“That’s what Dad says too, but Finland sent a letter to the king, and Dad says that even though no one understands Finnish, some of the words in the letter sound very angry if you read them out loud.”
They heard voices out on the street.
“Sorry to disturb you, ma’am, but we’re here to arrest Doctor Proctor and your son, Nilly. He isn’t home by any chance, is he?”
“What?” a familiarly yappy voice barked. “What’s he done now?”
“Just a few small matters, ma’am. Armed breaking and entering, assaulting an officer, and a breach of the Official Christmas Membership Act. He should be out of jail again in a few years.”
“Are you sure you can’t hold him a little longer? You know what that boy gives his poor mother for Christmas? A headache, just a headache. Do you know how many Tylenol 3s I took tonight just to be able to focus my eyes on the TV?”
“Ma’am, have you seen Nilly or Doct—”
“Nope. Oh, and by the way, that dwarf gave me one other thing. Constipation. Here, feel right here. Yes, feel my belly!”
“Uh, I don’t think . . .”
“I’m all backed up, wouldn’t you know. Two weeks. It’s been two weeks! Just imagine when this dynamite finally goes off!”
“I would prefer not to think about that, ma’am. Perhaps Nilly has some friends that he might have sought refuge with?”
“Nilly only has one friend.”
“And that is . . . ?”
“Okay, I’ll tell you if you promise not to torture Nilly. I’m opposed to torture, you know.”
“You’re safe there, ma’am. We’re not actually allowed to torture anyone.”
“I see. Well, then, her name’s Lisa, and she lives in that red house over there.” Nilly’s mother raised her index finger to point, and Lisa quickly closed the gap in the curtains.
“I think they’re going to come over here next,” she whispered.
“What do we do now?” Doctor Proctor asked, worriedly tugging on his beard.
“Let’s sleep on it a little,” Nilly suggested with a yawn.
“Ding-dong!” sang the doorbell. Then there was a firm knock on the door downstairs.
“Open up! This is the long arm of the law knocking!”
The three friends sat still as mice, watching one another and listening as hard as they could.
“I think there’s only one thing to do, Rolf,” a voice outside said.
“I concur, Gunnar. There’s only one thing. Um, but what is that one thing?”
“To request reinforcements from headquarters so we can station a guard outside all three of these houses until the suspects return home.”
“Suspects? We were there, Gunnar. The giraffe threw your hat onto the roof!”
“Sorry. Of course I meant when the ‘guilty parties’ return home.”
The policemen talked on the radio in their cruiser. Then it was quiet for a long time. Then they heard the hum of a car engine out on Cannon Avenue. Lisa opened the curtains a small amount again.
“Two more police cars just drove up,” she whispered. “No, three! And now they’re getting out of their cars and taking up position outside each of our houses. And they brought thermoses. And sack lunches.”
“I see.” Doctor Proctor pulled off his swim goggles and polished them. “There’s no way out, Lisa. But if we turn ourselves in voluntarily and make a full confession, maybe the punishment will be more lenient. You and Nilly are young. You’ll have your whole lives ahead of you, even after you get out.”
Doctor Proctor and Lisa looked at Nilly, who was lying on the bed, his eyes closed again, and snoring ever so slightly.
“But . . . but,” Lisa said in despair. “If we turn ourselves in now, everyone won’t get to celebrate Christmas this year.”
“That was going to happen anyway, Lisa.” Doctor Proctor sighed. “Our test tonight demonstrated that unfortunately we are no replacement for the real Santa Claus with a real jet reindeer sleigh. We would never have managed to deliver presents to all the children in the world. The world has grown too populous and there are too few of us, Lisa. That’s just the way it is.”
“You’re right,” Lisa said. “It stops here.”
“I’m afraid so.”
Lisa shook Nilly.
“Cancan!” Nilly mumbled. “No, no, wonderful dream, don’t go away now!” He opened his eyes a crack. “What’s going on?”
“We’re turning ourselves in,” Doctor Proctor said.
“Why?” Nilly asked, stretching.
