12 Days of Christmas: A Christmas Collection

by Laura Greenwood

  Almighty Grumpf the Great Again, in knowing of the ninth item on the list, decided to take matters into his own hands and, in contemplating the best place to find nine dancing ladies, demanded that Rumplewhiteskin and Not-Give-Twopence pull him from his throne so he could make his way to his favorite club.

  Lights low, bass booming, Almighty Grumpf the Great Again strolled into Candy Cane Lane with two briefcases full of singles.

  He sat there in the front row as one by one, the women took to the red-and-white-striped pole on the catwalk. Bill after bill after bill he fed them and promised them, when their time was done, there was “much more where that came from.” All they had to do was meet him out back come 1 a.m.

  And there you had it, nine dancing women meeting the king beside a reeking dumpster and he, flipping them bill after bill, leading them out the alley and down the street all the way to his tower prancing like the Pied Piper.

  Ten young hurdlers discovered at a track and field meet were led onward to their fate by the promise of a gelatinous blob of a dark-elf claiming to represent an elite sports agency by the name of Kris-Kross Krispy.

  In the middle of nowhere and out in front of some old weather-worn wrap-around porch, floorboards bent with age, did Betsy DeVoid-of-Common-Sense find eleven men, their pipes as packed as her bank account.

  “Ever ride in a limousine?” she asked of the men.

  “Uhhh,” began one in a mesh-hat and flannel shirt, “nope.”

  Devoid-of-Common-Sense looked the men about and chuckled her arrogant chuckle. “Anyone here able to speak in complete sentences?”

  The men looked at one another as if confused as to what she meant.

  “Come ‘gain?”

  “Do any of you fine gentlemen possess the capability of speaking in complete sentences?”

  “Com-plete whut?” asked a gap-toothed fellow with a heavy drawl.

  Betsy rolled her eyes. “Oh Lord.”

  “Ya mean Jee-zuz?”

  “Yes, yes, Jesus! You all know Jesus?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, do you want to meet him?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well if you just hop into my limousine there, I’ll take you to him.”

  As simple as that, Betsy DeVoid-of-Common-Sense corralled the eleven men with their eleven pipes into her limo and, finally, after the day-long ride during which they in their stupor uttered nary a word, led them down the dark hallway and said, once they reached the heavy wooden and iron-wrought door, “Jesus is right behind here.”

  She slammed the door behind them, wiped her hands, and shook her head at the sheer stupidity of the men—all products of her education reform.

  “Shh, shh,” hissed Stephen Bann-onanyonedifferent. “Any minute now. Finish getting ready.”

  The riotous halftime show moments away from conclusion, Bann-onanyonedifferent’s select crew huddled under the bleachers, donned their ghostly costumes, and topped their heads with pointed white hoods.

  The music coming to a crescendo, the crowd in the bleachers above thundered with applause and a stamping of feet.

  “They’ll be coming out from right over there,” Bann-onanyonedifferent said, pointing to Gate 1-A; then, directing the horde’s attention to the chain-link fence at their backs, said they’d be heading back to their bus through its gate.

  First through Gate 1-A came the brass, followed by the percussionists, and the woodwinds. Smiles on their faces and laughter at their lips, none laying an eye on the ghastly bunch, the band members wandered on their way to their busses when out came the drum-line in their brass-buttoned uniforms and tall plumed hats.

  Turning right where the others went left, the drum-line from the small black college headed toward their bus; Bann-onanyonedifferent gave the signal and his merry band of followers lit their torches.

  The first drummer to turn his head said, “What the…Guys, guys!”

  One by one and in pairs, the dozen young black men turned about slack-jawed, their eyes reflecting the torchlight and white hoods.

  Three of the men in white, including Bann-onanyonedifferent, cut the drummers off at the back, the fearless leader opening the gate in the fence and demanding, under severe repercussions for disobedience, they follow him to the bus hidden parked their own.

  “Hell with you!” dared one.

