Hastily Anya wiped the hot soup from his beard and collar with a napkin. “Darling,” she said, her voice filled with concern, “why don’t you get yourself an assistant?” It was a thought that had been in her mind the last few years as she spent more and more time waiting for him to get back from his endless rounds in the toy factory.
Claus stared at her, his eyes wide. “What?” he said indignantly, as if the very idea were almost incomprehensible. “Me, Santa Claus, needing help—?”
Anya shook her head, putting her hands on her hips. “I don’t like to see you pushing yourself like this, Claus. You’re spreading yourself too thin.”
Dooley nodded thoughtfully, adding his look of concern to Anya’s. “I’d volunteer,” he said, “but I’m up to my ears as it is.”
Claus shrugged, and shook his head. “Who’d want the job?” he asked, thinking of all the endless details and headaches that only the pleasure of his Christmas trip could possibly make worthwhile.
But Dooley smiled. “Two elves spring to mind,” he said.
“One of them practically bounces to mind,” Anya added with a fond smile of her own, as Patch’s cheerful, bright-eyed face filled her thoughts.
Knowing exactly who she meant—Patch being one of the two he had in mind himself—Dooley nodded again. And, thinking of Patch, he suddenly snapped his fingers. “Oh yes,” he said. “I’m supposed to show you this.” Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a small, hollow globe, and handed it to Santa.
“What is it?” Claus asked, taking it carefully into his own hands.
“An old idea Patch came up with,” Dooley said, slightly embarrassed as he remembered how long ago he had mislaid it in his office. It must be several decades, now . . . He wondered with a touch of worry whether his memory was starting to go.
The interior of the globe began to change with its motion from his hand to Santa Claus’s. Claus peered more closely at it, and raised his eyebrows. Within the globe, suspended in water, floated tiny white flakes of artificial snow. As he shook it gently, the snow whirled in a blizzard around the tiny, cutout figure of an elegant townhouse. The details of the small picture were perfect, down to its charming white Colonial façade.
“Huh, look at that,” Claus murmured, fascinated, as he held it out to show Anya. “Isn’t that a clever thing . . .” He shook it again, watching the snowflakes whirl, thinking that it looked so real he could almost be looking into another world . . .
And in another world, the world that a peasant couple named Claus and Anya had left centuries before, there was now a city called New York, on an island named Manhattan. The snow of the real world, cold and stinging, whirled past a townhouse with a charming Colonial façade that was curiously like the one in the globe. But this elegant mansion lay on a quiet sidestreet in the East Eighties. The neighborhood lay precariously on the edge of the fashionable Upper East Side, where the mansions of New York’s wealthiest citizens squatted complacently on the fringe of one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city.
The fact that just around the corner families were wondering where their next meal was coming from was the furthest thing from the minds of the two well-to-do boys walking home from the movies, warmly dressed in heavy down jackets, wool mufflers and caps. With breath as white as steam in the night air, the first boy asked, “Why don’t you come over to my house?”
His friend shook his head. “I gotta be home for dinner. My mom’ll kill me if I’m late.”
“You can eat at my house. C’mon.” The first boy shrugged, looking at his friend with raised eyebrows. The other boy grinned, shivering as the rising wind wrapped its chilly arms around them; he nodded eagerly as they hurried on down the street to his friend’s home. Not giving it a second glance, they passed an empty-eyed, boarded-over front of a crumbling tenement that was awaiting renovation, never noticing the small, silent figure huddled in the shadows of its doorway.
As they passed by, a smaller boy about ten years old stepped out of the doorway, watching them enviously as they walked on down the street. He pulled up the collar of his own coat—a torn and battered leather jacket, several sizes too large, which he had found in a garbage can. Shivering as the wind-driven snow whirled past him, he morosely pushed his mittenless, chill-reddened hands into his pockets.
His name was Joe—Joe was all the name he ever told to anyone. He had never known his father, and his mother had died more than a year ago. When the welfare people had come to take him to the orphanage, he had run away. Since then he had lived out on the streets, surviving however he could, preferring to live on his own rather than live in an institution where uncaring strangers would rule his life.