“Because the punishment will be even more severe if we don’t turn ourselves in voluntarily,” Lisa said.
“Punishment?” Nilly yawned. “Ha! Nilly’s not afraid of anything—getting my ears boxed, wet willies, en-snow-ment. Just bring it on. I’m not giving up. Nilly can take anything.”
“If you don’t turn yourself in, they’ll probably put you in solitary confinement,” Doctor Proctor said. “Where you won’t be able to watch TV, put caramel sauce on your food, or say a single word.”
Nilly looked at Doctor Proctor for a moment. Then he hopped down onto the floor. “You can say a lot of things about Nilly,” Nilly said, “but no one can say he didn’t know when it was time to give up. Come on.”
“Wait!” Lisa said. “If we go out there, Christmas will be lost forever! Can’t you give it one last try to think of something, Doctor Proctor? You have the biggest brain of anyone I know, and when you think hard, you almost always manage to come up with an inspired, ingenious, and outrageously outlandish idea.”
“Lisa, I’m sorry, but I’ve already thought and . . .”
“Please, Doctor Proctor, just one last time!”
Doctor Proctor sighed. “As you wish, Lisa my dear.”
Doctor Proctor took a deep breath and then closed his eyes and thought hard. When Nilly saw that, he closed his eyes and thought hard too, so hard that the rest of his face turned as red as his freckles.
“I have the answer!” Doctor Proctor said, opening his eyes again.
“And it is?” Lisa asked, her mouth open.
“There’s nothing we can do.”
“Same here,” Nilly said. “Not one single thing. I hope I get a cell with a TV. And that I get the top bunk.”
Lisa sighed. With their heads down, they emerged from Lisa’s room. They were about to go downstairs when Lisa stopped. She’d heard a tapping sound. It had come from the open doorway to her parents’ bedroom, which faced the back of the house.
Lisa peered in but didn’t see anything. And she was about to move on when she heard it again. A tapping sound like . . . like . . .
“Wait,” she said. “Someone is tapping on the window in there.”
“Up here?” Doctor Proctor said. “On the second floor?”
“Maybe it’s a vampire giraffe!” Nilly said enthusiastically.
“I don’t think so,” Lisa said. “I think . . .”
She walked over to the window without saying anything else, because what she was going to say was so unbelievable she couldn’t quite believe it herself.
She opened the window.
And put her hand over her mouth in a mixture of fright and delight.
Because there, right outside the window, floating in midair, stood six cute little reindeer with little nubs for horns. They were stepping in the air kind of the way Lisa would tread water when she was swimming. And they were pulling a gilded sleigh that was floating right beside the window with a familiar figure sitting in it.
“You!” Lisa said.
“Shh!” Stanislaw urged. “The police are out front, so we need to be quiet.”
“What are you doing here?”
Stanislaw shrugged and said, “I . . . What’s it called again?”
“Changed your mind?”
“Something like that. But we need to be careful if we’re going to successfully get you guys out of here. These are young reindeer who haven’t forgotten how to fly yet, but I don’t know much we
ight they can handle.”
Doctor Proctor leaned out the window behind Lisa. “Fantastic, Stan! When did you send for them?”
“Two hours ago.”
“Australia to Oslo in under two hours!” Doctor Proctor said with a chuckle. “Now, that’s what I call jet reindeer. You first, Lisa.”
Lisa climbed up onto the windowsill, and Stanislaw held out his hand to help her climb aboard. The sleigh swayed and the reindeer treaded the air faster.
“Nilly next.”
“Yippee,” Nilly whispered, and jumped from the windowsill. The sleigh sank noticeably when he landed, and the reindeers’ feet were spinning like eggbeaters.
Doctor Proctor climbed onto the window ledge.
“Hurry up,” Stanislaw said. “I don’t know how much longer they’ll be able to keep us in the air.”
“So, how is this going to work with you and a sleigh full of presents on Christmas Eve?” Doctor Proctor asked.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Stanislaw said, pulling on the reins, but the sleigh just sank lower and lower.