  One of the ghosts producing from under his robe a rifle cracked the would-be adversary across the side of the head.

  “Anyone else have anything else to say?” queried Bann-onanyonedifferent as half a dozen others showed their guns. “I didn’t think so. Now git!”

  And when he drove them down the hall to the dungeon door, he made them rattle off on their drums the death march.

  Part III

  “Ladies and gentlemen, citizens of this great land,” Grumpf began before the television cameras dressed in his ubiquitous blue suit, white shirt, and over-compensating red tie. “I stand before you tonight to announce to you that beginning tomorrow, I, Almighty Grumpf the Great Again, your king, your really great—and by ‘really’ I really really mean really—king will begin the process of draining the swamp and in thirteen days, you will all be witness to how great I really am. I promise.

  “Before you named me king I promised to you I would plant across our world a great many mushrooms. Big mushrooms, mushrooms bigger than you have ever seen. The most amazing mushrooms. Well, that time has come. My staff and I have put together a plan—a super-secret plan—that I stand before now ready to announce.”

  People gathered across the once great land. Some huddled together in fear. They held their loved ones and kissed them, tears running down their cheeks.

  Others stood upright, their fists raised in triumph.

  “For each of the next twelve nights I will give to myself a gift and when the clock chimes twelve marking the thirteenth day, there in the wee hours of the morning before dawn the magic shall light up the sky with the likes of fireworks you have never seen. It will be a great celebration, the greatest of celebrations. The night shall be turned to day not by the rising of the sun, but at the push of a button by this, my finger.

  “Fear not, my children,” he continued, arms outstretched, “for the day shall soon be here when the swamp shall be drained as I drop from the sky and by the tens of thousands tiny little mushroom spores.

  “Now I know what you are thinking—this is something you don’t want to miss; you wouldn’t want to be left out of the festivities so my gift to you is this: I’ll be televising the presentation of each and every one of my gifts each and every night. Now go and have a Merry Christmas.”

  It was on a Sunday that one of the hobgoblin guards entered our dungeon, set the pear tree atop a dolly, and wheeled it out, the partridge clamped to its branches.

  I know this only because the same hobgoblin held me in his clutches, almost choking the life out of me, on the following day—a Monday.

  As I am sure was similar to the case with the partridge in the pear tree, as the hobgoblin presented me to Grumpf, the king sang, “On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me two turtle doves” then added, “and a partridge in a pear tree.” As I was soon to learn, he would repeat and expand the song each of the next ten nights.

  So delighted I had been when I found myself, trapped in the hobgoblin’s hands as I was, to be presented to the king alongside my wife in her golden cage.

  And that was that. All in all, after much pomp and circumstance, it lasted all but fifteen seconds and as I would come to soon discover, when Grumpf said, “My true love gave to me,” he referred to none but himself.

  Anyway, when they put me in the cage with my wife, I immediately threw my wings around her as she held me in her own.

  Patting the back of my head, she said, “Now now there, it’s okay, it’s okay.”

  I looked at her, my eyes narrow and confused. There was something different about her. Something calm, something assured. At any other time I might have found some se
nse of security in those black eyes of hers.

  But not now.

  “I promise,” she began. “King Grumpf,” she tried to convince me, “is an amazing man. The most amazing man, really, I promise. Believe me.”

  That’s when I understood. So long had she been his captive, up here in this room of gold, subject to his touch and his “affections,” that she had been brain-washed.

  And even when I tried to convince her otherwise throughout that night, she wouldn’t believe me.

  See, I’d overheard the guards. I understood the plan and I knew that we—and by “we” I mean, in particular, my wife and I—we were the glue, we were the flour in the bread, the nitroglycerin in the dynamite.

  The book according to which many across the land claimed to live their lives said our kind was to be used as an offering.

  She interrupted me then, saying with a smile they had been offered to the king as a present—the two of them together.

  “Not that kind of offering!” I shook my head and grabbed her. A sacrifice!”

