The Yeti Uprising: An IPMA Adventure for Christmas 2013

  ~~~

  Joined by three very small beings with pointed ears and elongated noses, with limbs and digits tiny and frail looking, the party of Christmas rescuers hurried across the main pathway leading from village to production facility and towards the far north east side of the village to duck behind drifts and hills of snow and buildings painted in bright reds and greens. Few Yeti were on the roadway and those that noticed the party either quickly scuttled off in another direction or went about their business. It seemed as though most of the Yeti occupants of the village had followed the aurora and moved on with the large group from the metal facility. Josh started feeling hopeful the hardest work was already done.

  Staying out of view of the windows in each building as the group moved was a little difficult because the near proximity to the village was for the most part flat. But the crew moved from one small drift to another and kept the mountain ring around the complex to their back. It hadn’t really been necessary. Most of the Yeti inside the buildings were much too busy investigating prototype toys, wrappings, paperwork or the elves’ living quarters to really care what was happening outside.

  Finally, Santa led the group around the towering spire to the building attached to it and gathered them at a brightly painted red doorway.

  “Hamish says there were barely any Yeti on the main floor. But if you try to get to the stairwell and head upstairs they’re covering wall to wall,” said one of the elves with a raspy echo much like Qanik’s. Elf, as Josh had realized listening to Peter and Bartholomew, was a misnomer. He was really a pixie dressed in green clothing with a red overcoat and hat. Josh thought when he returned home he might do a little research and try to figure out what both sprites and pixies really were.

  “Yes,” said a second elf, which to Josh’s surprise had a very feminine sounding voice. “He also said it looked like they were actually guarding.”

  Santa grimaced and nodded. “And where is Hamish now?”

  “On his way back to Nova Scotia I think, sir,” the last of the three elves spoke up. “He said he’d had enough of magic-obsessed creatures for a while.”

  “Well…” Claus started. “We are going to get rid of the Yeti, of course.”

  “Mmmm…” the same elf skirmished for a minute with a scowl on his face. “I got the impression he didn’t mean just the Yeti, sir.”

  “Oh.” Santa didn’t act offended but he didn’t defend himself either. Josh had an inkling that there was probably more than just the joy of giving kids presents once a year that kept the round one at the North Pole year round.

  The great jovial man placed a gloved right hand to the handle of the door and depressed the latch. It clicked, apparently much louder than Santa had expected because he flinched. After a couple seconds’ pause, he slowly pushed the door open. Like a stereotypical door in a horror flick it creaked on its hinges. Everyone in the party then cringed. All but Qanik. She just watched, smirking slightly.

  Once the door was fully open and everyone’s eyes adjusted to the glow of an oil lamp still miraculously burning on the wall through all the commotion, a lone Yeti could be seen, relaxing in a winged-back chair and watching something on a television that was flickering color in random patterns about the room.

  The little fuzzball rolled its eyes towards the motley crew standing in the doorway. Santa took three steps in, followed by the two agents, the elves and then by Qanik and the children. They fanned out and circled the half of the room with rear entrance they had all just poured through. As though he were determining a response, the little Yeti took each one in with a sleepy glance. Then he slowly stood up on the chair cushion, removed a toothpick from his lips that he’d been chewing on and took three, stop-motion steps to the edge of the chair.

  Placing his hands at his side like a gunslinger the little Yeti twiddled his fingers, and then nodded slowly, eyeing Claus directly. Santa took up the same stance.

  “What are you doing, Belschnikel?” Peter whispered.

  With that Santa flicked his right hand out and held the fingers in a pistol shape. The Yeti went for his two side arms too, but before he could make the pretend “pew pew” sound that Claus had, Qanik had frozen him solid.

  The little white fuzz was fully encased, except for his eyes, which flicked in an irritated fashion from Santa to Qanik and back again.

  “Oh dear!” Santa said, and rushed forward to pick up the block of ice. “I’m so sorry about that.”

  Santa put the iced Yeti near the fireplace on the far end of the room to thaw out.

