

*

B

or

How the Bogeyman Didn't Save Christmas

J.G. Talbot

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About This Book

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher or the author is punishable by law. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

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B or HOW THE BOGEYMAN DIDN'T SAVE CHRISTMAS

Illustrations and Content Copyright © 2018 J.G. Talbot All rights reserved.

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**Santa Claus literally makes a huge mistake and three brave kids plus Christmas itself are all paying for it. It's up to the Bogeyman to save the day! Or, y'know, not.**

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Cover art courtesy of brgfx on Freepik. All my gratitude goes to those who encouraged me during B's long creation \- namely my family, friends, and those poor souls on the front line that read through and improved it drastically: Jean Anderson and Tam Winn. And all hail Tammy Wanzer for giving me her spare netbook when mine died so I could finish. Bless you, kind sirs!

Dedicated to my nieces and nephews. Aunt Bunny loves you!

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For updates on new releases and zero spam, please follow me on Twitter @author_talbot

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Table of Contents

CHAPTER ONE - Bedtime for Polly

CHAPTER TWO - Cameras on Me!

CHAPTER THREE - Kicki and Honoir

CHAPTER FOUR - Santa: Genius At Work

CHAPTER FIVE - PARTY!

CHAPTER SIX - Party Crashers

CHAPTER SEVEN - Not Santa's Workshop!

CHAPTER EIGHT - Mrs. Claus in Exile

CHAPTER NINE - Strategic Retreat

CHAPTER TEN - The Monster

CHAPTER ELEVEN - To the Rescue!

CHAPTER TWELVE - A Meeting?!

CHAPTER THIRTEEN - Storm the Castle!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN-Fight! Fight! Fight!

CHAPTER FIFTEEN - Santa's Trial

AND AT THE END

Author Info

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CHAPTER ONE

A wedge of wild geese flew South across the moon over Beaver Crossing, a sweet town so unchanged by the years that beavers were still safely crossing there. The wind swirled leaves that shone like golden electric sparks under the streetlights. They added even more warm color to the Halloween decorations of 240 Avery Lane. 240 was the finest house on the block, a big Victorian, with a long line of orange, blue, and white pumpkins sitting along the porch rail and trailing down the front steps.

Up in the turret, little Polly Petersen was lucky enough to have a round, fairyland bedroom. She was taking down lacy pillows, bolsters, and six out of the seven teddy bears from her blue canopy bed. (Number Seven was her security bear. His name was Galahad. A very noble and protective guy.) She stacked the spare pillows neatly against the wall and arranged the other bears on top. It was a cold night so she tucked them all under two blankets.

And she started to yell. "Mama! Don't forget your vitamins! And brush your teeth! And go to bed! You have a big, dangerous day tomorrow and you need your sleep. You could get hurt battling the bigfeet if you're not rested!"

A voice from downstairs called back. "I've caught rogue yeti before with no problems, honey, I know what I'm doing. It's why they pay me the big bucks..."

Polly yelled again. "And Daddy! You need to make your lunch ahead of time! The food at your work is bad for you and you need to go to bed, too, and..."

A man bellowed up the stairs, "Angel, we know what to do, we've been doin' it for years! Now, say your prayers and I'll be up to read to you in five minutes!"

"Okay!" the little girl shouted back. Polly sighed. Her parents needed to take things more seriously. 'Big Mama' Peterson had a dangerous job. And Daddy! Not as much of a dangerous job but traffic was terrible. What if he had an accident? They needed to listen to her good advice.

She draped her robe over her desk chair and aligned her slippers just so underneath. Then she crawled into bed and pulled Galahad close. Still she worried. What if that yeti went crazy and started breaking Big Mama's bones? What if a meteor fell out of the sky and hit her Daddy? What if an earthquake buried them all under rubble? What if there was a tidal wave? What if? What if? What if?

Polly clenched her bear. "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the lord my soul to keep, the angels watch me through the night and keep me safe 'til morning light."

An ominous voice drifted up from the darkness under her bed, "That's not how it goes."

Polly grabbed Galahad and threw the covers over her head. "Mamaaa! The Bogeyman's baaack!"

*

CHAPTER TWO

Santa Claus was trying to sneak out a side door of his hectic workshop when the producer of INTL channel's Christmas Spectacular caught up to him. She had an elf clinging to her leg.

"Mr. Claus?" she said, smiling sweetly as if she didn't have a little man singing love songs to her kneecap. "Santa, bubba," she said. "I just wanted to take a moment to point out that the elves are being a little...ah..."

"They're being a lot foolish. Ach! Every year this happens." Embarrassment had St. Nick pulling the curls out of his white beard.

"Cameras on me! Cameras on meeee!" the elf piped.

"I'll have your pointy ears for this," the producer promised.

"Shoo!" Santa peeled the star struck elf off his guest and sent him back to the short crowd mugging for attention from the famous anchorwoman, the sound people, and the cameraman (who had on the ugliest, reddest Christmas sweater Santa had ever seen and that's saying something.)

"It's almost Halloween," Santa explained, "And it's time for our vacation. We have to have a good rest before our big day on December 24th. And you're all here early with the big lights and the glamour. That's doubly exciting!"

"What? What are they doing here?" his wife, the one-and-only Merry Belle Claus, arrived so suddenly Santa almost hit the roof. Her mouth was open in amazement as she stared around. "They're early!" she said. "Why are they here two months early?"

"Surprise!" Santa exclaimed, beaming.

There was a yelp from the excited crowd. The cameraman had to fight to keep his camera. Mrs. Claus threw Santa a look of disbelief and went to help.

Santa watched as she pushed her untamed salt 'n pepper hair back and pulled a whistle from her tartan apron pocket. She blew a shrill _blaaaat!_ There was a lull in the racket as the elves turned to look.

"Live from Santa's Workshop," she announced. "Professionalism. You! Give the man back his camera. You! Put that down. You! Pick that up. You! Stop that singing."

There was a crash and the tinkling of broken glass. A soccer ball went rolling past Santa and he watched as a ballerina Helper Toy tippy-toed en pointe after it. She gave it a mighty, but graceful, kick all the way to the end of the workshop to the massive double doors of the main entrance. Two large Nutcrackers dressed in gold livery pulled them open and the ball disappeared into the snow of the North Pole. The elves streamed outside after it.

Madison McCurry (anchorwoman of INTL News) herself, wrestled her thick coat back on and ran out to join the fun, too. Her entire crew followed, whooping like children. They hit the snow.

"GOOOOAAAALLLLL!"

It was the producer's turn to look embarrassed. "Maddie was an athlete until she blew out her ACS...her ACLU...her knee tendon about six times too often. 'Scuse me," she said and bolted to rein in her own people. And now music was breaking out. Mrs. Claus's finger was waggling in all directions.

Suddenly there was a trembling in the floor and a flood of soft plush and excited growls nearly swept her away. The Nutcrackers stood firm but they were batted aside by many multicolored paws. A whoosh of frigid air and the fuzzy herd was gone.

"There go the teddy bears," Santa sighed. Usually the Helper Toys were as nice and calm as Mrs. Claus, their builder, but when Halloween rolled around they could be as bad as the elves. He noticed a tall wooden soldier running by. "Brigadier!" he called. "What's the rush?"

"Suh," The Brigadier, splendid in a bright red uniform, stopped reluctantly and saluted. "Suh, the reindeer are brawling for extra time in front of the cameras. Vixen's being a bit of a diva."

He paused as a big, blue grizzly bear with a Christmas stocking pulled over his head blindly stumbled past. The Brigadier poked the beast with the swagger stick he usually carried clamped under his arm. "Something amiss, Bertram?" he asked.

"Stop that." The newcomer sat on the floor and continued his battle against the Stocking of Doom. His ears were stuck. "Whoof!" he said. "Well, I've lost control of the bears."

"No! Do tell," the Brigadier said.

Bertram ignored the tall toy. "Princess is doing her best but the dollies are gonna break soon, too. Whurf," he snorted.

Santa remembered the ballerina doll's soccer kick and said nothing.

"I have utter faith in Princess," the Brigadier said.

"We knowww, it's so cute." Bertram growled and pulled harder. "Where's Mrs. Claus? We need someone tough if we're gonna pull this show together." The stocking came off with a pop and a tangerine rolled out of the toe. The bear blinked in the bright lights. "Two months early. Of all the ridiculous..." he noticed Santa and gave a little jump. "Oh! Erf. Hello."

"Merry Belle's dealing with the elves right now. I'll help, I'm tough." Santa threw his chest out.

"You're tough?" Bertram asked and his round ears perked up. Then he actually snickered and the Brigadier smoothed his painted-on mustache to hide a little smile. "Yeah, you're a real bruiser, Santa."

That stung a little. "Well, she can't be bothered with every little problem around here," Santa said. "What are you two for anyway?" The two toys looked at each other. "You," Santa pointed at the soldier. "Uhhh, you help with the elves. And, um, you," he pointed to the bear. "You go to the stables and hold Vixen's hoof while she wails about being a star."

"And _you,_ Santa?" the Brigadier asked, raising his eyebrow. Bertram also squinted at Santa Claus.

"I'll do some thinking," Santa said.

Bertram groaned and set off.

"Yes, very good, suh," The Brigadier saluted again and marched over to the nearest group of elves. They were courting prime time by diving from the top of a crane into a damp sponge. "Stop that! It's silly."

"Ach," Santa Claus repeated as he watched Mrs. Claus and the Brigadier take the elves and toys down a notch. But you couldn't blame any of them for going a little wild. A year's hard work was officially winding to a close. Party time! Even better, the televised visit to the Workshop, a tradition since 1959 and the first hurrah of Christmas was going to be broadcast to the world the very next day, two months early.

The thought derailed his aggravation and he smiled.

Two entire months early! And why? Because the people demanded it. Because his holiday was the most popular. The best. Christmas, the Acknowledged Best! Despite the semi-chaos he puffed up with pride.

"Hello, Santa," purred a familiar voice behind him.

He whirled around.

A large cat with golden eyes and silky black fur hopped off the bristles of a broom piloted by the witchiest witch there ever was. "Punkin!" Santa exclaimed to the cat, "I didn't hear you fly in. How nice to see you! And you, too, uh, Morgan." The crone glared at Santa with her one good eye and he shuddered. Punkin approached on silent paws, her tail in the air. There was a loud _gobble!_ and a huge brown and orange turkey landed with a hard _thud!_ beside her. Feathers flew. "And Tom!" Santa halloed again. "Well, this is a lovely surprise."

"Is it?" said Tom and his wattles quivered as he picked himself up. Feathers floated through the air and he turned to brush himself down. Funny thing about Tom, from the front he looked like any other turkey. From the side he looked like a giant human hand.

"My, such activity," said Punkin, glancing around as she sat on the floor, her long tail wrapping primly around her paws. She watched the producer herding her film crew back inside like a sheriff bringing desperadoes to justice. "And, yes, there _they_ are. When we heard the news we couldn't quite believe it."

"A bit early, ain't they?" Tom said.

Santa was confused. His old friends didn't seem at all pleased.

Tom went on, "Traditionally the show airs 12 days before Christmas, right?"

"It's airing tomorrow! Live. Isn't it great?" Santa said.

The two stared at him.

" _Before_ Halloween? I prefer tradition," Punkin finally said.

"No, no, no. Traditions change." Santa shook his head. "Especially traditions as young as television. My producer said the kids were demanding an earlier show. They can't have too much Christmas." Santa rose onto the tips of his toes and down again, lifted by all his good feelings. "So, of course, I can't disappoint them."

The cat narrowed her eyes and her witch did the same. Tom Turkey's long neck stretched even further.

"Oh, you can have too much Christmas all right," Tom said. "The children didn't say a word. The TV sponsors are the ones demanding more. Sell more toys! Sell more stuff! More, more, more! Money, money, money! They're extending Christmas into one loooong commercial and you're letting them."

Santa was appalled. "That's not true, Tom! It's not to _sell_ anything."

"Christmas should happen in its own good time, not ours," Punkin said. "And certainly not at the whim of those trying to push Pizza Pellets down our throats." Her voice had slowly lowered from a purr to a growl and her glossy fur was spiking. "Halloween, Thanksgiving, New Years, and even the Fourth of July are being steamrolled by Christmas and what do you care? Nothing. More attention for you. You're loving every moment."

Santa relaxed as all became clear. They were _jealous!_ Oh, the big babies.

The slightest eye-roll escaped him. "Look, I can't help being more popular than you," he explained. "I bring joy and light to the world during the darkest part of the year. You two bring fright and indigestion. The polls said so."

There. They couldn't argue with the facts.

"We bring _what?"_ Tom started. "You mean excitement and gratitude for blessings, don't you?"

"Don't argue with the afflicted," Punkin interrupted. "Santa's too far gone to listen."

The turkey left off and Punkin stood, her tail hacking at the air. Ignoring her own advice, she spoke again, "The entire fall and winter is yours now," she said to Santa Claus. "And there's even Christmas in July. But you don't see why that's wrong?" The cat walked away. "Morgan, we're leaving." The witch flew closer and Punkin leapt onto the bristles.

Morgan glared at Santa, her warts trembling with anger.

Tom was incensed. "He says he's doing it for the children. _Gwobbrle!_ He should be ashamed."

"Of what?" Santa asked.

"Of being a greedy pig."

Santa pulled his beard again. "I am not! I'm _giving_ the people what they want! Very generously!"

Tom wasn't listening. "This will end badly. So don't say we didn't try to warn you, chunky-butt." Tom spread his wings and took off in another cloud of feathers.

Santa made a last effort. "Oh, now don't leave like that. Who wants a hug?"

No one wanted a hug and Santa was left with his arms outstretched as the broom and the bird soared away across the workshop, the silken wall hangings billowing as they passed. Tom flew like an eagle. An ugly, clumsy eagle but still...

"Was that Tom and Punkin?" Mrs. Claus asked, rejoining him suddenly. Santa startled again. "And Mogie? Mo!" she called and waved but they were out the doors and gone. "Why didn't they stop a while?" she asked. Then she blinked. "Ohhh, they were angry, weren't they?"

"They were making hardly any sense at all. Why would they be angry?"

Mrs. Claus gave him a weary look. "We need to talk," she said. The Brigadier appeared in a clatter of wooden feet and whispered urgently into her ear. "As soon as I sew up what Vixen did to Bertram." She rushed off toward the stables, her chief assistant barely keeping pace beside her.

"Talk? About what?" Santa ducked as another ball, a basketball, went whizzing over his head.

"AAAAEEEEAAAA!" An elf went swinging Tarzan style across the workshop and her friends cheered her on.

Santa sighed. Dratted elves. So short but so, so many. Maybe he should have said _no_ to the earlier TV program? Maybe he should've waited until everyone came back from vacation, rested and calm?

Naaaaah, his public wanted Christmas now! The polls said so. His producer said so. He was doing the right thing.

But his castle was a mess. A little calm and order would be nice. A little decorum. A little direction?

Santa slowly backed towards the side door again and began to think.

Why, yes, what was needed here was an organizer. He, himself, couldn't be everywhere at once. There was another crash and Santa flinched as he tiptoed out of the way. Yes, he needed a real elf-wrangler. Someone that cleaned messes. Someone to wind down the toys. A strong, intelligent boss who knew how to _take control._ In a cheerful, lovable way.

