Don't Call Me Christina Kringle (15 page)

“Yeah, right,” said Nails. “Bobbin told me that blonde bubble-head didn't do nothin' except lay out the fabric. Didn't even cut out the patterns. Lot of humans get lazy once they get on the brownie assistance plan.”

“But not you or your grandfather,” said the professor. “I must say we have all been quite impressed, not only with your hospitality but your enthusiastic work ethic.”

“Work is all I have ever known,” said grandpa wearily. “This shop has been my home for sixty Christmases.”

“And now we finally know the true meaning of Christmas,” Christina said sarcastically. “Making money. Making as much money as quickly and crookedly as you can!”

“Well,” said the professor, “I believe your father would have disagreed with you, Christina.”

“Yeah. That's right. My father
loved
Christmas.”

“Yes,” said grandpa, a faint smile dancing on his lips, “he certainly did!”

“Yep,” said Christina, “he loved it so much, he'd climb on a fire truck every Christmas Eve, wearing a Santa hat.”

“And deliver them toys to the needy kids,” said Nails. “Your pops was my kind of guy.”

“Indubitably,” said the professor. “ ‘For it is far better to give than it is to receive.' Such is the brownie motto!”

But Christina wasn't paying any attention to what either brownie said. She was too mad.

“My dad knew I loved it when he put on that stupid red hat.”

“Because, Christina,” said Grandpa, “you loved Christmas, too.”

“Yeah. That was my big mistake.”

“Mistake? No …”

“Yeah. Maybe if I had started hating Christmas sooner, my father would still be alive!”

While Christina sulked at the shoe shop, her friend Captain Dave stood watching the two police officers load every toy the firehouse had collected for children in need into the backseat and trunk of their patrol car.

“C'mon,” he said to the cops. “You guys can't be serious. Those toys were donated. They're going to kids who won't have any kind of Christmas if we don't show up tomorrow night with something!”

“Look, Dave,” said the older of the two men, who sounded about as bleak as Captain Dave felt. “The bosses gave us our orders. Confiscate all the contraband. Lock it up in the evidence room.”

“Contraband? Evidence?”

“You had a couple counterfeit Dumping Dinos in the bin, Dave. Not to mention an unlicensed Bopping Beano Bear.” He held up a doll. “This Wetty Betty? The logo's wrong. You get these from China?”

“No,” said Captain Dave. “People donated those toys so needy kids up in the projects or spending the holidays in the hospital could have some kind of Christmas.”

“You'll probably get them back,” said the younger cop.

“When?”

“January. February. Depends on when the case goes to court.”

“But Christmas Eve is tomorrow!”

“Maybe you should reach out to the guy who called in the complaint,” said the older cop as he closed the trunk lid. “See if you can talk him into backing off.”

“Who was it? Ebenezer Scrooge?”

“Nah. Tony Scungilli.”

“The toy king? He'd do this to kids? He runs a toy store!”

“I know. I guess that's why he don't want nobody getting free toys from Santy Claus.”

In the foreman's office at the candy-cane factory, the shopkeepers had gathered for an emergency meeting because Mister Fred wouldn't put away his pistol.

He kept it aimed at Mr. McCracken, who was seated behind a dented gray steel desk.

“Fred,” said Delores Dingler, “calm down. Sip the soothing tea I had the brownies brew for you!”

“No!” said Mister Fred, swinging his revolver to aim it at Ms. Dingler's golden heap of hair. “I need Nails and Professor Pencilneck. The rest of you are getting your Christmas Eve merchandise. I want mine.”

“Sacré bleu,”
said the pastry chef. “Take zee two cowhands! Zey know how to work with leather. Zey will help you, how you say, milk your customers.”

Now the pistol moved over to Frenchy. “Shut up! Or I'll give you more holes than a flaky croissant!”

Tony Scungilli laughed at that. “Come on, Fred. Who you trying to fool?” he scoffed. “That thing has a pearl handle and sequins glued to the barrel.”

“I assure you,” said Mister Fred, “the bullets are not nearly as decorative. They're made of lead and very lethal.”