  Qanik placed her hands akimbo on her hips and asked, “What is going on here Mr. Belschnikel.”

  Agents Bartholomew and Samuel were just standing dumbfounded. The female elf in the party snapped her finger towards the Yeti and chuckled an evil sounding laugh. On the television, an old movie featuring Clint Eastwood was playing out, apparently where the little Yeti had gotten his inspiration.

  “That will teach you sit in my spot, you little devil!” the first elf said.

  “Aw,” bemoaned Santa Claus. “He wasn’t a bad one.”

  “What?! You know this guy?” Agent Bartholomew grumbled.

  “Yes,” the red man replied. “He was my first contact with the Yeti. He bartered their work contract several years ago actually…and he loves old westerns. It’s just a little game we play sometimes.”

  As Santa motioned for everyone to follow him through a beautiful wooden archway into a hall beyond the apparent living room they’d entered, the last elf murmured to the Yeti, “Consider that your pink slip, Furball!”

  Down the hall the group creaked on wooden floorboards. A dark wooden wainscoting was topped by a small shelf, and upon it appeared to be a collection of toys of some sorts. Josh tried to discern what made the collection special. Each one was very old, but were hand-crafted. None of them looked like the action figures, toy sets or portable video game systems that he was accustomed to.

  One of the elves tugged at Josh’s coat. It was the lady elf. “Those are from previous Santas. He likes to keep them in his private chambers so he can remember his forefathers, he says,” she whispered.

  Josh gave a nod, but he was still marveling over them, while trying to move quietly. The detail on each was exquisite and for some reason Josh instantly thought about how much such rare collectibles would go for on an online auction. But then he quickly thought better of it. Somehow the idea seemed very irreverent to him and made him uncomfortable. These toys seemed to be an expression of love to whomever they were given and Josh recognized it would never be right to sell them. As they traveled a unique look seemed to change from one batch to another, as though one person had made several, and then the next ones on the shelf made by another. It was in the details of the carvings, paint and even the strokes of how the color was applied. And that was some of what made them special.

  Down they crept towards a great oak door hinged and latched with old English style wrought iron hardware. No matter how careful they were the group could not seem to stop the creaking in the homey-feeling house. Then finally they were at the door, Santa gripping the handle and latch as he’d done with the exterior entrance. He turned back and placed his forefinger in the white glove to his lip to indicate silence.

  Josh found himself wondering if they’d find another colleague Yeti relaxing on a couch and wanting to play games, when the door was thrust open and Santa pulled inside with the handle.

  As Claus stumbled into the room beyond, one of the largest big-form Yeti Josh had seen on the trip stood blocking the door and howling at the top of its voice. It was so bad that all members of the party except Qanik slapped their hands over their ears.

  When the noise stopped the beast ripped the heavy oak door from its hinges and tossed it behind its back. Before anyone could react, the creature stooped and picked up Santa and then tossed him at the rest of the group standing in the hallway like a bowling ball. Indeed the man in red went ro
lling for several feet head over feet and knocked down the IPMA agents, Josh and Hattie and two of the elves. Qanik and the last elf managed to flatten themselves against the wainscot and shelf tightly enough that they missed impact from Santa.

  Then Qanik sprung to action. She shot ice and started encapsulating the Yeti in it. And the last standing elf made a sliding dive with his right boot extended and kicked the creature low, knocking it into the wall.

  Ice shattered, negating Qanik’s effort but the impact was strong enough the Yeti went unconscious.

  “Move!” Santa was already up and yelling as he hustled through the hall and into the room.

  As they followed Santa he took just a few steps and then was rounding the last baluster of a circular set of stairs leading sharply upwards. It wasn’t a room at all, but a very brightly lit stair well leading up into the spire they’d seen from outside and on the aerial maps and Yeti-built diorama.

  Clunk! Clunk! Clunk! went several pairs of heavy boots, IPMA Agent dress shoes and whatever it was Qanik was actually wearing. The elves’ little pointed shoes didn’t seem to make a sound, at least not that Josh could discern.