For the life of him he couldn't think of a single soul capable of all that. Not even the Easter Bunny and her fastest children could deal with the nonsense that broke out at the North Pole this time every year.

But if anyone could solve this, Santa Claus could. He puffed out his chest.

Suddenly he noticed a harlequin doll had the basketball. She scored a perfect two points through a hoop made by the arms of a nutcracker far away from his door. The other door warden had crept away, too.

Dratted Helper Toys weren't being very helpful! Why did Merry Belle make so many?

A light came on in Santa's brain.

If the perfect assistant couldn't be found it would just have to be _made._

Brilliant! Santa put a finger to the side of his nose and disappeared in a flash. He reappeared in his personal shop, rubbing his hands together.

It was a large space and stocked full of supplies. Steel pipes, wood, wires, and stacks of sheet metal as tall as the ceiling filled every corner and shelf. There was also junk from abandoned projects. Junk like the full-sized tank toys that he'd been sure would go over well until his wife pointed out that a full-sized tank toy was a _tank_ and not fit for children. (Well, Santa still thought they could have been fun.) Then there were the woodworking tools he'd been meaning to fix. Drills, chainsaws, and a small crane were all covered with dust.

He sighed happily in this calm place of tools and machine oil. No one was allowed in here. It was his sanctuary. His Santa-cave.

So he was surprised to find a sign above the workbench. It was a lovely cross-stitch of white thread on a blue background.

It said STICK TO TOYS.

"Ach!"

An insult. He was a craftsman and a craftsman _crafted._ Crafted whatever he needed to craft whenever he wanted to craft! Besides, he'd learned from past mistakes, truly he had. This time would be different.

He pulled the sign off the wall and shoved it into a drawer.

Then he began to tinker.

*

A Disgruntled Tom

Pictures by Honoir Battle

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CHAPTER THREE

In Beaver Crossing, bedtime continued. At 242 Avery Lane, the red cottage with the exquisite little Zen garden in back, Kicki Kita was reasoning with the authority of the house. "Motherrr, the Santa Claus special is coming on. We're going to see the workshop."

"That's tomorrow night. There will be no more television tonight, Kicki," Emi Kita wasn't a full-on Tiger Mom but she was firm. And pretty. She was as lovely as the porcelain Geisha doll she'd once given Kicki. And just as quickly took away again for its own safety.

Emi drew back her daughter's bedspread, decorated with heavily-armed turtles, and pointed at the sheets. "It's time for sleep. In."

Kicki was desperate not to go. There was too much to do! "Can I have just five more tiny minutes? Just five?"

"There will be no negotiating. In."

"Ahuh uh uuuh!" Kicki flopped to the floor, her face in her hands. She peeked through her fingers. Was it working?

Emi was unmoved. "There will be no crying. Your father is tired and he needs to rest. In. Now."

Kicki gave it more power. "AOOOOOOH!" She tightened herself into a wailing ball. Emi didn't even blink. "Kicki," she started but her husband suddenly standing in the doorway interrupted.

Jiro Kita was a tall man and he did look exhausted but he was smiling.

"Now is this how warriors behave?" he asked and Kicki switched off. He walked in and looked around at his daughter's collection of super-creatures, kung fu masters, and toy weapons. Kicki looked around, too, and was ashamed. He had a point. Would Godzilla cry on the floor? Would Pete 'Big Mama' Petersen? Would Wonder Woman? Would...

Emi shook her head at him. "Go back to bed, Jiro, I can handle this."

"I know you can," Jiro said as he walked to her side. "Every night you have to handle this while I laze around." He clamped both hands around his daughter as if she were a big, pink basketball and dunked her into bed. Before she could stop bouncing he threw the covers over her. "There. She's in." He was now breathless but he tried to hide it.

"The Bogeyman will get me," came a woeful voice from the blanket-mountain. "He's under my bed right now."

"There will be no fantasies," Emi said.

Kicki reappeared, static electricity from her sliding blankets caused her fine black hair to stand at attention all over her head. "He will. He will, too, get me." She tried hiccups.

They didn't work either. "Here," Jiro said and picked up a small wooden sword from the floor. "Here is your Bogey Basher. Give him some of that if he comes around here." He bent and gave her a kiss. His breathing was under control again.

Kicki waggled her sword a bit. She looked up at her pale father and decided to ask a question. It wouldn't go well but she had to try. "Are you going to die?"

Her parents froze. "No," Emi finally gasped. "No, of course not. He's just a little tired."

"But what's wrong?" Kicki asked.

"I've got worms," Jiro said and he pulled a sad face.

"You do not," Kicki almost laughed.

Emi threw up her hands. "Bed! Everyone to bed."

Jiro backed, bowing, out of the room. "Goodnight. Have no mercy on your opponent." And then he was gone.

"I won't," Kicki whispered. Her mother kissed her, which felt like being pecked by a giant chicken, and then Emi was out the door, too, slamming it behind her. Kicki stared after them. She threw back her blankets and extended a foot towards the floor.

The door banged open again. "There will be no getting out of bed."

Something in her mother's eyes made Kicki slowly draw back her foot without her usual well-reasoned arguments. "Goodnight," Emi said and hit the lights. The door shut again, softly this time.

Kicki sulked in the dark. Why was her father tired? Was it because he was sick? Sick how? Why was it a big secret? Was it serious?

She twisted her blanket into knots.

Then she heard, "A fantasy? I'm a fantasy?" coming from under her bed. "She's got a nerve, I can tell you."

Kicki raised her head. Then she smiled and felt around for Basher.

"I mean! Just because you can't see a germ doesn't mean it's not there," the voice continued in a bitter-teacher sort of way.

Kicki checked under the pillow. She threw the blankets up, searching, searching.

"Are you looking for this?" Basher appeared, rising up from the edge of the bed, held aloft by a bone-white hand. "Ever read King Arthur?"

"Give me that," Kicki snatched Basher away. "Banzaaaii!" She dove onto the floor and rolled under the bed. There was a thud and the nightlight quivered.

The voice yowled, "Owww, blimey!"

*

At 244 Avery Lane, the eye-stabbingly pink house on the corner, Honoir Battle, carrying his football helmet and pads in one hand and his books in the other, arrived home late from practice. He called out thanks and goodbye to his ride home.

His mother's junker of a car wasn't parked in its spot and he sighed. Obviously she was working late again at Little Bill's Grill, covering for the laziest manager in the world. She didn't care. _"Extra hours mean extra money, baby,"_ she'd explained and burrowed her way through Honoir's wild, curly hair until she reached his head, which she kissed. _"The more I earn the sooner we get out of this pink pit."_

Out of Maw Maw's house.

"Urgh," Honoir grunted and dropped his stuff to let himself in with a key he kept on his shoelace. Without taking it off his shoe, or the shoe off his foot, which was pretty limber for a kid his size. He put his gear away in a closet and walked down the long hall to his grandmother's living room. He looked in.

It wasn't his idea of a proper living room. The windows were never opened and the curtains were always closed. It was dark and funky. Not the fun kind of funky either. It smelled like a shoe. There was one chair and one chair only, an overstuffed recliner positioned in front of a flat screen TV the size of a bed sheet. It was occupied by a chubby little woman with short grey hair.

She was crying, the tears pouring down her brown cheeks, as she watched an old black and white movie.

" _Oh, Mitheth Thweet!"_ wailed the adorable urchin on the screen. _"Ith it twue?"_

The actress playing Mrs. Sweet bit her perfect lip with emotion before she said, _"Yes, my dahling! You shan't go back to the orphanage evah, evah again. I'm your new Mummy."_

Her husband leaned into the shot. _"Which makes me your new Daddy,"_ said Mr. Sweet, exercising his logic. He pointed the stem of his pipe at the former orphan. _"We're a family at last."_

" _Oh! A family? Whath that?"_

" _A family is the most heavenly thing in all the world,"_ said Mrs. Sweet, hugging the waif close but not close enough to smear her makeup or muss her perfect hair. _"A family is everything."_

"Amen!" said the woman in the chair as she sniffled and raised her free hand into the air. "Amen to that."

Honoir interrupted. "Maw Maw?"

"What?!" She snatched up the remote and hit the pause button. "What do you want?"

"Where's Mom?"

Maw Maw dropped her jaw to let out an ugly, rattling sigh. "If she were dead I'd have told you. Now get out, I'm watching my show."

"I meant did she call? When's she coming home?"

"Who cares? Get out!" She flapped a hand at him and turned back to the TV. She hit PLAY on the remote.

His mom's advice came to Honoir. _"Fart and walk away when she gets like that,"_ she'd said. Honoir strained and shifted from foot to foot but nothing happened. Argh. Embarrassing for a healthy boy. So he just turned around and left.

His shoulders were up around his ears and he forced them down. He didn't care. He was a brick wall. He was a big brick wall. He was Neil Armstrong on the moon. He was Big Mama Petersen leading his Rangers to battle the Hog Hag of Holland. (Polly's mom had gotten a medal from the Hollanders for that one and he let Honoir wear it sometimes. Wow.) Who else was he? He was Captain America! Bat Man! The Black Panther! He was...

Honoir passed his grandmother's empty dining room, her empty guest room, and her empty library (a house with nothing in it was easy to clean) before he reached the kitchen and the narrow stairs at the far end of the pantry.

He went up.

He reached the attic door with relief and opened it. Maw Maw's _nothingness_ didn't extend to the attic and she never showed her face up there. Honoir and his Mom had dropped hints of mice, bats, velociraptors, and spiders. The old woman hated the place.

Honoir gladly shut the door. He and his mother hadn't been exiled up here. They preferred it. The attic was _cluttered._ There was decent, comfortable furniture. Boxes and trunks and wardrobes. There were memories. A proud family history, detailed in journals, portraits, and treasured pictures. Treasured by Honoir and his Mom, anyway. _"This is what your grandpa looked like when he was your age, baby. Ya'll could be twins. Oh, I miss him."_

And there were books to read. Maps to explore. Beautiful art prints at Mom's end of the attic and a big poster of Honoir's favorite hairy football player at his end. Strings of party lights and old brass lamps gave off a warm glow.

Kinda hot in the summer but fine the rest of the year.

Honoir breathed in the smell of cedar trunks, lemon-lavender perfume, and worn leather. Yeah. Bliss. And when he and his Mom finally left they'd take all this great stuff with them. Someday they'd have their own place again. Someday things would be better.

Someday.

He stood there and made it worse by remembering better times. Before the layoff. Before the foreclosure. Yeah.

He slumped towards his army cot. It was a relic of his grandpa's stint in the army. With a genuine bullet hole in the green canvas but not even that raised his spirits.

Someday.

Someday.

Honoir was sick of somedays.

He pressed the flat of his hand against the bridge of his nose, hard.

An edge of the woolen Pullman blanket he had on his cot suddenly moved a half inch.

Honoir saw it and froze. Was there a breeze up here? No. Varmints? No. Not really. He squatted and looked underneath the cot. It was dark. He couldn't see anything.

Of course, that didn't mean there was nothing there.

Honoir leapt just as a white hand burst out from under the cot and grabbed at his feet. Black claws gouged the floor sending up little curlicues of wood.

"Nyaaah!" Honoir cried with relief as he landed and the cot jumped and creaked. "Too slow!"

The white hand withdrew. "Please, don't jump again, Gargantua," the Bogeyman said. "You'll kill us both."

"Shoulda thought of that before you started with me." Honoir bounced around and there was a frightful crack.

"Stop or I'll have your eyes!" There was a scratching on the canvas.

"I ain't afraid of you, B!" Honoir shouted as a long, clawed finger poked up through the bullet hole and tapped around in all directions. Honoir caught up a huge atlas from his cot-side pickle barrel and slammed it down. There was an "Ow!" from below and the finger disappeared. Honoir put his eye to the hole to gloat. It reappeared and the boy yelped.

"Touché!" the Bogeyman exclaimed.

Honoir rubbed his eyelid and hated to think of the damage a claw like that would make on his actual eyeball. Ewwww. He held the atlas over his head and waited for the least movement.

He waited some more. More waiting and nothing continued to happen. The pause became a little awkward.

"You give up?" the boy challenged.

"Yes."

"What? Seriously?"

"You've defeated me. Er. This time."

"Aw, man, you're no fun." Honoir tapped his own head a couple of times with the atlas.

"My heart's just not in it." The frightful voice became almost normal and casual, "So. Apropos of nothing at all, I was, ah, wondering when your mother will be coming home?"

"Dunno. Maw Maw wouldn't say," Honoir answered. "Why?"

"No reason, no reason, nooo reason at all." B sighed a little.

Honoir snickered. "You gotta talk to her."

"No."

"Oh, c'mon, I'll help. I'll say 'Mom, I know this really cool guy He's a little different but...'"

"No, no, no, best not. Best to admire from afar, really."

"That's sad, man."

"I'm rather enjoying it."

"That's even sadder." Honoir wasn't a romantic kid.

"Oh, shut up."

Suddenly they heard a woman singing up the stairs. "You are my sunshine! My only sunshiiiine! "

"I despise that execrable song," muttered the Bogeyman.

"Now you shut up," Honoir said and jumped off the cot.

There was an elaborate knock on the door. Honoir rushed over and gave the counter-knock. There was a counter-counter-knock. Honoir rapped out the counter-counter-counter knock.

Then a heavy kick echoed around the room. "Lemme in!" his mother demanded. He threw the door open and Chloe Battle jumped inside with a smile. She still had her ugly restaurant uniform on and, oddly, several brochures and print-outs under her arm. She held them tight to her side. He couldn't see what they were.

She was so happy Honoir felt actual _hope_ shoot into his heart. What a new and bizarre feeling. She bent and gave him an almighty one-armed squeeze. She kissed him, "Muah, muah, MUAH!"

"What? What? What?" he asked, smiling.

She sashayed over to his cot, trailing the delicious odor of fried food behind her, and sat down. "Soooo, how was your day?" she teased, blinking her brown eyes at him innocently.

"Fiiiine," he said. "School was good. Football practice was good." There was a monster under the cot but now wasn't the time to mention it. "And you?"

"Fiiiine," she answered. "My moron manager was almost electrocuted when he tried to fix the rotisserie. Then I burned myself on the oven again." She showed him a new welt, an ugly pink against her dark bronze skin. Honoir was properly sympathetic. "Then some nut customer accused me of hiding the fried chicken. Then!" She beat a little drumroll with her fingers. Honoir waited, eyes wide. "Then I got a phone call from Maythorpe Financial. About a job."

"You have another interview?" Honoir deflated. Poor Mom. So many interviews.

"I've already interviewed for this place. Twice," she said and then she drew in a deep breath. "I got the job!" she crowed.

Honoir felt a firework go off in his soul. "You're an accountant again?"

She laughed. "Yes. The Great Recession is officially over." He tackled her so hard her left shoe popped off. "Ow."

"WOOOOT!" Honoir was thrilled. "Yay, Mom!" No more grubbing for hours. No more burns. No more exhaustion, worry, and mean customers. No more Maw Maw? "When are we gonna get our own place?" he asked, jumping back.

"I knew that'd be your first question." She scattered her papers across the attic as if she were a Queen tossing gold coins. "As soon as I go through the listings." Honoir gasped as he took a closer look. There were apartment brochures, house specs, and the classifieds.

