Invasion of the Christmas Puddings

by Jeremy Strong

  ‘You’ll never be able to make me do that!’ groaned Father Christmas.

  ‘Yes, I will,’ hissed his monstrous big brother. ‘You will soon obey all my commands. Elves! Take Father Christmas to the Pudding Laboratory and prepare him for zombification!’

  Father Christmas struggled and squirmed, but it was pointless. His efforts only made Bad Christmas laugh even louder, while his elf army rolled his younger brother out of the chamber and towards the grisly lab.

  Sound and lighting FX: Huge noise of thunderstorm, lightning flashes and wailing voices of doom. Manic monkey-type voice squeals: ‘They’re all going to die! Ha ha ha ha ha!’

  BAD CHRISTMAS. That is all the message said – only those two words had come through the crackling radio from outer space. Mrs Christmas wrote them down and now she read them again and again. ‘Oh dear, oh dear. What am I supposed to do?’

  She knew all about Bad Christmas. There were umpteen family stories that Father Christmas had told her about his wicked, older brother. There was the time he had strapped rockets to their mother’s armchair while she was asleep in it in an attempt to blast her into outer space. Luckily the chair only shot from the house as far as the barn, where it buried itself in a mound of straw.

  There was the time he was supposed to feed the reindeer and Bad Christmas gave them nothing but baked beans to eat. When Father Christmas took to the skies he was overcome by ghastly gases. He fainted, fell out and almost plunged to his death. He was only saved because his big red robe ballooned up like a parachute.

  Now Mrs Christmas was facing a terrifying problem. She had no idea where her husband was, nor what had happened to him. All she knew was that Bad Christmas had returned and her husband must be in deadly trouble. She wandered the house, thinking and knitting very hard. She even spoke to the reindeer about it, though they couldn’t answer.

  Strangely enough, it was the reindeer that gave her an idea. Maybe she didn’t know where Father Christmas was, but that would not stop her looking for him. She had the old sleigh and the reindeer. They could track him down!

  Mrs Christmas threw several bales of hay into the sleigh for the reindeer, along with a fur blanket, sandwiches and a flask of tea for herself. The reindeer were already frisky. They were pretty bored with having nothing to do. Now they could hardly wait.

  Mrs Christmas harnessed them to the sleigh, climbed on board and with a swoosh and a swish they took to the skies. ‘Fly, my beauties!’ cried Mrs Christmas. ‘Seek out your master, wherever he is! Fly as fast as you can!’

  These were brave words because the truth was that Mrs Christmas had never had a reindeer driving lesson in her life. She seemed to think that all she had to do was shout ‘Fly!’ and they would. The reindeer did take off, but unfortunately she forgot to give them any idea of what direction they should go. Some went left and others turned right. Some went up and others went down.

  The result was that the sleigh carved great loops in the sky. It performed several unintended barrel-rolls. It swooped, swerved, zigged and zagged as if every single reindeer had been given a different map. She was last seen powering straight upwards in a terrifying death climb. Back on Earth a faint cry for help drifted down from the dark sky. What goes up must come down, as everyone knows. But where?

  Twenty-four children, each armed with a spoon, sat round several Christmas puddings. Little did they know that although the puddings had been bought off the supermarket shelf they had in fact come from The Other Side.

  Dylan held his nose. ‘Anyone got a sick-bucket?’

  ‘Dylan, just because you don’t like Christmas pudding there’s no need to make a fuss,’ Miss Comet pointed out. ‘You four watch the others and see if you can tell which pudding they will choose as the best one.’

  ‘There can’t be a best one, miss,’ said Freya. ‘All Christmas puddings are horrible, so they’ll have to choose the worst one.’

  ‘Very funny, Freya,’ said Miss Comet. ‘You’re worse than Dylan. All right, the rest of you, tuck in and test them out.’

  Twenty-four spoons dug away at the puddings. The children’s jaws began to move more and more slowly. Silence descended. One girl began to shake her head, as if a thousand bees were inside and she was trying to shake them out. Another did the same, and another. Then, like a ballet-chorus, they all rose together on tiptoe. Their eyes lit up and then the flame quickly faded. Their bodies went limp and still. The classroom was filled with an eerie silence.

