State Science Fair
Open to all students Grades 5-8
Grand Prize: $5000
Tracy stopped reading there. Forget honorable mention, she was going for the grand prize. Five thousand dollars had to be enough to pay the doctor.
She spent the next few weeks combing the Internet and the library for ideas. It wasn't until she saw a magazine ad from the Santa Commission that she had her project. It reminded kids to have their lists in no later than November 20th so Santa's elves had time to organize. But still, it wasn't the reminder that gave her the idea—it was the slogan.
Even magic needs a helping hand.
Tracy had never believed in magic. Behind every famous magic act, there was a foundation of science. Simple physics did not allow one man to travel the world in one night, but somehow he did it. The Santa Commission's slogan became her hypothesis.
The first part of her plan was simple—wait upstairs until Santa arrived.
She went to bed like normal, but she wore a pouch around her neck that contained all of the necessary supplies: bags for collecting samples, fingerprint kit, and a zip drive, just in case the sleigh had a computer. For the next two hours, she chugged can after can of Red Bull, keeping herself awake until she heard a scuffling sound on the roof. Then she grabbed her phone and crept into the hallway.
Her phone had a video recorder on it. Cameras often caught things the human eye couldn't see, and she planned to analyze her footage frame by frame for anything that could prove her theories.
After the hypothesis was formed, the next step of the Scientific Method was to collect data. That could only be done on Christmas Eve in the middle of the night. Climbing out of her window was easy. It was Santa's sleigh, with its lack of padding that was hard.
After she gave up on getting comfortable in the sleigh, she pulled a pair of scissors from her pouch and snipped a long strip from one of Santa's bags. The thin fabric felt like water in her fingers, slippery and silky, nothing like they sold in the sewing section at Walmart. She dropped it into a plastic baggie and mentally prepared a list of how she would analyze it later. She would study the fabric composition, and then she would cut it into pieces and check for water and fire proofing. A thorough scientist was a winning scientist.
She heard a tiny voice echo up the chimney right before a plume of dust escaped out the top. She ducked under the bags before anyone could spot her. A toy box poked out of one of them, its corner stabbing her in the spine. Cellophane crinkled as she tried to shift it to the non-poking side.
“Did you hear that?” asked a tiny, shrill voice.
Tracy froze, holding her breath while listening for the answer.
It came about a minute later when another voice said, “Squirrel. Over in that tree.”
“Good eyes,” said the first voice. “You ready?”
“Always.”
Then, Tracy heard the jingle of bells. She sunk further under the bags, hoping to stay hidden for at least an hour or two. By then it wouldn't matter if she was caught. She'd seen enough movies to know that Santa didn't mind a stowaway every now and then. He'd pat her on the head and take her home, probably with a snow globe or sleigh bell to remember him by. Little would he know that in addition to her trinket, she would have plenty of hard evidence for her project. Pictures. Video footage. Hair samples. Full chemical analysis of his red toy bags.
She smiled to herself and settled in as she heard Santa's boots clomping across the roof. He was here. And it was time to go.
CHAPTER THREE
Tracy
Tracy hadn't anticipated Santa's enormous size. The sleigh lurched as he climbed in, shifting the bags above her, and pushing her shoulder into the wooden floorboards. She clutched her neck pouch to her chest. Every time she'd run through this night in her mind, she'd envisioned only one thing going wrong—Santa accidentally grabbing her neck pouch and gifting it to some well-deserving child. Keeping her limps intact had never been part of the scenario. The back of Santa's seat squished her arm against her body until it went numb. The point of her scissors jutted out the top of her bag and pressed into her thigh. Did scientific experiments have to be so painful?
The next house was only a block away, and while Santa was gone, Tracy had time to shake out her tingling fingers, but little else.
For the next three stops, she kept sneaking her phone up above the bags to take blind shots of what she hoped were the reindeer, but she was so crunched up in the bottom of the sleigh, she couldn't see if she'd gotten anything worth using.