"And a dog?" he begged. "We'll get a dog?"

"Maybe. Some apartment buildings won't allow a dog. And we'll probably have to get an apartment for a long time before we can afford the perfect house. Help me, this is fun!" Honoir and Chloe laughed. "Grab a box and start packing," she ordered.

Honoir raised his arms in a great V for victory.

'Someday' had arrived at last, at last, at last!

"Happy Halloween!" he shouted.

"Happy Hal...ow!" Chloe shot to her feet and spun around, her hand on her rear. She tipped the cot up. Nothing was underneath.

"Huh," she said. "I must have sat on a pencil."

*

CHAPTER FOUR

Twenty-four hours later, give or take a few hours, Santa Claus was rushing to the finish. He hadn't paused for sleep or even for food (!) and he hummed as he worked. Never had such glorious inspiration hit so hard and never had he worked so fast. Now it was almost time.

There was a rapping at the door. "Suh. Mrs. Claus says you have one hour to get cleaned up and ready for the broadcast."

"I'm coming, I'm coming. Aaach." Santa listened to the Brigadier's wooden feet clomping away.

The cameras and rigging were installed, and sound checks were echoing across the workshop. The world was waiting. Oh, what a surprise they were going to get!

Santa sang as he added the last important elements in great splashes of glowing magic. "Cheerfulness," he hummed. "Dum diddly doot...surety. Drive and ambition. You must want to get everything perfect at all times. Cleanliness. Untiring diligence. Dumdee dummm... Inventiveness. Cleanliness. Security, everything must be safe and secure. You're the boss! Etiquette. Confidence. Doot de doot...lots of initiative and independence, I don't want to have to tell you what to do all the time. Cleanliness. A bit of clownish whimsy, just for fun. Safety. Always safety. More cleanliness. And a power source. Whew!"

He mopped his brow with a red hankie. "Lots more magic, I think. And I mean lots. We can't have any break downs or malfunctions. You must work smoothly and constantly. So! By the power vested in me," he touched his creation with a strong, paint-stained finger, "I hereby invest power in you."

A burst of glittering sparks lit up the workshop and strange new eyes slowly opened.

"Aha! There!" Santa allowed himself a little gloat as he stood back to take in all of his creation. She was magnificent! Of course she was. She'd been built by _Santa Claus._

"Now then, my dear, do you know what to do?" he asked.

A sweet, matronly voice answered, "Why, yes, Santa. I know exactly what to do."

*

CHAPTER FIVE

The party lights were on at the Petersen's gingerbread Victorian. A celebration of many things - Chloe Battle landing a good job at last, Big Mama Petersen and his team defeating that rogue yeti without a scratch on anyone, even the monster, and the Kitas...er...well, all the Kitas needed a party.

"There's kale in the cake," Reginald 'Big Daddy' Petersen whispered to Chloe in the kitchen as they arranged the party food on fanciful platters. "And spinach in the brownies. I've been sneaking healthy stuff into everything." He waved a bag of prunes at her. "The kids think they're filling up on treats but they're getting protein and vitamins."

In the next room Kicki whispered to her friends, "Baaaarf, why does everything taste like weeds?"

She, and everyone else, were sprawled on or around a big, overstuffed couch. Emi was the exception, relaxing in the one easy chair like an empress on her throne.

Kicki could have shouted and not been heard. The TV was cranked up and the image was focusing, with a loud trumpet fanfare, on Santa's castle. "It's on! It's oooonnn!" the kids let everyone know.

"Coming in a minute!" Chloe answered.

Santa's Castle. Klieg lamps, new to the program this year, shot beams of powerful light into the sky as they pitched back and forth outside of the amazing front doors. The doors were yards high and wide, inset with gold, but a child could push them open. The trumpets were joined by every brass horn ever made, an electric guitar, and loud, booming drums. Glitz! Dazzle! Hollywood!

Bleah. Honoir frowned.

Still...

Santa's Castle! Every kid's dream, and even the adults were mooning over the scene. The castle was an enormous and perfect square of white stone with a round tower at each corner. Cheery flags of silver flapped in the wind all along the ramparts. The courtyard in the middle was the Workshop itself and it was capped with an onion dome of clear glass, the panes held in swirling struts of magical gold. Through the glass the activity of the elves could be seen and the bright lights inside lit up the permanent snow of the North Pole outside with brilliant, shifting colors.

The ornate front doors finally began to swing open...

...and the program cut to a medical supply ad. " _Call now for your free catheter sample pack!"_

"Quick, someone get my phone," Jiro answered.

Polly lowered her voice to finally answer Kicki's _baaarf_ question. "Daddy's started loading treats with _stuff._ It's good for you."

Big Mama suddenly choked, "These aren't sprinkles," he said, staring in horror at a cookie in his hand.

Polly leaned over to inspect it. "Those are chia seeds, Mama."

"Chia seeds? That you smear on a pot and they grow?" he asked. Polly nodded. He stretched out a long, muscular arm and his many tattoos wiggled as he buried his cookie in the depths of the seat cushion. His guests snickered. "Ya'll didn't see that."

"Daddy swears we can't really taste it."

"He is much mistaken," Jiro said. "Pluh." He wiped off his tongue with a napkin to more amused giggles. "I think his measurements are wrong."

Honoir took a thoughtful bite of his cupcake. Was it arugula? Broccoli? Emi, twisting in her comfy chair, was stashing a spinach brownie in her purse and noticed him. "Honoir, why are you still eating that thing?" she said with surprise.

"Let the boy eat, he's gotta bulk up," Big Mama said, giving Honoir an approving whack on the arm.

Honoir liked being praised for manfully finishing his Trojan treat and smiled. "I'm not picky," he answered Emi truthfully. "But if you want something really good, eat the stuff me 'n Mom brought. We splurged," he said proudly.

They splurged. They could splurge a little bit now. Splurge, splurge, splurge.

Honoir smiled to himself as he looked around his neighbor's lovely house. He liked the Petersen's TV. It was just nineteen inches of perfectly square glass in the center of an oak-wood cabinet that also held a radio and a record player. Big Daddy said it was 'retro.' It was small. It didn't take up the house. It didn't take up the Petersen's lives. It was great.

On top of the retro was a ceramic Halloween village on a bed of bright red maple leaves. All around the walls were spider web garlands, Autumn wreaths, and happy jack-o-lanterns. Quite a contrast to the Christmas program that was taking its sweet time in appearing.

" _If you are a male and have suffered from blood clots, heart attack, stroke, or death - call us now!"_

Geez, how many commercials were there going to be? "I don't like this year's show that much," Honoir admitted.

"Treason," Jiro accused.

"Get out!" Big Mama pointed at the door.

Then he and Jiro cracked up at the look on Honoir's face but Emi was more soft-hearted. "Ignore them," she said. "I don't like the show either. It's too slick and there's too many commercials. And it's _early,_ it's not even Halloween yet. I bet people are complaining. Next year it'll be back to normal, I'm sure."

Honoir was comforted.

The TV blared on. _"Pizza Pellets, Pizza Pellets, Pizza Pellets rock! The sometime treat you should have every day!"_

On that note there was another fanfare of trumpets and the long string of commercials was broken.

Madison McCurry (INTL News) had a large microphone in front of Santa's face and he was shouting into it as if it were a weak connection to the folks on the other end. Mrs. Claus was standing next to him, looking uncomfortable for some reason but still festive in a white cardigan with silver sparklies around the neck. She was smiling at Santa's volume. His beard and mustache seemed extra curly. A sign he was truly pleased about something.

" _What new thing can we expect from the North Pole this year?"_ Madison was asking.

Santa answered, _"This year is going to be so special! I decided we could use a little more organization around the workshop! It's always such a rush, rush, rush to the finish and we all get a little tired by October!"_ A chorus line of hairy bears briefly appeared behind Santa, kicking wildly, while an unseen elf chorus yodeled the Can Can. The bears danced out of frame while Polly squealed with delight.

_"Tired and very goofy."_ Santa continued, glaring after the bears. _"With a little extra help maybe we won't get so crazy-making any more so I decided to build that little extra help!"_

" _You did what?"_ Mrs. Claus was suddenly giving her husband her full attention. _"Have you been tinkering?"_ All the elves and toys and even Madison McCurry (INTL News) stepped back. _"You haven't. You promised you wouldn't,"_ Mrs. Claus said.

" _Surprise!"_ Santa shouted.

Inside the kitchen, Chloe handed over the last tray of party nibbles to Big Daddy. "Wow, that was fast," he said, impressed. "And it's gorgeous. With little tomato roses even."

"Presentation, Reg. I can't say much about my time at Little Bill's but it did give me skills," Chloe said.

"Let's join everyone. _No,_ leave the dishes alone."

Chloe jerked her hand away from a cleaning rag.

Big Daddy grinned at her. "You're not at work now. Come have fun for a change. You know you have to celebrate."

"Celebraaaate!" Chloe sang in agreement. "Lemme grab my watch."

Big Daddy turned off the lights with the rim of a platter as he went out the swinging door to show he meant business and Chloe laughed as she was left in the dark.

She rinsed and dried her hands in the dim glow of the light coming in from under the doorway.

Then, alone in the spacious kitchen, she suddenly jumped into a graceful twirl. Watching her, one could see where Honoir got his happy smile.

She did another spin and danced around and around to joyful music only she could hear.

Behind her a shadow in a dark corner lengthened into the shape of a tall, thin man. B straightened his cravat, put one arm behind his back, took a deep, quiet breath, and shyly reached for her hand.

"Mom, Mom, Mom!"

"Honoir?"

The lights blazed on again and the shadow disappeared.

"Honoir, what is it?" Chloe gasped.

Honoir had his hand on the light switch. "Are you dancing in the dark?"

"You bet! Good exercise," she said, glaring down at him. "Now is someone choking? I know what to do."

Honoir rushed over and pulled on her. "Something's gone wrong at the North Pole," he said.

"What in the world?" Chloe asked.

"Santa Claus built this weird, bossy _thing_ and it's gone nuts. He called it the..."

"Oh, it's awful," Kicki butted in as she shot through the door. "Quick, come watch!" She grabbed Chloe's other arm and hauled the woman out the door.

Honoir finished what he'd started to say. "He called it the Nanny."

*

The Nanny

*

CHAPTER SIX

The Nanny was a huge and brightly painted box with a smiling face on four sides. Four faces with eight wide eyes to keep watch on everything. Bright red tentacles bursting from the top, like frightful hair, suspended her from the golden struts of the dome. She could swing on them and was swinging on them up and down the length of the workshop. More tentacles, red and white striped, issued from the bottom. They were busy. Busy painting the floor, mopping the walls, and wiping every single nose they could find.

"I do believe these creatures are unsanitary," the Nanny trilled as she pinned down a gaggle of horrified elves. They were doused with a shot of pure lemon juice and worked over with a dozen washcloths.

Did they ever protest.

"My eyes, my eyes, my eyes!"

"Owww!"

"Mrs. Claus! Heeelllp!"

"Watch where you're putting that!"

"Santaaa!"

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Santa Claus was hopping uselessly under his new creation. "Stop that! Don't do that! You don't clean people, you clean the floors and the counters and the tools!"

"Now, now, dear Santa," simpered the Nanny from on high. "I know what needs to be cleaned and how best to clean it." An elf was trying to run. The nanny whipped a tentacle around his ankle and dragged him back while he clawed at the floor.

Mrs. Claus and the Brigadier thundered to the rescue of the Nanny's lemon-fresh victims.

Madison McCurry (INTL News), her nose scrubbed raw and shiny, sidestepped a panicking teddy bear and rushed Santa. Her cameraman, he of the Awful Red Sweater, stuck very close behind her. "Mr. Claus!" she said and Santa gasped and whirled around, his white beard sticking out like porcupine quills. Madison's voice was very even and calm as she thrust her microphone at his face. "Mr. Claus, what exactly did you intend with the Nanny?"

"She's supposed to help!" Santa shouted. "Help clean up. Help wrangle the elll..." Santa coughed and thumped his chest while his eyes darted nervously down and around.

"Clean and wrangle the elves?" Madison McCurry (INTL News) finished for him and he blushed. "Are you saying the elves were out of control and dirty?"

"Yes, Santa, is that what you're saying?" said a gentle voice and Santa spun around again with a wince. The speaker was small, even for an elf, and calm, which was downright strange given the circumstances. Her hair was tied back in a severe bun and thick glasses covered half her face. She pushed them up with her finger while she waited for his answer.

"Marlee! I...uh..." Santa suddenly threw his chest out. "Where have you been? We need you!"

"A castle this size and I'm supposed to be everywhere?"

"That's...that's beside the point! Do something!"

"Okay." Marlee looked him up and down. "We quit."

*

Miles and magical worlds away from the drama was a grand haunted house. Punkin the black cat, her witch, and some illustrious guests: Tom Turkey, Uncle Sam, little Cupid with his bow and arrows, several groundhogs, leprechauns, and Easter bunnies were all watching the action from the North Pole on the silver surface of an enormous mirror.

" _We quit."_

There was a surprised silence. Then laughter loud enough to frighten the vampire bats into flight burst out.

"Ohhh, yes!" crowed one of the bunnies, ducking as a bat swooped past her long ears. "Get out of this one, O Great and Wunnerful Santa Claus."

"Who's a rock star now, huh?" Cupid wanted to know.

"Zounds!" said a groundhog with a white, lacy ruffle around his neck. "'Tis no laughing matter. Someone could get hurt."

"Oh, lighten up, Sir Wally," Tom said. "It serves 'em all right. _Gwobble."_

"Not all of them," said Punkin. She wasn't laughing either and her tail-tip was twitching. "Where is Merry Belle? Morgan, focus in on Mrs. Claus, please."

"And get me some nibbles and a soft cushion, chop chop," ordered Cupid, snapping his stubby fingers under the nose of the old witch. Morgan's only reply was to snap her fingers in return and "Bwawk?" the dimpled entity became a chicken. "What? Hey! I was only joking!"

Morgan ignored him and tapped her knobby finger on the glass. It rippled like water. When it smoothed again the everyone was shocked by what they saw. The laughter faded.

"She's got 'em," a werewolf said. "RrrRRr! She's even got Santa!"

"In his own castle? 'Tis impossible," Sir Walter said, his whiskers quivering.

Punkin hissed. "It's possible if the old fool gave her half his power. Oh, they're in big trouble."

There was an odd, almost chiming, sort of noise. Like two pieces of ivory tapping together. The noise was being made by a guest no one had noticed before. A gatecrasher. A skeleton. Not one of Punkin's. Her skeletons weren't brightly painted with blue and orange marigolds. Her skeletons didn't wear fine, pinstriped suits. He was tapping a bony finger against his jaw.

"Si, mi amigos. Big, big trouble," he murmured and shook his skull sadly.

Punkin's ears flattened to her head as the crowd startled and stared.

_El Muerte,_ the whispers rose up. _El Muerte. It's El Muerte himself. Oh, no._

His finger-bones clicked as he gestured at the images in the water. "The biggest trouble there is." He walked closer and his shadow fell over the images on the mirror as he watched carefully.

There wasn't another peep out of anyone.

*

Back at the Victorian...

"We quit."

"Oh, wow," Honoir said.

"This is awful," Emi said, and popped another chia seed cookie into her mouth.

