Don't Call Me Christina Kringle (13 page)

Now he was staring at a grainy black-and-white image being transmitted from a remote video camera. McCracken twisted a few dials to make the faint image sharper. Another knob spin brought up the sound being picked up by the tiny camera's even tinier microphone. He pulled on his headphones and listened closely.

“Ah, quit scratchin' your ear,” he muttered when the screen went momentarily blurry, then black. “That's better, laddy.”

Now he could see them all. The missing brownies. The renegade runaways. Two, three dozen of 'em, lined up around a makeshift shoe assembly line. This was going to be too easy! They were all in one place.

A snooty brownie in top hat and tails with pencil-thin limbs strode up to the lens.

The wee professor. Pencilneck. Imported from Prestwick near Troon.

“Smoothie,” he heard the professor say, “I want to thank you again for working so hard to remember the telling details of last Christmas Eve.”

Now the gruff little carpenter stepped up to the lens.

Nails! Former resident of Dundee. Trapped fifteen years ago while squiring the young lass named Trixie out for a goodnight cup of cream after they'd hidden in popcorn boxes at the cinema to catch a holiday movie.

“Yeah. Sorry if I, you know, got a little rough on you.”

“No problemo,” said Smoothie, although he remained unseen. “I was glad to help. Chicks dig it when you're helpful. Generous. That's why, if I'm on a date, I give money to beggars. I figure, with this many muscles, I can always go back solo and ask the bum for a refund.”

Nails grimaced. “Yeah. Whatever. Anyhow, thanks.”

The two little shoe workers scurried away, not realizing they had just been captured on video or that the giant diamond earring Smoothie always wore was actually concealing a miniature spy camera.

As Nails tapped his hammer against a heel, he wished he could whack it against Smoothie's noggin.

The slickster was flirting with the seamstresses, singing an annoying little ditty about how Christmas was coming and the goose was getting fat so please put a penny in the old man's hat. Then he'd do this showy sideways heel-click-leap and land with a spin.

“Yo, Professor?” Nails called out.

“Yes?”

Nails gave his friend a subtle head nudge to indicate the professor should move closer so they could talk confidential like.

“What seems to be the problem?” the professor whispered.

“This new guy. Smoothie. You know this brownie?”

“No. I thought he was your friend.”

“Uh-un.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Yeah.”

They both watched in something close to horror as the oily-haired rascal dropped out of his twirling spin into a full split. “Whoa! Look out, ladies: Santa Claus is comin' to town!”

One seamstress thought Smoothie was cute. The other six rolled their eyes.

Nobody, including Nails and Professor Pencilneck, noticed the little red light blinking inside the irksome twerp's sparklingly clear diamond earring.

Christina huddled in the back room of the shoe shop with the professor, Nails, Trixie, and Flixie.

Nails and Trixie were holding hands while, together, they studied the pine tree–shaped note from Ms. Dingler.

Christina thought that was kind of cute.

“So why'd he take your Christmas gift all the way downtown?” asked Nails.

“Perhaps,” offered the professor, “he meant to add something else to the gift!”

“Natch,” said Nails. “Makes sense.”

“Sure,” said Flixie. “Like maybe he had the scarf but needed to find mittens.”

“I looked up the address,” said Christina. “It's a candy-cane factory.”

“Of course!” said the professor. “He wanted to buy you a candy cane! To slip into your Christmas stocking!”

“He could buy one at the corner deli. Why'd he have to go all the way downtown to a factory?”

“They're fresher at the factory,” said Trixie. “Your father was a very thoughtful man.”

“I don't know,” said Christina.

“Sure he was,” said Flixie. “That's a long way to travel for a stocking stuffer.”

“No, I mean, I don't know if this whole thing makes sense. Ms. Dingler wrote down an address and kept it for a year? My father bought something at her store and then went candy-cane shopping?”

“It does seem rather implausible,” said the professor.

“It's fishy,” said Nails. “Fishier than a can of tuna sealed up inside a can of sardines!”

The cat meowed.

“Well, fishy or not, I have to check it out,” said Christina.