  But by the time they were on the landing for the second floor, Yeti from the hallway and rooms beyond an archway were streaming towards them.

  “Keep moving!” Bartholomew took a turn to yell this time.

  Over his shoulder Josh could see tens or even hundreds of Yeti swarming into the stairwell, occasionally blossoming for a just a second or two into their large form disguise and then shrinking back again. When the stairs were too full, several started attempting to climb the sides of the spiraling rail to get at the group headed upstairs.

  For the most part, the Yeti couldn’t move as quickly up the staircase as well as the group with larger strides. It was an advantage Josh was thankful for, and he didn’t spend time wondering how it was the elves were actually picking their way through legs and getting through the climb faster than anyone else with their short, near-Yeti length legs.

  They’d passed a third floor landing, but fortunately it had a door on it. The Yeti in that area seemed a little slower to realize what was happening, but once they heard the clamor of their mates growling and chasing up the metal treads of the stairs they burst the doorway open and poured into the movement as well.

  “I hope there’s a really big door at the top that we can lock, Belschnikel,” groused Bartholomew ahead, almost out of breath.

  “There is!” Santa shouted back, surprisingly still going strong. “And there’s no more floors to the house either! Just keep climbing, we’re almost out of it!”

  White paint and rails and little port windows out the sides of the spire as they climbed made Josh feel as though he were climbing up inside a small lighthouse. But finally the group clanked onto a landing large enough to hold them all and stood before a very big door just as Santa had promised. Hattie was the first to look back down the stairs and what she saw spooked her. The Yeti were climbing fast, from every direction they could manage to get a hold. And they looked angry. These were not just simple-minded Yeti seeking a big magic influx as payoff for traveling to the North Pole. This group guarding the tower seemed intent on doing harm.

  Quickly Santa opened the doorway with a great shove and in they went. They were standing in a nicely decorated room with the same wooden wainscot as down in the house hallways, some dark wooden shelves, a writing table and a flat screen monitor for a computer centered on the desk. Behind it sat a shocked looking person, blue, much like Qanik.

  The man at the desk rose slowly. “Qanik?” he asked gently. Then more rudely he demanded, “How did you lot get up here with all these Yeti standing guard?”

  Around each end of the table two angry-looking little Yeti strutted. One was pounding his fist into his other open palm in a pummeling gesture. Outside the tidalwave of white fuzzy bodies must have made it to the top because they pounded and howled at the door, the noise relatively well-muffled by the thickness of it. The pair escorting the blue man both blossomed into full height and roared at Santa’s entourage and raised their arms.

  “Tut, tut! Not yet boys,” the man said, still flabbergasted by the party before him. “Qanik…what are you doing with these people?”

  “You know this guy, ma’am?” Agent Bartholomew gruffed and pointed accusingly with his forefinger on his right hand upturned palm.

  Qanik stepped forward one step and halted. “I used to. He’s my…”

  “Boyfriend!” the blue man raised his voice a bit.

  “Not anymore,” Qanik interjected quickly and stepped back again to stand behind Santa and the others.

  The blue figure continued. “I can not believe you put your lot in with this crew. You realize Belschnikel here has been hoarding all the magic along the geo-magnetic lines for the past several centuries?! And you’re going to help him get it back!”

  Santa turned around to the group and took them all in and then stared at Qanik incredulously. His face was cock-eyed confused as he spoke. “Qanik? Who is this twit?”

  “Jack,” she answered quietly.

  “Jack?” Santa asked, turning back to the blue man. “The Jack?”

  “Of course I am,” the smallish blue imp said. “Who else is going to be this far north fighting to take back what is rightfully the Northern Water Sprites’ to possess! I am JACK! Jack Frost, if you don’t mind. And this facility, and all the area around within four hundred square kilometers I claim as lands for our inheritance. The inheritance of the magic beings who have the only right to it!”

  “Oh get off your high-horse, Jack,” Qanik said rather casually. It was the first time Jack had heard Qanik’s tone sound almost human. Perhaps she did have a sense of humor after all. “There is absolutely no reason Belschnikel can’t use the magic up here to run his operations. You’re really going to eliminate Christmas for everyone, just so you don’t have to share?”

