleeping in the backseat of the sleigh. Bean and I whiled away the hours playing increasingly complicated variations of Rock, Paper, Scissors. We were currently in the middle of a version called Rock, Paper, Scissors, Water, Fire, Air, Sponge when Gilmore interrupted us.
‘Um, I think we have a problem,’ he called out.
Granddad had assured us that we had nothing to worry about since the Australian elves were unfailingly polite and would take good care of us. I should have known our good luck wouldn’t last.
Bean and I looked over at him. ‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘The reindeer are tired,’ he replied.
That didn’t seem like such a big problem. ‘How far are we from the factory?’ I asked Bean.
She checked the sleigh’s GPS and announced that we were about half an hour away.
‘Tell them they can rest in another thirty minutes,’ I told Gilmore. ‘We’ll make sure the Aussie elves spoil them senseless.’
‘I don’t think we have thirty minutes,’ Gilmore said urgently. ‘They—’
His next words were cut off by the reindeer collapsing mid-air in an exhausted tangle. The sleigh plummeted to the ground. Our atrocious luck had managed to turn an uneventful journey into a stomach-churning disaster.
Bean and Gilmore levitated the sleigh and reindeer down to safety. Coral woke up, thoroughly disgruntled at finding himself in the middle of a vast expanse of hot, arid desert instead of the comfortable factory he had been expecting.
‘Where are we?’ I asked hesitantly.
There wasn’t a single sign of life all around us. The sun shone down on us hotly, making large drops of sweat snake down my back. Even the dusty shrubs looked like they could do with a dip in the ocean.
‘The notorious Australian outback,’ Bean replied. ‘People who get lost here rarely make it out alive.’
Unsurprisingly, that cheerful declaration entirely failed to reassure me. The desert looked like the perfect place to house all the lethal creatures I had been reading about. I decided to stay put in the sleigh, with both legs on the seat and my knees pulled up to my chest. I didn’t want anything sneaking up on me.‘I would like to leave, please,’ I said in a small voice.
‘Don’t worry,’ Bean said confidently. ‘I’ll just radio the Aussies to send help.’
After she gave the factory elves our coordinates, we sat in the sleigh, waiting to be rescued. The poor reindeer lay on the ground, panting heavily. Gilmore sat with them, whispering words of comfort. We had no food or water to offer them but I think they appreciated the old elf’s presence.
Coral sat in the sleigh, grumbling about the heat and discomfort. Despite my warnings, Bean walked around, peering at everything with the eye of a delighted explorer. I called out the dangers of Australian wildlife but she just smiled back cheerfully and continued to wander about. At least she stayed within sight of the sleigh so there wasn’t any danger of losing her in the wilderness (only that of losing her to a poisonous snake bite).
In about an hour, we saw a cloud of red dust swirl about in the distance, signalling the approach of a vehicle. As the dust cloud got closer, we saw a truck mak
ing its way towards us. It was brightly painted in red and green stripes with the words ‘A Summer Christmas Down Under’ in white. As we looked on, the truck parked itself beside us and out popped two elves slathered in sunscreen lotion, wearing khaki shorts and colourful T-shirts.
One of them stepped forward and smiled.‘I’m Joe, and this is Rose. Dreadfully sorry about all this bother.’
‘Oh, it’s not your fault,’ I said in surprise. ‘We’re just glad you came to rescue us.’
‘We should have been here sooner,’ Rose said apologetically. ‘We had to take a detour when a kangaroo took a shine to our truck. Chased us for nearly 20 kilometres.’
‘It’s really not a problem,’ I said. ‘How are we going to get to your factory?’
Joe and Rose had a plan.With our help, they hitched the sleigh to the back of the truck so it could be pulled along. The reindeer were bundled into the back of the open-air truck while Joe and Rose got into the front. Since there was no extra room in their cabin, the elves and I joined the reindeer at the back.
The journey to the factory was ridiculously rough. There was no paved road for the truck to follow, which meant we had to trundle across an untamed desert. Every time the truck hit a pothole, we would all fall against each other, elbows getting into eyes and knees knocking into stomachs. We were still better off than the sleigh. It was flung into the air every time we hit a bump on the road, only to come crashing down the next minute. By the time we came to a stop at the factory, it looked considerably worse for wear.
‘The sleigh doesn’t look like it’s in any shape to take us back home,’ I whispered to Gilmore in concern.
He cast a critical eye over the battered vehicle. ‘It’s been in much worse scrapes than this,’ he promised. ‘We’ll be fine.’
The Australian factory was located in an underground cave. It was burrowed into a hill in the middle of the desert. The inside looked ordinary enough, its only peculiarity being the stone walls and the windowless rooms.
When Santa Went Missing Page 11
