Don't Call Me Christina Kringle

  Gustav cocked an eyebrow.

  Gizmo tilted his head.

  Their hands, however, kept spinning.

  “Faster?” asked Gizmo.

  “Yeah. There’s only two shopping days left ’til Christmas.” King Tony pumped his fist like a cheerleader. “So I need youse two to pull out all the stops, give me everything youse got.”

  To save time, Gustav and Gizmo took turns answering:

  “We …”

  “… always …”

  “do.”

  “Yeah,” said Tony, “well I need one hundred and ten percent. Come on. It’s just for two days. Tell you what, youse two pick up the pace, increase production, double your Dumping Dino output, and I’ll give you a big bonus. And I’m not just talking cream and cake, boys. I’m talking cold, hard cash!”

  He pulled two gleaming copper pennies out of his pocket.

  “Yep. These shiny Lincolns could be yours!”

  The two brownies glared at the pennies.

  And then Gizmo snarled.

  Thirty-nine

  “You knew Christina’s father?” Professor Pencilneck said to Smoothie, the newly arrived brownie.

  They were standing in the cellar of the shoe shop and had to raise their voices to be heard over the hammering and clattering and buffing as hundreds of shoes were being marvelously restored to new life.

  “Yeah. I knew her old man.” Smoothie fidgeted with his diamond earring. “From the firehouse.”

  “Fascinating.”

  “And you eyeballed this Christmas present she’s been searching for all year?” asked Nails.

  “I sure did. It was, you know, on the fire truck. In a bag.”

  “Fantastic!” said the professor. “Fate must have sent you here, my friend.”

  “Yeah. Somethin’ like that. Plus, I got to meet those two hotties, Trixie and Flixie. Va-va-voom. Grrrrr.”

  “Easy, pal,” said Nails. “Them two ladies are pals of mine.”

  “Sorry. I meant no disrespect.”

  “Yeah, well, just watch your mouth. Me and Trixie are going steady. Have been for fifteen years.”

  “My apologies. Nobody told me.”

  “Yeah? Well I just did.”

  “Ahem.” Professor Pencilneck cleared his throat to try to clear some of the tension between the two. “Perhaps this afternoon,” he said to Smoothie, “when Christina returns home from school, you will be able to provide her with even more information, clues that might aid her in her quest to find her father’s final Christmas gift?”

  “Sure. Whatever. No problem.”

  “Good,” said Nails. “Until then, stay away from my lady friend and help us with these shoes here.”

  “You got it, chief. Let me look around. See what job I’m best suited for.”

  “Please do,” said Professor Pencilneck, gesturing with his walking stick to the chugging assembly line set up in the tight basement of the shoe shop. At least fifty brownies were merrily working on shoes being fed down on a conveyor belt made out of old exercise machines, spare parts and fan belts from a rusty washing machine, and rubber floor mats rolling across hubcap cogwheels. Robotic arms crafted out of discarded gooseneck lamps, bent umbrella spines, and used wrapping-paper tubes fed shoes to the different departments: soles, uppers, laces, grommets, leather-punching, polishing. The whole thing was powered by an upright vacuum cleaner connected to a clothesline pulley and controlled by a discarded smart phone with a ton of downloaded apps.

  The brownies had found the fixtures for their makeshift shoe factory in the back alley’s rubbish bins. (Their new friend, the alley cat, had helped them find the really good stuff.) The professor had sketched out the blueprints. Nails and his buddy Winky put it all together in a flash with bubblegum and bailing wire.

  They were churning out a dozen or more marvelous pairs of shoes every twelve minutes.

  “I got soles to nail,” said Nails, moving over to his workstation where he rigged up an improvised pneumatic nail gun with a garden hose and a very powerful bubble-top hair dryer the beauty shop down the street had tossed into their dumpster.

  “I need to consult with our new engineers,” said Professor Pencilneck, pulling out a clipboard.

  “Great,” said Smoothie. “I’ll check out the lacers, the hole punchers, the spit-shiners. See who needs me most.”

