“So what did Damien get?” asked Percy, eagerly.
“He got a ball too – a pink fluffy one with pale blue spots that said ‘mama’ when you rolled it, and a baby’s rattle with little yellow and pink plastic bells on it. There was a white woolly hat with pom poms on and a letter ‘D’ in the middle too. Steady on!” he added. -Percy was shaking with laughter so much the parcels were beginning to slide about. He was visualising Damien dressed in a white woolly hat with pom poms, waving a rattle!
“Oh I wish I’d been there when he opened them!” he gurgled. “I can just imagine his face!”
“I’d rather not,” observed Rudolph. “He looks rather sly at the best of times. Right, here we are!” he remarked, bringing the sledge to a smooth halt just above Rowanberry Crescent. “4, 6, 8 and then number 9 on the other side,” he waved his hoof. “You’ll have to do the window at 9 because they took the chimney out last year, but they’re all straightforward. Don’t forget the sacks this time!”
“I won’t!” said Percy with feeling.
*****
Climbing down the chimney to number 4 seemed really easy after the last one. It was quite narrow, rather like Percy’s own chimney, though cleaner as the house wasn’t so old and so the soot wasn’t so thick. This time it was quite dark as he reached the bottom. He stood for a while, wondering how he was going to be able to check whether he was in the right room and if he would be able to find the stocking. Fortunately, his eyes began to get accustomed to the gloom and soon he could just make out dark shapes around the room and a single bed in the centre. He stood very still, trying to work out where the stocking was so that he could reach it as easily as possible without disturbing whoever was sleeping in the bed. Yes, that must be it, he guessed, staring into the blackness at a lumpy shape dangling over the far edge of the bed. Carefully he began to move towards it, holding his hands out on either side of him to feel for obstacles as he went and moving his feet slowly in case he should trip on anything. He reached the bed and put out a hand, fumbling with the stocking to retrieve the first packet. “Pretty Polly, pretty Polly! Shut that door! Pretty Polly!” said a voice - Percy nearly jumped out of his skin! Where was it coming from? There was a swooshing noise as a shape flew past his left ear, and then he felt something sharp digging into his scalp. Percy bit back a squeal of anguish and put his hand up to his head. Just as he recognised the feel of warm feathers, there was a sharp peck on his finger. “Seeds for tea, seeds for tea!” said the voice, and feathers gently brushed the side of his ear.Hastily, Percy grabbed the stocking and upended it into the empty sack. “Tidy up, seeds for tea,” adjured the parrot, as the packages rustled and slithered their way into the bag.
“Shut up, can’t you!” muttered Percy through clenched teeth, throwing the empty stocking onto the floor. “And leave my head alone!” The parrot gave a friendly peck at Percy’s ear and flew across the bed to settle on the headboard.
“Tidy up! Pretty Polly!” it announced.
The Parrot
As Percy hastily aimed for the chimney with his sack, he heard a male voice from an adjoining room say:
“He’s got that dratted parrot in there again. You’ll have to do something.”
Percy didn’t wait. He was up the chimney in a jiffy.
“You could have warned me about the parrot!” he said to Rudolph.
“Yes, Grumbo complained about her, too. Apparently she chased him round the room, did a whoopsie on his beard, and then told him to tidy up,” replied Rudolph, cheerfully. Percy glared at him. Then he began to giggle.
“On his beard? Parrot poo! On his long white beard?” Percy was doubled up with laughter at the thought of Grumbo being pursued around the room by a mad parrot with diarrhoea.
“Twice,” said Rudolph, laconically. “We’re running out of time. You’d better get the next one done quickly. Boy’s called James, keeps gerbils but no parrots.”
“OK,” said Percy, grabbing the next sack and sliding himself nonchalantly over the rim of the chimney pot.
Number 6 had the same sort of chimney as number 4. Percy slid straight down, braking lightly with his feet against the sides to avoid any loud thump as he reached the grate. There was a small amount of light filtering through under the bedroom door, but this time it was firmly shut and there was no sound from anywhere except a series of deep reverberating snores each followed by a tiny thin whistling noise.Percy advanced on tiptoe towards the bed, fairly confident this time that he would be unlikely to wake so deep a sleeper. What he hadn’t bargained for were the things on the floor. It was rather as if an entire Lego city had been blown up and scattered to the four corners of the room. Every step he took he stood on something, and the light was too dim for him to avoid every brick. He winced as the corner of a particularly angular piece thrust into his instep. He stopped, and standing on one leg, moved the other foot forward and gently swept the floor with his toes to clear a space. Then he put the right foot down and did the same with the left. That was better!
