Arthur Christmas (4 page)

Before Santa could go on, his wife coughed to remind him of the other person on the podium.

Santa stumbled, “Oh, and … er, Arthur, yes. Doing vital work in Maintenance, really vital …”

“No, dear. It's …” Mrs. Claus started to correct him.

Arthur chimed in, “I, um … work in Letters, Dad. I've been there two years. You moved me after I tripped over that plug and melted down the elf barracks.”

A nearby elf recalled bitterly, “I lost everything in that flood!”

“Letters! Yes, of course,” Santa said hastily. “Not Maintenance, no, no.”

Santa resumed his speech, “Now, tonight's a big night!”

Behind the podium, Peter signaled to three elves: One poised to pop the cork off a sparkling juice bottle, a second waiting to unfurl a huge banner, and a third holding the rip cord to release a net full of balloons. “Stand by,” Peter whispered with urgent excitement.

“I've had seventy wonderful years doing the best job in the world,” Santa went on. “And, uh, I'm sure you all know what's coming …”

Peter took a deep breath. The trio of elves watched for his signal.

Santa concluded, “I can't wait for year seventyone! Merry Christmas, everyone!”

Steve and Mrs. Claus blinked in surprise. Like Peter, they both had been sure Santa would announce his retirement. Peter's jaw dropped and his hand fell, too. So the three elves took this as the cue to pop the corks, set free the balloons, and unroll the giant CONGRATULATIONS STEVE banner.

Not bothering to read the banner or wonder why the balloons looked like his elder son, Santa assumed all the fuss was for him. After all, he was the big man at the North Pole!

Soon the huge docking bay was empty, except for the cleaning machine chugging across the littered floor, picking up the burst balloons and other scraps.

IN THE CLAUS
quarters, Arthur's honking laugh echoed as he joked, “What do you get if you eat Christmas decorations? Tinsilitis! Honk, honk, honk,” the youngest Claus cracked himself up. But no one else joined in his laughter.

Steve sulked over his Hoho3000, a device that looked like a super high-tech cell phone, scanning for new job opportunities. Santa picked at his turkey dinner while Mrs. Claus fed Dasher. Then she tied Grandsanta's napkin around his scrawny neck like a baby's bib and took Dasher outside for a walk.

Grandsanta grumbled, “Lookit Techno Tommy, he's tekksin' on his calkilator lookin' for another job, ha, ha!”

“It's a Handheld Operational and Homing Organizer, the Hoho3000,” Steve corrected him. Then he lied smoothly, “And I'm not job hunting. I'm enacting mission closure.”

Steve hastily wiped the job listings off his Hoho screen and deleted several irate and potentially embarrassing e-mails from Peter.

But Grandsanta's teasing went on. “Oo, whoopee doo, aren't you the fancy Nancy? Don't matter what you come up with, Son. You may be next in line, but you'll never get to be Santa unless you knock 'em off!”

An awkward silence followed this remark. Then Arthur chirped, “Um … I've got you all a present. After all the hard work I wanted everyone to have fun for Christmas! Ta da!”

He pulled a box out from under his chair and displayed Christmas: The Board Game to his family. Arthur glanced at the happy family on the back of the bright box and the slogan: Fun for ALL the Family. Guaranteed Festive Cheer!

At that moment, the elf Bryony was sweeping the Dispatch Deck on the S-1. Because the S-1 was so big, Bryony rode the Gift-wrap Recycling Machine. She was almost done cleaning the deck when something jammed into the rotating brushes. Bryony climbed down to find the problem. Among a pile of wrapping paper scraps, there it was. She gasped in horror. A present had been missed!

Meanwhile, the cranky Clauses seemed anything but festive. Before they could even start to play Arthur's game, the other three Claus men started fighting over the tiny silver Santa figure.

Grandsanta exclaimed, “I'm Santa!”

“No,
I'm
Santa!” Steve asserted. “You took the piece out of my hand!”

Santa said, “Well, I am
actually
Santa, so I rather think
I
should have it.”

Steve replied, “Well, yes, you're the nonexecutive ‘figurehead.'”

Santa seized on this. “Exactly! The figurehead.”

“He means a fatty with a beard who fits the suit,” Grandsanta spat bitterly.

Arthur tried desperately to make peace. “The other pieces are good, too! Or, I can make extra Santas for everyone.”

“Why don't you be the candle, Steve?” Santa suggested. “All those bright ideas, eh?”

“Fine!” Steve exclaimed. “I'm the candle, Arthur's the turkey, and you, Father, are, of course, Santa. Grandsanta can be this charming relic.” He handed Grandsanta a tiny sleigh. Then Steve rolled the dice.

“Relic? RELIC?” the old man shouted. “I did the whole Christmas in one of those, and I didn't need a trillion elves to help.”

Steve sighed. He was so sick of having this same argument. “The world's a bit more complicated than in your day, Grandsanta, with about a billion more children. And we don't just fly about throwing leadpainted toys down chimneys.”

With a burst of arctic air, Mrs. Claus came back inside. She banged the snow off her boots and tossed a small, smelly bag into the trash before taking Dasher off his leash. She unwound her scarf and approached the table.