“But,” scoffed McCracken, “I know you, laddy. You're a chicken-livered scaredy cat! You'd never fire it!”

“Really?” said Mister Fred. “Is that so? You think I'm chicken?”

“Bruck-bruck-bruck.”

That's when Mister Fred fired a round at the floor two inches in front of McCracken's big floppy feet. The bullet ricocheted up off the hard concrete and pinged with a ding and a rattle into the steel sides of the desk.

“Okay,” said the toy king, “do what you have to do, McCracken. Get Deadeye Fred here his two brownies. I'm going home.”

“Me, too,” said Delores Dingler. “Busy day tomorrow.” She yawned.

“Oui,”
said the French chef. “I am leaving, too. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and I will, once again, have the finest Christmas cookies in town!”

The other merchants left the office as well.

It was just Mister Fred and Mr. McCracken.

Mister Fred raised his weapon and aimed it at McCracken's bulbous red nose. “I want my brownies! I want them now!”

There was something about greedy shopkeepers enslaving brownies so they could rake in even more money over the holidays that made Christina's simmering rage boil over.

She not only hated Christmas, she loathed, abhorred, and despised it!

She tore a cardboard Santa down from where it was taped to the wall and started ripping it apart.

“Stupid Santa,” she said as she tore off the hat.

“Oh, my,” gasped Professor Pencilneck, backing away from the furious frenzy of flying paper.

Next, she tore down Frosty the Snowman. Ripped his corncob pipe from under his button nose.

“Stupid snowman!”

The blinking Christmas lights in the display window were her next target. She yanked them down, tugging hard to pop out the staples keeping them up.

“Stupid lights.”

Next she flipped over the holiday houses.

“Stupid snow village.”

And the manger scene.

“Stupid wise men!”

She punched the hollow plastic reindeer in his bright red nose.

“Stupid Rudolph.”

“Christina?” said her grandpa warily as she started throttling the animated carpenter elf, trying to stop its hammer arm from grinding up and down.

“Take it easy,” said Nails. “That big guy looks like my cousin Louie!”

She let go and spun around to face Grandpa, Nails, and Professor Pencilneck.

“I hate all this Christmas crap!”

“But why, Christina?” asked her baffled grandfather. “Why?”

“Because my stupid father loved it so much, he even named me after the dumb day I was born on!”

“That's right,” said Grandpa, smiling feebly. “Christmas Day! You were our miracle baby!”

“Your folks named you after Christmas?” said the professor, pushing his spectacles up his nose. “Why, Christina, how absolutely marvelous!”

She stormed over to the counter. Glared at the little man in his fancy clothes. “Marvelous? Really?”

“Indubitably.”

“Except you're forgetting one little thing, aren't you smarty pants?”

“Oh?” He nervously tugged at his cravat.

“My mother died the day I was born! So my totally out-to-lunch father names me after Christmas? What was he thinking? Naming me after the day my mother died?”

“Ouch,” said Nails.

“Well,” offered the professor, “perhaps your father chose to remember the gift he received that Christmas instead of what was taken away.”

“A gift?”

“Why, yes. You!”

That made Christina furious!

She swung her arm sideways, aiming to violently whack the geeky like twerp right off the countertop but the professor, who was quite nimble and quick, moved to jump up over her arm as it sailed sideways. So, instead of knocking the brainy brownie for a loop, Christina's arm smashed into the cluttered basket near the cash register and sent a month's worth of bills and papers flying in a blizzard of paper.

Then she heard a sharp snap and crunch as her skinny little friend landed hard on his extremely bony butt.

Professor Pencilneck groaned in pain and rubbed the seat of his pants.

Christina gasped, horrified by what she had just done.

Nails swung over to the countertop on one of the strings of Christmas lights Christina had ripped out of the wall. He hopped off the swinging vine to defend his friend. “Don't you hurt him, kid!” He shouted angrily, raising his hammer.

“I am so sorry,” Christina stammered, her voice choked with tears. “Are you okay, Professor?”

“I shall survive,” he said, standing up and dusting off his trousers. “I believe the incident only crushed my pride.”