  Miss Comet’s eyes whizzed from one child to the next. Surely there must be signs of life somewhere? But all was deathly still. Miss Comet ran to the nearest child.

  ‘Abbie? What’s up? Talk to me!’ She shook Abbie, but the girl just gazed glassily ahead and made no sound or movement of her own. Miss Comet tried Liam, but he was the same and so were the others.

  Dylan, Amy, Lewis and Freya watched with alarm as Miss Comet raced from one zombified child to another. It was Freya who pointed the finger of blame.

  ‘It was those Christmas puddings, miss.’

  The four children and their teacher looked at each other, speechless. Then, as they stood there a weird thing happened. The twenty-four zombies pushed back their chairs in unison. They stood up. They lifted their right arms and then their left. They picked their noses, patted their bottoms and finally they sat down.

  Miss Comet was now mega-gobsmacked. What

  was that all about? (Of course, she had no idea that at that same moment, out in Deep Space, Bad Christmas was experimenting with the polar bear. Since Miss Comet’s children were also now under his control they had to obey his orders too.)

  Dylan went to the nearest table, picked up one of the puddings and began to examine it.

  ‘Drop that at once!’ yelled Miss Comet with alarm, racing across the room and sending the pudding crashing to the floor. ‘Wash your hands straight away!’

  ‘I was only looking,’ began the astonished Dylan. His teacher had never shouted like that before.

  ‘Sorry, but we have no idea what’s going on here. Those puddings could be dangerous and I don’t want any more of you to go… like them. Oh dear, poor things. What will their parents say?’

  Freya gave a snort. ‘I should think Tricia’s mum will be pretty pleased. She’s always telling Tricia to stop mucking about and bumping into things. Tricia’s mum says she’s worse than an elephant in an egg box.’

  ‘Freya, I know Tricia can be a bit boisterous but even so I’m sure her mother will be very upset. Amy and Lewis, go and ask the head teacher to come here at once. It’s an emergency. Go on, and you can run in the corridor. Run like the wind!’

  Miss Comet turned back to the class. They hadn’t budged a single centimetre and were still staring lifelessly straight ahead. Dylan and Freya moved closer to their teacher, where they felt a bit safer. This was getting a bit too creepy. Freya tried to hold Dylan’s hand.

  ‘Gerroff,’ he growled, pulling away and folding his arms across his chest. Miss Comet bit back a tiny smile and held Freya’s hand herself.

  ‘They look like puppets,’ Freya whispered.

  Mr Dingle, the head teacher, hurried in, closely followed by Lewis and Amy. As Miss Comet told him what had happened Mr Dingle checked each child. He got out his mobile and phoned for medical and police help. He couldn’t explain what had taken place any more than the others, but he could see it was serious.

  From that moment on everything seemed to get taken away from Miss Comet and the children. At least, that was how it felt to them. The police came with a medical team. They had to answer lots of questions and although the Christmas puddings were mentioned the police said they reckoned it was a gas leak.

  ‘I can smell gas,’ insisted the inspector. Dylan said he suspected Warren.

  ‘He’s always letting off,’ said Dylan.

  ‘Yeah,’ agreed Lewis. ‘He’s positively volcanic at times.’

  But the inspector only told them not to be rude. Lewis and Dylan looked at each other. Rude? The
y were reporting a known fact about Warren. But they could tell from the inspector’s face that there was no point in saying anything more. The inspector called the gas services and the classroom was cordoned off. It was all so noisy, what with people shouting and rushing about, sirens coming and going, and tape being thrown around the classroom.

  Miss Comet and the four children got pushed further and further away.

  ‘It’s not gas,’ whispered Amy, as if she was afraid she might be arrested for disagreeing with the inspector. ‘It was those Christmas puddings.’

  ‘I know, Amy,’ nodded Miss Comet. ‘I don’t like this at all. We must do something about it. But what can we do?’

  ‘Well,’ began Dylan, ‘I reckon someone poisoned the puddings. I always thought Christmas puddings were horrible.’

  ‘You might be right,’ said Miss Comet. ‘But why would anyone want to turn children into –’ she broke off, unsure how to describe them.