Big Mama was thoughtful. "Remember the weather machine Santa made that one year? So everyone in the world could have a white Christmas? Those were some angry camels," Big Mama _blarrrrghed!_ like an upset beast trying to keep its hump off the ice. Chloe almost shot a bite of kale cake out of her nose, laughing.

"I liked the rain of ten-foot gingerbread men that he dropped over every capital city in America. Yum."

"The Cookie Blitz. Raleigh was half crushed," Jiro said. "Those people still aren't right."

"Those people never were," Big Mama said and his eye twitched.

"I'm sure Santa meant well," Polly said as the shaky camera panned to follow the elven walk-out. Well, their run-out. Their run-screaming-and-flailing-OUT while the Nanny's grapplers continued to polish. Marlee was the last to leave and she turned to send one last look of pure aggravation behind her before she shot out into the snow.

Kicki bounced with excitement. "There goes the news team! Look! Look!" The scene was pitching wildly now, the camera was bouncing around on a strap around the cameraman's neck, but the voices could still be heard.

Madison McCurry (INTL News) was leading the way like an Amazon Queen. _"This way! Move, move, move!"_ and her crowd of techs, plus the producer who was screaming into her cell phone, thundered towards the doors. The Nanny had put bows in their hair. The sound man looked especially cute. His bow had been folded to look like kitty ears. The nutcrackers threw open the doors, their great mouths grimacing in horror. _"Run, guys! Go! Follow the elves!"_

The camera man was captured and there was a swooping view of his kicking feet. _"No! Put me down!"_

The Nanny was cooing, _"You can tell so much about a man by his haircut. Have you ever had one? Well, it's long past time isn't it? Hold still,"_ she said.

" _I like it long!"_ the cameraman shouted and there was a thud as he landed on the floor again.

The Nanny was right behind him. _"Nonsense! I'll cut it and you'll look nice so you'll feel nice so you'll be nice. Everything is so nice! Except for that red sweater. Wherever did you get that thing?"_

" _My gran made it! Don't you touch it!"_

" _Come on, hurry!"_ Madison McCurry (INTL News) yelled. The man picked up an elf-sized chair and held off the wriggling arms while he backed out of the great doors. The scene now was nothing but white snow, spinning wildly.

"Oh, gosh, this is serious," Polly clapped a hand to her forehead while Kicki and Honoir rolled on the floor. Polly glared at them. "Don't laugh! Really. Why isn't someone stopping her?"

"Oh, not to worry, Mrs. Claus will stop her," said someone with a perfectly beautiful, somewhat English accented, voice. "She always saves the day."

Every man, woman, and child turned to stare. The voice didn't match what they saw. They saw a horrible, dark man sitting comfortably on the arm of the sofa next to Chloe. She leaned back in astonishment.

"What?" he said. "She does. She cleans up every mess that old fool makes." He glanced down at Chloe. "Hello."

"Hi?" Chloe's eye's widened. She leaned back even further.

Honoir grinned and cleared his throat. "Mom? This is my friend, B. And this is my mom, uh, Chloe." Honoir said. "Hi, B!"

The creature smiled. "Good evening."

The TV nattered on for a moment and then Big Mama Petersen slowly got to his feet. He was a big man, with muscles on muscles and tattoos overlapping tattoos, and he meant business. Literally. He was the field commander of the international Chaos Readiness and Inhuman Threat Rangers (C.R.I.T.R.) and this bizarre intruder had agency business written all over him. "And what, my friend, are you?" he asked.

The other stood up, too. He was tall and whip thin with a wild mane of black hair, some of which was tied back into a loose queue at the neck. His ragged frock coat was black, his eyes were black, he straightened the black cravat tied around his neck with long black claws. His skin was chalk white.

B sized up Big Mama and said, "While you distract everyone by answering for me, Polly, I'll make my dramatic exit."

"You're the..."

He stepped back into a dark corner and was gone. Polly's finger pointed at the spot where he'd stood and then she slowly rotated to shake it at her parents. "That was the BOGEYMAN! I told you! I told you he was real!"

And the house exploded with noise over the sound of the broadcast which continued so dramatically.

" _This is Madison McCurry, INTL News, coming to you live from the outside of Santa's... incoming! Incoming! Look out, everyone!"_

"OW!"

"AIGH!"

" _Ouch, what was that?"_

" _It's...it's fruitcake. We're being hit with fruitcake?"_

" _Oh, the humanity."_

" _That's not funny. Look out again! Run!"_

Kicki was swinging her arms every which way. "I took my Bogey Basher and I went HIIIYAH! And he said ow! And I..."

"Poor B, I always hit him with my atlas," Honoir said. "What do you do, Polly?"

Polly looked at him with wide eyes. "I throw the covers over my head. He's _scary."_

"Polly, honestly, are you afraid of everything?"

Emi was in awe. "This is amazing!"

Chloe wasn't impressed at all. "No, it isn't. That thing's been scaring my boy!"

"Mom, no, it's okay. We're friends."

"No, you're not!"

The commercials came back on. _"Unhappy? Not getting the respect you want? Want to retire early? Then call an attorney and sue, sue, sue! Call today!"_

"Don't worry, Angel, I'll get that thing," Big Mama promised.

The adults all shouting at once drowned out the excited babble of the children and even the loud TV.

Outside, alone in the cool October air, the Bogeyman stood and listened. The wind blew a golden aspen leaf into his black hair and he idly picked it out with a claw. Chloe appeared in the window, waving her hands. She sounded the least happy of all.

He sighed and held up the leaf. He closed one eye. There was a shimmer and her silhouette was etched on it, a warm, brown portrait against the yellow. He tucked it carefully into his vest pocket.

Then he turned and, escaping into the shadow of a nearby tree, went home.

*

Santa in Distress

*

CHAPTER SEVEN

"So much that needs to be organized and streamlined and perfected!" the Nanny enthused to her captives. The Clauses and their three chief Helper Toys were dangling high in the air by tentacles that couldn't seem to decide whether to grip them firmly or not.

A pretty, porcelain doll suddenly fell with a shriek.

"Princess!" the Brigadier uselessly reached for her.

Just before she hit the Nanny scooped her up by her foot. Her crown flew off and shattered on the hard floor. Slowly she was lifted again.

"Oh, my poor dear," said the Brigadier.

Princess fought her bright yellow skirts to pull herself upright. The Brig was blushing. Yes, wood can blush.

"I'm...I'm all right," she said. "Darling." Porcelain can blush, too.

Bertram the bear sniggered, "Oh, what timing. Whurf!"

"Hush, Bertram," said Mrs. Claus.

The Nanny was still blathering, all of her faces switching from one prisoner to the other. "What a terrible mess. I arrived just in time. And, I'm afraid, you four are in the way." Santa Claus was moved back as she sadly addressed the others, her tentacles carelessly banging them together. "I'm sure you agree. Don't you agree?"

Bertram growled and the Brig dropped his swagger stick. It hit the floor with a clatter among the sparkling remains of Princess's crown. "I was soooo hoping you Helpers, and Mrs. Claus, would help me in this time of transition but there's a clear difference in objectives that are proving too difficult to overcome so I believe I'm going to have to let you go. Furthermore..." the Nanny continued on and on.

"Is she going to talk us to death?" Bertram asked.

"Apparently so," said the Brigadier, "Courage all."

"She's not listening to anything we say. Maybe Santa forgot to install ears," Princess said.

"Whrowf!" Bertram growled. "Just ears?" All three twisted awkwardly until they were able to glare at Santa. "He forgot all sorts of things."

Santa glared back. "Merry Belle, can't you hear what your people are saying to me?"

Mrs. Claus's fingertips were slowly tapping together. "Brace yourself for what I'm going to say to you."

Santa wilted.

The Nanny finally wound up with, "...displaying an appalling lack of safety, hygiene, and personal accountability. But!" She brightened. "Luckily I've built little Helpers of my very own!"

"What? When?" said Santa. "I just woke you!"

"And you left me alone in your workshop while you cleaned up and got dressed for the broadcast. Plenty of time!"

"She works quick and carelessly. Just like you," Mrs. Claus said and Santa looked at her with hurt eyes. "You agreed to stick to toys," she said. "No more overnight inventions."

"This wasn't a, uh..." Santa switched gears. "I can fix her, don't worry."

"He can fix her, he says," Bertram mocked.

"I'm Santa Claus! If anyone can make this right, I can."

"Ohhhh, you're lucky I can't reach you right now," Mrs. Claus said.

The Nanny interrupted. Really, she never stopped. "Heeere they aaare! Here are Nanny's little helpers. Mr. Chucklypuff and his Fun Squad! Everyone loves a clown."

Several large, bullet shaped automatons with clown paint splattered onto their metal casings came clanking into view. They were led by an enormous robot on tank treads that had _(yikes)_ chainsaws for arms. Their frozen stares and leering grins made everyone cringe.

"We're rebuilding, dears," the Nanny cooed to them. "We'll make it all clean and efficient, won't we? You," She thrust Princess and Bertram forward. Panels opened in the smooth side of one of the robots and large pipe-arms unfolded to grab them. Ugly but they worked. "Take these two out. And you!" She handed over the Brigadier and Mrs. Claus to another clown with a red nose and enormous pincers. "Take these two. Throw them all out. Make sure they don't get back into the castle again. They're not safe or efficient or sanitary or nice at all."

As she was dragged to the wide front doors Mrs. Claus shouted, "Nicholas! There's going to be trouble when I get back!" And then she was flung out into the wind and the ice. Santa gulped.

"She won't come back." The Nanny pulled Santa closer to her main smiling face. "But _you_ will stay here in a controlled and safe environment. I need all the magic you have left. I have plans."

"I command you to stop!"

"Tsk, Santa, you're such a goofy man." Her coils looped in a happy way. "I'm in charge of the Workshop now, remember?"

Santa remembered and wished he didn't.

The Nanny said, "Now, first of all, wood is porous. It collects nastiness in every tiny hole. It has to go if we want the workshop to be clean. And we do. We _so_ do."

"We do?! What?"

"Mr. Chucklypuff!" The robot revved alertly. "And all the rest of you, strip this place clean!" the Nanny commanded. "Every last chip must go."

Panels opened on all the clowns to reveal crude, strong weapons of destruction. Mallets, saws, rippers. Mr. Chucklypuff fired up his chainsaw arms with a _BBBRRRRRZZZZZ!_

They attacked. Metal ripped through the warm, gleaming wood of the workshop. Finely carved workbenches and slides polished to a warm glow by hundreds of years of moving toys went up in a violent fountain of splinters. Metal pincers grabbed the silks and tapestries that decorated the stone walls and ripped them down. _Crash!_ There was a terrific clang as the cranes were shoved over, their strong arms bent and their cables limp.

"Save anything made of metal," the Nanny decided. "We'll make more little friends out of them."

"No!" Santa cried. "No, stop this! Stop everything you're doing!" The chainsaws revved again and Mr. Chucklypuff's arms extended to saw down the middle of one of the longest workbenches. The one where the elves made magical pony toys. Plush multicolored fur, silken unicorn horns, and feathers off pegasus wings were crushed under Mr. Chucklypuff's tank treads.

The sports toys went down next. Footballs, running shoes, catchers mitts, volleyballs, cricket bats, and hockey sticks were churned into shreds.

The electronic games died in a buzzing squawk.

Books were torched.

The sweet smell of smoke and fresh sawdust rose as Santa's home was torn apart beneath him. He uselessly kicked in the Nanny's direction. "How dare you? You monster!" Strong oak beams were mercilessly chopped down, inlaid plaques and lovely medallions were ripped from the walls, and furniture, elf-sized and beautifully turned, was smashed.

The debris was swept away as soon as it hit the floor.

Santa's heart broke.

*

CHAPTER EIGHT

"Madison, would you call this an act of terrorism?" said the Chief news anchor, Cole Kolar, from the warm comfort of his studio desk.

Madison McCurry (INTL News), standing knee-deep in ice while a harsh wind pushed at her, didn't call Kolar an egg-sucking dingaling but the look in her eyes told the world she was thinking it. _"No, Cole, this is an act of piracy. The Nanny continues to make drastic changes to the castle in the two days since her very hostile takeover,"_ she pointed to the gold and glass dome that had been blacked out from the inside. The colorful flags were gone and no lights were burning. The castle was grey and dark. Suddenly appropriate to the Halloween season, it was a place Dracula could happily call home.

Madison went on, _"In that time, two attempts to retake the castle have failed. And there is still no sign of Santa Claus."_ She turned to indicate a separate longhouse of a building. _"The refugees have dug in here at the reindeer stables and are waiting for the next step, whatever Mrs. Claus decides that to be."_

Kolar leaned forward, frowned with all the heavy gravity he had, and asked, "Madison, is it cold at the North Pole?"

*

In the stables the magical fires that warmed and illuminated the place were burning miserably low. It barely mattered. So many elves, Helper Toys, reindeer, and humans were crammed inside that it was almost toasty.

Everyone was bruised and damaged, even the news team. They'd held back and reported on the first assault on the castle. They'd bravely joined in on the second. Both attempts, as reported, had failed.

Mrs. Claus, her white cardigan grungy and missing several sparklies, was sitting on a hay bale and holding a snow globe in her hand. Occasionally she'd shake it, watch the silver glitter swirl around a tiny igloo inside, and hold it to her ear.

Her nearest and dearest were seated or sprawled around her. The Brigadier's foot had been snapped off. He was stoically whittling what was left of his leg into a peg. Bertram's stuffing was coming out at the seams and Princess was sewing him with yarn unraveled from the ugly red sweater. The cameraman had decided that Gran would understand. Princess's fine yellow gown had seen better days, too. She'd wrapped what material was left around herself in a pretty sort of sari.

Vixen the Diva Reindeer was stamping around and around in a circle, wailing "I need my space, I need my space! I can't think with all these people here!"

Blitzen glared at her. "If you don't shut up you'll be keeping warm outside in the manure pile."

Dancer tried to make peace, "Vix, take a flight and calm down."

"I don't feel like flying! I'm upset! My nerves have nails in them and you're all just sitting there. Nobody cares about my feelings or what I'm going through." She bleated like a goat, "What about meee?"

"Urgh, what a princess," said Princess as she finished sewing Bertram. The red yarn was actually lovely against his blue fur. She gave him a pat and he looked at her gratefully.

Vixen was insulted. "What? What did you call me? What did she call me?"

Marlee stalked in. She was covered in soot and both lenses of her eyeglasses had cracks in them. Behind her staggered a troop of tough and grim elves, also covered in ash and in need of bandages. Quite a change from the party-hearty crew of before. "Be quiet, you silly ungulate," Marlee snapped. Vixen was so shocked her muzzle snapped shut. She glared at Marlee and stamped her hooves. Marlee ignored her. She stopped in front of Mrs. Claus. "We barely made it out," was her hello.

"I told you not to go! Too many of those grinning metal things."

"We're certainly not going back. Every hole is plugged and guarded. No one can get into the castle now."

Mrs. Claus shook her head. "Well, since you went anyway, has anything changed?"

"Yes, it's gotten worse. The Nanny's built a hundred more of those clowns and each one is nastier than the last. They're everywhere. Santa isn't hurt."

Mrs. Claus closed her eyes with relief.

