by Kieran Scott
“Hey!” Holly’s face lit up, then fell when she saw me. “Where’s the elf outfit? I brought a camera.”
“No elf suit today. I’m gonna be Santa when Scooby’s shift is over at five, remember? For now we’re here strictly on a mission,” I said as the smallest Hurley boy brought his foot down on the foot of another and got elbowed in the back of the head.
“This tool your boyfriend?” the eldest Hurley asked, offhandedly flicking one of his younger brothers on the ear. The response was a hard punch to the gut that the eldest didn’t seem to notice. “What do you want with this guy when you can have a real man like me?” He lifted his chin slightly as he said this.
“Jason, you’re nine,” Holly said.
“So? I’m almost in the double digits,” he replied, his steely blue eyes looking me up and down. I found myself irrationally wishing for a set of iron bars between us. He flicked another brother on the ear and the kid, never looking up from his Game Boy, kicked Jason on the shin, hard.
“Ow! You’re gonna regret that!” Jason shouted, jumping the smaller kid. Suddenly all six boys piled on top of one another right there at our feet, a mass of flailing limbs and shouted curse words.
“Did you hear what he just said?” I asked Holly after one particularly harsh expletive flew our way.
“You should hear their mother,” Holly replied. She reached in and grabbed one of the children by the back of his shirt, pulling him out of the pile as he continued to squirm and throw punches.
“Hey! Hey! Hey!” she shouted, then let out a loud peal of a whistle. “If you guys don’t quit this right now, there’s gonna be no Twinkies when we get home.”
The pile froze and one by one the other five boys stood up and straightened their hodgepodge of sweat-shirts and jackets. Holly was a miracle worker.
“Now, you guys wanna see Santa?” Holly asked in a cheerleadery tone I didn’t know she possessed.
“Yeah!” they all cheered.
Of course, Jason couldn’t help flicking the red-faced kid standing next to him and they immediately took off, tearing after each other across the center of the mall, trailing the rest of their brothers.
“Where are they going?” I asked. At this rate the Scooby plan was never going to get under way.
“They’ll be back,” Holly said with a shrug. Then a tiny woman with a bag twice her own size barreled right into Holly’s shoulder and kept walking. Holly rolled her eyes and clenched her jaw. “Whaddaya say we sit?”
Holly walked past the mall’s charity booth to find a place to rest and I felt all the hairs on my arms and neck stand on end. Every mall employee has to take one turn manning the charity booth and today it happened to be Marge Horvath’s turn. As we strolled by, Marge glared right at me and lifted the right side of her upper lip in a kind of snarl. I glared right back.
“Ooh. What’s that about?” Holly asked, noticing my face as we sat down on the outer rim of the pond at the center of the mall. “Isn’t she that awful woman who sold us your Sarah necklace?”
I snorted. “Oh, that’s her, all right. And she’s not just awful, she’s pure evil,” I told Holly, shoving my hands into the pockets of my varsity jacket. “She hates my mother. She’s the one who got her fired and I swear she was happy about it. I hate that woman.”
“At least she’s working the table for . . .” Holly squinted at the placard that was propped under the table. “Hope House. What’s Hope House?”
“It’s an orphanage. And she’s only working there because she has to,” I replied as we both watched Marge take a bill from an elderly man, grimacing when her fingers touched his.
At that moment the line of running Hurleys came tearing around the North Pole, and Jason ran right up to the big, rainbow-colored Hope House collection pot, shoved in his hand, and came out with a wad of bills.
“Jackpot!” he shouted gleefully.
That Awful Woman descended on him like a vulture on a ripe piece of meat. I didn’t even see her move from her post and suddenly she was on Jason, clutching both his upper arms from behind and shaking him.
“You drop that money right where you found it, you little good-for-nothing terror!” she shouted, her face darkening and her eyes turning into nasty slits. In my mind’s eye I suddenly saw a pair of horns sprout from her head and a roaring fire come to life behind her. Holly jumped up and ran over to Jason, forcibly removing the now subdued kid from Marge’s grip.
“What’s wrong with you? He’s just a little boy,” Holly said, smoothing down Jason’s blond hair as he shakily dropped the money back into the pot.
