“Give me a hand,” Doctor Proctor said. They grabbed the tarp and tugged it off.
“Whoa!” Lisa said, and then coughed from the dust.
“Super whoa!” Nilly said.
“It’s a tiny car! With no roof?”
“It’s called a convertible,” Lisa said. “What a cute car.”
“It’s nuclear-powered,” Doctor Proctor said. “Top speed: thirteen hundred miles per hour.”
“Yippy!” Nilly squealed, jumped into the car, and started turning the steering wheel and grasping the gearshift.
“So, what’s the problem?”
“Registration,” Doctor Proctor said gloomily.
“Huh?”
Doctor Proctor sighed.
“All vehicles need to be registered with the department of motor vehicle licensing, which then grants you a license plate and registration tab. But they said they couldn’t approve a nuclear-powered car without airbags, seat belts, and a cigarette lighter. They said that if I drove it they would put me, my wife, all my relatives, and all my closest friends in jail.”
“Really?” Nilly moaned.
“This is all according to the Traffic Act.” Doctor Proctor nodded. “Which is how the car wound up hidden in here, forgotten under a tarp.”
“Hmm,” Lisa said. “So the problem is that it’s a car and therefore it has to be registered?”
“Yes.” Doctor Proctor sighed.
“What if it weren’t a car?”
“What?”
“What if it were a sleigh? Sleighs don’t need to be registered and have license plates, do they?”
“Noooo.”
“So, if this sleigh were pulled by a horse or another animal, it would be legal to use it?”
Doctor Proctor thought this over. “Yes, I think you might be right.”
“Can’t we just borrow Henmo’s beagle and tie it to the front? Then if the police see us, they’ll think this is just a slightly unconventional-looking dogsled. And if they don’t see us, we can use the atomic engine to drive thirteen hundred miles per hour.”
“Lisa!” Doctor Proctor gasped, looking around nervously. “That would be breaking the law!”
Lisa shrugged.
“We’re breaking the law by eating Christmas porridge, too. And since the whole reason for doing this is to save Christmas, I think it would be okay if we fudged a little.”
“Rebellious Lisa,” Nilly said, grinning from ear to ear. “I like it.”
“Me too,” Doctor Proctor said. “Aside from the fact that Henmo’s beagle would get run over and mushed by the car when the nuclear engine kicks in.”
“Piffle!” Nilly said. “Uh . . . um, I mean, rats!”
“Hmm,” Doctor Proctor said. He took out a handkerchief and used it to clean his swim goggles while he thought. “I could try to renovate the whole car so that it looks like an animal the passengers are sitting on. After all, if the police think the car is a horse, we won’t need a license plate.”
“Or a camel!” Lisa cried.
“Or a rodeo bull!” Nilly cried.
“The problem is getting it to look enough like something that it will fool the police,” Doctor Proctor said.
“Hmm,” Nilly said, pulling out his handkerchief and polishing his upturned nose while thinking. “You start by making a four-legged animal, Doctor Proctor, and leave the looking-enough-like-something part to me.”
“Uh-oh,” Lisa said. “Nilly, what are you up to?”
“Wait and see,” Nilly said secretively. “Wait and see.”
The Next Morning, Only Two Days until Christmas Eve!
WHEN DOCTOR PROCTOR woke up in bed, he could tell even with his eyes closed that it was light out. This meant, first of all, that someone had opened the curtains and, second of all, that it was late enough that it was already full daylight outside. This wasn’t so strange, because Doctor Proctor had been up all night converting the car into something that looked like an animal. He didn’t know exactly what kind of animal, just that it had a body, a tail, and four long legs that moved back and forth when you turned on the engine, so you wouldn’t realize it ran on four wheels. But if the nuclear-powered car was going to look enough like an animal to fool the traffic cops, it definitely still needed something.
The daylight wasn’t what had woken Doctor Proctor. Someone had snapped their fingers in front of his nose. And Doctor Proctor could feel that someone lying in bed next to him, so without opening his eyes, he rolled over as usual to face Juliette’s side of the bed to give her a kiss on the cheek and say good morning.