But a life spent alone, with no home or family, without even the simple shelter and regular meals of an institution, was harsh and frightening even for an adult. A ten-year-old boy could not afford to show weakness to anyone, for there was always someone older, bigger, or stronger waiting to take advantage of a kid who looked soft. Joe had learned quickly to hide his feelings, to be suspicious of everyone. He was learning to face the world as if it held nothing but enemies and danger. But beneath the tough manner of a boy old beyond his years was still a child who sometimes cried himself to sleep at night, wrapped in newspapers against the cold, and dreamed of his mother’s voice and her warm arms around him.
Joe sighed as he watched the two older boys climb the steps of a well-kept brownstone at the end of the block. Imagining the hot meal waiting there in a bright, warm dining room, he let his mind picture all his favorite foods steaming hot on the table, until he could almost taste them . . . And then he took out the half a stick of gum that was all he had left in his empty pockets. Putting it into his mouth, he chewed it resignedly, getting what nourishment and flavor he could.
If he had known that he was being watched, he would have never let even a moment’s longing show. But he did not know, and in the elegant white townhouse across the street, silhouetted in a brightly lit window, someone stood staring out at him.
A young girl named Cornelia stood inside the tall bay window, holding the curtains aside, gazing down at the ragged, shivering boy who was just a little older than she, as he stood on the snowy street below. He looked so alone and sad. She knew that poor people lived near her home; she had always felt guilty somehow when she was hurried past the children who had only ragged hand-me-downs to wear, only broken toys to play with, while she had closets full of the latest fashions, shelves and boxes full of toys, all to herself. She had even asked Miss Tucker, her nanny, to let her give some of her toys and clothes away; but Miss Tucker had only scolded her sharply and told her she was being ungrateful and didn’t deserve her step-uncle’s kind generosity.
As Cornelia watched, the boy glanced up at her house, at her standing in the window, her face lit by the street lamp just outside. Her eyes met his dark, wary ones; he held her gaze for a moment that seemed to go on and on. And in that moment Cornelia felt as if a kind of electric shock tingled through her; in that moment she seemed to understand everything about him . . . that he had no home, no parents to care for him. Her hands clenched the edge of the heavy drapes; sudden tears of sympathy burned in her eyes. She wanted to call out to him, to run out into the street, ask his name, and tell him her own . . . because she knew how lonely he must be.
Because they were so much alike. She had no one who cared about her, either. Her own parents, who had loved her very much, were dead; and now she lived with her step-uncle, who barely knew she existed. Miss Tucker, her dour, tight-lipped nanny, saw to her every need, as competently but as coldly as a robot. Cornelia glanced down at the simple, very expensive red and white dress that she had just gotten yesterday . . . and was forced to wear in spite of the fact that she preferred blue jeans. She might be surrounded by every comfort and certainly every toy anyone could imagine—but she was still an orphan, who cried herself to sleep at night, and dreamed of her mother’s warm arms.
Cornelia sighed, letting go of the drapes again, gla
ncing reluctantly back into the living room as the high, nasal drone of Miss Tucker’s voice intruded insistently on her private thoughts.
“I’m warning you, Cornelia, your step-uncle is not going to tolerate those grades. Imagine! A B-minus in geography!”
“What does he care about my marks?” Cornelia said with quiet defiance. “He never even looks at my report card. He probably doesn’t even know what grade I’m in.” She brushed her straight, reddish bangs back from her eyes.
“Young lady, I’m telling you—” Miss Tucker glanced up from her crocheting, and saw Cornelia standing by the window. “Cornelia! Come away from that window this instant before you get a draft!” She rose to her feet, dropping the crocheting into her sewing basket. “Now come to dinner before Cook starts getting cranky and complains about the soup getting cold.” Cornelia thought sullenly that Miss Tucker, whose appetite she was very familiar with, was far more interested in getting to her own dinner before it got cold, than in whether Cook was angry, or anyone else was fed. Miss Tucker walked stiffly through the doorway into the dining room, her severe, high-necked brown dress rustling with starch.
