Arthur Christmas

by Justine Fontes

  Peter gushed with admiration. “What a night, sir!” Then he added more softly. “Your father’s seventieth. Out with the old Santa in with the new, eh?!”

  Steve smiled modestly, making him look even more attractive. “Let’s focus on now, eh, Peter?” Then he told everyone, “Support teams, prep Poland!”

  Arthur muttered to himself, “Wow! They call Dad Swienty Mikolaj there, you know.” He asked the elves, “Do you know how many names there are for Santa worldwide?” When no one answered, the young Santa buff exclaimed, “Thirty-two!”

  Arthur was so excited that he slipped on the ice. Trying to recover his balance, he snagged a wire that knocked over three elves! When Arthur tried to pick them up, he only made things worse.

  “Ow!” one exclaimed.

  “That’s my ear!” the second protested.

  “Ugh,” the third moaned.

  Arthur felt miserable about hurting the little fellows. “Oh! Oh dear! I’m terribly sorry! Are you alright?”

  Steve ignored everything, except his vital mission. “Special forces! How are we doing at the White House?”

  “Eleven minutes to presidential child one, sir,” replied the elf in charge of that sector.

  Steve glanced from the elf to the bank of screens showing the White House, Kremlin, Buckingham Palace, and the homes of other world leaders.

  “Two hours, forty minutes to Mission Deadline,” the computer reported.

  Meanwhile, Arthur tried to untangle himself from the cable and the angry elves. But his new slippers slipped out from under him and he tumbled down the ice stairs toward Steve. The handsome older Claus could not hide his impatience—nor did he try.

  ARTHUR WAS EMBARRASSED that he tripped over the elves. “Sorry, Steve! It’s my slippers on the ice!” He held up one of the reindeer slippers. It blinked brightly and played a brief burst of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”

  Steve was not amused. So Arthur quickly came to the point of his visit. “Maria Costa! She asked for a Pocket-Puppy, but she really wants the blue one with the long ears, ’cause it looks like her auntie’s dog Biffo that ran away. I remembered ’cause she sent a photo of Biffo, see?”

  Steve struggled to keep his temper with his infuriating younger brother. Couldn’t he understand how busy Steve was? His deep voice held a note of warning. “Arthur …”

  Oblivious that he was bothering Steve, Arthur persisted, “Did she get the blue one?”

  Peter consulted his HoPad. “Child CG786K. She lives in Greece, sir! That was six countries ago.”

  “Oh. I just want Christmas to be perfect for every kid!” Arthur explained. Then he suddenly noticed the image on the Santa Monitor screen. “Hey, there’s Dad!” Arthur stared adoringly and shouted as if his distant father could hear him. “SANTA!”

  Arthur waved and saluted, which sent his letters flying all over the icy floor again. Support elves scrambled to retrieve them.

  Steve put a hand on Arthur’s bony shoulder. “Little bro … It’s great to have you around. You bring a genuine aura of seasonal … positivity. But, could you not be in Mission Control? At all. For the rest of the night?”

  Shocked, disappointed, and embarrassed, Arthur blinked. He spoke quietly. “Oh. Um … yeah. Of course.” He forced a smile. His feet carried him slowly out of the huge room.

  “They should put him somewhere out of harm’s way,” one elf said under his breath.

  “Where? Like the South Pole?” Another elf replied.

  Arthur tried not to notice their laughter.

  The sudden blare of an alarm interrupted Arthur’s humiliation. Red lights flashed as the alarm rang.

  From Santa’s personal field unit, Seamus Malone shouted in his thick Scottish accent, “WAKER! WE HAVE A WAKER! AND SANTA’S IN THERE!”

  Arthur turned around to see what was happening just as Mission Control’s automatic door shut him out.

  The big screen showed a little boy sitting up in bed. The elves in the boy’s room took immediate evasive action. One froze behind a curtain. Another flicked off the nightlight.

  One climbed up a wall to hide on the ceiling while another hung on the door under the boy’s bathrobe. Still another elf hung from the mobile above the child’s bed.

  “Santa? Are you here?” the sleepy boy asked.

  Santa was indeed lying on the floor of the boy’s room, having tripped on the child’s skateboard. His head rested on a present. When he lifted his head, the package started to MOO!