Marlee slumped. "But he can't get free. He's in a cage in the middle of the main workshop. She's draining his magic away."

"He must have made her very powerful if she can sit on him like that," Princess's voice was low. The Brigadier held out a hand and she gently took it.

Marlee nodded. "She's still hanging from the ceiling but she's growing. She's been building on to herself. Gears here, grappling hooks there. Some sort of huge bag sewn out of the castle wall-hangings. For why I don't know." She looked up at the roof of the stable, remembering, and shivered.

Everyone was pitched into a disgusted gloom.

Mrs. Claus chuckled humorlessly. "My," she said. "He's certainly outdone himself this time. At least the castle is isolated, way out here at the top of the world. She can't go trampling down some poor town's main street."

"And I still quit. I'm just being nice now." Marlee said.

"Thank you, Marlee, you're incredibly brave. You're all so brave," Mrs. Claus said and smiled with real affection at the elves. Marlee made an _oh, pshaw_ gesture.

There was a sad pause and then the water globe in Mrs. Claus's hand lit up with a green, fiery glow. She almost dropped it. Clutching it in both hands she peered in. In the middle of the glow was an image of the black cat. She was glaring, her whiskers drooping.

"Er. Punkin? Where have you been?" Mrs. Claus finished.

"What's her problem?" Bertram whispered as quietly as a grizzly bear could.

Mrs. Clause sat the globe on the ground so everyone could see what was going on.

"I got your message, Merry Belle. It took you long enough to call me." Punkin said, and she sighed. "And, of course, I'll help." Mrs. Claus was relieved but Punkin wasn't finished. "I've called on the C.R.I.T.R. rangers to defeat the Nanny and I've prepared Ash Abbey on Murklurk Island for all of you. Haunted with ghost monks, of course."

Mrs. Claus wasn't expecting that. "What?!"

"We're on our way now to pick you up. You can stay with us as long as you need. When Big Mama Petersen's team clears the workshop out we'll help you rebuild."

"But Punkin," Mrs. Claus gasped, "I'm sure we can retake the castle ourselves if you joined us!"

"You mean fight?" Punkin's black fur spiked all down her backbone. "Put my people in danger, and put you in further danger, to bail out _Santa?_ That overblown goof ? Again? And again. And again! No."

Mrs. Claus went red. "Oh."

Punkin's whiskers quivered. "I'm so sorry, Merry Belle. I've had enough. Be glad I didn't call a Holiday Conclave to deal with his latest mistake. Of course," she looked to her left anxiously. "Of course, they might just show up anyway."

"For shame!" Princess cried.

"Well, I'm not running off to any ghost-abbey, I assure you," the Brigadier declared.

"You can't run anywhere, Stumpy," Bertram pointed out. "Whulf."

"Oh, quiet, Bertram."

"Comet has more hay than I do!" Vixen wailed.

Mrs. Claus finally pulled her coach's whistle out of her pocket and gave it a blast. The uproar dwindled to nothing as she focused on the snow globe.

"Punkin?" she said. "I understand. Believe me, I understand entirely and thank you. Also give my thanks to C.R.I.T.R. and we're very glad for their help."

"What?" Her people couldn't believe it.

Even the news crew was aghast. "Outsiders?" Madison McCurry (INTL News) shouted. "No!" She shook a club wrapped with jingle bells.

"No!" shouted the elves loud enough to vibrate the walls.

Mrs. Claus held up a hand and silence fell again. "Punkin's right. We need all the experts this time. Everyone get ready to bug out."

*

At 240 Avery Lane the _vwoooop!_ of an electric screwdriver filled the turret, almost drowning out the sound of the newscast. Big Mama put the tool on the floor, grabbed the fourth leg of Polly's canopy bed, and popped it out. The bed landed with a thud with no space whatsoever between the frame and the floor.

"Now try to hide under there, you ugly scumbag," Big Mama muttered and stood. "Need some help with that?" he asked.

"Nope," Big Daddy neatly removed Polly's closet door with a jerk. Usually a shared chore was enjoyable with rock 'n roll blaring, laughter, and the inevitable shouting match over who was doing what incorrectly. Not this time. They were ashamed and angry. Big Mama was also embarrassed. They really hadn't believed Polly when she'd said every child's nightmare was under her bed, muttering that she would never get into Harvard.

She forgave them the moment she was proven right but they were having a hard time forgiving themselves.

The downstairs TV was on and they could just hear the news. _"Two attempts to retake the castle have failed. The North Pole refugees have dug in here at the reindeer stables and are waiting for the next step, whatever Mrs. Claus decides that to be."_

The house phone rang. The two men looked at each other. "I bet that's for you," Big Daddy said.

"Yep," the soldier went to answer it. It was a brief call and he reappeared in the door, cracking his knuckles.

"Yep," he said again. "The team's headed up North. Mrs. Claus needs a little help taking out the trash."

"I'll pack your long-johns," Big Daddy sighed.

*

CHAPTER NINE

A short time, and a great distance, later C.R.I.T.R.'s rescue wasn't going very well.

"Why wasn't I told there were clowns?!" Big Mama howled at Mrs. Claus as he ran past.

"We told you about the robots!" Mrs. Claus called after him.

"You didn't say they were robot _clowns!"_

One of his operatives managed to catch up, her legs working furiously. "Ah, sir? I think we've retreated far enough. Sir?"

From the castle's great doors came the sound of chainsaws and the clang and clatter of very dangerous junk. And lots of it.

"Sir? Stop, sir!"

" _Hundreds of Clowns!"_

The rest of the team pelted after him. "Sir! Come back!"

"Sir, wait for us, sir!"

"Sir, what are your orders?!"

"Sir, what do we do?"

"SIIIIIRRRRR?!"

Mrs. Claus watched as the squad passed her one by one. Their white camouflage coats blended in with the blowing snow and ice and then they were simply _gone._ She stared at the point where they vanished.

Her "Are you kidding me?" was swallowed up by the wind.

It was a cold and lonely trudge back to the stables.

*

CHAPTER TEN

Three children got off the school bus and headed for home. Honoir kicked up the October leaves until he realized his friends didn't have the heart to join in. He slowed and tried to be a little more, uh, quiet.

"Mama's at the North Pole by now," Polly said with a stoic face. Galahad was in her arms. "I had a terrible dream last night."

"Yeah?"

"One of the Nanny's tentacles went wrapping around his neck."

"Ooh, that's bad."

"I was so scared I fell out of bed." Polly did kick a leaf then but it wasn't a fun kick. "Good thing I don't have far to fall anymore. Daddy's really worried. And I'm worried. And..."

"Mmhm," Kicki said. "My Daddy's tired, tired to pieces all the time. But he just tells stupid jokes. Kryptonite poisoning? Do they think I'm stupid?"

Honoir kept his mouth shut.

He felt bad for them. He truly did. But yesterday his Mom was home _all day_. They'd worked their way through a big bowl of red grapes while they both looked at apartment listings and the old Philco radio blared rock 'n roll throughout the attic. There'd been newspapers scattered all over the floor, a laptop in her lap, and a phone glued to her ear.

Her free finger had been plugged into the other ear to block Maw Maw's whining at the bottom of the stairs. "You can't leave! What about me? Who's gonna take care of me?"

"You've never had a problem taking care of yourself before we came here, Mama," Chloe said. "And you'll be fine after we leave." She winked at Honoir.

If he knew how to paint he'd have painted that scene, gone to Paris, and hung it up in the Luge. Loov. Thing. Museum. Whatever.

Escape at last! The sky was a brilliant blue, the leaves were a brilliant gold, and Honoir could smell brilliant wood smoke in the cool, brilliant Autumn air. Life was brilliant! For him anyway.

Arrrgh, it was so hard not to be able to talk about how happy you were.

"Are you humming, Honoir?"

"No! Clearing my throat. Uh." He searched for a safe subject. "So, uh, what are ya'll going to be for Halloween?"

Polly thought about it. "I think I'll be Mary Poppins."

"You _are_ Mary Poppins. I'm going to be a ninja," Kicki said.

Polly turned on her, "You always go as a ninja. Be something different."

"I dare you to be a pink unicorn, Kicki," Honoir said, smiling.

"I do, too," Polly said. "And not a pink unicorn ninja."

"I'll be a zombie ninja."

"No! You are _not_ a ninja! Of any kind!"

"I am _so_ a nin...!"

A strange clap of wind hit the street and the leaves blew out in all directions. They flew into the kids' faces and they ducked or jumped back.

Why was it so dark? Honoir looked up.

Something huge was up there. A weird chopping sound vibrated through the air.

Kicki spat a leaf out. "Ohhhh, look!"

"What is that?"

Honoir was awed. It was a blimp? Some sort of blimp, yes. Not the shiny and sleek Goodyear kind but a hot mess that looked like it couldn't, and shouldn't, be in the air at all. The undercarriage had been slapped together out of cracked planks of wood and the balloon was sewn like a crazy quilt out of what looked like flags and bedsheets.

"Face!" Kicki shouted and pointed. "It's got a face!"

"Faces," Polly corrected.

A box with four faces was attached to the prow. No, it was _clinging_ on! It was looking down. Looking down on _them_ with big, googly eyes. Watching them with glee. Suddenly red and white tentacles were streaming, finlike, from all sides. It looked like a great poisonous jellyfish up there.

Polly let out a whine of sheer terror.

"Helloooo?" the airship trilled and the volume rattled the trees and set off three car alarms.

"Is that the Nanny?" Kicki almost keeled over backwards from trying to take in the whole thing. "It can't be."

"It's the Nanny," Polly whispered.

Honoir felt like he'd just stepped in front of a train. "Yeah, it is."

"Am I addressing little Polly Petersen down there?" blasted out over the town.

Several heartbeats went past.

"Heeeelllloooo?"

Honoir broke out of it first. "No, sorry!" he shouted back. "This is Juanita Jones!" He grabbed Polly by the arm and yanked her backwards.

"Oookayy, it's on," Honoir whispered. "C'mon, guys, let's get inside somewhere." His voice was perfectly calm. "Walk." Kicki grabbed Polly's other arm and the three of them began to walk away, steadily, quietly, as if to sneak by their school principal. No eye contact. You're not noticed if you don't make eye contact.

Doors were opening all up and down the lane.

Nearby, Big Daddy came out of the Victorian. He took one look and went back in. He reappeared with a baseball bat in his hand. Polly sped up. Beyond him the Kitas were already in the street. Kicki squeaked when she saw them. _She_ sped up. Far in the distance Honoir saw his mother and Maw Maw step out into the yard and gape upwards. Honoir started to quickstep, too, he couldn't help it.

Now the kids were power walking.

Honoir wanted to cry. He'd been so happy just a minute ago.

"Helloooo down there?" The blimp was following them like a determined rain cloud. "Miss Petersen!" blared out again. "I know that's you! And I've decided that it would be best for you, and your sweet little friends, too, of course, to come for a good _long_ visit to Nanny's Workshop! Won't that just be wonderful?" The tentacles were extending down towards them, reaching and writhing. "It'll be magical!"

"Mama," Polly gasped. "Mama must've lost. But Mama doesn't lose!"

"He lost," Kicki said. "Run!"

The entire neighborhood obeyed. Honoir, Kicki, and Polly shot towards Big Daddy while Chloe left her mother in a cloud of dust. Maw Maw bolted back inside the Pink Pit and slammed the door. The Kitas were charging.

A red and white tentacle reached for Polly but Big Daddy got there first. He swung the bat wildly. Bulls eye, the tentacle snapped with a flash. It plopped to the street, limp as a dead snake.

"Ooh, don't do that!" the Nanny protested.

Another coil wrenched the bat from his hands and bowled it and him down the street toward the Kitas. He sent them flying. The girls screamed.

Honoir realized his throat hurt. Ah, he was screaming, too. This was bad. This was so bad. Honoir jumped between his friends and jerked Kicki out of the way of another writhing horror. Then he shoved Polly to safety. Then he was dragging both girls in loops all over the street while the tentacles tied themselves into knots trying to keep up. Very much like protecting two quarterbacks. Illegal moves but they worked. "Hut one! Hut twooo!"

"Hold still, please!" fell onto their heads from above.

This was so, so, so bad. "Mom!" Honoir shouted.

Emi was crawling to her feet and her husband, pale and sweating, was getting up, too. "Please, Jiro, you can't," Emi begged. "Stay down!"

"I'm fine," he wheezed at her.

"Get under something!" Big Daddy lurched to his feet as Chloe sprinted past towards her son.

"Look out!" Honoir shouted but she'd been flung back already. "Mom!"

Chloe staggered up again and frantically waved at him to "Go, go, GO!"

Jiro was up, too, at last. "Get under cover!"

"Daddy!" Kicki bawled while Honoir finally made it out of the open street and shoved his friends under the carport of the nearest house.

"This thing won't hold," Kicki gasped and threw down her book bag. Honoir couldn't believe he still had his backpack on and he shrugged it off. Polly lightened her own load but she clung tight to Galahad. Kicki was right. Nasty red and white coils began to feel around under the edge of the rickety structure. Then, with a screech of tearing tin, the carport was ripped away and flung down the street. It crashed into an oak tree and a shower of loose acorns pattered to the ground.

The kids didn't see any of that, they were under the house, crawling through piles of dirt, rotting leaves, and rusted tin cans.

"Has everyone had their tetanus shot?" Polly asked and Honoir almost laughed.

There was a tearing, groaning sound.

Kicki flinched. "Who lives here?"

Crash! The kids could hear someone shouting above their heads. "I'm callin' the police!"

"That's Miss Nell," Honoir said. "This is her house. Aw, no..."

Polly was horrified. "Miss Nell's so nice. She always buys my Girl Scout cookies."

Dust and crud rained down on their heads.

Miss Nell was nice, yes, but furious. "Cal! Cal, a giant squid's attacking the house! Bring me my shotgun!"

"I can't find it, Mumuh!"

"We shouldn't have ducked under here," Honoir said. "Let's get out."

"No, the Nanny'll get me," Polly gasped.

"Polly," Kicki pushed her. "Come on!"

"No, I said!" Polly was flattening herself against the ground like a trapped animal.

There was another snapping crash and a cold, fresh wind hit them. "Come out, my dears! Really, you are being most intransigent! This is not at all in the Christmas spirit!"

"I'll show you Christmas spirit!" the old lady bellowed. "You just come on down here! Come down!"

"Mumuh! Now I can't find the shells!" Cal shouted.

"Miss Nell's going to lose her house if we don't move, Polly. We gotta go," Honoir said and wished he hadn't. Polly was getting worse. But losing a home was bad. So bad. He knew how bad it was. "This is so bad."

"She's going to get me," Polly repeated as if he were two years old.

"She going to get _us_ ," he answered. "C'mon. We'll all be together, at least."

"Don't make me cry, Honoir!" Polly wailed.

The house groaned again.

Honoir pointed. "Woodchuck Park is that way. We'll get under the big trees. She won't be able to reach us under there."

Polly communed with Galahad for a moment. Then, "Okay," was all she said. She put her teddy bear in her mouth like a lion carrying a cub and began to crawl towards fresh air. Honoir was proud of her.

They reached an old lattice under the porch. It was covered by last year's dead clematis. Honoir broke through the thin, dry wood and crumbling vines with one sweep of his arm and the kids rushed out into the light.