Just then they heard the front door open downstairs and the voice of Lisa’s dad, the commandant, say: “I just popped by to pick up a clean shirt. The Finns are up in arms. When someone writes ‘yxi kaxi’ in tweets, you know they mean business!”
“We’re not interested in their tweets, Mr. Commandant. We just want to know where your daughter is.”
“Well, there’s no one here, as you can see.”
“Let’s just check upstairs.”
They heard footsteps coming upstairs, and Doctor Proctor held on tightly to the windowsill as he placed one toe on the sleigh, but that just pushed it even lower.
“I’m too heavy!” he whispered. “You guys get away, and they can arrest me!”
“We’re too heavy as it is,” Stanislaw said. “Come on. We might as well crash to the ground together, right?”
The footsteps and the commandant’s voice were very close now.
“Oh, just let the Finns try it! They probably think we stock our fortress with regular old cannonballs, but they’re certainly in for a”—the bedroom door opened and the commandant and two policemen stomped in—“surprise!”
They stood in the doorway staring at the open window.
“Did you hear a rustling sound?” the policeman with the Fu Manchu mustache asked, walking over to the window.
“Good question, Rolf,” the other policeman said. “And why is this window open, Mr. Commandant? You’re not wasting heat now, in the middle of winter, are you?”
“No . . . ,” the commandant said, clearly surprised.
“And what is that over there?” Mr. Fu Manchu asked, pointing out the window at the night sky. “A shooting star?”
The other two men came over, leaned out the window, and looked up into the sky. “Maybe so,” the one with the handlebar mustache said. “Or a satellite.”
“Or,” the commandant said, “a Finnish jet fighter attack plane. I have to get back to the fortress. This is a matter of national security! Lock the door on your way out!” The commandant’s footsteps could be heard like a drumroll as he descended the stairs.
The two policemen remained at window. Mr. Fu Manchu had taken out a large magnifying glass, which he held up in front of himself. “You know what, Gunnar?” he asked, squinting at the sky.
“I can’t say that I do, no.”
“That’s not a shooting star or a satellite.”
“Then what is it, Rolf?”
“It’s a sleigh. With animals in front.”
“What kind of animals? Giraffes?”
“Hard to say, but maybe. At any rate, they do all have little bumps on their heads.”
“Where does it look like they’re headed?”
“Downtown.”
“We can’t let them escape! Quick, we’d better head back to the patrol cars!”
TOMMY HAD EATEN dinner, placed the half cigar between his lips and lit the one match that was left in the matchbox. The match illuminated his train tunnel a little, throwing shadows onto the walls and ceiling. It was maybe a little scary, but a little cozy, too. And Tommy loved his tunnel.
It was cold there, but not as cold as outside. And he slept well on the soft gravel between the rails. And since the tunnel was closed and disused, no trains ever came to wake him up or—even worse—run him over. Tommy had positioned the match under the end of the cigar and was already looking forward to the sweet aroma of Cuba and Christmas when he heard a rustling sound.
He looked up.
The sound was coming from the end of the tunnel. Something was approaching, fast. It was lit up and had bells that were ringing loudly. And he was really n-n-nervous n-n-now, because the only thing that could be was a train! A train running so late it hadn’t heard that this tunnel was closed.
Tommy thought his final hour had arrived, and before he had even taken a single puff from the cigar. He sighed and closed his eyes.
A second later he felt something whoosh over his head. He opened his eyes again.
Whatever it was, it was so fast it blew out his match.
Tommy blinked in the darkness. Maybe it was just as well, because he really ought to quit smoking. He’d heard since he was little that Cuban cigars could make people see things. And he had just seen a flying sleigh with lights and bells, with no passengers onboard, but drawn by tiny reindeer.
Still Twenty-Eight Hours Left,
but Honestly, That’s Cutting Things a Little Close. If There’s Even Going to Be a Christmas, That Is
NILLY CRAWLED OUT from under the bed in Lisa’s parents’ bedroom.
“The coast is clear,” he whispered, and helped Lisa out from under the bed. Then they walked over to the closet and opened the door. Doctor Proctor and Stanislaw tumbled out.
