The Big Fat Father Christmas Joke Book

by Terry Deary

  Gnigel went to a mind-reader – she charged him half-price.

  Then Gnigel came to work for Father Christmas . . . The other gnomes made fun of him at first . . .

  GNORMAN:

  I say, I say, I say. What’s stupid and sees just as well from either end?

  GNEIL:

  Gnigel in a blindfold!

  GNIGEL:

  Here. What’s the idea of telling everyone I’m an idiot?

  GNORMAN:

  Sorry. I didn’t know it was a secret.

  GNIGEL:

  You must think I’m a perfect fool!

  GNORMAN:

  Nobody’s perfect . . . but you come pretty close!

  Mind you, Gneil was nearly as bad . . .

  One day Gnigel had the job of making toy boxes. He was hammering nails into the sides of the box . . . but Gneil noticed he was throwing half the nails away.

  “Here, Gnigel, why are you throwing those nails away?”

  “The heads are on the wrong end,” Gnigel explained.

  “Don’t be stupid!” Gneil cried. “Those are for the other side!”

  So Gnigel gave Father Christmas a big problem when he came to work . . .

  One day Gnigel phoned Father Christmas to say he couldn’t come in to work because he’d lost his voice!

  One day Gnigel was very late for work. He’d been crossing a cow-meadow when his beret had blown off. He’d tried twenty on his head before he found the right one.

  FATHER

  CHRISTMAS:

  Gnigel! Call me a taxi!

  GNIGEL:

  You’re a taxi, Father Christmas!

  GNIGEL:

  I’ve had a slight accident with your sleigh, Father Christmas!

  FATHER

  CHRISTMAS:

  Oh no! That sleigh was in mint condition!

  GNIGEL:

  That’s all right . . . now it’s a mint with a hole!

  FATHER

  CHRISTMAS:

  Gnigel, I thought I asked you to go out there and clear the snow!

  GNIGEL:

  I’m on my way, Father Christmas.

  FATHER

  CHRISTMAS:

  But you only have one welly on!

  GNIGEL:

  That’s all right! There’s only one foot of snow!

  But generally Father Christmas and the gnomes have a merry Christmas at the North Pole . . .

  Last year we all bought him a special present – guess what?

  What’s fat and jolly and runs on eight wheels?

  Father Christmas on roller skates!

  And why does Father Christmas go down chimneys?

  Because they soot him.

  And before you know it we are having a very happy new year . . .

  Gnock! Gnock!

  Who’s there?

  Father.

  Father who?

  Fa-ther sake of auld lang syne!

  Then Father Christmas can sleep the rest of winter and come out in spring to tend his garden . . .

  What does Father Christmas do in the summer?

  Hoe, hoe, hoe!

  * * *

  When you’re ripping open presents at the break of Christmas Day,

  Don’t forget the kind old man in red and white.

  Don’t forget the man who brought you all that joy and happiness.

  While you slept he worked so hard all through the night.

  You may think he has an easy life just dropping off your toys,

  You may think he has to work just once a year.

  But old Santa has had problems of the sort you’d never guess,

  Open up this book and read of them in here . . .

  * * *

  ’Twas the night before Christmas Eve, and all through the house, something was stirring . . . and it wasn’t a mouse!

  Or even a moose!

  More like a reindeer.

  I stuck my head out of my bedroom window and looked up. There, on my roof, was a reindeer, chewing my television aerial. And behind the reindeer a sleigh loaded with presents. It was just like a visit from Father Christmas . . . but why was he a day too early?

  I crept downstairs and peered around the living room door. There he was! A fat little feller with a bushy white beard, a poppy-red suit and dark glasses. He was filling his sack with some of the presents that lay under the Christmas tree. I know I should have gone back to bed, but I was so thrilled at seeing Father Christmas that I hid and watched.

  The little man felt each parcel carefully. “Aha!” he chuckled. “A doll!” and popped it in his sack. I thought he might laugh “Ho! Ho! Ho!” as he headed for the chimney. Instead he giggled “Hee! Hee! Hee!”

  I tiptoed back to my bed. I lay down. I jumped up. Hey! That fat little man was filling his sack. He wasn’t leaving presents . . . he was stealing them. I looked out of my window just in time to see the thieving Father Christmas and his thieving reindeer fly off into the night with a “Hee! Hee! Hee!”

  “Help!” I cried. “There’s a pair of nickers on my roof!”

  I knew the police could never catch them – not unless I called the flying squad.

  Someone who looked like Father Christmas was out to ruin the day for all the children. Someone had to stop him . . . someone like me! But where did I start? Where would I get help? Where were my clean socks?

  This was a case for that great detective . . . Sherlock Gnomes!

  I looked up his number in Yellow Pages . . .

  I called the great man at once . . .

  I waited five hours! Suddenly there was a tap on the door.

  I peered through the window and saw a funny looking little feller . . . deerstalker hat, hooked pipe under his chin and a violin smouldering in his mouth.