  “And, don’t worry,” said the professor. “We promise not to pay you a penny. However, there will be cream at the end of the workday. Plus whipped cream and ice cream!”

  “Swell,” said Smoothie. “I’m all about the cream.” He strolled down the assembly line, checking out each workstation, flirting with any females he met along the way.

  Professor Pencilneck bent down to consult with the two new workers who had just crawled under the rolling treadmill section of the assembly line to see if they could somehow increase its speed.

  “Any luck?”

  “Yes,” said one.

  “Easy peasy,” said the other.

  “So we can double production?”

  “Yep,” they said together.

  “Thank you, Gustav and Gizmo!” said the professor. “We’re so glad you two could join us!”

  The brothers just nodded. Then, hands spinning, they started piecing together insoles, heels, tongues, and toe caps, sending them down the line to Nails and a woman named Stitches, who told jokes and sewed real fast.

  The professor stood back and admired the hurly-burly hubbub of the bustling brownies.

  Grandpa Lucci’s Christmas dream was about to come true.

  And, with a little luck and Smoothie’s assistance, they might be able to help Christina find what she was looking for, too!

  Forty

  Christina practically raced home from school, where she had actually said, “Merry Christmas” to two, maybe three, of her friends.

  The new brownie, the slick little flirt named Smoothie, was kind of a jerk but he had worked at her father’s firehouse! He could help her find the missing gift. She knew he could!

  But first, Christina would help Captain Dave at the firehouse party. She’d take over a ton of the most awesome Christmas cookies ever created, which they’d sell to raise money to buy toys for kids who wouldn’t find anything under their tree if the firefighters didn’t keep her dad’s Christmas Eve tradition going.

  She pushed open the door to the shoe shop and saw the most amazing thing she’d seen all week, which was really saying something, seeing how she’d seen so many amazingly magical little people in the past few days.

  But this was, indeed, the most amazing sight of all: Grandpa handing the snooty banker a check.

  “Are we all even steven, Mr. Bailey?” Grandpa asked, the impish twinkle back in his eyes.

  “Yes.”

  Grandpa ripped another check out of his checkbook. “Here. I pay you for January and February, too, okay?”

  “Fine.”

  “Merry Christmas, Mr. Bailey!”

  The banker grunted.

  Grandpa saw Christina standing at the door.

  “Merry Christmas, Christina!”

  “Merry Christmas, Grandpa!”

  “And a Happy New Year, too. Right, Mr. Bailey?”

  The banker just grunted again.

  Forty-one

  The firehouse had never looked so Christmassy.

  The truck was parked out on the street so the main floor could be transformed into a winter wonderland festooned with evergreen garlands and looping strings of multicolored lights. A twinkling Christmas tree stood sentinel in one corner. Tables groaned under the weight of baked ziti and stuffed shells in long aluminum pans. There was even a big pot of firehouse chili.

  A group of carolers, some of whom were local TV and theatre stars, led a rousing rendition of “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” complete with choreography for the leaping lords, the milking maids, even the partridge in the pear tree. Six rowdy firefighters joined in on the fun, shouting “five golden rings” and spinning arou
nd every time the six geese were done a-laying.

  Christina had set up her cookie table right beside the foil-wrapped box where partygoers could deposit their unwrapped toys for needy children. Any money she made selling Trixie and Flixie’s magically delicious cookies would be used to buy even more presents.

  Captain Dave, wearing his dress blues, strolled over and placed a fatherly hand on Christina’s shoulder.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You sure? Cause I could ask one of the guys to take over here.”

  “No, I’m okay. Really. When I do this kind of stuff, I feel like Dad’s right here with me, y’know?”

  “Yeah. I do.”

  He squeezed her shoulder. Neither one said anything for a while. They just marveled at the happy scene.

  Then Captain Dave took a peek inside the toy box.

  “Whoa! How’d we score two Dumping Dinos?”

  “I brought ’em.”

  “No way.”

  “Way.”

  “But they’re the hottest toy in town!”