“Yikes! That was a little bit too exciting,” Doctor Proctor said, getting to his feet.
“I thought it was just the right amount of excitement,” Nilly said, running over to the window. “They’re driving away in their police cars right now. They probably think they can catch up with the jet reindeer.”
“Yeah, those reindeer are fast,” Lisa said. “I just wish they were a little bigger so they could fly a sleigh with one Santa and a bunch of presents.”
“It is what it is.” Stanislaw sighed.
“You don’t have any more of those little flying reindeer, do you?” Nilly asked. “Maybe you could hook some more of them up to the sleigh?”
“I have more than enough young reindeer,” Stanislaw said, shaking his head. “The problem is that only six of them can pull a Santa sleigh. If you put more up there, they start to get confused. Believe me, I’ve tried.”
“Hmm,” Doctor Proctor said, squeezing his eyes shut. Lisa and Nilly looked at him.
“Well, we tried, anyway,” Stanislaw said. “I’m going back to the pub. So, you guys have a happy New Year and . . .”
“Shh,” Nilly and Lisa said.
“Shh?”
“Shh and wait,” Lisa said. “Doctor Proctor is thinking.”
“So?” Stanislaw said, and then sat down on the edge of the bed. “Does that work?”
“Very often,” Lisa said.
They watched Doctor Proctor, all three of them. His teeth were grinding and his throat was clucking and his hair was rustling.
“But not always,” Lisa said.
“Well, in that case . . . ,” Stanislaw said dejectedly, and got back up again.
“I’ve got it!” Doctor Proctor cried, his eyes wide.
“And it is?” Stanislaw asked.
“Weight.”
“Wait?” the others asked.
“No, weight.” Doctor Proctor pointed at Nilly. “I’m pointing at the world’s smallest test pilot right now. With him as Santa, the reindeer will be able to fly both Santa and a bunch of Christmas presents. Then we use the time soap to give Nilly and the reindeer enough time to fly a ton of trips. You remember the time soap I showe
d you, Stanislaw?”
“Vaguely.”
“You’ll need to teach Nilly to control the sleigh, Stanislaw.” But the real Santa shook his head sadly.
“It looks really easy, but it’s super difficult, not to mention extremely dangerous.”
“Nilly isn’t only the world’s smallest test pilot,” Doctor Proctor said. “He’s also the world’s best.”
“Very accurately and beautifully put, my dear professor,” Nilly said. “Plus, I like super difficult. And I love extremely dangerous.”
“You guys don’t understand,” Stanislaw said. “You have to be born with Santa blood in your veins in order to fly a Santa sleigh.”
“Don’t you recognize a barn gnome when you see one?” Nilly asked.
“Ha! I don’t believe in barn gnomes!” Stanislaw said.
“What about a Christmas elf?” Nilly said.
“Look, Nilly, if you have Santa blood in your veins, you can smell out good children who deserve a present. Can you do that?”
Nilly pointed his button nose up and sniffed the air. “Yup.”
“Oh, really? And what do nice children smell like?”
“Cinnamon!” Nilly exclaimed triumphantly.
Stanislaw scratched his beard. “Well . . .”
“Well?” Doctor Proctor and Lisa asked expectantly.
“Well, we can give it a try. Come on, we’ll go reopen Santa’s workshop.”
“Yippee!” Nilly shouted.
“We’ll run down to the yard and dig Dolores out,” Lisa said, and with that she and Nilly disappeared down the stairs as fast as their legs would carry them.
“How did you find us, actually?” Doctor Proctor asked.
“Well,” Stanislaw said, “you said the three of you were neighbors and that the girl was the nicest one in town, so I just used my nice-child detection ability, and the strongest signals led me to this house.” He looked around. “Plus, I feel like I was here quite recently, although I can’t remember why. Odd.”
“You don’t remember because you’re starting to become forgetful.”
“Oh yeah, I’d forgotten.”
Someone shouted from the yard, “We’re all set!”
Doctor Proctor glanced out the window and saw that Lisa and Nilly had dug Dolores out of the snow.