Gradually he cleared a path, when all of a sudden his exploring toe encountered something large and smooth with what felt like a round lump on the top. He pushed at it, tentatively. The minute Percy’s foot touched the button there was a whirring sound, a small red light came on. A metallic voice announced: “I am the Atomic Powered Robot programmed for total destruction. Countdown to blast off commencing now! Ten…nine….eight…” Percy froze! The whistling snores ceased and a grunt came from beneath the bedclothes. “..Seven…six…,” – Percy was thinking quickly. He crouched low down by the foot of the bed, sliding the packed stocking off the end as he did so, hoping he would be out of sight. “..Five….four….,” the springs creaked and the duvet slid off partly covering him and the robot as James crawled sleepily out.
“Mum’ll kill me!” he muttered to himself. The gerbils must have knocked him over. Where is it?” Percy could hear him fumbling in the darkness. ‘Don’t switch the light on! Oh don’t switch the light on, please!’ he prayed silently. Quickly he tweaked the duvet off the robot and pushed it slightly away from him so that the red light could be seen.
“…Three….two….”
“Got you!” said James’s voice, triumphantly, plucking the whirring rotating robot from the floor and just missing the corner of Percy’s left pyjama leg as he did so. There was a click and the noises stopped. “I’ll take your batteries out this time,” James addressed the robot severely. There was a dull thud as they landed on the mattress. James slid back into the warmth and hauled the duvet around himself, lying down. The batteries slipped off and rolled as he did so, hitting Percy’s ear, which was now concealed with the rest of him under James’s bed. He let out an involuntary squeak of pain.
“Knew it was the gerbils!” said James to himself. Percy lay silent, wondering how he was to get out of this mess. There was a Lego truck wedged under his shoulder and somehow the head off a Lego man seemed to have inserted itself in his belly button. It was very uncomfortable. He stayed as still as he could, trying not to breathe too loudly and thinking carefully. James was bound to see him if he stood up. If he tried to move the parcels into the sack he might hear him. But it might be ages before James fell asleep again and he couldn’t stay there all night! He felt the mattress bounce as James rolled over restlessly above him
Just then the phone rang from downstairs. James groaned and sat up. “I’ll never get to sleep this way,” he asserted to himself. “I’m far too hungry – and thirsty,” he added. He padded out of bed and headed for the stairs. Percy didn’t waste a moment! By the time James had re-appeared with a glass of milk, a large cheese and ham sandwich, an apple and three bananas, he was already at the top of the chimney clutching the sack of presents in his hand.
There was only one problem.
Rudolph was no-where to be seen!
Chapter 5- Fire!
Percy took stock. – He was standing in the dark, on
the top of a chimney stack in the middle of the night, with someone else’s Christmas presents in his hand, wearing only a pair of rather worn pyjamas covered in soot. He’d been turned upside down in a sleigh by a manic reindeer, pecked by a mad parrot, jabbed all over by spiky bits of Lego, bashed on the ear by a runaway battery and scared almost to death.
Alone on the Roof
Furthermore, it was snowing and he had no idea how to get home. It wasn’t looking good.
At that moment a tickling sensation made him look down at his chest. Two small bright eyes looked back at him. “Cheer up,” said the gerbil. “It’s not that bad. He’ll be back soon.”
“How do you know?” asked Percy looking down at the small creature perched on the top button of his pyjama jacket.
“He just needs to take his Reinitin, that’s all,” explained the gerbil. “He’s got R.A.D.D. –that’s Reindeer Attention Deficit Disorder. It means he can’t stay still or pay attention for long. It’s quite common, but it’s very useful when they need to stay awake on Christmas Eve. There’ll be some on the sledge. Just put one in a handful of moss for him. –Oh, and I’d check the presents are all there when he gets back. He tends to lose a few when he gets into the fast lane of the windway, especially if he decides to go upside down.”