  She shrugged. “I have connections.” In fact, Gustav and Gizmo, the two new brownie brothers, had whipped them up in two minutes flat.

  A woman sipping holiday punch out of a red plastic cup came over to the baked-goods table. “Excuse me. How much are the cookies?” she asked Christina.

  “Whatever you care to donate.”

  “Did you bake them?”

  “No. Some friends of mine did. But, I tasted them and, take my word, they’re the most awesome Christmas cookies in the world.”

  “Is that so?” the customer said with a laugh. “In that case, I better try one.”

  “Go right ahead.”

  The woman took one bite of a snowman. Christina recognized the expression of amazement on her face; it was the same one she had when she first tasted the minty-fresh flavor of new-fallen snow Flixie had somehow worked into her recipe.

  She handed Christina a fifty-dollar bill.

  “I’ll take a dozen.”

  Word spread.

  Thirty minutes later, the cookies were all gone. People were using adjectives like amazing, fabulous, and astounding. No one had ever tasted Christmas cookies so heavenly, scrumptious, or yummy.

  Christina had over one thousand dollars in her money box. They’d be able to buy a bunch of new toys for all the kids her dad used to visit on Christmas Eve.

  As the carolers finished “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” Captain Dave moved to the center of the room and raised his cup to make a toast.

  “Merry Christmas, everybody!”

  “Merry Christmas!” the crowd shouted back, Christina included.

  “I just wanted to thank everybody for coming out tonight and being so generous. You folks are gonna make a whole lot of kids a whole lot of happy on Christmas morning!”

  The crowd applauded.

  “This year, Engine Company 23’s gonna dedicate our annual Christmas Eve Run to the finest firefighter it was ever my privilege to serve with. The guy who started it all, my buddy, Captain Nicholas Lucci. Jolly Ol’ Saint Nick!”

  Everyone raised their plastic cups. “To Nicholas Lucci!”

  “The man who taught me the true meaning of the day: it is in giving that we receive.” Emotion gripping his face, he turned and gestured to the carolers. “Come on, you guys. I’m not much on makin’ speeches. Help me out here. Let’s have another song!”

  The small choir regrouped. The leader pulled out a pitch pipe and gave everyone their first note. Christina wished she had brought her violin. Well, actually, at Christmas time, her dad always called it her fiddle. Said she was just like the fiddler of Christmas Past who played at the Fezziwigs’ party when Ebenezer Scrooge was a young apprentice in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

  And then the choir started singing.

  The absolutely wrong song.

  The one Christmas carol Christina Lucci absolutely did not want to hear this close to the first anniversary of her father’s death: “Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”

  Christina smiled faintly. She wanted to believe that the words in the song could come true. She wanted her heart to be light, her troubles and grief out of sight. She was so tired of being so sad.

  She looked over to the portrait of her father propped up on an easel next to the glittering Christmas tree. The singers sang the line about dear, faithful friends who were gathering near.

  Not always, she thought.

  Her father was nowhere near to her right now. He was dead. Gone.

  See, that was the problem with Christmas carols.

  They took on a whole different meaning when those who were dearest to you had no way of showing up! Sure, God could give rest to the merry gentlemen, but what about the twelve-year-old girls who were miserable?

  Enough!

  Christina was up out of her seat before they sang about hanging a shining star on the highest bough.

  She took her money box over to Captain Dave.

  “Here. I gotta go.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  She headed for the door.

  “Hey, Christina?” Captain Dave called after her. “Christina Kringle?”

  She whipped around.

  “Don’t call me that!” she screamed. “I hate that name! I’ve always hated it. So, don’t ever call me Christina Kringle again!”

  Forty-two

  Donald McCracken paced around the circle of merchants sitting on empty crates in his dingy warehouse.

  They were his best customers. Mister Fred, who ran the fancy shoe boutique. Chef Pierre, from the expensive French bakery. Tony Scungilli, owner of King Tony’s Toy Castle. Mr. Kasselhopf, from the candy-cane factory. A dozen others.