The reindeer weren't helping. They didn't make a single sound, not a snort or a huff to tell her which direction to point the camera. Their silence was good evidence for her theory that they were holograms, but there was also the fact that she couldn't hear anything else. The elves didn't say any more, and Santa never uttered a single “Ho Ho Ho.” Who knew a ride with Santa would be so…quiet? An eerie tingle crept up her spine. Or maybe that was the stupid toy box digging into a nerve and making her back go numb.
Her luck finally kicked in at the fourth stop when Santa removed the offending bag and took it down the chimney with him. She twisted her arm behind her back to examine the spot where her skin was screaming. She winced when she touched the tender area. This was for Pim, she reminded herself. What was one little scar compared to getting her cousin back?
With one less bag in the sleigh, Tracy was able to poke her head out and get her first glimpse of the reindeer. They looked pretty much like they did in the movies: antlers, brown and white fur, cow-like faces. But they didn't prance or paw their hooves, or move at all. Even if they were holograms, her grandmother had claimed they were majestic. These guys looked as if they'd been stuffed and mounted, a fancy rooftop decoration instead of the living, breathing creatures they were supposed to be. Was Santa even trying to make them look real?
She snapped about a dozen pictures, but just as she was about to climb out to get some close ups, a yellow plume of smoke appeared out of the chimney signaling Santa's return. Tracy ducked back down into the sleigh. The bag was dropped on top of her once more, minus the toy box with the sharp corners.
As they zoomed off to the next stop, Tracy went down her mental check list of items that she needed. At the next stop, she planned to see if she could get a video of her hand waving through the reindeer projections. Once more of the toys were gone and she had room to maneuver in the sleigh, she could snap some better pictures of them in flight. Would they actually look like they were flying, or would they stay stiff and still like they had been on the rooftop?
Pictures of Santa at his job might be a little harder to get, but not impossible. The hardest things would be the snippet of Santa's beard and saliva sample. Those were vital for the DNA testing. They would prove whether he was human, or some unknown species. For Tracy's hypothesis, she asserted he was something else. Santa was way too old to be human. Besides, how awesome would it be to prove the existence of a new species? With the money from that, she would be able to save Pim and buy her parents a huge mansion, probably in Beverly Hills.
When the sleigh was still once more, and Santa's clomping boots were out of hearing range, Tracy finally heard another voice.
“Show time!” chirped the squeaky elf from before. The sound was followed by a bunch of chitter chatter which she couldn't understand. The voices soon disappeared as the elves presumably slipped down the chimney.
Tracy counted to ten before popping out of the sleigh. She ditched her plan of examining the reindeer at this stop. She couldn't pass up the opportunity to video tape the elves at work. Oddly, the reindeer were gone again.
She figured it had something to do with the projector and searched for a way down to the ground.
The house was two stories, making it too dangerous to drop onto the driveway. And how would she get back up? No trellis to climb, and even if there was one, she doubted it would hold her weight. Only palm trees in the front yard. But in the
back yard…Yes! There was an oak tree with several low branches.
She grabbed hold of the first one and swung down to the ground. There was a large set of windows lining the back of the house. The curtains were open, providing the perfect view of Santa stuffing stockings. Tracy squealed with joy, then clamped a hand over her mouth. She could ruin everything if Santa heard her now. Not to mention the fact that she was trespassing in a stranger's yard. She really needed to be more careful.
Tracy crept up to the window, kneeling in the sand below it in order to blend into the shadows. The Christmas tree inside was brightly lit, providing more than enough light to get her pictures. She snapped a few of Santa, but then realized the real action was happening on the couch. She switched her phone to video and smiled. It was like a live action replay of what happened to her the year she turned eight.
She had slept on the couch with one end of a fishing line wrapped around Santa's milk glass and the other end tied to her pinkie finger. As soon as her finger jerked and she opened her eyes, a shimmery dust blew across her face, producing a vision of cartoon sugar plums dancing in front of her. Now she could watch it happening to another child.