“Er, yes – I found that out,” said Percy.
“I’d better get back,” said the gerbil. “The name’s Wilberforce by the way. Thanks for the lift to the top. It’s good to get out now and then. Mustn’t let one’s self get in a rut. Besides, I don’t want to miss a nibble of James’s apple core.” With this he ran down Percy’s leg, over the rim of the chimney pot and vanished from sight. Percy shook his head. It had to be a dream! He peered into the chimney. He thought he could detect a slight movement in the grate, or was it his imagination? He blinked, and a small whitish lump rolled into in one corner -he thought he could just make out the shape of the gerbil pushing it along. Wilberforce had got his piece of apple! Percy shivered. The cold and the thought of the apple was making him hungry.
“Hey Percy, watch this!”Percy looked up, startled. A few yards away Rudolph was pulling the sleigh round and round, over and back in all sorts of shapes and patterns so fast that he was leaving a trail in the snowflakes. Against the night sky the swirling flakes spelled out ‘Nearly Christmas!’ for a brief moment before falling to earth.
“Get it?” said Rudolph slowing down and joining him on the roof. Percy wanted to say ‘where on earth have you been? I’m cold’, but he remembered the R.A.D.D. and saw how Rudolph’s nose had lit up with pleasure at showing off his party piece, so he bit back the words.
“That’s..” he began, trying hard to smile, though his teeth were chattering.
“Fantastic? - Yes I know!” declared Rudolph, glowing. “Come on – hop in. Number 8’s easy – they’ve gone away for a day or two so it’s all empty. You’ll be up and down in less time than it takes Grumbo to eat a mince pie.”
“Oh good,” responded Percy, who was feeling less than enthusiastic about venturing down any more chimneys. He wondered if he could find the Reinitin.
*****
From the chimney of number 8 a thin stream of smoke filtered across the sky. Rudolph stopped and sniffed the air. “That’s odd,” he commented. “I was sure they were all away.”
“They wouldn’t have lit a fire if they were away from home,” said Percy, anxiously thinking that he preferred being cold to being burnt to death.
“They are away,” insisted Rudolph. “The car’s not there. They always park it in the drive. I know they were going to Scotland. There’s something wrong!” He parked the sleigh just above the top of the house: “Just put your fingers out and see if you can feel the tiles,” he requested. Percy did as he was told.
“Yeeowhhh!” Percy pulled his hand away sharply. “The roof’s red hot!”
“It’s on fire!” the reindeer said decisively. “The house is on fire! Come on!” He swung the sleigh right round and over the road to the top of number 9 opposite. “Go on - no chimney- climb down to the window. The one on the right. That’s Jodie’s room. She had a mobile in her stocking last year and she always sleeps with it by her bed. You can call the fire brigade”
Percy scrambled out and made for the edge of the roof.
“Wait,” called Rudolph. “Fasten the reins round your waist first! You’ll have to abseil. It’s too far down to reach”
Percy grabbed the reins and hastily tied them around himself. Then with his heart in his mouth, he lowered himself to dangle from the edge of the roof. Holding tightly to the rope, he took a deep breath, let go of the tiles and lifted his toes towards the wall. He couldn’t look down! He gripped the reins till his knuckles were as white as the snowflakes settling on them and his finger nails had dug deep curves into his palms. Slowly he moved his feet downwards, paying out the reins as he did so. It seemed to take ages, but finally his foot located a ledge. He pulled himself upright. The window was in front of him. He breathed a sigh of relief. It was a tiny bit ajar.
“Move to the right and pull the left side open!” came Rudolph’s voice, tense with concern.
“Calm down,” called back Percy, brave now that he had something firm underfoot. He opened the window and jumped through into the room. Unfortunately, he had forgotten that the reins were still attached to his waist. As his feet jumped forwards, the rope jerked up under his arms and pulled his body backwards. Percy crashed loudly onto his bottom, his head thrown back with a clang against the metal radiator.
“I thought burglars were supposed to be quiet!” The comment came from a figure sitting up in bed a few yards to his left. “You’re the second one tonight. The last one stole my socks,” she observed.
“Uugh?” said Percy, his head still spinning and all the breath knocked out of him.