He kissed something, but it turned out not to be Juliette after all. It was way too hard and hairy to be her.
Doctor Proctor opened his eyes and screamed loudly.
Because there, on the pillow next to him, lay an animal head, to be precise, a giraffe head. To be more precise, a vampire giraffe head. To be completely precise, a taxidermied vampire giraffe head that was sticking out of a cuckoo clock.
“Good morning,” said a teeny-tiny redheaded boy, jumping up onto the bed. “Juliette said we could wake you up now.”
“Nilly? What . . . ? What is that head doing here?”
“If you ask me,” Nilly said, cocking his head to the side, “I think it looks like it’s searching for a body in need of a head.”
“And what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at school right now?”
Nilly sighed. “Our Christmas party was canceled because the school can’t afford to use the word ‘Christmas.’ So now we’re not even on Christmas vacation, just vacation.”
“I see,” Doctor Proctor said with a yawn. Then he smelled the aroma of breakfast and heard Juliette singing in the kitchen.
“I checked on the car in your garage,” Nilly said. “With a little paint and this head on the front, it’ll look exactly like a giraffe. Well, almost exactly. And I’ve checked Norway’s laws, and there’s nothing about it being illegal to ride giraffes on Norwegian roads.”
Doctor Proctor rolled back over to look at the pillow next to him again. And even though Doctor Proctor slept in a wool union suit, his body was still instantly covered in goose bumps from seeing the vampire giraffe head from the Lonely Tombstone Pub lying there staring back at him with a cuckoo clock around its neck.
“How did you get them to give you their wall clock?”
“Oh, I made them an offer they couldn’t refuse,” Nilly said.
“You what?”
Nilly squeezed his eyes shut as he scratched inside his ear with his pinky finger. “I knocked on the door at the Lonely Tombstone Pub this morning, but they wouldn’t let me in until they opened. Until I explained to them that I was from the Animal Protection Society.”
“You lied?”
“No. I founded the society in my bedroom last night, and I elected myself chief executive officer. See? Here’s my ID card.”
Doctor Proctor put on his swim goggles and looked at the card Nilly held out.
“This looks like a membership card for the Dølgen School Marching Band,” Doctor Proctor said. “Only you wrote ‘Animal Protection Society’ where the name of the band used to be.”
“It was the only thing I had to write on,” Nilly said. “And now that my trumpet is defunct, it’s not like I can be in the band anymore anyway.”
“But, Nilly, the Animal Protection Society already exists.”
“Hmm, I think you’re thinking about the society that tries to protect animals, Doctor Proctor.”
“And that’s not this?”
“No, no. The Animal Protection Society protects against animals, dangerous animals. Which is why I told them that I had recently had an audience with the king and that the society was working on security for the greater Oslo region, and that anyone caught allowing dangerous animals in their drinking establishments would have to be punished with a noogie, having the soles of their feet tickled, or being sent to jail without Internet access. And during my audience the king at no point expressed any se
ntiment that these penalties were too harsh for anyone found to have been harboring dangerous animals.”
“But, Nilly!” In dismay Doctor Proctor tugged on his hair, which was even more out of control than usual. “That’s nothing but lies and trickery from one end to the other!”
“Is not! I did have an audience with the king, my society is dedicated to protecting people from dangerous animals, and as far as I can recall, the king didn’t say a single word about those penalties for keeping dangerous animals being too harsh. Right?”
“Nilly, Nilly,” Doctor Proctor said, not knowing if he should laugh or cry. “Then what happened?”
“Then I read them everything it says about vampire giraffes in AYWDE. Well, and a couple of scary things I came up with on the fly. So, if they didn’t already know they had a dangerous animal in that cuckoo clock, they do now.”
“I can imagine, yes. And what kind of an offer did you make them?”
“I told them that if they gave me the vampire giraffe head on the spot, then and there, that I wouldn’t report them to the authorities and especially not to the king. And voilà! They just unscrewed the whole cuckoo clock from the wall and told me they were actually kind of glad to be rid of her.”