While the Nanny was distracted by Miss Nell ("You're a shouty, rude little person!") one good sprint saw them to the edge of the trees.

They made it to the roots of a live oak, 300 years old and enormous, with gnarled branches bigger than normal trees trailing across the ground and into the sky.

Chloe spotted her son disappearing into the labyrinth of the oak's roots just as the Nanny did. The blimp left Miss Nell's house. Chloe shouted for her friends and took off. The Nanny reached the tree and began to probe around, shoving enormous limbs aside as easily as a gardener weeding. A shower of twigs and yellow leaves flew into the air. Chloe could see the odd flash of one kid or another but usually Honoir. He was a big boy and his jacket was a bright blue. She had a stupid thought _(why don't I dress him in camo?)_ and then she heard a loud creak. The tree was weakening. She heard a faint "Mom!" and put on speed.

"Leave him alone!" Chloe screamed. "Leave my baby alone!"

"You're done! You're toast!" Big Daddy was swinging at the air. "We're going to get you, Nanny, sweartagod!"

"Kicki, it's okay!" shouted Jiro who had, amazingly, kept up. "We're coming!"

Emi saved her breath for running.

The adults finally reached the Nanny's dark shadow and the roots of the tree. "I can't see," Jiro groused.

Chloe, eyes scanning for Honoir in the gloom, tripped and went flying.

She was caught by someone she really didn't want to see again.

"Try not to break yourself, love," the Bogeyman said.

"Not you, too!"

"Well, pardon my intrusion." Chloe yanked him into a hug. She felt him gasp.

A large tree limb hit the spot where he'd been standing. "Look out!" Chloe yelled up into his face just a bit late and then she let him go and pushed him away.

He stared after her as she ran around him. "Ah. Thank you?" he said and then he rushed to catch up.

Chloe's eyes had adjusted to the gloom and she spotted the kids. They'd ducked into an enormous bole in the oak's trunk where many generations of children before them had played. There was no roof of leaves in the Autumn. From the air it was a sad place to hide. Polly was pulled out by the arm. Her friends seized her legs and they were dragged forth, too.

"No!" Chloe screamed.

"Come along, then, Pollykins!" tweetled the Nanny. "This tree is dangerous. You might fall or get bitten by a squirrel or..."

"I'll get them," volunteered the Bogeyman, of all people, and he faded away into the shadows. He reappeared just under Polly and jerked her down. He sent her spinning into Kicki. "Get down and stay down!" he barked and slashed a groping tentacle with his claws.

To Chloe's amazement, the children obeyed. Maybe, at this moment, he was a take-charge adult and not the Monster Under the Bed.

"Look out, B!" Honoir yelled as he tumbled back down the tree.

"I see it." The Bogeyman slashed again. "Boo!" Another tentacle was destroyed. "Leave it, hag! Go home!"

"Dangerous! That thing is most definitely dangerous!" yowled the Nanny as she shook her sparking stumps. "What is it? What is that horrible creature?"

From somewhere inside the wooden disaster of the blimp, she produced one of the Klieg lights that had swirled around outside of Santa's castle on the day of the broadcast. There was a burst of magical sparks and she clicked it on as if it were a flashlight.

The beam hit the Bogeyman, "Aigh!" and he fell.

Bumping over every knot, branch, and kink on his way down, he hit the ground hard. "Dreadful, nasty, unsafe thing." The Nanny kept the light on him as if she were melting butter with a blowtorch. He groaned as he curled up, his arms protecting his head. He began to fade. "Ah, look, it doesn't like light," the Nanny gloated.

"Stop!" Chloe sprang forward and shoved him into the shadow of a matted overhang of branches. It was like pushing a ghost around, he had barely any substance at all. "Stay under there," she ordered and then screamed as a red and white belt wrapped around her waist and flung her away.

"Enough!" shouted the Nanny and she actually sounded annoyed. "I really don't have the time to play with you awful people any more. Polly! We're leaving, young lady. Now!"

"You can't do this!" Emi shrieked.

"Of course I can. See?"

Several tentacles found what they were looking for. The children were jerked up, wailing, into the sky. The blimp sucked them in like a bloated toad retracting its long, sticky tongue.

"Nooo!"

Polly dropped Galahad. Chance was vicious, the teddy bear landed right at Big Daddy's feet. He dropped his Louisville Slugger and picked it up. Emi picked up the bat. Someone needed to be armed.

"Ah, there we aaare," sang that nasty, sweet voice. "Good. Now we're all going to take a little trip. Please be seated. Sit! Isn't this nice?" The airship slowly turned in the sky until it pointed due North. "A nice little vacation from life's many problems like your horrible, no good, very bad parents, that shadowy man creature, traffic gridlock, hairballs, the tsetse fly..."

"No, give her back!" Emi threw Big Daddy's bat like a boomerang. It was a strong throw but it fell far short. The airship blasted away and the shock wave pushed the parents over.

Chloe gasped in fear and anger and...the tree was still groaning. She looked up.

It was getting bigger? _It was falling!_ The Live Oak was coming down, its trunk twisting and snapping with a sound like cannon fire, and it blocked the light as it fell.

She had just enough time to scream.

Strong hands took hold of her and pulled her into the shadows.

*

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Nanny's list of bad things was a long one. "...bullies, the ozone layer or frightful lack thereof, the economy, video piracy, bad breath, teachers that can't teach, foot fungus..."

"Monsters that won't shut up," Honoir muttered. His butt was asleep. He was sitting on the floor of the bare and cold carriage of the blimp. Weird thing. It looked like someone had torn a fine mansion to pieces and then slapped it back together to make the airship. Some of the wood had carvings of holly, snowflakes, and leaping reindeer.

Oh, duh, _not_ a mansion, then. The Workshop. The Nanny had wrecked the Workshop. Honoir tiredly rubbed his face.

Polly was clamped to his side. Clearly she'd decided that he was her new bear and Honoir wanted to scoot away but she was crying and _arrrgh._ Kicki roamed around and around them like a circling shark. She'd occasionally kick the air, the walls, Honoir ("Ow.") and once she jumped up and kicked herself.

It was getting colder.

"...the plight of the Sumatran tigers, tooth decay, acid reflux..."

"Kidnapping?" Honoir asked the ceiling.

"...acne, politicians, poisonous house plants, rabbits, forest fires..."

Polly let go of Honoir, to his relief, and started to shout back. "Shut uuup! What did you do to Mama? To Pete Petersen?"

"Nothing, dear," the Nanny answered and the children were surprised by the direct answer. "He took one look at Mr. Chucklypuff and his Fun Squad and, goodness, a man that big running away on top of the new fallen snow? Amazing. But he was trying to attack me and that was so incredibly rude. I decided he wasn't a good influence on you or your sweet little friends. You've been rescued!"

"Chucklepoofy?"

"Chucklypuff, dear, Mr. Chucklypuff. Everyone loves a clown!"

Polly's eyes opened wide and she took hold of Honoir again. "Oh," she said. "Clowns."

"Clowns?"

"Mama has coulrophobia. A fear of clowns."

"You're kidding."

The Nanny interrupted, "You'll love your new home at the workshop, dear. Now that I've cleaned and perfected it. In the outside world, however, and sadly, there's rabies, ingrown toenails, reality shows, potholes..."

*

Chloe swung her fists but you can't land one on a shadow. She had a sickening sensation of tumbling end over end. And she was. "Oh!" She was falling, falling, falling down a long and beautifully furnished (?!) shaft. Chairs, tables, writing desks, and ravens flashed past her as she traveled gently down, down, down.

A fear of landing on her head had her kicking her feet until she stopped rolling. She drifted down, toes first, like a floating ballerina.

She watched tea trays and twinkling bats go flashing by. The tea cups had patterns of red and white roses.

Chloe passed glass oil lamps cheerfully glowing and she calmed as she recognized the place. "Curiouser and curiouser," she said.

"What?" Emi gasped, her hair blowing upwards. She was wrapped around Jiro like a monkey. His eyes were open and wide in disbelief. Big Daddy was doubled up, eyes tight shut, his arms clamped over his head.

"Look. Look everyone," Chloe said and snatched a jar off a passing shelf. "It's an empty jar of marmalade."

"A what?"

"We're down the rabbit hole! This is what Alice saw when she followed the White Rabbit into Wonderland." She was just able to put the jar back on another shelf.

"This doesn't look like the Disney movie," Emi said.

"It was a _book._ It _is_ a book. One of my favorites," Chloe said.

She noticed a shadow falling next to her. It wasn't hers. It was the Bogey... Chloe shook her head. She could still hardly believe it. Him. This.

"B?" she said. She gave him a light kick. "B?"

The Bogeyman groaned.

Chloe didn't like his looks. Well, he was always frightening but she could actually see the diamond pattern of the wallpaper right through him.

Chloe swam through the air until she could reach him with her hands. "Uh...B?" she asked and shook his collar. "Wake up, please."

"Nooo," he protested.

"Sorry, but you have to."

He took a deep breath. He opened his eyes. Their slow plunge slowed even more.

And then they landed.

Chloe did not land on her feet. None of them did but hitting the surface of _whatever_ didn't hurt. There was a violent rocking and a splashing sound.

Chloe carefully sat up. She was sprawled on a square raft of logs that was pleasantly floating along on a wide, slow river, its dark water reflecting the lights of passing riverboats. Their white paddlewheels churned and music and laughter sounded on board. There was a green, cool smell of river water with a taste of smoke in it.

"Oh, the Mississippi," she guessed. _"Huckleberry Finn."_

The Bogeyman's transparency left entirely and he weakly smiled up at her. "You read the classics," he said. "Be still, my heart."

Emi said. "You can look now, Reg. The eagle has landed."

Big Daddy raised his head and sighed with relief.

"Is everyone all right?" Chloe asked and felt guilty for not asking sooner. She braced herself as the Bogeyman gripped her arm and hauled himself up onto his elbow. "Are you?" she asked.

"It lives yet," he said.

Emi sighed as deeply as Big Daddy had. "I'm good. I feel like I've been rolled in a cement truck for an hour but I'm...I'm good."

Big Daddy had Polly's bear in his hands. "I'm all right," he finally said.

"Jiro?" Chloe asked. He was definitely not okay but he nodded.

"Yourself?" finished the Bogeyman. They braced on each other and slowly stood. The raft rocked again.

"I'm good, too," Chloe said and it was true enough.

She thought of Honoir and turned to her host. "Now," she said to him, all business. "Now, that psycho octopus has our kids. Can you get them back?"

The Bogeyman took out a silver pocket watch and opened it. A tiny moon and sun circled his hand. He shook his shaggy head. "It's still day out there." He clicked the watch shut and put it away. "And the Ninny has that light."

Chloe's hands balled into fists and she bowed her head.

The Bogeyman gazed on her face for a moment. He straightened. "Let's get a look at them, at least," he said.

He reached into a different pocket, rustled around, and took out a monocle on a thin gold chain. He gave it a twirl then flicked it over the side of the raft. It spun end over end, the chain whipping around. It grew larger, the gold of the frame and the glass thinning with each flip. It stopped. A disc, thinner than a soap bubble and the size of a hula hoop, hovered just over the water. The delicate glass became milky.

"Look inside," B said and beckoned them closer with a graceful, clawed hand.

The parents gathered and looked eagerly in.

A gooey-sweet voice was heard.

"...the poisonous spur of the male duck-billed platypus, drought, six piles of cat vomit waiting for you at home after a long day at work, forgetting Daylight Savings, someone reading your diary, bitey otters..."

"Ugh, that's her," Big Daddy muttered. The fog in the glass cleared. "And that's her!" he shouted with joy as his daughter appeared. She was smoothing her hair with dignity. All three kids were sitting back to back in a little clutch of disgruntlement on a rough wooden floor.

Chloe exhaled for about a year. They were fine. Honoir was fine. He was even drowsing.

"Would you mind going a little lower in the atmosphere?" Polly asked irritably and Big Daddy let out a sound that was part snort of relief and part laugh. "It's cold this high up and we just have jackets."

The Nanny seemed amused. "There's still several degrees left to go before you start to freeze. But that won't happen, my magic is protecting you. And we'll be at the Workshop in no time. Isn't it wonderful? After all, you're getting away from blowflies, chicken pox, lost spoons, gangrene, bad haircuts..."

"I'm going to write a book about this." Polly said to her friends. _"A Girl's Adventure at the North Pole_ with pictures and thirty chapters of bravery and Finney at the end."

"Finney?" Kicki asked.

"It's French," Polly answered. "It means The End. It's the fancy way of doing it. It'll make a fortune."

"Oh."

Back on the raft the parents weren't doing as well. "Someone help me, please," Emi said, her arms around Jiro. He was slowly collapsing. His skin was a nasty grey.

"Over here," Chloe said. "Let's stretch him out." All three humans rushed to help but the Bogeyman waved a hand and Jiro disappeared.

"Yeee!" Emi exclaimed.

A hammock popped into existence and unfurled. The line at each end hung on thin air. The Bogeyman made a gentle tossing motion and Jiro reappeared and dropped comfortably in.

The parents breathed again.

"Where are we anyway?" Emi asked, her eyes wide.

"In my pocket," the Bogeyman answered and drew out a glass marble from his waistcoat. It was a lovely river-water color. Emi nodded her head about twelve times and then she turned towards what she did understand. Her husband.

He didn't appreciate it much. "I'm fine, I'm fine," Jiro muttered, waving her away. She didn't move. "Stop hovering."

"Whatever is wrong with him anyhow?" the Bogeyman asked, tucking the river orb away. He clasped his hands behind his back, head cocked.

"He has a lung infection," Emi answered. "He can stay out of the hospital if he takes it easy while the antibiotics kick it out of his system. It's taking a while."

Jiro said, "It won't beat me."

"Kick it out, kick, Kicki," the Bogeyman looked at the children. Kicki had nodded off in the middle of a nose pick. She was in danger of poking her brain. "Does she know it's just an infection?"

"It's not serious," Jiro said. "I'm fine."

Emi was distracted. "And she's a child. We don't want her to worry." She smoothed Jiro's hair back.

"Well, you should know that Kicki isn't worried at all." The Bogeyman inspected a shiny, black claw. Then he looked at Emi as if he'd like to stick it in her ear. "She's utterly terrified. A girl with her imagination? She's practically barking."

Big Daddy and Chloe looked at each other and held still while both Kitas went red.

The Bogeyman rubbed it in good. "Good show, Mum and Dad, I couldn't have done better myself."

Emi turned on him. "You! You. I'm not listening to _you._ You're the monster that frightens her, not me!"

B looked down his nose at her. "No, sorry, I'm the monster that distracts her from her father's long, painful death."

"Death? He's not dying."

"Well, now we know!" the Bogeyman shouted. Emi glared at him. "By the way," the Bogeyman continued. He reached under his frock coat and, with a squeak and a pop, pulled out a wooden sword. "This, I believe, belongs to Kicki."

Emi took the sword and stared at it. Then she took it by the hilt and rounded on the dark man again. "You..."

Big Daddy suddenly stepped in between them. "Thank you!" he shouted at B. "Thank you, Mr. Bogeyman, sir, for saving our lives. And for trying to save our children."

That sucked the fighting spirit out of the air. The Bogeyman twiddled his claws and turned away while Emi looked down at her husband in despair. She handed him the sword. Jiro took it slowly.