  ‘Zombies,’ said Lewis. ‘They’re zombies, like in that film, Zombie Monster Terror. All these zombies attack a town and they start eating everyone and you see this man’s eyeball popping out and a zombie eats it and –’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Lewis. That’s quite enough. You shouldn’t be watching films like that. It’s not nice. But yes, they are like zombies, and the way they all did the same thing at the same time – it was as if someone had control of them. Why would anyone want to control them like that?’

  ‘Perhaps they want to be a teacher, miss,’ said Freya, and Miss Comet gave a weak sigh.

  ‘Freya, it’s when you make remarks like that that I wish I could control you, but I do realize that’s impossible. Now then, we can’t just stand here doing nothing but where do we start?’

  At that moment there was a strange whooshing noise from high above and a moment later a dreadful – KER-BANNG KERR-RANNGLE SPING-DING-DANG KERLATTERLY KRRRASH!

  A sleigh pulled by six reindeer had made a mad attempt to land on the roof of the school hall. Mrs Christmas overshot wildly and the reindeer went plunging over the edge. Now they were dangling in mid-air, while the sledge itself was teetering on the edge, about to fall at any moment.

  Mrs Christmas shouted ‘Whoa’ and ‘Stop!’ several seconds too late and then waved at everyone. ‘Hello!’ she shouted, getting to her feet. It was the worst thing to do. The sleigh slid forward a few more centimetres and then toppled over the edge. Down it fell – SLUMP!! – and soon there was a great complication of reindeer, sledge and Mrs Christmas, all legs, arms and heads wriggling and groaning on the ground.

  Father Christmas was not happy. The tartan monkey-elves had released him, but only so they could strap him to the big operating table in the laboratory. Unable to move, Father Christmas anxiously glanced round the room.

  The circular walls were lined with row upon row of cages of all sizes. Almost every one was occupied. There were monkeys and mice, rabbits and ravens, tigers, terrapins and tizzwots. (Tizzwots come from another solar system. They have six legs, are very pretty and like eating chocolate biscuits.)

  There must have been at least a hundred different animals locked away in the laboratory, including the polar bear, and most had that same lifeless look in their eyes. They had been puddified.

  Next to the operating table stood a large tank. Father Christmas could feel the heat it gave off, and an unmistakable smell of Christmas pudding hung in the air. A large steel pipe poked out from near the bottom of the tank. It fed into a glass container which also had a piston in it, slowly pumping up and down.

  From there a glass tube travelled upwards. When it reached the ceiling it turned at a right angle and crossed to a position directly above the table, where it fed into a large funnel. The funnel ended in a short section of floppy, red rubber tubing. Father Christmas had a very uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  A warning siren went off and the elves hurried to the sides of the room, standing to attention as Bad Christmas made a triumphant entrance.

  ‘This is a moment I have dreamed about,’ he crooned. ‘And now here you are, all tucked up in bed and ready for a nightcap. Boo-Boo says open your mouth like a good boy. I do hope you’re ready for my wonderful machine.’

  Father Christmas watched with alarm as the monstrous engine above his head began to move slowly towards him. ‘What is this infernal machine?’

  ‘A little toy of mine. It’s my Megamatic-Sticky-Matter-Injectatomic-Pump, but I usually call it The Puddifier.’

  Here is our science expert explanationist, Professor Dank-Bumpott:

  ‘Haven’t any of you got brains of your own? Surely you know what a Megamatic-Sticky-Matter-Injectatomic-Pump does? It forces the Sticky Matter, perhaps better known as Christmas pudding, into any receptacle placed underneath the funnel. The machine can be used to fill a bowl, cake tin, bath, swimming pool, even a ship. In this case of course the receptacle will be Father Christmas’s mouth.’

  Sound FX: Giant clash of cymbals. Oh no! Bad Christmas is going to puddify Father Christmas!

  ‘You’ll never get me to eat that poisonous gloop of yours,’ growled Father Christmas through gritted teeth.

  ‘Oh, good! Look, Boo-Boo, he’s going to struggle! Just what I wanted. Now I shall have to force it down you. Switch on The Puddifier!’