  Santa put his head back down and froze while Field Sergeant Andrew Marino used his Hoho to contact Mission Control.

  Steve comforted the distressed Santa. “Hold on, Father.” Then he barked to the support elves, “Intel, get me INTEL!”

  All around Steve, elves sprang into action, summoning plans for the boy’s house, details about the waker’s gift, and anything else that might be helpful.

  Peter assessed the situation. “Santa’s head appears to be resting on some sort of ‘Try Me’ button, sir.”

  Elves gasped in horror.

  “It’s the Quack Quack Moo Activity Farm, sir. It features twelve separate animal sounds and sings ‘Old McDonald Had a Farm’ in six languages,” added a thorough elf named Deborah.

  Peter said, “The moment your father lifts his head there’ll be ten seconds of constant mooing.”

  The computer added to the tense moment by reporting, “Sixty minutes to Mission Deadline.”

  Steve concluded, “Captain Marino, you’re going to have to take out the batteries.”

  Deborah fretted, “But he’d have to get past the wrapping, the box, and fourteen twist ties anchoring it to the cardboard!”

  Support elves also worried. “What if it goes off?”

  “It’s too noisy!”

  “It’ll wake the boy!”

  Seamus Malone expressed everyone’s deepest fear, “He’ll see Santa!”

  An even gloomier old Scottish elf moaned miserably, “Remember 1816! Santa was seen, and they tracked him home. He had to go into hiding … no Christmas for six years … the elves all alone!”

  As fear threatened to escalate into pure panic, Steve commanded, “CALM, PEOPLE! It’s not 1816 now!” Then he told Marino, “Your Hoho is equipped with state of the art electronic monitoring frequency sensor technology hacked directly from NATO’s missile program. I want you to locate the batteries and perform a Level 3 gift-wrap incision. Go in through the robin.”

  One of Marino’s men gently lowered earmuffs over the sleepy kid’s ears while the sergeant scanned the box with his Hoho. The device showed a skeleton of the toy, with a flashing light indicating the location of the batteries.

  Marino used a tiny scalpel to delicately cut around the cheery robin on the wrapping paper. He peeled it back and saw a twist tie holding the toy in place. So far so good!

  With a shaking hand, Marino wiped his sweaty brow before unscrewing the battery compartment with a miniature screwdriver. Support elves watched their screens, fascinated by the delicate operation. One gift sorter on the S-1 Dispatch Deck froze with his coffee cup in mid-air.

  Nearby in the Claus family’s living quarters, an old man in pajamas grumbled at the same image on his TV set. He sat in an armchair with a blanket draped over his knobby knees. He grumbled, “Ha. Lot of fuss! I did my seventy missions without any of this malarkey!”

  No one heard the old man because he was alone, except for the ancient, one-antlered reindeer snoozing in a basket at his feet. When the door opened with a blast of arctic air, the old man looked up.

  Arthur hesitated in the open doorway. “Can I watch with you, Grandsanta?”

  “Shut the door! Christmas berries, it’s the North Pole!” the senior Claus, 136 years old, reminded his grandson.

  Arthur shut the door and turned his attention to the TV, asking anxiously, “Is the kid still asleep? He mustn’t see Santa. Dad would rather die than spoil it for him!”

  Santa Claus XVII scoffed. “What if you do wake the odd nipper? A
whack on the head with a sock full of sand and a dab of whisky on the lips—they don’t remember in the morning! He, he, he …”

  On the screen, a backup elf swung through the window on a wire to deliver a pair of long-nosed tweezers. Marino took the tweezers and started carefully lifting out the batteries.

  Grandsanta continued griping. “What happened to going down the chimbley? Didn’t do me any har …”

  Before he could finish the word, a fit of coughing shook the old man’s fragile shoulders, expelling a black cloud of dust. The reindeer woke with a start and tried to climb into his master’s lap to lick him.

  “Get off! Get off!” Grandsanta told Dasher.

  Arthur tried to help, but he felt nervous around the reindeer, afraid it might bite or poke him with its antler. Arthur was anxious about a lot of things.

  Just then, the door opened again and Mrs. Claus exclaimed, “Goodness!” She carried a tray of tea and mince pie.

  “Down, boy! Basket!” she commanded, and Dasher instantly obeyed.