  I opened the door and there stood the famous Sherlock Gnomes. The great man himself . . . just like in the pictures . . . but smaller.

  I quickly told him my story . . .

  So we set off on the trail of Father Christmas. Snow drifted up to Sherlock’s chin – it wasn’t very deep. We didn’t have snow shoes but we strapped a couple of tennis racquets onto our feet.

  “Sorry I don’t have the real snow shoes,” I told him.

  “Never mind,” the great man sighed, “these racquets will have to serve.”

  I wouldn’t have known where to start searching for a burglar but Sherlock insisted on following tracks along the road. . . .

  The great detective was right, of course. What else could leave deep straight tracks in the snow and jingle along like that?

  Well, a tram for one thing! But a man like Sherlock Gnomes isn’t the sort to be put off by a battered nose and a broken violin.

  We limped after the tram and caught it as it stopped for a zebra crossing. Luckily for us the zebra took its time. I bought two tickets for the North Pole and sat down for the long cold journey.

  As we rattled along Sherlock told me his cunning plan. He decided that we needed to know more about this Father Christmas character. Where did he come from? How did he get the job? And what made him turn crooked? But, for Sherlock the most burning question of all was . . .

  Luckily we found a snack-bar that was open . . .

  So we knocked on Ella’s door . . .

  I wouldn’t say Ella’s snack-bar was scruffy but I’ll swear I saw a skunk with a clothes-peg on its nose. There was a lot of food on the menu . . . and even more on the tables and the floor!

  “That soup looks like dishwater!” I complained.

  Ella gave a sickly grin. “Oh, dear!” she cried.

  “I think I’ve just washed the cups in chicken noodle soup!”

  We sat at a table with a spotted cloth – spots of stale food mostly – and ordered.

  SHERLOCK:

  Ella! Ella! This egg’s bad!

  ELLA:

  Don’t blame me! I only laid the
table.

  SHERLOCK:

  Then give me two Ice Cream Surprises!

  ELLA:

  Surprise! Surprise!

  Sherlock Gnomes wasted no time in questioning the woman . . .

  So we left the snack-bar and set off on the search for the real Father Christmas and to solve the mystery of the missing dolls. We had just twelve hours to find a thief and return the loot. Twelve hours to save Christmas for all the children in the world!

  The North Pole houses were more cheerful than Ella’s cafe. Brightly painted wooden cottages with carved shutters keeping out the cold wind. We found Grandfather Claus’s house thanks to Sherlock’s amazing powers of deduction again. (His name was printed inside the wellies that stood on the doorstep!) It looked lovely and warm in that cottage.

  Grandfather Claus was a jolly old man. So old that even his wrinkles had wrinkles. He was fat, but not so fat as an elephant, and his nose was red – but not so red as an elephant either. As we went in a cat jumped down from his lap. He asked us to put the cat out – I hadn’t even noticed it was on fire!

  “What brings you to the North Pole?” he asked.

  “A tram!” Sherlock said quickly.

  SHERLOCK:

  We’ve come to ask you about your son.

  GRANDFATHER:

  Me Sun? I never read it! I only read the North Pole Times.

  WATSON:

  No! Your s-o-n. Son!

  GRANDFATHER:

  Ah! You mean our Santa Claus!

  SHERLOCK:

  Is that what you call him? How did he come to get a name like that?

  GRANDFATHER:

  I’m glad you asked me that. It’s a funny story . . .

  So he told us . . .

  “Not a lot of people know this, but Santa Claus was born at a very early age. In fact he was born a full twelve months before his first birthday. An unusual baby, though. It was the white beard and whiskers that did it . . .”

  “We were so proud!” Grandfather Claus told us. “And Santa was a wonderful baby! Everybody loved him. We entered him for the ‘North Pole Beautiful Baby Competition’ and, would you believe it, he won!”

  But we still wanted to know how he got the name Santa Claus . . .

  Grandfather Claus told us it was all due to a mistake at the christening. It seems the vicar was deaf as an on-duty traffic warden. At the same time Grandmother Claus was worrying about what to send her Auntie Gladys for Christmas.

  VICAR:

  I name this child . . . er . . .

  GRANDMOTHER:

  What shall we send Aunt Gladys?

  VICAR:

  I name this child . . .

  GRANDFATHER:

  Send her clothes!

  And that was how Father Christmas got his name! Of course Grandfather Claus wasn’t too happy about it, but it was too late to change it. Santa was stuck with the name.

  He smiled as he remembered, “Still, it could have been worse.”

  “How?” Sherlock asked.

  “You should have seen what happened to the next kid they gave him for christening!” the old man chuckled.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Well, his mam had drunk a bottle of pop before she went to the church . . .” Grandfather Claus explained.

  Grandfather Claus told us that Santa Claus was the most popular boy in the school. . . .