“What makes you think it’s female?”
“She has such pretty eyes. I think we’ll call her Dolores, after the famous cancan dancer.”
“As you wish.” Doctor Proctor got out of bed and stretched his arms and legs so his joints creaked. “We’d better get started nailing Dolores onto the rest of Dolores, Nilly. And after that we have to get ahold of Lisa and test everything to find out if it will even be possible for the three of us to take over as Santas and make sure everyone gets Christmas presents. There’s only two days left. To be precise”—he looked at his watch and scratched his head through his nightcap—“let’s see, twenty-four times two minus . . .”
“Thirty-eight hours and twenty minutes,” Nilly said.
Doctor Proctor looked in astonishment at the boy with the freckled button nose. “Simple math,” Nilly said with a shrug.
“I see,” Doctor Proctor said. “But first . . .”
“But first . . . ,” Nilly said.
“Breakfast!” they cried in unison.
The Evening of the Day before the Day before Christmas Eve
THE SUN PEEKED out from between the clouds on this short pre-Christmas day and shone on Tommy, who sat leaning against the base of the Henrik Ibsen statue. Tommy had placed a paper cup on the ground in front of him and was studying the pear-soda-colored fountain and the busy Christmas shoppers darting back and forth buying things. Usually they were extra cheerful right before Christmas and would put an extra coin or two in his paper cup. But this year it was like something was bothering them and they had a bunch of other stuff to think about. Like they had to buy more. Well, Tommy thought, that’s one thing I don’t have to worry about. Because Tommy had a warm jacket and just enough money in his cup to buy himself a little dinner. And what more could a man wish for? Well, he could maybe wish for a Cuban cigar, of course. But Cuban cigars were awfully expensive, so that would have to be in some other life, a life in which he was a rich man. But for right now Tommy was content with what he had, and he figured it was probably about time to go buy a little food. Maybe he even had enough to put a few coins into Olga’s paper cup. She was the blind woman who usually sat outside city hall. And then he’d go back to his tunnel, because Tommy was happiest when he was alone and in peace. Too many people made him n-n-nervous. And he’d never seen another soul in the disused subway tunnel for as long as he’d lived there. Besides, the sun would be setting soon.
“You’re nice,” a voice suddenly said.
Tommy glanced up. A man with a wispy beard and blue circles around eyes stood over him.
“I am?” Tommy said.
“Trust me, I know these things,” the man said, then nodded briefly and walked off.
Tommy watched him go and thought maybe the man was a panhandler like himself. So Tommy got up, shook the snow off the blanket he’d been sitting on, and peered into his cup. Yup, there were going to be a couple of crowns to give Olga. But there was something else in there too. Tommy fished the oval thing out of the cup. It was wrapped in red paper. He pulled the paper off. What in the world? It was a cigar! Half a cigar anyway, because someone had already smoked the other half of it. But it looked really Cuban!
With a cheer in his heart, Tommy stuck the half cigar in his pocket and jogged over to city hall. A half cigar after dinner, yes! Or wait. He wouldn’t smoke the whole thing, just a little. Then he’d save the rest for Christmas Eve, yes!
IT WAS SEVEN p.m. and already dark in Oslo. Nilly, Doctor Proctor, and Lisa had worked all day, and now they were finally ready for the big Santa test. If things went well delivering gifts in the neighborhood tonight, then there was no reason to assume it wouldn’t go well tomorrow night when they set out to do it for real and deliver presents to the whole world.
The vampire giraffe head was attached to the front of the car, which had been modified to look like a giraffe. They’d painted it yellow with black spots, put on the tire chains, and wrapped a dozen presents out of things they’d found down in Doctor Proctor’s basement. All that was left now was a few finishing touches, well, really some finishing brushes. They had to brush the giraffe’s teeth.
“Nice giraffe,” Juliette called to the three friends. She had opened the kitchen window and was watching them as they stood by the car in front of the garage. Doctor Proctor had lengthened the legs, so they had to climb a small ladder to get into the large wicker basket secured to the back of the car, behind where the steering wheel and the gas pedal for the nuclear engine were located.