Grandsanta rolled the dice. As his tiny sleigh landed on a certain square, Steve said, “That space sends you back to Lapland.” He moved the sleigh back to START.

Grandsanta complained loudly. Then Mrs. Claus looked at her husband, who had somehow acquired a stack of tiny toy gifts without even taking a turn yet. “Where did you get those?” she asked.

Santa yawned. “Just moving things along. … Do I win?”

Grandsanta exclaimed, “Cheats, the pair of you!”

When Mrs. Claus took off her coat, Arthur reacted in alarm to a huge claw rip down the back. “Mum! Are you OK?”

Mrs. Claus shrugged off the deadly danger. “Polar bear, dear. Big silly. Good job I did that online survival course, or it would've been one less for turkey next year.”

Indifferent to his daughter-in-law's narrow escape, Grandsanta griped on, “Christmas has gone completely downhill. You're a postman with a spaceship!”

Steve sputtered, “My S-1 festivized the world at 1,860 times the speed of sound!”

Grandsanta huffed. “Christmas 1941. World War II. I did the whole thing with six reindeer and a drunken elf. Got shot at—twelve direct hits! Lost three reindeer—and still managed to do it all and bring home a buffalo for Christmas dinner.”

Arthur had heard that story many times, but he never tired of it.

“I could still do it now!” Grandsanta shrieked. “Just gimme a go!”

Steve shrieked back, “In a heap of sticks?”

Santa chuckled, “Goodness me!”

It was Grandsanta's turn to sputter in outrage. “Heap of … Oh, it's funny is it?! Let me up and at 'em! I'll show you, Robbie the Robot!”

Grandsanta's arms flailed as he struggled to pull himself out of his chair. He knocked the game board over with his cane, scattering pieces all over the floor.

Mrs. Claus sighed. “Every Christmas, it's the same thing!”

BLEEP!
Steve's pager suddenly pierced the air with its shrill, electronic whine. Steve scrambled to check his Hoho3000. The message he found shocked him so much, Steve gasped and ran into the hall.

Grandsanta called after him, “Oh yeah, run away now that you're losing.”

ARTHUR FOLLOWED, WONDERING
what could have upset his brother so much. Was Steve still angry about the game—or their father's decision not to retire yet? Arthur pushed the little metal Santa into his brother's hand. “You keep this,” Arthur said. “Then you can be Santa next time.”

The two brothers stood in a hall lined with portraits of Santas through the centuries. Frame after frame filled with jolly, cherry-cheeked men, all the way to their father, followed by an empty space.

Arthur assured Steve, “It'll be you up there soon, I bet. You'll be great!”

Steve shivered in the draft from the open door and exclaimed in annoyance. “How many times, Arthur? It's the North Pole! Shut the doors!”

Arthur shrugged sheepishly. Mission Control was nearly empty.

Steve stared at his Hoho screen, his handsome face creased with concern.

“I secured the gift, sir. Gift secured!” Bryony the elf saluted proudly. Her free hand clutched a package that was obviously a small bicycle, despite its perfect wrapping. Peter stood beside her on the dock, looking exasperated with the enthusiastic elf.

Steve moaned, “It just can't be! The system is foolproof!”

Bryony did not know what to say. When not on cleaning detail, she was a gift wrapper. So she added some important good news. “Present wrapping is intact, sir!”

Peter ignored the zealous elf and agreed with his boss. “It must be an error.”

Bryony gushed on about her exciting discovery. “I spotted the sticky tape glinting in the shadows, sir. I'm actually trained in wrapping, and I said to myself, ‘Bryony, the wrapping looks okay, thank goodness, but that present should not be lying in the …'”

Steve interrupted impatiently. “Yes, yes, thank you.”

Arthur, overhearing the conversation, looked over his brother's broad shoulder. He exclaimed, “Oh no! Did someone get the wrong present? That's awful! Whose is it?” He hated to think of any of the many children who believed in Santa being disappointed.

Peter scanned the gift's tag and reported, “47785BXK did NOT ‘get the wrong present.'” He typed the child identifier number into his Hoho, then added, “ … or … um, the right one.”

Arthur gasped. “The child got … nothing? At all? No!” in his horror, he shouted, “A child's been MISSED?!”

Steve tried to calm his excitable brother. “Not necessarily.” He still refused to believe his advanced, modern system could be flawed. But even as he spoke, the giant Gift's Delivered Counter clicked back from all zeroes to 000,000,001.

Arthur shouted even louder, “A CHILD'S BEEN MI …”

Steve interrupted, “Arthur! Do you want to wake the whole North Pole?”

Arthur agreed, “Good idea!” He ran to the door and shouted the shocking truth even louder. “A CHILD'S BEEN MISSED!”

“ARTHUR!” Steve shouted in exasperation. But it was too late.

Santa came down the hall, yawning. “Everything alright?”

Steve admitted, “There's been … a glitch.”

Arthur marveled at his brother's dismissive tone.

“A GLITCH? WE'VE MISSED A CHILD!” Each time he shouted it, the tragedy seemed even more unthinkable!

Santa was surprised. “Really? Dear, oh, dear,” Santa muttered. He hoped this would not involve any personal blame—or having to go out in the cold again. He added, “How on Earth did you manage that, Steven?”