  Back hunched, McCracken puffed out his pudgy lower lip and loped around the circle of whining shopkeepers.

  “My two little shoemakers ran away!” cried Mister Fred.

  “I am ruined! Ruined!” wailed the baker.

  “I had the hottest toys in town,” groused King Tony. “Now I can’t sell a stinking tiddly wink!”

  McCracken had heard enough.

  “Ye belly-aching little babies!” he roared in his thick Scottish brogue. “Ye sniveling, spineless nincompoops! Ye make me sick!”

  The assembled shopkeepers grew suddenly silent.

  “I import the world’s finest brownies,” McCracken continued, marching around the circle of grumbling money grubbers. “They come here from the old country and work their little hearts out for ye. And then, you go and ruin their fun by giving them silly sweaters and poofy hats and paying them money? Ye crush their giving spirit?”

  “Can the lecture, McCracken,” snarled King Tony. “How do I get Gustav and Gizmo back in my basement before Christmas Eve?”

  “Oui!” said Pierre the pastry chef. “There are only two of the shopping days left. I need Trixie and Flixie.”

  “And I need Nails and Professor Pencilneck,” said Mister Fred.

  “We all need our brownies,” shouted another shopkeeper. “Or Christmas is ruined!”

  “Oh, ye want ’em back, now, do ye?” said McCracken with an evil grin.

  “Cut to the chase,” snapped King Tony. “What’s it gonna cost?”

  “Ten thousand dollars. From each and every store. Even the ones that couldn’t be bothered coming here tonight!”

  Several shopkeepers pulled out their wallets and checkbooks.

  “Are you certain you can find them all?” asked Mister Fred, his pen poised over a blank check.

  McCracken laughed. “Find them? Why, laddy, I already know where they are.”

  Forty-three

  Christina had her violin tucked under her chin and dragged the bow slowly across the bridge, sending up a mournful wail that would have made the most melancholy alley cat to ever have his tail stuck in a door sound cheery by comparison.

  She filled the shoe shop with her woefully slow, sad version of “Have a Holly
Jolly Christmas.” The fiddle droned through the minor chords, wrenching despair and misery out of what was supposed to be a bright and bouncy tune.

  “So,” said Professor Pencilneck, “how was the party?” He was sitting on the counter, trying not to sob in time to the music. However, the moisture welling up in his eyes was fogging his glasses. “Did you have fun selling the cookies?”

  Christina answered with another woeful stroke of heartbroken strings.

  “You know,” said Nails, who stood at the top of the cellar stairs, “we could teach you how to fiddle a jaunty little jig.”

  Christina shot him a gloomy glance and scraped her bow backwards across the strings.

  “If … you’re ever interested,” said the professor.

  “Yeah,” said Nails.

  Now the alley cat, from somewhere in the back room, howled along with Christina’s doleful solo.

  “Okay,” said Nails. “I can’t take this no more. Where’s that new guy?” He hollered down the steep steps. “Yo? Smoothie. Get up here. We need to ask you a few questions!”

  The professor moved to the edge of the counter so he could look Christina in the eye.

  “We think this new fellow Smoothie might be able to remember more details about what he saw last Christmas Eve at the firehouse. Perhaps, with some prodding, he might recall enough to help us help you find your missing gift!”

  Finally, Christina stopped dragging her bow across the quivering strings.

  The professor’s face brightened immediately.

  “Could you kindly snap on that lamp?” he asked.

  Christina nodded and flicked on the small but very bright gooseneck lamp.

  “Bring up Smoothie!” the professor shouted down to Nails. “It’s time for his, eh, interview!”

  Christina sat mesmerized.

  The smug little man with the slicked-back black hair sat on a spool of thread under the intense light circle cast by the intensely bright lamp while Professor Pencilneck and Nails walked around him playing good cop/bad cop.

  “You gotta remember something else!” shouted Nails, who, naturally, took on the role of the bad cop.

  “I can’t, I tell you!” said Smoothie, sweat trickling down from the edge of his hard-packed hair. “I can’t.”