“Fine,” said Nails, releasing Trixie's hand. “But me and the professor? We're goin' with you.”

“That's okay. You don't have to do that.”

“If we had to, we probably wouldn't.”

“We want to,” said the professor.

“Yeah. We'll pack a stack of pixie sticks. Anybody gives you any guff, we'll dust 'em!”

Trixie nearly swooned when he said that. “Nails?”

“Yeah, Trix?”

“You're my hero.”

“Thanks, babe. Come on, Professor. You, me and Christina are headin' downtown!”

As soon as the young Lucci girl left the shoe repair shop with her book satchel bouncing on her back, Donald McCracken drove his surveillance van to the nearby supermarket.

He needed cream.

Lots and lots of heavy cream.

As he parked his shopping cart in front of the dairy case and started loading the wire basket with paper pints and quarts, he caught sight of a young boy staring at him in amazement. McCracken smiled and tossed in a few tubs of pre-whipped dessert topping, too. And cream cheese. And creamery butter.

He kept loading the shopping cart until the wheels creaked under the weight and his teetering mountain of cream cartons looked ready to tumble.

The little boy kept staring.

“Tonight,” McCracken said with a sinister wink to the terrified child, “we hunt brownies, aye, laddy?”

The boy screamed once and ran away.

It was almost dark when they finally reached the Kasselhopf Candy Cane Factory at 44 Warren Street.

Christina had made the mistake of hailing a taxi.

Well, actually, that should've made the trip faster.

But the taxi driver in the cab that seemed to be waiting for Christina the second she came out of the shoe shop was French. He did not know his way around town.

He was, how you say, confused.

In fact, he was so confused, he took them to the airport first.

Then to the piers where the cruise ships dock.

Then to see the big Christmas tree in midtown where they got stuck in traffic.

Nails and Professor Pencilneck nearly suffocated in the backpack as this terribly lost French driver drove them everywhere except where they wanted to go.

“I am so sorry,” he kept saying, although it sounded like “sor-ree,” because he was French. Said his name was Pierre. Refused to take any money for the ride. Wanted to know if Christina had eaten any spectacularly good Christmas cookies this holiday season.

“A couple.”

“Lucky you,” the cabbie had said with a sigh. “Lucky you.”

Six hours later, as the sun was setting, they finally entered the factory.

“Sorry about that, you guys,” Christina said to her backpack.

“Christina?” said Nails from underneath the nylon. “One question.”

“Shoot.”

“Are you ever gonna eat this stinking banana?”

“Oops. Sorry.”

“Fret not, Christina,” said the professor. “The scent of smooshed banana on one's shoes is a small price to pay if, at long last, we ferret out your father's final Christmas gift!”

“Yeah,” said Nails. “What he said.”

“Okay, guys. Settle down. I'm heading into the factory, even though the place looks deserted.”

Christina walked past a canvas bin filled with solid white candy canes. No red peppermint stripes. She wondered what was up with that.

“Hello!”

Christina nearly jumped out of her skin. A nervous little man stepped out of the shadows.

“Uh, hi,” said Christina.

“Say,” said the fidgety man, “aren't you that brave fireman's daughter?”

He sounded very peculiar.

Like he was reciting a script.

“Um, yeah. I think my father might've come here last year.”

“Oh, yes. Indeed he did. I remember it like it was only yesterday, which it wasn't, because it was last year.” The man dabbed at his bald spot with his necktie. “The brave fireman came here wondering if I had a certain toy.”

“What? This is a candy-cane factory. Why would my father come here if he was looking for a toy?”

“My question exactly. So, I sent him to King Tony's Toy Castle. Do you know where that is?”

“Yeah. Across from the big tree in midtown.”

“I wrote down the address,” said the little man, holding out a slip of green paper shaped like a Christmas tree.

Yep. The weirdest December 23 of her life just kept on getting weirder and weirder.

The old cobbler stood cowering behind the counter as Donald McCracken closed up another steel trap's door.

“Poor little creatures,” he sniggered. “Can't resist the heavenly scent of heavy cream.”