  Well, it isn’t every day you share a desk with a white-bearded friend, is it? Of course !Burp! Pardon was white-bearded too – but !Burp! was the nastiest, meanest white-bearded boy you’d ever wish to meet. He could look after himself. The other kids were scared of !Burp!. While they were playing harmless games like pulling the legs off snails !Burp! was doing much nastier things – like pulling the legs off dolls!

  Grandfather Claus went on, “Then one day the school caught fire. The kids escaped by climbing down Santa Claus’s beard to safety. After that he was a hero in the school. Everybody loved him. Everybody except one . . . !Burp! Pardon was jealous!”

  WATSON:

  Did this all happen in his junior school?

  SHERLOCK:

  They didn’t have junior schools in the old days, Watson.

  WATSON:

  So what sort of school did he go to?

  “I think we need to see Santa’s teacher,” Sherlock murmured.

  “She’s called Miss Taycon . . . and she lives just across the street,” the old man told us. “But be careful!” he warned. “She can be a bit touchy . . . and when she starts swinging her stick you have to duck pretty sharp!”

  “Sherlock Gnomes is afraid of no one!” the detective said dramatically. “He boldly goes where no bold man has boldly gone before . . . boldly!”

  The trouble was there were several houses across the street. And they didn’t have numbers . . . just pictures of fruits! An orange, an apple, a cherry, a melon and a peach. This was clearly a case for the great detective’s great detecting powers.

  “Which one, Sherlock?” I asked.

  “The one with the melon, Watson,” he answered.

  “Amazing, Sherlock. How could you possibly know?” I gasped.

  “Melon-entry, my dear Watson,” he smirked.

  And, of course, he was right! When I knocked on the door an old lady answered. She was wearing a mortar board and gown and carried a cane.

  I was terrified. I felt ashamed, but I had to admit it.

  “I’m terrified, Sherlock!” I whispered.

  “I’m not!” the bold detective said . . . boldly.

  “How can you stand there so calm and unafraid?” I gasped.

  “Easy,” he replied. “I’ll just stand behind you! If she’s going to hit someone then it’s more likely to be you!”

  “Thanks,” I muttered and turned towards the towering teacher.

  Eventually she let us in. We sat by her roaring fire and listened as the old lady remembered her days at North Pole Elementary School.

  “Now, Phil McCavity became a famous dentist,” she boasted.

  “How famous?” Sherlock dared to ask.

  “The best in the world. That’s why they call him ‘Leader of the Plaque’,” she told us. “Then there was the brilliant inventor – Noah Lott,” she went on, “he crossed a bed with a microwave oven. Now he can get eight hours’ sleep in ten minutes.”

  I made the mistake of trying to interrupt her. “Miss Taycon . . .”

  “How dare you!” she roared and drilled a hole in my chest with that stick of hers. “Noah was never mistaken.” And the old teacher went on to tell us about the great inventor. “He invented an upside-down lighthouse.”

  Sherlock asked who would want an upsidedown lighthouse!

  “Someone in a submarine!” the teacher told him.

  This was all very interesting, but we had just eleven hours left to save Christmas! We had to find out more about the man we’d come to find.

  SHERLOCK:

  Er . . . madam . . . could you tell us about Santa Claus?

  TEACHER:

  Became a chimney sweep or something, didn’t he?

  SHERLOCK:

  I think you’re mistaken.

  TEACHER:

  Of course I’m Miss Taycon – always have been!

  But at last she remembered the boy with the white beard. The trouble was she didn’t think much of his school work.

  “Brains of a brick,” she said. “Didn’t he pull the legs off dolls?”

  “No,” I told her.

  Then she went to an old cupboard and found a pile of school reports.

  “Here we are!” she cried. “Claus, Santa!” and pushed the report across to Sherlock Gnomes. The great detective peered at it through his magnifying glass . . .

  “Ah, yes . . .” she smiled, “I remember the boy now!” And Miss Taycon told us of some of Santa’s problems in lessons.<
br />
  “But he was good at poetry, the report said,” I reminded her.

  “Ah, yes! Wonderful poems he could write!”

  Santa’s old teacher smiled at the memory of her second-worst pupil.

  “I wonder whatever became of him?” she asked.

  “He became Father Christmas,” I told her.

  Miss Taycon nodded briskly. “Ah! I knew he had something to do with chimneys. Of course he was very kind and very popular! Now I come to think of it he wrote me a poem when he left the school . . . a sort of ‘thank-you’ poem. I still have it on the wall.”

  She pointed to a framed sheet of paper that hung on her wall. I read the moving poem . . .

  The teacher wiped a tear from the corner of her eye and sniffled into a handkerchief.

  Sherlock opened his mouth to ask a question, but I jumped in first.

  “And can you remember what sort of pupil !Burp! Pardon was?”

  “What do you want to know about him for?” Sherlock sighed. “He has nothing to do with our case.”

  “I’m not so sure, Sherl,” I told him. “A boy who could write a poem like that could never grow up to be a thief!” I turned back to the teacher. “Do you remember !Burp!?” I asked.