Cornelia stared at her surroundings—the warm, bright, high-ceilinged room with the antiques and paintings, the expensive carpets and exquisite objets d’art—as if she had never seen the room before. She studied her step-uncle’s huge portrait, hung high on the far wall of the room like something in a wood-paneled shrine. She blinked, and looked out of the window again. But across the street the tenement doorway was empty; the boy was gone.
Back at the North Pole, Santa Claus’s distracted thoughts were, at the moment, centered more on the reordering of his own small, enchanted village than on the injustices of the greater world beyond. He had called together Patch and Puffy, the two prime candidates for the newly announced position of his official assistant. Santa sat in his comfortably padded rocking chair, Dooley standing at his side, as he listened to the two elves’ ideas for helping him streamline his unwieldly workload. Anya stood in doorway, listening, too, unobtrusive but intent.
“An assistant!” Patch was saying, bright and breathless with excitement. “Your assistant!” His eyes shone. At last! This was the honor he had been waiting for, for all these many years . . . the thing that would prove once and for all to the other elves—and to himself—that he was as good as he had always wanted to believe he was. “With all due respect, sir, I’ve got ideas that’ll turn this place upside down!”
Santa’s brow furrowed slightly. “That isn’t exactly what I had in mind,” he said. He was still, in his private thoughts, a bit dubious about this whole business.
Seeing his hesitation, Patch added quickly, “I’m talking about modern methods of production! I’m talking assembly line! I’m talking wave of the future! I’m talking faster, quicker—”
“—and sloppier,” Puffy interrupted skeptically. He had always been suspicious of Patch’s modern ideas . . . though not always for the best of reasons.
Patch broke off, and turned to stare at his rival with undisguised disdain. “Just because you lack elf-assurance, doesn’t mean that I do, Puffy. I’m not afraid to rock the sleigh.” He put his hands on his hips.
Puffy ignored him, keeping his own eyes on Santa Claus. Smiling ingratiatingly, he said, “Sir, I have long admired your traditional methods of manufacture. I assure you that I will give the same meticulous attention to quality and detail that—”
Santa held up his hands, cutting off the flow of verbiage with an abrupt shake of his head. “Boys, boys, don’t give me campaign promises. Give me results. The one who gets the job is the one who does the job best.” He raised his eyebrows, looking into the eyes of first one elf, and then the other. They subsided, nodding respectfully . . . but they still stole secret, measuring glances at each other as they turned away toward the door.
During the next few weeks, the activity in the elves’ vast factory was even more frantic than usual. The workshops hummed like a beehive from morning to night. But now the elf workers were pitted not against a deadline of Christmas Eve, but against each other.
Puffy continued to oversee the making of toys in the classic tradition of Santa Claus’s own exquisite handcrafted, hand-painted creations. He inspected each elf’s work, touching up a toy here and there as Santa himself did, giving all his attention to quality, even at the expense of quantity, just as Santa Claus had always done.
But at the same time, in the west wing of the factory, Patch and his handful of loyal friends were hard at work setting up a new, streamlined, fully-automated production line, using ingenuity and whatever supplies Patch could get hold of. The result was an assembly line that would have made Henry Ford shake his head in disbelief—one that looked as if it had been constructed by Rube Goldberg from pieces of an erector set, brightly-painted Tinker Toys, and Mystic tape. But, guided by Patch’s hastily drawn plans and inspired mechanical genius, it was ready to function in record time—and function it did, with the terrifying efficiency of old-fashioned elfish standards.
“What makes it go?” Honka asked when they were finished. He stared incredulously at the red-, yellow-, and blue-painted contraption he had helped to build.
“It’s got an elf-starter,” Vout said good-naturedly, and pointed to Patch.
Patch stood with his hands on his hips, proudly gazing at his new brainchild. It looked like a miniature factory, sitting in a corner of the greater factory, and within it were all the automated assembly lines that were about to make the rest of the place obsolete. He lifted a hand, not even a moment plagued by doubt over what he was about to do. “Go!” he cried.