Eight tiny elves moved into her camera's view screen. They looked like cute, wooden puppets, but the way they moved made her shiver. At first she thought it was simply an effect of the camera. They seemed to glide more than walk. But when several of their bodies fuzzed and changed shape briefly to fit between a chair and a wall, she rubbed her eyes, wondering if the Red Bull was wearing off. She shook her head. That was one thing she hadn't anticipated, getting tired so early. Maybe she could find some candy in the sleigh to get another sugar rush.
She blinked a few more times, as she watched the creatures arrange themselves around the couch. A small boy, maybe five or six years old, stretched into a yawn and opened his eyes. Before he saw anything, one of the elves reached into his pocket, pulled out a tiny fist full of something, and blew a cloud of sparkly yellow dust into the boy's face. The boy blinked and rubbed his eyes. Tracy knew exactly what he was seeing—dancing cartoon sugarplums!
This was science fair gold. She wondered if she could spot the street name from the roof so she could find the boy in a day or two and interview him about his experience. Plus, if she brought her mom's Dustbuster, she could vacuum up some of the powder and view it under her microscope.
Tracy squealed again, too excited to cover her mouth this time. She realized her mistake and held her breath for one second. Two seconds. Three. When Santa didn't look her way, she relaxed and vowed to be more careful from now on. Scientists observed with their eyes, not their voices.
CHAPTER FOUR
Santa Command—Control Room 8
December 24th
2342 hours
Phil yelled at the screen. “Who is that? What's she doing?”
A girl down below tapped a couple of keys. All of the stats from Santa's current location appeared on the screen. “Well, she's not Bradley Adams, and he doesn't have a sister.” She tapped a few more keys. “Or a cousin. Or any girl neighbors.”
“Hang on.” Phil scrolled through the archived footage of the night and came up with a still image of a child from a house Santa had visited earlier. He enlarged the image on the view screen and keyed in a command. The child's name appeared across the bottom in white block letters.
Tracy Tam
Walt burst in through the door. His beeper squealed like an Inkling caught in a rat trap. “You took care of this. You said you were positive.”
“I...I was!” Phil ordered up the camera outside her bedroom window. It showed a curled up lump lying in her bed, and long black hair trailing out from under the comforter and across her pillow. “See?”
Walt snatched the mouse out of Phil's hand and zoomed in on the picture. His eyes grew wider, accenting the purple vein that was throbbing on his right temple. “I see a bed stuffed with pillows and a wig. Come on, Phil. You were trained to know the difference!”
That's when Phil saw the corner of a pillow sticking out from under the comforter and a kitten curled up where Tracy's head should have been. The wig was a nice touch, he thought. Better than most.
Phil groaned as he dragged his hands down his cheeks. He had been trained in this. He'd been top of his class, spotting every trick his teachers had thrown at him. Pillows, dolls, and even one cleverly built life size mannequin. He'd identified them all when no one else could come close. That's why Phil had been given a command job after he'd proven himself in other areas. He was one of the best.
“How much has she seen?” Walt asked.
Phil pressed his hand against his forehead. His head throbbed. “Too much.”
“We're gonna have to wipe her.” Walt said this matter of factly, as if the suggestion didn't have far-reaching consequences.
“No. No, we can't.” The last time Phil had ordered a wipe on a child, the results had been devastating. He could still remember holding the child's unconscious body in his arms. Walt knew about it, but he kept it quiet. It was something Walt's boss could never know about. “A wipe is too unpredictable.”
“Then give me another option.”
Phil racked his brain, determined to think of something else. Anything else. Vision dust only lasted for a minute or two, and that didn't clear memories; it only obscured the now. Tracy had to forget. The Santa legend was sacred.
Walt was right. Even though Tracy hadn't done anything wrong, a mind wipe was the only option. Phil cursed under his breath. Curiosity shouldn't have to be punished.