  “How!” Jack bellowed, “can you possibly be willing to help these…humans! When all they ever do is drive us faerie folk out of our sanctuaries and consume all the magic, then wonder later if it ever even existed. I WON’T TOLERATE IT ANYMORE!”

  “Mr. Frost…” Peter started, but was immediately shot down.

  “You! Quiet!” Jack jumped atop the desk and walked to its edge in an attempt to intimidate. He was short, like Qanik, with blue skin and dressed in silks of blue with gold trimmings. The attire looked princely to Josh, if the man wasn’t so vile. “Humans should not speak unless spoken to!”

  The word ‘humans’ was hissed like a terrible cussword every time Jack uttered it.

  And then there was a short exchange between Jack and Qanik in a language Josh had never heard before, even on television. It sounded elegant on both of their tongues, but Jack Frost seemed to make some of the words seem very vulgar the way he hissed and bellowed them. Qanik gestured repeatedly and looked like she was imploring Jack. He had tromped to the other side of the desk and was looking down upon her with disgust. At least twice, Josh heard the pair use the word Belschnikel and another word that sounded very similar to “Christmas”. But otherwise their conversation was completely unintelligible.

  “Eh…” Bartholomew started, wanting to inform the male Sprite that he was being rude not speaking in a common language to the group, but Peter put his hand on his arm and shook his head.

  Somewhat reflexively, Hattie, Josh and the agents backed away from the confrontation as best as they could. Santa Claus shooed them further back with a wave of his hand behind his back and took one or two steps back too. The Yeti were very eagerly eyeing Qanik, awaiting orders and chomping at the bit to start smashing. Apparently the two had mastered the ability to maintain their glimmer and remain at full height.

  “Fine!” Jack finished finally. He strutted off the desk and landed back in the chair behind it. “Dispose of them.”

  With that the Yeti’s howled and reared up, one aiming
to snatch Qanik, and the other taking a step towards the rest of the group. And then they were frozen. Ice surrounded each with no mercy. It was so thick, Josh wasn’t sure the Yeti could even roll their eyes around like all the others had before under Qanik’s attack.

  Instantly Jack jumped to the table again, fear spreading across his face. Qanik’s legs disappeared and her coat melted into one continuous flowing form of water with a beautiful, smooth face, and clawed hands. She rushed upon the table and in the instant Jack began to make his change to water form as well.

  But Qanik already had him. The force of her expanding volume took him up and slammed into and then through the window on the far side of the room. The rush of water out of the small window sounded like a great waterfall to Josh, but he could hear the male Sprite screaming above it in anger as well.

  Santa and then the rest of the group rushed to the window and below could see a figure half-man, half wave of water fleeing away from the village, followed by what appeared to be a miniature tidal-wave. The pair disappeared over the crest of a hill of ice and the party turned back to the room to assess the damage. The door to the office was still banging and scratching and howls could be heard behind it.

  “Uh…” Hattie asked, “how are we going to deal with all of those, now that Qanik is gone?”

  Everyone stood quietly for a minute. Then Josh had an idea.

  “Peter! You can make us all invisible!” the boy attempted a whisper but it was too loud and raspy to come off as one.

  “Yes… I could…” Peter asked questioningly.

  Agent Bartholomew took out the stone he had swapped with Peter and held it out. Josh plucked it up and put it into Peter’s hands.

  “Make us invisible, and we’ll stand on either side of the door and then let them in!”

  “What?!” Hattie screeched. “You can’t let those things in here, there’s probably a hundred of them now!”

  Peter crooked his left eyebrow, and then checked Bartholomew’s expression. Bartholomew looked at Josh and then back again and nodded.

  “We let them in, then they see what happened here. It’s perfect!” Josh said excited. “Once they see we chased off Jack Frost they will calm down and…well…maybe these last ones will just sort of wander off?”