“You don’t look much like a burglar,” she added.
“Phone!” gasped Percy, groping for words and wishing he wasn’t still seeing stars. “999. House on fire!”
“Oh, that won’t do. I’m sure I’d have noticed if our house was on fire,” remarked Jodie. “Do you steal socks too?” she enquired conversationally.
“No. No. Not your house!”
“You only steal them at other people’s houses?” asked Jodie.
“No! I don’t steal!” Percy was becoming frantic. “Phone! I need to phone!”
“You steal phones? Well that seems more reasonable than socks. I can’t imagine what you do with second hand socks. Especially three of them. I don’t think you can have my phone though. It was a Christmas present last year and I’m not expecting another.”
“No!” shrieked a frustrated Percy. “Please! Dial 999. The house across the road is on fire!”
“Is it! How exciting! I don’t think I’ve ever had such an exciting dream before. I must look!” And with that, she slipped out of bed and came over to the window. “It doesn’t look like a fire to me,” she remarked with disappointment. “There’s no flames and the only smoke is the chimney. I was expecting something a bit more spectacular than that!”
“They’re on fire. Really. The roof’s red hot and there’s no-one in,” said Percy, getting his breath and his words back at the same time. “You have to phone – please!” Jodie still hesitated.
Inspiration struck Percy: “They might have a dog or a cat in there,” he said. “They might get burned to death!” he added with maximum melodrama in his voice.
“Puddles!” said Jodie suddenly. “Puddles lives there. He’s Mandy’s kitten.” She picked up her mobile and dialled. Percy slumped back against the radiator with relief. It was short lived. “Number eight’s on fire,” she explained into the phone. ”We can see lots of smoke. Please can you come very very quickly. No, I’m not inside, but Puddles is. No, I don’t know who else is inside because Mr and Mrs McHeatherpot have gone to Aberdeen, but Kylie and Wayne are probably in there.
I expect it will all explode soon so you’d better hurry. Goodbye.”
“We can’t leave Puddles to burn,” Jodie announced firmly, putting her mobile down. “You’ll have to rescue him. The fire brigade will take far too long to get here from Sprawlton.”
“Who are Kylie and Wayne?” asked Percy.
“Mandy’s goldfish. Actually, we think Puddles ate them last week because we couldn’t find them but they may have swum down the plughole. You see we thought we’d put them in the bath for a bit so that they could have a really long swim, but they were hard to see after Mandy put the bubble bath in as well. Mandy said if we dropped the soap in it would get rid of all the bubbles and then they’d be super clean which would be very healthy, only it took a while so we went out to play on the bikes. Then Julie’s mum was baking mince pies so we stopped over hers to help eat them. It was a bit late when we got back and someone had emptied the bath and we couldn’t find them anywhere but Puddles was sick in the corner and it smelt a bit fishy.”
“Oh,” said Percy, wondering what the firemen would say when they discovered they were rescuing two probably dead goldfish and a kitten.
“Well go on then! Are you going to let Puddles die while you sit there?” demanded Jodie.
“I, er…no…well I don’t see what I can do!” said Percy, wondering how you were supposed to set about finding a lost kitten in a blazing house when you were wearing only pyjamas. “I could call it, I suppose,” he offered lamely.
“Well anyone could call it!” Jodie rounded on him contemptuously. “Anyone could do that! You come in through windows at the dead of night but you can’t even rescue a little kitten who might die! – You could at least try!”
“Well, er, what colour is he? Where does he sleep?” asked Percy, searching around for something helpful in the face of this tirade.
“He’s black,” declared Jodie. Why had he bothered asking, wondered Percy. Just his luck – a black cat in a house full of thick black smoke - he might have known!“-With a sweet little white patch just above his nose and one white paw,” she continued. “And he sleeps in Mandy’s bed though he’s not supposed to. He’s supposed to sleep in a box in their utility room. But he might have escaped through the cat flap,” she added, thoughtfully. “Though he might have been overcome by the smoke and be lying there, unable to breathe, completely helpless!” She extracted as much drama as possible from this last remark. Percy, who had brightened at the idea that the kitten might be free after all, sank back into gloom. There seemed no hope for him. He would just have to go out and find the wretched creature!