"Yes, thank you," Emi finally said and the Bogeyman reluctantly nodded. "And now we have to get Kicki back," she said.

"I have to get to Pete," Big Daddy muttered. "I have to find out what happened. We have to make a plan." He held up the bear as if he needed to explain himself.

"Yeah, let's go," Chloe said and wiped her hands on her jeans, the very soul of readiness. "Santa's Workshop, right now."

"What?" Jiro said, looking up at each of them. "How are we supposed to get to the North Pole?"

"He can do it. He can take us there as easily as he brought us here. Right?" Chloe asked the Bogeyman.

B looked behind him. "You're talking to me?"

"We don't have any sled dogs! Yes, I'm talking to _you,"_ Chloe took a deep breath, "Am I wrong?" she asked, looking at the riverbank as the raft slowly meandered by. "You're known worldwide, you must get around. Please, can you take us?"

"I can but will I?" he asked her. "What can you possibly do?"

"I don't know what I'll do when I get there," Chloe answered honestly. "I just have to get there. My son is there."

"Mrs. Claus will fix everything."

"She hasn't yet," Chloe interrupted. "She's tried twice. And she called for Pete. Where's he?"

The Bogeyman dismissed all that. "You'll only get hurt. Or worse." Chloe silently pleaded with him, her eyes wide, until he was wilting as if he were under her light. "What can I do at the North Pole?" he wondered. "Isn't it the land of the midnight sun?" He shuddered.

"Not in October," Emi pointed out. "That far North the sun sets in September and doesn't come up again until spring."

"How in the world do you know that?" Big Daddy asked.

Emi stood a little taller. "I watch PBS. I know everything."

"So it's nice and dark," Chloe said and took the Bogeyman gently by the arm. It surprised him. Then she said, "Let's go?"

"You're going to get clobbered."

"Please?"

"It's not safe."

The tiniest squeak, "Please?"

Chloe, Jiro and Emi all stared at him. Big Daddy pushed Galahad back into his belt and joined the crowd. It was too much.

"All right!" the Bogeyman said. "We'll go."

Chloe smiled and released him.

He waved a hand again and the monocle shrank and flew back into his palm.

He put it away as the raft suddenly grounded on an icy shore. A startled polar bear stood on its hind legs and stared at them. Then it loped away, fast. The wind cut across the white desolation and all the parents gasped. They jumped together and clamped their arms shut against the cold, cold, cold, cold, cold.

Cold, cold, cold, cold, COLD?

Cold, cold, cold.

The Bogeyman smiled at them. "I suppose you'll be wanting coats, too?"

*

CHAPTER TWELVE

" _Mrs. Battle, this is a terrible thing to have happened. How has the community reached out to you?"_ the local newsman asked.

You could walk a mile on Maw Maw's bottom lip. It trembled. She leaned into the microphone. _"Well, they ain't reached out as much as they could."_

The newsman was shocked enough to stutter. _"Uh, n...no? Really?"_

" _I could use a bigger TV,"_ she said.

The man rallied. " _Your daughter and grandson have been kidnapped and you want a bigger TV?"_

" _So I can see the news reports better."_ She sniffled into a tissue. _"My eyes ain't that good and I need to see what's happening to my babies!"_ she sobbed. _"Cause their Maw Maw loves them SO much!"_

*

In the snowy wastes, the workshop was a blank ruin. The Nanny was a sloppy builder so it was a creaky, dangerous ruin, too. Riveted and polished metal sheets covered every inch except for the ceiling which was covered with the Nanny. Up there were gears, machinery, and bizarre clockwork things all ticking, spinning, and chugging away while she popped her boxy head on and off it at will.

A large crooked cage with bars of iron and steel was the workshop's crowning jewel of ugliness. For some reason the Nanny had every light in the place trained on it. They were too bright but, at least, they generated warmth.

"Charles Dickens was a great, bosom friend of mine," Santa was saying to his fellow prisoners, seated in a circle together on the hard, uneven floor. "He was having a terrible time with writer's block. His stories weren't selling well. So I suggested he write a book about me. Of course everyone loves Christmas! And he wrote a doozy! _A Christmas Carol!_ It solved all his problems..."

The kids smelled of lemons, their noses were rubbed red and they were shielding their eyes as best they could from the glare of the lamps. Outside the light, some distance away, the Nanny was tightening the bolts on another clown.

"There we aaare!" she hooted and set her latest creation upright on spiked battle wheels. She touched it right between its lightbulb eyes and Santa Claus felt a drain in every bit of his body, even his nose hairs, as she gave it a magical boost. The lightbulbs glowed as it came to life and then they began to blink red and blue and green. The robot straightened and rocked back and forth on its wheels. The Nanny grinned. "Wonderful! Go help guard the East wall. Keep everyone out of the castle."

The clown saluted and rolled away, its wheels scraping along the metal. It rolled between the lights and the cage, casting a shadow over Santa and the children, its eyes blinking on and off, on and off. The prisoners held very still until it rolled past. The Nanny picked up more sheet metal and her strong tentacles began to bend and fold it into shape. Another robot.

"Er, where was I? Oh, yes! Dear Charles wrote his little book in no time. And it was so hugely popular it made his entire career. If it weren't for me there'd be no _Great Expectations_ or _David Copperfield_ or _A Tale of Two Cities_..." Santa continued.

He realized he'd didn't have an audience.

The little Japanese girl, Kicki, fidgeted, jostling her friend, Polly, who was clinging to her. The boy, Honoir, was staring at Santa with the hooded eyes of a junkyard dog. It made him uncomfortable. Kids loved him! He was Santa Claus! What was wrong?

There was a dreadful shower of sparks as the Nanny began to weld her latest robot.

Santa Claus shielded his eyes. "She's not even making toys!" burst out of him.

As if to answer Honoir finally spoke. "Did you program her to make toys?"

"Puh...program? I don't program," Santa made fiddly gestures as if he were typing with his forefingers. "I instill talents. I gave her a purpose. She was to be our cleaner, our organizer, our manager!"

"Then why wonder about no toys?"

"No brains either," Kicki pointed out.

"No sense of ethics," Polly added, her nostrils twitching.

Santa wondered if they were still talking about the Nanny.

"Well, she's done all you wanted," Honoir decided. "You should be happy."

Santa's eyes boggled. "What a thing to say! I'm not happy at all! She's a bad egg," he proclaimed. "A downright beast even. Look what she's done here." Santa flung his arms wide. "Look what that monster has done to my home."

Polly sat straight up. "Look what she's done? Look what _she's_ done?"

"Er, yes. That's what I said," Santa said. Her expression mirrored her friend's. Why, it was downright unnerving.

"You did this, Dr. Frankenstein," Honoir said. "You wrecked this place. You wrecked everything!" he jumped up and loomed over the astounded little man. "Mom has a new job! We were going to move to a nice place! Our own place! I could have my friends over! Everything was going to be better! Finally!" He pointed at Santa. "We were going to get a dog! A _dog!_ But now I'm stuck in _here_ and Mom's out _there_ and my dog's still in a cage in a shelter somewhere. It's all! Your! Fault!"

"My fault?"

"You made the Nanny! You did a crap job! So you did this! You did all of this!"

"So don't call her a monster," Polly was calmer but just as serious as Honoir. "She's doing exactly what you made her to do."

Kicki jumped to her feet. "I want my motherrr! I wanna go hooome! Ooooooh!" She stamped up and down and flailed her arms. "Daddeee! I want my Daddeee!"

"Sit down, loonball. Mrs. Claus will make things right," Honoir said. "She always has before."

"AND I'M HUNGREEEE!" Kicki wailed at St. Nick again.

"Oh, dear," said a trilling voice from above, "You're hungry?" Everyone looked up and flinched. The Nanny was directly over their heads holding several large barrels . "I thought of everything! Here you are!" A rain of sweets pelted down. Everyone shouted and ducked.

The deluge didn't stop until they were all ankle deep in candy. "You're welcome!" The Nanny said before she scuttled back to her work.

Honoir scooped up all he could hold and waded to the far side of the cage. He sent one last glare at Santa before plopping down again. Kicki kicked her way through and sat next to him. Polly looked down at it all and drew an arm across her red eyes. "Eat the chocolate," she said and her voice was breaking. "It has more nutrition than the hard candy. Cocoa butter and fat and all." She joined her friends.

Alone at the other end, Santa couldn't eat a single bite. The curls left his beard entirely.

*

Outside, the North Pole denizens were being airlifted away by Punkin's Halloween squadron. They were flying off on broomsticks, flying carpets, and on the backs of giant bats. The long line of their lanterns made a pretty trail of orange light in the night sky. Those elves and toys that weren't clinging for dear life waved goodbye.

"Don't worry! We can handle things!" Princess shouted after them. Then she wiped her eyes.

"Farewell, eternal darling of my heart!"

The TV producer kicked the moonstruck elf off her knee once more for old time's sake and boarded her enormous bat with real reluctance. She'd wanted to stay but the refugees had run out of food and Mrs. Claus had vetoed barbecuing Vixen. Pity.

"Hang on tight," the bat squeaked. She wrapped her arms around his furry neck. "Not that tight!"

"Sorry." He leaped and the two flapped off into the night. "Goodbye!" she called behind her. "Good luck!"

A reindeer shoved to the front of the orderly crowd and started her run for takeoff.

"Goodbye, Vixen! Try to stay gone, okay?" called Bertram.

"Be quiet! I can only take so much. And I'm certainly not taking you!" Vixen kicked sparkling snow into the face of the cameraman as she blasted away.

"Did I ask?!" he called up after her, brushing himself off with the ragged red remains of his sweater. Then he walked on towards a beautiful Persian carpet hovering hip-high off the ground. Madison McCurry (INTL News) was already on board with several elves and their werewolf pilot. They scooted over to make room and he sadly crawled in. They all gave Mrs. Claus a pathetic wave as the hairy beast sent the carpet soaring into the air.

Merry Belle waved back. Her helpers were loyally grouped around her, she couldn't convince them to leave. Princess was fluttering her hankie, Bertram growling and waving a paw, and the Brigadier saluting as all their friends flew away. Marlee and a hand-picked cadre of her toughest elves were staying behind, too, as was Pete Petersen and his crack team of commandos.

Mrs. Claus had no choice in C.R.I.T.R.'s staying. No one could find them. How could those enormous brutes disappear like that?

"Goodbye! Goodbye!"

Punkin and Morgan slowly descended from the sky and settled beside Mrs. Claus as all the bats and brooms disappeared over the starry horizon. She was glad to see them. Her smile was pained but genuine. "Thank you again. So much trouble and so close to Halloween, too."

Punkin gave a little shrug and licked her paw. "Are you going to come with us?" she softly asked.

"No, I'm needed here," Mrs. Claus said.

"Are you going to call a Holiday Conclave for help?"

"No, I can handle things."

"Are you the most stubborn dork to ever dork her way across the North Pole?"

"No! It's just that I'm certain there's something more I can do."

"What have you left undone?" the cat asked.

The last bat flapped away. "Goodbye!" Mrs. Claus called. What more could she do? What on Earth was left to do? She'd tried everything. And the castle was still a blasted and silent hulk. The line of lights glimmered and faded. She wiped a tear away. "Goodbye."

"Hello."

Mrs. Claus turned and leapt back. Everyone whirled around. A tall, terrifying stranger stood there. Black eyes. Black shock of wild hair. Claws! Punkin's fur stood on end in astonishment. Mrs. Claus's heart sank. What now? "Friend of yours?" she asked Punkin out of the corner of her mouth.

"Never seen him before in my life," Punkin said and began to purr. Morgan was affected, too. She batted the lashes of her one good eye and leered.

Mrs. Claus cleared her throat. "Er. Hello." He smiled. It made him worse. "I'm Merry Belle Claus. And you are?"

"My son calls him B," someone said and Mrs. Claus startled again. 'B' wasn't alone. Stepping forward were two women and two men, nice and normal, all wrapped up in long, thin coats made of what looked to be grey, trailing spider webs. Webs? But they all seemed warm enough. One of the men, however, looked like he was going to keel over any second. He was breathing hard and his skin was pasty.

She locked eyes with him and politely pointed to a nearby hump of snow. He shook his head. She pointed again. His stubbornness lasted about three seconds before he casually wandered over and sat down. Good heavens, what was going on?

"B?" Mrs. Claus asked, turning back to the...creature...person.

He stepped forward and lightly took hold of her fingers. "It's short for the Bogeyman, Madam," he bowed over her hand and she just resisted snatching it back. The Bogeyman? He was real? But he frightened children! He was a monster.

"You're a legend!" Morgan had stars in her eyes.

Punkin was purring even harder. "How wonderful!"

"Thank you, thank you," the Bogeyman said.

"You, my dear, belong with us. Halloween must have you," Punkin went on.

"Ah, I'm afraid I'm active year round," he said and flicked a piece of invisible lint off the lapel of his frock coat. One of the women, a beautiful brown lady, rolled her eyes and stepped forward.

"We've come for our kids," she said. "Where are they?"

Mrs. Claus was confused. "We're the only people here. I've sent everyone else away." Despair passed over the woman's face and Mrs. Claus's heart went out to her. "What's your name? What's happening?" she gently asked.

"I'm Chloe Battle. This is Emi and Jiro Kita and Reg Petersen," Chloe pointed to herself and her friends.

"Ah. Well, hello. I'm Merry Bell Claus. Here's Punkin, Morgan, the Brigadier, Princess, Bertram, and Marlee and her team." Hellos were politely exchanged. Then Mrs. Claus blinked. "Wait. Petersen?"

Big Daddy stepped forward. "Yeah, that Petersen. The Nanny flew to our home town this afternoon, uh, either in a blimp or as a blimp, I don't know. And she took our daughter. Out of revenge for Pete's being here, I think." He took a deep breath. "She also grabbed Chloe's son, Honoir, and the Kita's little girl, Kicki."

Mrs. Claus put both hands over her mouth in horror. Punkin dug her claws into the snow and hissed.

"Then B...I can call you B?" Chloe asked.

" _You_ can call me anything you like."

Chloe cleared her throat. "B decided to help us. He brought us here." She stared at the darkened hulk that was Santa's Castle. "Are you sure you haven't seen them?"

Marlee spoke up. "We haven't seen anything. We certainly haven't seen the Nanny flying along in an airship." She frowned. "And we're staying away from the castle. All of the doors and windows are plugged. Even the chimneys and drains are impassable. Mr. Chucklypuff and his Fun Squad are a perfect wall." She shoved her broken glasses up.

"Not much fun at all, really?" the Bogeyman guessed. Marlee slowly nodded.

"Clowns," spoke a deep and disturbed voice from under the ice. Marlee leapt away just as the packed snow underneath her feet exploded outward. And there stood Big Mama Petersen looking up at them all from what seemed to be some sort of air pocket. "Clowns," he said again and stiffly lifted himself up and out like a mummy rising from a pit.

His team slowly followed him. They emerged out of the small space like, well, like clowns out of a clown car. All nervous, all sticking close, but not too close, to their fearless leader.

"We've been hiding under the snow for hours," one of them muttered to everyone as he shivered with cold. His expression was one of sheer terror. Or his eyes had frozen open. "It took us that long to calm him down," he said.

"Quiet," said one of the rangers and the young man gulped.