“Phil, are you going to give the order or should I?”
Tracy, unaware of the camera, was climbing up the tree on her way back to the roof.
Giving Sasha the instructions would be simple. Phil wouldn't have to watch. He could close his eyes until it was done. The Inklings would transport Tracy back to her bedroom, and he could assume everything was fine.
“Phil?”
“I'll handle it,” Phil said wearily. This was his screw up. No one else should have this on his conscience. He spoke the order into his head set.
Sasha communicated the instructions to the rest of her crew, and they made their way up the chimney.
CHAPTER FIVE
Tracy
Just as Tracy swung from the tree limb to the roof, a plume of yellow smoke puffed up the chimney. Knowing she only had a few seconds, she scrambled to reach the sleigh, paying no attention to the smoke slithering down to the roof and the eight tiny creatures materializing from it.
She didn't see them grab hold of her shoelaces and yank, sending her sprawling onto her back. She looked up, and there, two inches from her nose, was one of Santa's elves with a sprout-like ponytail on the top of her head.
“This isn't gonna hurt,” the elf said as she reached into one of several pouches dangling from her belt. She pulled out a fist full of something which she then held over Tracy's face. A shimmery yellow sparkle dropped from it. Elf dust.
Tracy knew the sugar plum vision would come next, a distraction just long enough for Santa and his crew to get away. But she had come too far to give up this early, and she was ready for it. She jumped to her feet and ran for the sleigh. When Santa reappeared, she would explain her situation. He would see how important this was to her and invite her to join them.
She was only two feet from the sleigh when a six foot tall, green muscular creature jumped in front of her. Based on her multiple readings of Harry Potter, she assumed it was a troll, although she had no idea where he'd come from.
His body was draped in an assortment of leather scraps and covered with warts of various sizes. His head was a small bump on his massive shoulders. His expression looked exactly like that kid in the back of her math class who shrugged and picked his nose every time the teacher asked him a question.
He took a step forward, but she held her ground. She wasn't afraid of the neighbor's pit bull, and she wasn't afraid of this thing. He was a temporary g
litch in her plan, one she could probably distract with the sparkles on her cell phone case until Santa arrived. But when she looked in his eyes, she realized he wasn't the dumb creature she had read about in books. His narrow, blue glare made her skin crawl. This guy was smart, and with a slow wink, he let her know it.
Her hands trembled as she repeated in her mind that she wasn't scared. She scurried to the other side of the sleigh, putting it between the two of them. Surely, he wasn't strong enough to crush Santa's sleigh, was he?
The massive creature cocked one side of his mouth into a knowing grin. Three rotten teeth showed between his lips, and the smell of sewer water and Limburger cheese wafted in Tracy's direction. It burned her nose, which she pinched shut.
“I'm not afraid of you.” Though she took a step backward as she said it.
She glanced at the chimney. What was taking Santa so long? Wasn't he supposed to protect kids? No wait, that was Batman. But in a world with Santa, elves, and trolls, she took a chance and willed the bat signal to appear in the sky.
While she was looking up, the troll lunged over the sleigh.
Tracy ducked and jumped backwards, tripping over several more elves and landing hard on her back. The fall jarred something loose in her brain, and she couldn't tell if the stars overhead were real or the result of a head injury. She did know her head hurt. Her vision blurred for a second before snapping back into focus. Then she guessed what she should have known the moment that speck of dust fell in her eye. The troll wasn't real. He was a hallucination just like the sugar plums. She felt stupid for not realizing this before.
One of the elves jumped onto her stomach. She tried to brush him off so she could sit up, but his body multiplied in size until he was slightly bigger than her. At that size, he looked less like a cute puppet and more like a haunted tree come to life. She blinked, not trusting anything she saw. It wasn't real. Magic needs a helping hand.
Tracy Tam: Santa Command Page 2