“Well, I suggest you teach him to keep his hands to himself,” Horvath snapped, her chin somehow seeming even pointier than usual. And that’s pretty damn pointy.
Holly, her face pale, led Jason and the other boys over to me. “What do you say we go get in line?” she suggested.
“Yeah,” I said, shooting Marge a look that she completely missed. She was too busy counting the money, transferring it from the pot to a tin where she could separate the bills. She was probably trying to make sure that Jason hadn’t somehow managed to pocket a precious dollar. “Let’s get the heck away from here.”
By the time Holly had managed to get all six Hurleys in line for a visit with Santa, we were closing in on the end of Scooby’s shift. I went into the Santa Shack to change into my Santa suit. Not wanting to miss the festivities, I kept glancing through the flimsy windowpanes of Plexiglas as I struggled into my suspenders and stuffed my padding under the waistband of my pants, marking the Hurleys’ progress. The last thing I wanted was a repeat of yesterday’s kerfuffle. (One of my mom’s favorite words.)
As I pasted on my beard, I caught a glimpse of long blond hair down at the foot of the red carpet. My heart lurched, but I couldn’t look away. There was Sarah, opening a brightly wrapped package. Her whole face lit up when she pulled out a deep purple cashmere sweater, letting the box and all the paper and ribbon fall all over the floor. She held the fabric up to her cheek, then bent down to whisper something to the little girl who was about to walk up to see Santa.
Where the hell did Scooby get the money to pay for all these presents? It wasn’t like we made much bank playing Santa all day. And he couldn’t be selling that many CDs, could he? Maybe his parents still gave him an allowance—like a hundred dollars a day. And it was tacky, the way he gave those presents to her in public so everyone could see how generous he was.
Sarah started to look up and I ducked away from the window, my pulse pounding. I didn’t want her to catch me spying on her and think I was pining pathetically. I wasn’t. Really.
“Hi, Santa,” I heard the little girl say as she climbed onto Scooby’s lap a few feet from the Santa Shack. “That pretty girl told me to tell you she loves the sweater.”
“Well, thank you for the message, sweet thing,” Scooby said. “How do you feel about rap music?”
I almost puked into my synthetic beard.
I peeked out the window again. The Hurleys were next and they were wrestling once more—all of them except the kid with the Game Boy, who was in a solid video game trance. Holly saw me and gave me a subtle thumbs-up. I smiled back hopefully. This had to work. It just had to. Scooby had to pay.
Soon the little girl was scurrying off and the smallest Hurley ran up the red carpet with inhuman speed.
“I’m first! I’m first!” he shouted.
This knocked Game Boy out of his trance. “Oh no you don’t!” he shouted, chasing the youngest.
“Hey! I’m oldest! I get dibs!” Jason yelled.
In seconds Scooby had all six Hurley tanks hurtling toward him. From my vantage point, he might as well have been staring down the Giants’ defense. I felt a chuckle building up in my throat. The taste of victory was so sweet.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Scooby shouted, breaking character and standing up in an effort to defend himself.
“Aren’t you supposed to say ‘ho ho ho?’” Game Boy Hurley demanded, stopping
in front of Scooby and holding his struggling brothers back.
“Uh . . . you kids are supposed to come up one at a time,” Scooby said, tentatively returning to his throne.
“Yeah, well, we didn’t,” Jason informed him. “You got a problem with that, Fat Boy?”
I slapped a hand over my mouth to stop the laughter. The youngest Hurley curled and uncurled his fist menacingly. I couldn’t have written this better myself.
“Okay, kids, why don’t you all just take some free copies of my rap CD and go on your merry little ways?” Scooby suggested, leaning sideways to pull some CDs from the box he kept next to his chair. He handed one to Jason, who looked it over with interest.
“You rap?” Jason asked skeptically.
For a moment Scooby looked stricken. Revealing his true identity was totally verboten. Then, taking a hard look at his clearly curious audience, he cleared his throat. “Yeah, I do.”
“Like what are some of your songs?” the second-to-littlest Hurley asked, rubbing snot from under his cold-reddened nose.