  “I like it!” Santa Claus said with a chuckle, and he took a step towards Josh to ruffle his hair. “Let’s give it a try. If nothing else, they should at least move on to something other than us, and we can figure out our next step after they leave the room.”

  The female elf also agreed, having to swat the backside of her male elf companions to get them to agree with the big boss as well. It was settled.

  Peter took the stone and began waving it back and forth before the group again as he’d done before, closing his eyes this time to concentrate. Then the group each stepped to the sides of the doorway, with a small amount of bumping into each other. Once, Hattie murmured something to Josh when he seemed to bump into her near the wall. She was irritated, but somehow he managed to recognize that she really did smell kind of pretty like girls do. He wondered absently if the magic being used on him distorts a young man’s mind a little, or if his non-visual senses were just heightened.

  Then, as agreed, Santa pull the latch back on the door, and Yeti came bursting in. The room continued to fill as the leaders made for the desk and the window. There were many little tantrums and frequent flashes of large-sized versions of the Yeti pack popping up in the crowd. A few books were thrown and one of them managed to jump up on the desk and look around as though he were trying to understand what had happened in the room. When it appeared to have dawned on him that both the intruders and with them his employer were gone, he started jumping up and down and throwing a temper tantrum with arms flailing and teeth gritted. Then he hopped down and ran back out of the room.

  A large number of Yeti followed the angry one out and back down the stairwell so that there were only ten or fifteen milling about. They were all equally frustrated. But fortunately, none of them took their anger out on the computer on the desk. Santa was going to need that in two days if Josh understood him correctly.

  With the last couple Yeti tromping off out of the room, Josh breathed loudly. He thought he heard Santa chuckling quietly too himself. But then they froze again. There was another soft padding of little pink Yeti feet on the floor in the doorway.

  In walked a somber-looking Yeti holding a small chunk of ice and mumbling to itself. It looked around the room and then tutted to itself. Slowly it rounded the writing desk and sat at the table on the chair reaching up as best it could to the keyboard by stretching its arms. It tapped a few things on the keyboard and then rested its chin on the table, while continuing to move the mouse slightly and clicking the left button from time to time.

  Joshua cautiously took a couple steps away from the group’s position by the door, mostly to make sure he was providing enough maneuvering room to the adults. As he stepped away Hattie clearly snatched onto his arm and held on while she moved with him. He could also hear Santa’s heavy boot squeaking slowly across the wooden flooring.

  “What’s it doing?” Josh heard Hattie whisper into his ear much closer than he would have expected. For some reason having a girl hanging on his arm and breathing on his neck as she talked was giving him shivers and he had a tough time controlling it.

  “I think…it’s playing a video game,” Josh answered.

  Soon they all heard Santa’s voice quietly ask, “Chuck?”

  The little Yeti lifted its head and looked about the room, wide eyes blinking looking for the source of Santa’s voice.

  “Awwwrrggg,” grumbled one of the three elves in the group. Josh thought it was probably the one who had chewed out the Yeti in the family room downstairs for taking his seat.

  Chuck, the Yeti, pushed back from the desk and just looked about the room mystified. Then it scrunched its nose up and cocked and eyebrow, turning its head as though preparing to hear the voices again. It grumbled something that sounded like a mix of a roar, the two Sprites’ conversation and the tail end of “Belschnikel?”

  By then Peter had taken out the shimmer stone and was removing the invisibility enchantment on the part members. When Chuck saw Santa and the gang appearing before him he grinned a toothy grin and jumped up on the desk. Claus stepped near and put his hands on the back of the little twelve-inch tall fuzzball and pressed him into his belly to give him a hug. Chuck seemed to enjoy it and nuzzled the big red man.

  Then the Yeti stepped back and looked about again. He leaned over trying to see around Santa and the two larger adults, agents Bartholomew and Samuel. He raised his two finger-pistols again and questioningly asked, “Pew Pew?” and then wrapped himself with his arms and pretended to shiver as though he were very cold.

  Santa and Bartholomew both laughed out loud. Santa tossed the fuzz on the top of Chuck’s head and said, “No. No, she’s gone. She’s after Jack Frost now. I think you’re safe.”