  “Here you are, Grandsanta,” Mrs. Claus went on. “I’ve made you a nice mince pie.”

  “I can’t eat that. Gets in me teeth,” the old man grumbled.

  “Oh, dear,” Mrs. Claus replied. “Now I have to finish the ones for the elves. There may be 2 million of them, but nobody gets left out while I’m Mrs. Claus.” She opened the kitchen door, revealing millions of mince pies in various stages of completion. Then the busy woman returned to her work.

  Arthur could not take his eyes off the TV. “Nearly there!”

  Sergeant Marino held up the battery and sighed, “Clear!”

  But lights flashed on and the wrapping paper began to rip.

  “Oh no!” Arthur exclaimed.

  In Mission Control, Deborah explained, “It’s the detachable milkmaid!”

  Another support elf added, “She’s got her own power source!”

  Deborah warned, “They’ve got five seconds until she starts singing!”

  Support elves gasped with dread. Could Marino save Santa—or would the mission fail?!

  The gift sorter who had been holding his coffee cup up couldn’t take the tension any longer. Never taking his gaze off the screen, he slammed down the cup. The elf did not notice that the cup bumped a button, and behind him, an arm shifted on a conveyor belt, knocking one gift to the ground!

  Deborah began the terrifying countdown to disaster, “4 … 3 … 2 …”

  “Use your Hoho! Exit code 12! Code 12!” Steve shouted.

  Through the wrapping paper dotted with redbreasted robins, the toy flashed and repeated two lines of a song over and over.

  The tiny cameras mounted on the field elves’ hats showed the frantic scene as they bundled Santa out the window and the little boy sat up in bed.

  The boy opened his eyes and looked around, just as Santa’s feet vanished behind a curtain. Two elves swung their flashlights across the curtains, like headlights. They also made sounds like the joyous voices and music of a loud party in a passing car.

  The groggy child lay back down to sleep. “So it wasn’t Santa after all …”

  The elves in Mission Control heaved a collective sigh of relief. Steve commanded, “OK, GO! GO! GO! Revise Drop Time to 14 seconds! Let’s pick this up!!”

  IN A WHOOSH, the S-1 was on its way, streaking invisibly through the night. Soon the great moment arrived. As the giant Mission Control counter clicked down with the final deliveries, joyous elves counted along: 3 … 2 … 1 …

  “Mission complete,” the North Pole computer reported robotically when the counter displayed all zeroes.

  The elves cheered! They bumped their tiny fists, hugged, and passed out candy canes. Some even cried with relief and happiness.

  Steve smiled with pride over of his vital contribution to this successful mission. Peter grinned, “This is just the start of the celebrations, eh, sir? I … got you a present.”

  Steve unwrapped his assistant’s gift and found red silk boxer shorts embroidered with an S.

  “Not S for Steve, sir,” Peter explained with a sly wink. “S for Santa.”

  Steve may have felt almost as certain of his impending appointment as Peter. But he said, “Oh, I don’t know about that. OK, let’s bring them home.”

  After its amazing journey, the S-1 looked somewhat weather-beaten. But it slid gracefully between icebergs as it slipped into the arctic waters of the North Pole. The ship glided through the frigid sea under the ice to rise in the huge docking bay.

  Masses of field elves swarmed the dock to meet the support elves who had accompanied Santa on his mission. Arthur’s messy hair and skinny shoulders loomed about the bustling crowd as he worked his way closer to the S-1. He nearly jumped out of his skin when the ship suddenly released a loud cloud of steam.

  Helmsman Tankenson teased, “Fancy a trip on the S-1, Arthur? It only goes 150,000 miles an hour.”

  The other elves nearby joined in the laughter as Arthur replied, “No, no … I’m happy in Letters, thanks! I see a bit of the world in my office, you know. Some of the stamps I get are amazing!”

  BEEP! Arthur jumped again as a Gift-wrap Recycling Machine rumbled across the dock, gathering up loose paper. “Excuse me,” said Bryony, the elf driving the noisy machine.

  “Arthur gets travel sick on one of those, don’t you, Arthur?” David teased. The elves around him snickered.

  Bryony sped up the Recycler to scatter them.

  Then suddenly a huge cheer rose up from the crowd as Santa emerged from the S-1. Hundreds of elves waved their tiny arms and exclaimed, “Santa’s waving at me!”