Scooby gave him a wink. “Wanna hear one?”
“Yeah!” they all cheered. And they sat down at Scooby’s feet. Each one of them crossed his legs Indian style as if they were playing a giant game of Simon says. All I could do was look on in horrified awe.
My name is Santa and I’m da bomb!
The ladies can’t resist when I get my freak on!
If ya never heard my rhymes, well, then too bad for you,
But I’m layin’ down this track so you can hear me, too!
We got Santa over here,
Santa over there,
Santa on the mike,
Santa everywhere!
Okay, this was my worst nightmare come to life.
And suddenly the Hurley boys started clapping, keeping the beat for Scooby. People in line laughed and bobbed their heads. Santa was putting on a show! How novel! And he’d soothed the savage beasts that had made their wait in line a living hell!
This was so, so wrong!
“No,” I said under my breath, shaking my head. “No! Nononononononono! This isn’t happening! This isn’t supposed to happen!”
And before I knew what I was doing, I had kicked the wall of the Santa Shack in a blind fit of rage. And it felt good. It felt damn good. Until I heard a resounding crack. Then a pop. Then a really loud creak. Then, right in front of my eyes, the wall of the Santa Shack fell forward, then the left wall collapsed, then the right, then the back wall, which, luckily, took the roof with it. Otherwise I would have been a Paul pancake. Scooby and the entire crowd fell silent as I stood there in my Santa suit, my beard half attached and my brown hair sticking up for all the world to see.
If I hadn’t been so stunned, I probably would have realized that right then was a good time to run.
“Santa! Who’s that?” the youngest Hurley demanded, pointing his pudgy little finger at me. He was clearly traumatized by the sight of two Santas at once.
“Uh . . . I don’t know,” Scooby said in his Santa voice. “He must be an imposter! Get him!”
The Hurleys scrambled to their feet and rushed me, crushing the fallen Santa Shack walls beneath their feet. That was when I actually started to run.
“You get back here, you fat fake!” one of the Hurleys yelled.
I lumbered ahead as fast as I could, but with those big boots and all that extra padding, I wasn’t exactly able to reach my peak speed. I could feel them gaining on me, breathing down my neck. And suddenly one little body was thrown against me from behind and I sprawled on the dirty mall floor with just enough time to turn my head so that my nose didn’t shatter.
“You’re goin’ down, imposter!” Jason shouted before throwing the first punch.
“Get off me!” I yelled.
I rolled over just in time to see my savior, Dale Dombrowski, head of mall security, hauling Hurleys off my body, his salt-and-pepper mustache twitching over a barely concealed smile. Dale was a good guy and I loved it when my mom retold his mall conspiracy theories to me and my dad over the dinner table. He was definitely going to love telling this story—the day he somehow managed, even with his aging muscles, to get four or five psychotic kids off of one scared would-be Santa. But try as he might, he couldn’t get them all, and one of them was still pummeling my stomach quite vigorously. Luckily most of his punches were hitting my Santa padding.
“All right, kids, that’s enough,” Dale said, his tone calm, as if he held three squirming kids to his body every day of the week. “Leave Santa alone.”
Holly’s loud whistle split the air and the final combatants jumped off me, whirling to face her. She walked over and held out a hand, pulling me to my feet. My entire body ached and I was out of breath. The Hurleys’ mom had better not be thinking about having more children. The world couldn’t handle another.
“You okay?” Holly asked, her brow creased with concern. Funny. I thought she’d be laughing at me. Kind of like what Sarah and Scooby were doing at that very moment, standing over the crumbled pieces of the Santa Shack a few yards away.
“I’m fine,” I told her.
“That’s it,” Holly spat at the boys. “No Twinkies for you!”
A general groan went up from her charges.
“All right, show’s over,” Dale said to curious passersby. “There’s nothing to see here.” He clucked his tongue and hoisted his waistband before reaching out and taking my arm. “Come on, kid, let’s go get you patched up.”
Dale led me over to the up escalator and the first-aid room on the second floor. I could feel my right eye swelling up a bit.