“Her name’s Dolores,” Nilly called back to Juliette as he petted the giraffe head. “And thanks for the Santa outfits.” He ran his hand over the sleek velvety fabric that Juliette had cut out and sewn together at macro speed and in a micro size.
“Pas de problème,” Juliette said. “But, uh, tell me: Why does Dolores have a cuckoo clock around her neck?”
“Because giraffes don’t have wrists for watches or pockets for pocket watches,” Doctor Proctor said as he brushed the giraffe’s front teeth with a dishwashing brush. “There, ready for the test run!”
Doctor Proctor climbed up the ladder and sat down behind the wheel on the giraffe’s back. Lisa and Nilly followed and sat down on either side of him on the sheepskin rug Doctor Proctor had spread over the seats so they wouldn’t get too cold.
“Do you know what, Doctor Proctor?” Nilly said. “I should actually be the one to drive Dolores. After all, I am the only authorized test pilot in this car.”
“You’re a test pilot for me,” Doctor Proctor said with a chuckle. “So I decide.”
“Let’s go!” Lisa said.
“Righty-o,” Doctor Proctor said, and pushed the button that said NUCLEAR REACTOR.
The engine made a crackling sound. He very cautiously pushed on the gas pedal. Dolores’s hooves started moving and the snow chains on the tires started jingling as they rolled out the gate onto Cannon Avenue.
“First stop is number one Lilly-of-the-Valley Way,” announced Lisa, who had been tasked with reading from Stanislaw’s old notes. “Just follow the Gift Positioning for Stanislaw, Doctor.”
They drove so slowly through the quiet residential streets that Nilly complained and moaned and pretended to suppress one yawn after another. After a while they stopped in front of a green house.
“According to the notes, an elderly married couple live here. They wrote a note wishing for a pair of slippers for Christmas,” Lisa said.
“Here,” Doctor Proctor said, holding up a package. “Juliette wrapped my felted wool slippers.”
“We’re giving them used slippers?” Nilly asked.
“Well,” Doctor Proctor said, “they didn’t specify new slippers, and we can’t afford to buy new things for the whole world. And this is a good place to star
t the test, because according to Stanislaw’s notes, this couple is so hard of hearing that Nilly can make quite a racket in the chimney without them hearing anything. Are we sure they’re not burning a fire in the fireplace?”
“Yep. No smoke from the chimney,” Lisa said.
“Good. Ready, Nilly?”
Nilly had stuck a teaspoon down into the bag of fart powder, and now he popped it into his mouth.
“Yum!” he said.
“I gave it a new flavor,” Doctor Proctor said, clearly proud. “Cardamomamon.”
“Cardamomamamunum?” Lisa repeated.
“No. Cardamomamon, a blend of cardamom and cinnamon. Tastes a bit like chai.”
“Three,” Nilly said, “ . . . two, one. Fart!”
There was a bang. A small cloud of sheep fur and sawdust rose from the car seat, and Nilly was gone.
Lisa squinted into the darkness and saw that her diminutive friend had landed atop the roof of the green house. Now he crawled up the side of the chimney and then disappeared.
INSIDE THE CHIMNEY Nilly propped his feet and hands out to the sides so he looked like a starfish. He cautiously inched his way down. He wasn’t so afraid of falling, because he still had enough gas in his gut for a fart strong enough to slow his fall. But they’d agreed that it was important for him not to make any more farting noise than necessary. Besides, the chimney had suddenly grown tighter, so tight that there was no longer any danger of his falling. Yes, so tight in fact that he had to bring his arms in against his body to squeeze his way downward.
He huffed and puffed and pushed his way down. No wonder Stanislaw hadn’t managed to deliver slippers here. A Santa belly wouldn’t help you get down this chimney. This was a job for a nicely mini Nilly belly!
And boy was it dark.
When Nilly’s head bumped the side and the chimney made a hollow sound, he suddenly realized he wasn’t in a chimney anymore. This was a stovepipe. No wonder it was a tight fit!