  “Oh.” She tiptoed across her little swing. “Wait, doesn’t that mean?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you! He’s going to kill us! Going to kill us all!”

  The third night came and went, the three hens being presented next. They kept us there in the throne room under lock and key in makeshift cells—my wife and I, of course, being kept in the golden cage.

  Through the window nearest our cage, I could see each night growing colder, and darker. Clouds rolled by blotting out the stars and a thin frost spread across the glass. Whirling winds howled and at times I wanted to kill myself. If I were dead, I thought, I could not be sacrificed, my blood would be of no use.

  But of course there live turtledoves galore and it would be quite easy for Grumpf’s henchmen to walk outside and find a substitute.

  So I began to plan. The way I figured it, from what I’d heard, there would be at least eight hours between the presentation of the twelve drummers and the sacrifice.

  More than enough time I figured after I’d considered a great variety of plans.

  After the hobgoblin guards, spears at the ready, pushed the twelve drummers stripped down to their underwear and shackled at the ankles into the great golden room and Grumpf celebrated his final round of gifts on the twelfth day of Christmas, he looked into the television cameras and, unable to rise from his throne, told his subjects that tomorrow would mark the hugest beginning of all huge beginnings.

  Cameras powered down, he tried to wiggle out of his throne and despite his council’s protestations, decided he would like to spend the night there in his throne.

  “No, no, no,” I thought to myself. “Oh God, please no.”

  Grumpf told Fame to fetch him a pillow and when she did, he told her to just set it there behind his head.

  “After so much celebrating—I mean, really, who has ever seen so much celebrating?” he asked of his council. “Hasn’t this been the greatest celebration you’ve ever seen?—I’m exhausted. No one has ever been as exhausted as me. So go, all of you. I want to be alone with all of my presents.”

  Fame, having brought a second pillow, begged that he allow her to curl up at his feet so she might sleep, but Grumpf kicked his wife away crying.

  In a matter of moments Almighty Grumpf the Great Again, a thick line of drool issuing from his mouth, sat there, stuck in his throne, snoring and whimpering “Mommy, mommy? Daddy? Don’t you love me daddy?” in his sleep as he stuck that thick gnarled thumb of his in his mouth.

  Once sure he was fast asleep, I gave the signal to the partridge as outside, I could hear the crowds gathering, their cries of protest barely audible above the wailing winds. Ultimately, they knew their gathering would fall on deaf ears. Huddled about one another, the chill air from their voices and their cries and their yells comingling into a great white and cold cloud, they knew they’d already lost, yet they remained there firm in their resolve and would not go down without raising their voices to the sky.

  Meanwhile, those who stood in support of Almighty Grumpf the Great Again fell asleep that night warm and safe in their cocoons, unaware that most would never see the new day their king had promised.

  My eyes shifting between Grumpf (still stirring in his sleep, still calling out for his mommy) and the partridge, she finally broke a branch free and flung it over her head to the ten lords of leaping in the next cage over. One of said athletes handed the branch over to the eight maids who in turn handed it over to the dancing ladies, one of whom, thanks to the hens’ sharp cutting beaks, removed the elastic from her bra. This she then handed over to the drummers who, taking the branch and the elastic, fashioned a bow.

  From her pear tree the partridge snipped off a long thin straight branch which then made its way to the maids of milking, one of whose breasts still produced a sticky colostrum which they used to adhere three goose feathers.

  “I don’t know how well this will work,” the maid named Kelly sighed.

  “It’s got to work,” I said. “It will work. Pipers,” I said next. “You have your pipe cleaners?”

  None one of the eleven men answered me. Didn’t even act as if they’d heard me. Didn’t even act as if they knew where they were.

  “Hey!” screamed one of the dancing ladies rattling the bars separating the two groups from one another. “Anyone in there?”

  “Move over Jeannie,” said Amber. “Watch this.”