“That’s right! Throw the lousy imposter in the clink!” Jason shouted after us, causing Sarah and Scooby to laugh even louder. All the kids waiting in line to see Scooby cheered. Plan B had officially tanked. I hung my head in shame as we ascended to the second floor. Where had I gone wrong?
And why, oh, why couldn’t I get back at Scooby?
WHEN SANTA HITS THE GAS, MAN, JUST WATCH HER PEEL . . .
I WAS QUESTIONED BY MALL MANAGEMENT FOR HOURS. Apparently the Santa Shack had cost a pretty penny and they wanted to know what exactly had happened to bring the structure down. I, of course, lied through my teeth. If I’d told them the truth, I would have had to pay for it, and we are already well versed in my negative cash flow situation. Mr. Papadopoulos, his head shining under the fluorescent lights, seemed skeptical that I had leaned against the wall while putting on my Santa boots and it had collapsed, but he finally let me go.
As I passed by the glass wall of his office, I caught a glimpse of my murky reflection. Mr. Papa-D had respectfully asked me not to return to work until my face had fully healed. (Apparently a Santa who looked like he’d lived through a gang war was unacceptable.) I had a nice shiner forming around my right eye and there was a bit of dried blood under the Band-Aid over my left. When I touched my face, I winced in pain and then felt a rush of angry adrenaline. This was all Scooby’s fault. I couldn’t believe he’d managed to turn the Hurleys on me. Why was he so untouchable?
I walked over to the railing around the food court and leaned my forearms against it, looking down at the scene below. The North Pole had been closed for the night so that the Santa Shack could be rebuilt. Shoppers were pausing to stare at the destruction as they walked by, and there stood Scooby, right next to the fallen walls, wearing a red-and-black flannel shirt and black jeans, talking to some young guy in a suit. They were laughing and pointing and yukking it up. Even from here I could see that Adam’s apple bounce. For Scooby, it was all just a funny story that was probably growing in hilarity with every retelling. Meanwhile I could feel my bruises swelling every moment.
There was a slight bulge in the back pocket of my jeans of which I suddenly became very aware. Something I’d taken from my practical joke box that morning as an afterthought. I’d only brought it along in case of an emergency. I’d never used it before in my life and I never really thought I would. I never thought I’d find some
one I hated enough to test it on.
But now I had.
I headed to McDonald’s, purchased a Super Size fries, and pulled the little packet out of my jeans pocket. On the surface of the white package was a picture of a rotund cartoon kid with green bubbles floating away from his backside. Over his head were the words Ultimate Gaspiration in big purple letters. At that moment, those two words were my salvation. I emptied the entire packet of powder over the fries, shook them up for good measure, and hopped on the escalator. I never took my eyes off Scooby as I descended.
As I approached, Scooby and his cohort turned to look at me.
“Is this the guy?” the suited man asked, a gleeful smile on his face as he looked me over.
“This is the guy,” Scooby said, laughing.
I barely registered the fact that they had been talking about me. All I could see was green bubbles. I held the fries out to Scooby.
“Gotcha something to eat,” I said. “Just to show there’s no hard feelings.”
“I hate McDonald’s fries,” Scooby said, frowning and crossing his arms over his chest.
“What?” the suited man and I asked in baffled unison.
What was this guy, some kind of alien?
“I’ll take ’em,” the suited man said.
He had the fries out of my hand and had shoved a wad of them into his mouth before I even got over the shock that somebody didn’t like McDonald’s fries. As far as I was concerned, they were the fifth major food group.
“Ugh! So good,” the suited man said. That was when I snapped out of it and realized what he was doing.
“Hey! Don’t eat—”
“Yo! Christopher!”
Two large men walked up and set down a ton of camera equipment next to the suited man’s feet. They were soon joined by a frenzied woman who was wearing headphones too big for her small head. Her frizzy black hair stuck up all around her head like a lion’s mane and she was wearing lipstick the color of grape bubble gum.
“Hey, guys! We all set?” Christopher asked, his mouth full.
“Yeah, we got permission to film,” the woman answered, holding one hand over one side of her headphones. “But we got to get the shot set up fast. We’re going live in a few minutes.”