“Are you really from the FBBI?” Giuseppe asked, his voice trembling.

“That's right, Mr. Lucci. The Federal Bureau of Brownie Investigators. Now then, where are the wee ones known as Nails and Professor Pencilneck?”

The old man batted his eyes. “Who?”

“Little shoemaker what wears a carpenter's apron? Stick-legged dandy in fancy wedding duds?”

Now the old man threw up his hands and pretended like he didn't know what McCracken was talking about.

“Fine,” said McCracken. “I know you're lying, old man, but I'm in a bit of a time crunch. Some of the others will have to work overtime and finish the work those two used to do. But, mark my word, old man, I'll be back to reclaim my property, right after Christmas. Why, we'll tear this shabby little shop to shreds searchin' for those rude and selfish fugitives!”

“I'll call the police!” the old man sputtered.

“No, you won't. Thirty-six undocumented brownie workers slaving away in your basement sweatshop?” said McCracken, tisk-tisk-tisking his tongue. “If they don't toss you into the loony bin first, they'll lock you up for at least thirty-six years!” He clamped the final lock shut.

The string of jingle bells over the front door jangled.

Delores Dingler barged into the store.

“Hello, Delores,” said Giuseppe nervously while McCracken stacked his last four cages on a handcart so he could haul them out to the van at the curb.

“Giuseppe,” hissed his neighbor.

“May I help you? Do you need shoelaces?”

“No, Giuseppe,” she laughed triumphantly. “I need my brownies back! Or Christmas will be ruined!”

“Why do I have a feeling someone is sending us on a wild goose chase?” Christina said over her shoulder to her backpack.

“Because,” said Nails, “they probably are!”

“Indeed,” added the professor. “A wild
Christmas
goose chase.”

“Well this is the last stop, I promise.”

Christina had taken the subway from Warren Street to midtown and was walking up the red-carpeted steps to King Tony's Toy Castle.

“Ho, ho, ho!” said the costumed Santa ringing his bell outside the front doors. “Are you Christina Kringle?”

“Please,” said Christina, heaving an exasperated sigh. “Don't call me that, okay?”

“Sure, kid. Ho, ho, ho.”

And then the weirdest thing to happen all day happened.

Santa's cell phone chirped.

“Hang on,” he said, tugging down on his fake beard so he could put the phone to his ear. “I need to take this. Hello? Un-huh. Un-huh. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. Gotcha.” Santa snapped his phone shut. “That was the North Pole. Your father never came here last Christmas Eve. Someone fed you bum information. Go home. Your grandpa needs you. Now!”

And then the stupid Santa said, “heh, heh, heh,” instead of ho, ho, ho.

Christina took the bus home.

As soon as she stepped out, she saw a van with Pete's Pesky Pest Control painted on the side screech away from the curb in front of her grandfather's shoe shop.

Giuseppe came running out the front door.

“My brownies! That man stole my brownies!”

Christina hurried up the sidewalk, hoping no one else heard what her grandpa was shouting (and, if they did, she prayed they'd think he'd been the victim of a baked-goods robbery).

“Grandpa?”

“Christina! The FBBI came and took away our little helpers!”

Christina took her grandfather's elbow and guided him back into the shop. When they were safely inside, Christina noticed that the floor was littered with empty cream cartons.

“Uh-oh,” she said, feeling Nails and Professor Pencilneck climbing up inside her backpack.

“Heavens!” said the professor.

“Where's Trixie?” shouted Nails.

“Gone,” said Grandpa.

The two brownies hopped down to the floor. Professor Pencilneck turned over a crushed cream container with his walking stick. “Empty,” he said somberly.

Nails bent down and dipped a finger into a milky-white puddle. Tasted it. “Cream. Pasteurized and homogenized. He used the heavy stuff.”

“Who did this?” demanded the professor.

Grandpa sank against a wall, sobbing. “The man from the FBBI.”

“The what?” said Christina.

“The Federal Bureau of Brownie Investigation!”

“Grandpa, there's no such thing!”

“Yes, there is. And Ms. Dingler from next door, she says she wants her brownies back or Christmas will be ruined.”