Meanwhile, Grandpa was sitting on his stool and sobbing. “Your father, my son, he was not stupid. He was a good boy. A good man.”

“I know, Grandpa. I'm sorry I said those terrible things. They just came out.”

Grandpa waved his hand dismissively and shuffled over to the shop window. He started picking up the scattered pieces of the nativity scene.

“Where is the camel?” he muttered, creaking down to his hands and knees so he could crawl across the floor and collect the scattered crèche characters. “Here he is. Hello, Humpy.”

Christina had to smile: Only her Grandpa would give names to all his Italian terra cotta Nativity figurines.

“Here's Simba,” she said, picking up the robed magi riding his saddled elephant.

“Good, good. Thank you, Christina. Now, we just need to find Kneeling Murray.”

That's what grandpa called the miniature statue of the wise man who brought the Baby Jesus a gift of myrrh and posed for the scene in a perpetual kneel.

“This him?” said Nails, as he and the professor pushed a chipped figure out from under the counter.

“I'm afraid Kneeling Murray lost his jaunty turban,” added the professor.

“No problem,” said Nails. “Little glue, he'll be good as new.”

Christina sat back on her heels and remembered how much her father always loved the story of the three wise men who celebrated Christmas by giving gifts and never asked for anything in return.

“I am so sorry, you guys,” she sobbed. “I didn't mean to lash out at you like that, Professor. I'm the stupid one.”

Professor Pencilneck strode over, took off his top hat, and extended his hand to shake Christina's finger. “Apology accepted. The holidays can be a quite stressful time.”

Christina nodded and turned to her grandfather. “Grandpa? I didn't mean to say all that terrible stuff about Mom and Dad. It just came out.”

“I know. The holidays. They make people crazy.”

She reached out her hand. Grandpa took it. “You really are a gift, Christina,” he said. “The best Christmas present anybody ever gave me.”

And that's when Nails started sniffling and pretending like he wasn't.

Then he blew his nose into his sleeve. Very loudly.

He sounded like a honking goose.

Finally, everybody quit weeping because they were too busy laughing.

“I guess I better clean this mess up, huh?” said Christiana.

“Hang on, we'll help,” said Nails. “Where's Mops, Broom, and Buckets when you need 'em, huh?”

The professor speared a scrap of litter with his cane. “I believe all three are currently being held prisoner by Mr. Donald McCracken.”

“Don't worry you guys,” said Christina, picking up the chipped wise man and his broken-off turban. “We'll find them. We'll find them all. Mops, Broom. Buckets, Flixie, Trixie …”

“How?” said Nails.

“I'm not sure. Maybe we'll go next door. Ask Ms. Dingler a few questions. And we'll go back to that candy-cane factory and toy store; everywhere we went on our wild goose chase. Those people have to be involved in this. So don't worry. Your friends will be home for Christmas, I promise!”

“Then we better make certain their home looks nice!” said the professor, spearing some more of the trash strewn across the floor.

Grandpa started picking up the scattered bills and letters that had gone flying when Christina smacked the wire basket off the counter.

Nails analyzed the damage to the broken wise man.

“Clean fracture line,” he said to Christina. “Come on. Let's haul him into the back room. Put him on the operating table. Glue his head back together.”

“Oh, my,” said Grandpa. “What is this?”

Christina looked over and saw he was holding a bright red envelope. On its front, in glitter letters, was written “Santa Claus, North Pole.”

“That kid!” said Christina, remembering.

“What kid?” said Nails.

“He brought his letter to Santa here to store, just like all the kids used to do. See, they'd bring their letters to Grandpa …”

“And I would give them to Nicky!” He smiled, remembering the joy of Christmases past. “I was Santa's poppa! All the kids knew this.”

“And,” said Christina, “my dad made sure whoever wrote a letter to Santa got something off the fire truck on Christmas Eve.” She tucked the letter into the back pocket of her pants. “I'll run this over to the firehouse first thing in the morning. Captain Dave will make sure the boy gets a toy.”

Suddenly, the telephone near the cash register started ringing.

Christina glanced at the wall clock. “It's one a.m.”