At one end, huffing with effort, Boog began to turn a crank, which started the conveyor belt rolling. Even Patch could not come up with a perpetual-motion engine . . . And as the elf in charge of this project, he might start things rolling, but he could not be expected to supply the brawn himself as well as the brains. That was what friends were for. He watched, holding his breath, as the first parts of the toys to be assembled began to drop from hoppers. Carried along the moving belt, they disappeared into the maw of the waiting automatic assembly machine.
He rubbed his hands in satisfaction, thinking of the pile of neatly stacked toys that Puffy had accumulated in the North Wing while he had been occupied just with the construction of this enormous machine. Puffy might laugh at him now, and so might all the others—let them stay stuck in a centuries-old rut! The world outside their village was a world of change and new ideas . . . and he was the only one here who appreciated it. You had to keep up with the times. He was about to have the last laugh, and all of Santa’s praise and admiration, too. He had always known he was meant for bigger things. To be the personal assistant of that kindly, wonderful old man in the red suit was the highest honor he could imagine, and he had put all of his energy and heart into achieving it. He watched the conveyor belt speed up, moving faster and faster as it carried the toy parts along.
“Isn’t it going too fast?” Vout asked anxiously.
“Too fast?” Patch chuckled, giddy with excitement. He grinned confidently. “Welcome to the twentieth century!” he cried, waving his arms.
The automatic toymaking machinery began to roll at top speed, and complete toys—shiny, new, and seemingly perfect—began to drop out at the other end onto another belt, where they were swept off to be automatically sorted and stacked. It worked! Patch did a small dance of triumph. Wait till Santa saw this . . .
But within the heart of Patch’s ingenious machine, where no elfish or human eye could carefully watch over production, things were not functioning as intended. Patch’s plans had been drawn up in too much of a hurry, and put together with too much haste. And so an automatic screwdriver, screwing two parts of a bicycle frame together, did not turn screws quite enough times to hold the pieces securely. A tiny red wagon had its handle attached—not quite tightly enough. Pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, pouring into a box, had not been cut precisely, and no human or elfish hand was there t
o test them, to see whether they really fit together. Every toy that came tumbling off the conveyor belt had some fatal flaw hidden somewhere inside it, just as the machinery itself had. And yet every single toy coming off the line looked perfect. No one suspected they were not, including Patch . . . or even Santa Claus.
Several weeks later Santa stood in the center of the vast factory building, studying the enormous pile of completed toys that Patch’s machines had produced, all spread out for his perusal on the polished wooden floor. All the elves of the village had gathered here to see who had won the competition. They looked on as Santa raised his eyebrows, stroking his beard as he did when he was impressed. He glanced at Dooley, who nodded in agreement. It was unquestionably an immensely impressive display. Patch beamed proudly as he watched their expressions, putting his arms around the shoulders of his tired but happy companions.
Beyond Santa, Puffy stood with his own, far smaller, assortment of old-fashioned, handmade hoops and balls and dolls. As Santa turned back to look at them, Puffy’s shoulders drooped. He could see for himself, just as clearly as everyone else assembled there could see, that Patch had won the contest. Patch had made far more toys, and they all looked perfect. He didn’t need Santa’s sympathetic but reluctant glance to tell him that he had lost.
Santa smiled apologetically, turning away without speaking because he was unable to think of words that would take the sting out of Puffy’s disappointment. He hated moments like this. But then he turned to Patch, and his smile widened. He was secretly delighted to offer his hand in congratulations to such an eager and creative elf. Patch had delivered both quantity and quality, and that was exactly what he needed. And Patch was finally getting the recognition he had always longed for.
Santa was still a bit sad to think that his own way—and Puffy’s way—of creating toys was now hopelessly outmoded. But he realized that this acknowledgment of Patch’s talents was long overdue, and his smile broadened even more as Patch stepped forward. When his fellow elves raised a tremendous cheer around him, the young elf looked as if he would burst with pride in another moment. Honka, Vout, and Boog cheered the loudest of all. Patch took from Santa’s own hands the red apron with the word ASSISTANT printed on its front, and put it on. He looked back at his pile of toys, and thought of how many more there would be by Christmas, making Santa even more popular with the children of the world . . . and all because of him.