  Arthur waved, too, shouting, “Dad! Happy Christmas!”

  Santa smiled and said, “Arthur! You too!”

  Arthur held up his feet, “Look! Christmas slippers!”

  Santa laughed, “Well done!” He turned and spotted his elder son, “Aah, there he is, Steve!”

  When Arthur’s brother and father shook hands, the elves cheered even louder. Arthur sighed. Would Dad ever pat me on the back like that?

  Santa’s black boots climbed the steps up to a podium. Flanked by his wife, sons, and father, Santa boomed, “Mission … accomplished!”

  A million tiny hats suddenly danced through the air along with a vast cheer. Then the tired-but-jolly Santa went on, “Tonight we delivered two billion presents, on this my seventieth mission. My biggest year ever!”

  His microphone squealed and Steve adjusted it. Santa nodded and said to Steve, “You know, sometimes I think I couldn’t do it without you!”

  Steve smiled graciously as Santa went on. “And there’s my splendid wife, Margaret, who’s stood by me all these years very ably doing all that … stuff women do when their husbands are at work. Marvelous!”

  The old Scottish elf shouted, “Gaw bless Mrs. S. She’s a good ’un!”

  The snore behind him reminded Santa to add, “And uh … my father, of course, a great … um … support. Now …”

  Before Santa could go on, his wife coughed to remind him of the other person on the podium.

  Santa stumbled, “Oh, and … er, Arthur, yes. Doing vital work in Maintenance, really vital …”

  “No, dear. It’s …” Mrs. Claus started to correct him.

  Arthur chimed in, “I, um … work in Letters, Dad. I’ve been there two years. You moved me after I tripped over that plug and melted down the elf barracks.”

  A nearby elf recalled bitterly, “I lost everything in that flood!”

  “Letters! Yes, of course,” Santa said hastily. “Not Maintenance, no, no.”

  Santa resumed his speech, “Now, tonight’s a big night!”

  Behind the podium, Peter signaled to three elves: One poised to pop the cork off a sparkling juice bottle, a second waiting to unfurl a huge banner, and a third holding the rip cord to release a net full of balloons. “Stand by,” Peter whispered with urgent excitement.

  “I’ve had seventy wonderful years doing the best job in the world,” Santa went
on. “And, uh, I’m sure you all know what’s coming …”

  Peter took a deep breath. The trio of elves watched for his signal.

  Santa concluded, “I can’t wait for year seventyone! Merry Christmas, everyone!”

  Steve and Mrs. Claus blinked in surprise. Like Peter, they both had been sure Santa would announce his retirement. Peter’s jaw dropped and his hand fell, too. So the three elves took this as the cue to pop the corks, set free the balloons, and unroll the giant CONGRATULATIONS STEVE banner.

  Not bothering to read the banner or wonder why the balloons looked like his elder son, Santa assumed all the fuss was for him. After all, he was the big man at the North Pole!

  Soon the huge docking bay was empty, except for the cleaning machine chugging across the littered floor, picking up the burst balloons and other scraps.

  IN THE CLAUS quarters, Arthur’s honking laugh echoed as he joked, “What do you get if you eat Christmas decorations? Tinsilitis! Honk, honk, honk,” the youngest Claus cracked himself up. But no one else joined in his laughter.

  Steve sulked over his Hoho3000, a device that looked like a super high-tech cell phone, scanning for new job opportunities. Santa picked at his turkey dinner while Mrs. Claus fed Dasher. Then she tied Grandsanta’s napkin around his scrawny neck like a baby’s bib and took Dasher outside for a walk.

  Grandsanta grumbled, “Lookit Techno Tommy, he’s tekksin’ on his calkilator lookin’ for another job, ha, ha!”

  “It’s a Handheld Operational and Homing Organizer, the Hoho3000,” Steve corrected him. Then he lied smoothly, “And I’m not job hunting. I’m enacting mission closure.”

  Steve hastily wiped the job listings off his Hoho screen and deleted several irate and potentially embarrassing e-mails from Peter.

  But Grandsanta’s teasing went on. “Oo, whoopee doo, aren’t you the fancy Nancy? Don’t matter what you come up with, Son. You may be next in line, but you’ll never get to be Santa unless you knock ’em off!”