  Amber performed a little strip tease and got the pipers’ attention in the form of stupefied laughter.

  But it was enough.

  “Want to see more?”

  “Uh-huh,” mumbled one; another mumbled, “Boobies.”

  “Then give me one of your pipe cleaners.”

  The eleven looked at one another, tried real hard to think about it, chuckled, then, patting their denim pockets, handed over eleven pipe cleaners.

  “I only need one. Thank you boys.” Amber smiled then slipped on her shirt.

  The eleven pipers groaned a collective groan and sat down as if nothing happened.

  Amber coiled the pipe cleaner around the arrow, tested the feathers with a gentle finger, found them secure enough, and handed it over.

  Finally in the hands of a drummer named Gerald, Gerald set the arrow in the bow, tested its strength, and took a long slow breath.

  One shot.

  That’s all we had.

  This one single shot.

  One hand through the bars, the other pulling back on the bra’s elastic, Gerald aimed the arrow in my direction. He lowered his head and shut an eye. His breath slow and steady, his hands shook.

  Everyone save the eleven pipers gripped hard the bars and waited with held breath.

  “You got this Gerald,” said another drummer named Jesse.

  “Shut up man, shut up. I need to concentrate.”

  “Hey! What is this!” roared Grumpf. With all his might he tried to push himself free from the throne’s iron clutches. Perhaps if he had not lost those other three fingers he might have been able to gain more leverage.

  I guess we’ll never know.

  “Guards!” he yelled. “Give-No-Twopence!”

  “Now Gerald, now!”

  The bow snapped it two.

  But not before Gerald let the arrow, the arrow shedding its feathers, fly through the air like a wounded duck.

  It stuck there, in between two of my cage bars, by about an inch.

  In moments like these, time seems to slow down and I, losing my footing on the swing as I desperately (and regrettably I admit) pushed my wife out of the way, could see our only hope slip through the bars centimeter by agonizing centimeter and though pushed to the background, I could still here the king calling out.

  Beak open, I dove and clamped down on the tip of the arrow. Firm in my beak, but only by a fraction, I lay there on the bottom of my shit-littered cage, and caught my breath.

  The dancing ladies, the milking maidens, the leaping lords, the drumme
rs, and all the birds clapped and whistled and cheered. Even the pipers seemed excited about the outcome, though I doubt they recognized its import.

  Anyway, breath caught, I, with all the focus I could muster, eased back step by step until I’d secured the arrow from slipping to the floor. With my nimble toes I dragged it through, unwound the pipe cleaner, and bent it in such a way that I was able to pick my cage’s lock.

  I kicked open the door and stared down a Grumpf.

  If I had lips I would have smiled.

  If I had fingers I would have flipped him the bird.

  But I guess in watching me flip in the air he got the drift.

  Just then the doors burst open and hobgoblin guards came rushing through by the dozen.

  “Get him!” squealed Grumpf. “Don’t let him get out!”

  But hobgoblins are short and, under all that armor, couldn’t jump to catch me.

  I flipped another little flip above their heads and zoomed out the door and down the hall. Into every room I flew looking for an open window as the alarm sounded.

  I could try crashing through a window at the risk of breaking my neck I thought.

  But decided against it.

  Instead I flew.

  Flew like I’ve never flown before, like none of my kind has ever flow before.

  My little heart beating like a hummingbird’s, I feared it could explode at any moment. And yet I, gassed for breath, pushed on and down. Past hands outstretched, through nets too wide to catch me.

  When finally, twenty floors down, there stood Fame shrunk down to size, her makeup as messy as an avant-garde painting.

  “Here!” she called, and opened for me a window.

  Into the freezing cold I soared and spiraled my way down, chirping, chirping, chirping wildly at the crowds below.

  I don’t know if they understood me, but I believe in my heart of hearts that they recognized me from TV.

  I pulled at their hair and at their woolen caps. Like a lion I roared at them (as much as a turtledove can roar) and rallied them to a pitch.