  Steam hissed. Nasty smells spilled from the tank. The piston in the glass chamber pumped up and down. A series of muffled burps came from deep within the tank. Father Christmas watched with horror as a line of dark brown mini-puds entered the glass chamber. Centimetre by centimetre the puddings made their way upwards until they dropped one by one into the funnel. The rubber tubing bulged as the puddings edged closer and closer to Father Christmas’s mouth.

  Bands of steel held his head tight. The first pudding was slowly squeezed from the rubber tube. Out it came, SPLOP! But Father Christmas kept his mouth firmly shut and the pudding bounced harmlessly off his chin.

  Amazingly, instead of being furious, Bad Christmas rubbed his hands with glee. ‘Boo-Boo, it’s going just as we planned. Now we come to the best bit. This is what I’ve been waiting for. Watch this, everyone.’

  As a second pudding began to emerge from the rubber tube, Bad Christmas leaned across the table and with two fingers held Father Christmas’s nose tight shut. The poor man struggled to breathe and at last he had to open his mouth, just as the next pudding tumbled out and – SPLOP! It vanished down his throat.

  It was over. All the clamps were released. ‘There,’ said Bad Christmas soothingly. ‘Didn’t that taste nice?’

  Father Christmas shook his head as if his ears were filled with bees. He was released from the table. His eyes dull and lifeless, he stood still, totally zombified.

  ‘Now then, dear brother, my elves will show you to your new home. It’s such a lovely cage. I’m sure you’ll like it. You will remain here until Christmas Eve and then you are going to take your sleigh, loaded down with my chocolate-covered puddings, and you are going to give one to every child in the land. Oh ho ho, I can’t wait!’

  Oh no! Bad Christmas is setting up his brother as a master criminal!

  The police had declared Plumpot Primary School a disaster zone, what with a major reindeer pile-up, twenty-four puddified children and Warren’s supposed gas leak. A fleet of ambulances waited beside Miss Comet’s classroom. The zombified children were taken on board and whisked off to hospital for examination. It wouldn’t do any good. Doctors would be totally baffled but wouldn’t admit it. Instead they would almost certainly announce that it was ‘a virus’.

  Miss Comet and the four children told the police again and again that Christmas puddings were the key to the whole business. The inspector in charge listened wearily.

  ‘I blame television,’ he grumbled. ‘There are so many police dramas these days that everyone thinks they’re a detective and can solve mysteries. It’s not like that in real life. We hardly ever solve anything.’ He sighed. ‘All right, we’ll send off some Christmas pudding for examination.�
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  ‘How long will that take?’ asked Miss Comet.

  ‘Four weeks,’ the inspector told her.

  ‘We can’t wait four weeks! It’s almost Christmas Day! Don’t you understand?’

  ‘All right, miss, I think you’ve taken up enough of our time.’

  ‘But you have to do something now!’ Miss Comet cried.

  ‘No need to get carried away, miss,’ said the inspector, rather more forcefully.

  ‘Aren’t you even going to attend to the reindeer pile-up?’

  ‘That’s for Animal Rescue, miss. We have notified them but they’ve been delayed by an injured hedgehog. Got a bit flattened apparently and they’re trying to plump it up. Now then, you’re in the way of my men – move along there.’

  ‘He wouldn’t listen, would he?’ said Freya, seeing Miss Comet’s angry face when she returned. Amy wanted to know what they were going to do.

  ‘Somebody has to help those poor reindeer,’ announced Miss Comet firmly. ‘Come on. We are going to untangle them.’

  They got to work and carefully began to unhook antlers, descramble legs and get the reindeer back on their feet. At the bottom of the pile they discovered a very old lady, rather tubby and badly dressed in a woolly cardigan that appeared to be coming undone at all its edges, a thick skirt and striped woolly stockings.

  ‘What a business! Did you know reindeer don’t have brakes? Well, they don’t but they jolly well should. Goodness knows how Father Christmas managed to stop them. Can you see my knitting needles anywhere? Oh, thank you.’

  Lewis was staring at the old woman and at last he blurted out the question burning his tongue. ‘Are you Father Christmas’s wife?’

  ‘Yes, I am, though sometimes I wonder why, daft old bag that he is. Now then, what’s going on here? What are those flashing lights for, and the amblydance, the ambi-thing – you know! What’s it all about?’