  Chuck hopped off the table and strutted towards the door, with one hand griping the edge low, preparing to shut it and with the other upturned he gestured to Santa and grumbled something again.

  “Yes, Chuck. Tell any of the stragglers that our contract is an end. We’ll have to find someone else to help us out, I suppose.”

  Then Chuck pointed his free hand back to himself with his thumb and raised an eyebrow.

  “No, Charles,” Santa giggled. “You’re welcome to stay. Just don’t bring any more than a couple friends at a time, alright?”

  With that the Yeti left the room and shut the door, leaving the remaining team of eight to discuss what to do about the presents.

  Santa sat down at his desk and positioned the keyboard and mouse where he liked it. He snickered and mumbled, “Space Invaders. Of course.”

  The first male elf came around the desk and looked over the documentation Santa Claus was bringing on screen. The rest of
the group slowly made the same approach.

  “Looks like Frost was trying to pinpoint other magical points of interest, sir,” the echo-y Elfish voice posited.

  After a few moments of assessment and stroking his beard, Santa Claus proclaimed, “Yes, but otherwise I think we’re good. I have all the flight plans and deliveries still programmed for the air drones. And, honestly, I think we can re-wrap and have just about all the presents we need. It shouldn’t take us much in the way of magic to make up the last of it. I don’t think the Yeti really tore into that many, do you?”

  The female elf responded then in a pleading voice, her desperation beginning to show. “Sir, I think we’ve probably lost a good quarter, if not a fifth of what we were expecting to deliver. What do we do? Tell 20% of the kids that they ended up on the naughty list after all?”

  “We need some more help, sir,” said the second male elf.

  “You’re right, Dingle.” Apparently that was one of the elves’ name, the first that Josh had heard.

  Santa sat considering the situation. Agents Bartholomew and Samuel started motioning to the kids that they should probably be going, and Joshua wondered why they would be so quick to leave. “Can’t we…?” he started.

  “Josh,” Peter said. “Even if all the IPMA agents were on duty, and even if we could harness the magic here at the north pole like Belschnikel does, we still wouldn’t have enough to get the job done. …We’re not really that many. That’s kind of…how we stay relatively secret.”

  Santa was grasping at straws. “Perhaps the Angiks?”

  The three elves’ faces went ashen white. “You must be joking, sir?” one of them said in a raspy voice.

  “Why not?” Santa said, standing up. “I bet they’d help out. It’d be only natural for them!”

  “No sir!” the lady elf said vehemently. “If you bring the Angiks here, I don’t think you’ll have a single elf willing to stick around.”

  “Alright then,” Santa said, flapping his hands a bit. “Let’s keep thinking.”

  Josh leaned over to Peter and asked in a whisper, “What are Angiks?”

  Peter just shrugged and shook his head. But when Agent Bartholomew leaned in to whisper back, Hattie also put her head in conspiratorially.

  “They’re said to be ghost faeries,” Bartholomew spoke reverently. “Spirits of the First Nations who died young. …I don’t think it would be wise to bring in the undead for wrapping Christmas packages, do you?”

  Hattie and Joshua shook their heads vigorously. Josh felt he was beginning to understand why this latest in the line of Belschnikels got himself into the situation with the Yeti that he did. He seemed perhaps a bit too trusting of everyone’s good will. Even if the ghosts wanted to help, Josh wasn’t sure they could. Could they even touch anything? Let alone wrap it.

  “I’ve got it, sir!” the second male elf said, with his finger pointing the air.

  “Yes? Yes?!” Santa said, banging a fist on the desk, impatient for a resolution. “Go on!”

  “Well…It’s obvious!” the elf said again with a grin.

  “What is it?!” three to four voices simultaneously chimed in with Santa’s query.

  “Well…she’s right before our eyes. Why not have Qanik petition the Alven to help us. There’s got to be hundreds, maybe even thousands around the northern edges of the continents this time of year, what with their moon-worshipping and all and it being dark all the time. And!...”

  Santa sat back and was considering the thought while the elf concluded.

  “And!...” he repeated. “They do kind of owe us at this point, don’t they? I mean, with their own Jack Frost having tried to take over, perhaps they’d be a little receptive to compensating us a bit?”

  “Hmmm…” Santa said.

  “Qanik is not an Alven. She’s a pure water-sprite,” Bartholomew said with a waggling of his fingers.

  “Yes,” the same elf pleaded, “but she knows them well, and she said herself that Jack was her boyfriend, didn’t she? Well he’s an Alven. Or at least an Alven/Sprite mix!”

  Peter shook his own head solemnly. “I’m afraid Princess Qanik isn’t likely to return on time, though.”

  Hattie and Josh looked at each other. The girl quietly mouthed, “Princess?” All Josh could do was shrug his shoulders and look perplexed.

  “No, we’ve got to make it work!” Santa said, with one more bang on his desk. “Call back all the elves, Cooper. We need to search her out and get on this. We don’t have time to explore all possible solutions. I’ve got to have that sleigh and the drones loaded by tomorrow night!”

  The Elf that had proposed the Alven plan bowed and smiled graciously. “You bet, sir! We’re on it!”

  With that the three elves ran out of the room and down the stairs, beginning preparations for Christmas Eve.

  “You’re a glutton for punishment, Mr. Belschnikel,” Bartholomew groused. “I won’t be back next year, just so you know.”

  Santa leaned back in his chair and grinned ear to ear. He put his fingers crossed together and placed his hands on the desk before him.

  “Well, agents…”

  Bartholomew and Samuel looked at one another.

  “It seems you two have been very good boys this year. Is there anything you’d like from Santa?”

  Bartholomew chuckled and Peter just grinned.

  “No sir,” Agent B said pleasantly. “It’s getting to December twenty-third already. I think I’d just like to go home and enjoy my wife’s cooking now.”

  “And I’ve got a little last-minute shopping to do,” Peter added. With the comment he caught a look at Hattie and Josh and they were instantly suspicious of what he was planning.

  Then Santa stood again and came around the desk to sit on the corner of it.

  “And what about you two kids? Have something special you might have thought you were too old to write me about this year?”

  Hattie’s jaw worked, but nothing came out. It was clear she wanted to defend her lack of faith in the red man, ask for a gift, respectfully decline, and express a desire to stay all at the same time. It caused both Santa and Josh to giggle a bit too.

  “A pony!” Hattie blurted out.

  Santa’s eyebrow wasn’t the only one cocked at an awkward angle at the comment. Peter and Bartholomew seemed a little impressed with her forwardness as well. Josh was simply flabbergasted that she would even ask.

  Noticing the looks she was getting, Hattie humbled herself quickly and clasped her hands before her. “Well…I just mean. I’ve always wanted one on the farm. So…you know. If it wasn’t too big of an issue.”

  Santa Claus stood, slapped her shoulder a couple times and said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “And?...anything for you?” Santa asked Josh in a best-of-friends manner.

  “Uh…” Josh began. He didn’t quite know how to state what he was feeling about the visions, or dreams if that’s what they were, that he and Qanik had showed him earlier. “No, thank you, sir. I think I’ve received plenty on this trip, already.”

  Santa brushed the hair away from Josh’s forehead, while Peter and Agent Bartholomew chuckled at Josh’s joke, having no idea what they were really overhearing. Claus leaned in close and whispered, “You’re going to make about the best older brother I’ve ever known.” Then gave the boy a wink as he stood up.

  “Well then!” the large man in red said with finality. “I thank you so much for your assistance, yet again, my IPMA friends…”

  Hattie looked at Josh with that same awkward look she’d used just a minute ago and mouthed a question for the second time, “Again?”

  “…Time for you to get back to your families, I believe.” And with that Santa sat back down at his computer and started typing away.

  Peter put his arms around the kids and directed them out the door with him and the four of them began their slow climb back down the stairs.

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