"Why are you always picking on him?" another piped up. "It's unprofessional."

"You're calling me unprofessional, you hack?"

"I'm sick of you always running your mouth!"

"At least I have something worth saying!"

"Hut!" Big Mama barked. He pointed at the first ranger, "Clowns with chainsaws for arms." He pointed at the second, "Metal death clowns everywhere. Clowns!" he glared to make sure they got the message, his finger waggling from one to the other. They did. They saluted and shut up.

Suddenly Big Mama noticed the visitors. He blinked and his brain visibly kicked into gear again. "Reg? Reg, what are you doing here?"

"You forgot your lunch," said Big Daddy.

Before Big Mama could make sense of that a glimmering white light appeared over their heads.

They stared up, blinking. It widened as if a small door was opening. It dimmed for a moment and then an enormous furry rodent with a lacy ruff around his neck fell out and landed deep in the snow.

Coughing and sputtering it stood, brushed itself off, and straightened its ruff. It stared up at the light-door. "A little closer to the ground next time, swine!"

Then it looked around, its whiskers quivering as everyone stared. It paused in disbelief at the sight of the Bogeyman (who gave a sarcastic little bow) then it made a beeline for Mrs. Claus. It stood on its hind legs, and gave an elaborate bow of his own. Mrs. Claus politely stepped forward.

"Is this everyone?" Bertram called out. "Are we all assembled now?"

"You're a groundhog," the Brigadier observed, ignoring the bear.

"Well spotted," said the fancy beast.

"A groundhog? Hey, are you Punxatawney Phil?" Jiro asked, a tired smile on his face.

The critter came over all-offended-nostrils. "Strewth, I most certainly am _not."_ He drew himself up as straight as a blob of fur could and his ruff stiffened even further. "I am Sir Walter Wally." He shot a look at Big Mama. "The Groundhog of Raleigh, North Carolina."

The soldier developed a tic in his cheek and his team flinched.

Sir Walter glared a moment more and then he was back to business. He faced Mrs. Claus again. "I am arrived to summon you to a Holiday Conclave. This situation, I need hardly say, is most serious."

"A Conclave!" Princess cried. "Oh, no."

"Pete, come over here a sec," Big Daddy motioned his husband closer as a furor broke out among the residents of the Great White North.

No one noticed the Bogeyman losing interest. He wandered away to look down into the snow crevasse that had produced the C.R.I.T.R. team. "Tunnels?" he said and turned, lightly scratching his lips with a black claw. He studied the castle. "Yes. Tunnels. Most serious indeed."

He heard Big Mama give a howl and there was a scramble as his team dove for cover. _"She's got Polly?!"_ The clowns were forgotten as Big Mama charged the castle.

"Pete, no!"

"Hold him!"

"Sir! No! Stop!"

Emi dove at Big Mama's feet and he tripped over her. He hit the snow hard. Everyone piled on.

The Brigadier just had a peg for a right leg but it didn't slow him down much. "Don't be a fool, man," he said. "Are you going to bite through stones to reach her? Or take on chainsaws with your bare hands?"

"Yes!"

The Bogeyman took out a nail file and began to sharpen his claws. "Let him try to attack on his own. It would be a short but extremely amusing contest."

"Are you in command or not?" the Brig whispered so C.R.I.T.R. couldn't hear. Big Mama gasped for air. Then he slowly nodded his head. "Stand down, soldier," the Brig ordered, patting the big man with a wooden hand. Big Mama stopped struggling. He stared long and hard at the castle. Then he slowly straightened. His friends let him go and stood back.

Pete saluted the Brigadier. "Sir! Yes, sir."

Princess gave her wooden man a little salute, too, and smiled.

Sir Walter stood and shook himself free of the kicked snow. "If you've _quite_ finished, we must go. Everyone is waiting. And I do mean everyone. Follow me now," he said, pointing up at the light still shining far above their heads. Far, far above their heads. Sir Walter stroked his whiskers. "Er. Someone give me a boost?"

"No," said Chloe. "We don't have time for any meetings. I'm going after Honoir."

"Chloe," Marlee said, "You wouldn't have a chance. It's too dangerous."

"Don't be a fool, man," the Brigadier advised again.

"I just want to see if the Nanny is still there. If my son is there," Chloe was close to tears.

Big Mama muttered a long string of awfulness. The gist of which was to point out that the clowns were certainly still there.

"Yes," Marlee said, staring up at him, impressed. "And we can't get past them. Believe me, we've tried."

"Sir Walter," Mrs. Claus suddenly called out over the shouting. "Does the Conclave know about the children?"

The groundhog whipped around, alarmed. "What children?"

"Ah. That answers that."

Suddenly a chicken shot out of the light and hit the snow hard. "BWAWK! Bok Bok Bok?"

"More bad news," Bertram said and rolled to the ground in a round ball of blue fur and laughter. "What is goin' on? Whoof, I can't handle it."

The newest newcomer was clearly a hen but it cursed in a male voice as it dug itself out of its chilly pit. White feathers flew everywhere. He had a bow and a small quiver of sharp arrows slung over his near non-existent back. Punkin's witch cackled. He shot her a look of pure hatred before speaking to the groundhog.

"Sir Walter," Cupid clucked. "Move your fuzzy butt! It's all over the media. That thing has kidnapped three children and their parents." He noticed Mrs. Claus's guests. "Are here?" Jiro waved. Cupid stared for a moment, then recovered. "That thing has kidnapped three children!"

"And Santa Claus," one of the elves reminded him.

"Yeah, well." Cupid shrugged his wings. Mrs. Claus sighed.

"Away to the Conclave! This must be discussed," Sir Walter declared. "Follow me!" Bless his willing heart, he began to run with a flumph, flumph, flumph away from the castle.

"Wait!" Big Daddy called and the groundhog reluctantly stopped. "I'm sorry but I'm with Chloe. I'm not going to waste time discussing anything," he said. "And Pete really needs to break something right now."

"Yes, please," Big Mama agreed and crushed an ice lump the size of a man's head with one hand.

Cupid snorted. "Wait, what? I heard you failed already, Muscles," he pointed out. "And Mrs. Claus failed, too. Twice! You people don't have a prayer." The chicken was not making any friends this night at the North Pole. He didn't notice. "Now let's go to the Conclave and have them deal with the giant Christmas-squid."

"Leave Polly here? Are you out of your mind, bird?"

"Hey, I'm not a bird. Not really."

Sir Walter was amazed at the delay. "It's a _Conclave._ We must go _now."_

Chloe folded her arms. "We're going to stay."

The argument raged. The counter-argument raged louder. There was a counter-counter argument...

Chloe gave up and wandered away with her hands clenched in her hair.

The Bogeyman put his file away and followed her.

The cold wind blew and the debate raged on.

Cupid suddenly disengaged mid-squawk. He cast around, his beak quivering this way and that, as if he heard something. Saw something? Smelled something? No, heard something. Some distant music. Some nearby music? He began to slowly walk around, tracking, his head bobbing back and forth.

Suddenly he went on point like a bloodhound.

There, in front of him, the Bogeyman and Chloe Battle were softly talking together. They were awkward around each other, Chloe scraping the snow with her foot. The Bogeyman had his hands clamped behind his back.

Cupid flapped in sudden excitement. Was romance in the air as well as danger? Well, if it wasn't it soon would be. He edged closer so he could hear them. His wings tried to work his bow but couldn't, his arrows scattered, and his chicken feet got tangled in the bow string. He wanted to cry.

But there were other ways of getting things started. He crept closer.

"Tunnels?" Chloe was saying. "A big tunnel under the castle? That makes sense. She could get in and out without disturbing her Wall 'o Clowns."

"Or being seen. Let's take it to the Conclave," the Bogeyman said. "Before she gets out again."

"But where's the tunnel?" Chloe asked. The Bogeyman shrugged. "Is there any way you can find it?" she insisted. "It's underground, it's in the dark. You can get the kids and bring them out right now."

"Ah, I guarantee she has the lights on. She nearly killed me with just one giant spotlight. And let's not forget Chuckpiffle and his dear little friends."

"We have to try something."

"No, we don't." He reached out slowly and took her hand. "You could get badly hurt. Please let me take you home."

Chloe drew her hand away. "I'm not leaving until my son comes out of those doors."

"Listen to me..."

There was a commotion at their feet. "Faint heart never won fair maiden. Bok!"

The two looked down. Cupid smiled up as well as he could with a beak.

"I beg your pardon?" the Bogeyman said.

Cupid explained. "The, uh, discussion is still going on. You have time. A little recon won't hurt you. And you," the chicken said to Chloe. "Big Ugly here can't do everything by himself. You need to come up with a plan. Or throw a deciding vote. Do _something."_

Chloe looked down at the talking chicken and then she studied her shouting friends. "Yes," she slowly agreed. "Mrs. Claus can't do it all herself either. I'll think of something." She turned to the Bogeyman. "I'm sorry, B. I'm a little upset."

He nodded. "Perfectly understandable, ah, Chloe. And I'll go see what I can see."

"Thank you," she said and smiled at him.

He smiled back.

"Kissy kissy?" suggested the chicken. The Bogeyman literally sank into the ground and Chloe walked away in a huff.

Cupid wasn't even sorry.

*

Inside the cage the children slept. The hoods of their jackets pulled down low over their eyes to keep out the stinging light, except for Honoir who didn't have a hood. Kicki had loaned him her scarf and he'd blindfolded himself with it. Santa was touched by the way they all took care of each other. But Polly, Honoir, and Kicki were on their side of the cage and Santa Claus was on his side. He'd never been excluded before. And by children!

It made one pause.

He missed everyone. Dear Merry Belle. Dear elves. Dear mouthy Helper Toys even.

All Santa had for company now was the Nanny. There she was up there at the opposite end of the workshop, slapping together another clown for Mr. Chucklypuff's Fun Squad. Her body had grown to the size of a football field with hundreds of tentacles. She'd even sacrificed one of her faces so her boxy head could zoom up and down the length of her on greased rails. Ugh. She'd never fly as an airship now, the big, bloated tick.

She hummed as she worked. "Guard, guard, guard the castle," she sang. "Diddly dum...listen only to me. Be strong and fierce....dum de dum..." She slathered on a final coating of bright pink, blue, and yellow paint. She gave it a wide, toothy smile. Then she touched it between the eyes and a magical spark outshone the many electric lights. Santa felt the tiring drain. It was awful. And there was nothing he could do about it.

He watched as new eyes glowed with horrible life.

The metal grinner lurched upright. "Very good," the Nanny said to it. "You are to go to the North outer wall. Guard the castle. Let nothing in." Several scuttling legs, like a giant crab's, hit the floor and it clattered away. It had spiked steel balls for flailing arms. Santa watched it go and was very glad the children were asleep.

The Nanny began work on another. She pulled out a tub of fireworks that were supposed to have gone off during the Visit to the Workshop finale. There were thousands of them. She tore the cardboard tubes apart and poured the black gunpowder out. She started to play with it. "Oooh!"

Santa leaned his forehead against one of the bars and groaned from the bottom of his boots.

*

The latest clown clickety-clicked around one corner, then another. Click-click down several passages heading North. It entered a dark, cold region where, suddenly turning the last corner, it collided with a thin, tall creature. Its spiked flails whirred in circles in the air before crashing to the floor. The stone paving cracked.

The Bogeyman held his ground. "Darling!" he said. "Punkin should see you, eh?" He brought up his claws and braced himself for a fight. "She'd never look at me again."

The crab-clown tapped its several feet on the floor for the briefest moment. Then it side-stepped the Bogeyman and continued on its way, clickety clickety clack, to the North wall, where it was assigned. The Bogeyman turned his head and watched it go. He stayed in attack position for a full minute in disbelief. Was he that intimidating? Compared to the Fun Squad, no, he wasn't. That meant only one thing. "Oh, you must be having me on," he said to no one. Then he straightened, adjusted his cravat, fluffed the spider web lace of his cuffs, and continued on his mission.

He was smiling most unpleasantly.

*

BOOM! The kids jerked awake as bits of tentacle rained down on them. Santa shuddered.

"Oopsie, mustn't make a mess." The Nanny cleaned bits of herself up off the floor with brooms, dustpans, and polishing cloths until the metal gleamed again.

"Wow," Honoir said as he watched, his scarf pulled down from one eye. Kicki and Polly joined them and they all watched the show.

BOOM!

The Nanny was brightly lit as a small fire broke out. "Whoops-a-dearie-day!"

"She's trying to make rocket launchers, I think," Santa explained.

" _Wow."_

"Yep."

Kicki turned around to comment and suddenly gasped. She stared hard at the darkest end of the workshop.

"What is it?" Polly asked, looking behind.

"It's the Booo...uh...candy fight!" Kicki shouted.

"What?" Polly asked again.

"Can-dee-FIGHT. Candy fight! Let's go!" Kicki grabbed a double fistful from the piles at her feet. She pitched one handful at Polly and the other at Santa. The candy bounced off and they were both confused and a little hurt. _"Trust me._ Candyfight right _now._ Hai!"

Honoir was the first to join in. "Hi?" He threw all his mints at Kicki. He hated mint.

"Ha!" Polly had her candy properly sorted by size, flavor, and color but this seemed important. She threw all she had at everyone's feet. She couldn't throw anything at their heads. Someone could lose an eye.

"Ho!" Santa joined in, flinging taffy and toffee every which way. He didn't know the girl well but he knew a candy fight was a little out of character. She was more of a fit-pitcher than a candy-thrower. "Ho ho ho!"

"My dears, stop! What a terrible mess you're making!" The Nanny was overhead, brooms and dustpans descended on the cage and Kicki threw all the sweets she could reach up at her. The Nanny blinked. A wadded-up yellow thing came sailing into the cage from nowhere. Distracted, even with her several enormous eyes, the Nanny didn't see it but Kicki and Santa did. The girl crept towards it.

Santa went nuts to cover for her. "Ho! Ho! Hooo! Howdy! Ohhh, jingle bells! Batman smells! Robin laid an egg! The Batmobile lost a wheel and the Joker got away, hey! Mele Kalikimaka!"

"I can't believe you know that," Honoir said.

"Everybody knows that." Santa risked looking behind him.

Kicki was chewing the evidence. Six enormous eyes right over her head but they hadn't noticed her. She swallowed and glared at the brooms that were still too close. "I am, too, a ninja," she said. Then she shouted "I smell something burning!" and pointed at the half-made rocket launchers. The Nanny zoomed away on her tracks. Too late.

BOOM!

"My, but this is a tricky process!"

"What was it?" Santa whispered to Kicki as debris pattered down around them. The brooms went to work.

"What was what?" Polly asked.

Kicki glanced all around and lowered her voice. "A message," she whispered. "On an aspen leaf. It said _'Kill the lights.'_ And it had kind of a picture on it..."

"The lights? Why? We need them." Santa was confused. He didn't want to be cold, too.

"The lights?" Honoir whispered. Kicki bent her fingers into claws. "Ohhh," he said. "Yeah. The lights. They're actually not here to keep us warm, y'know, Santa." He turned to Polly and clawed the air, too.

Polly deflated. "Oh. Him. Okay."

"What are the lights for then?" Santa insisted, a bit loudly. "And who's him?"

The kids were silent. They were clearly uncomfortable.

Santa realized they didn't trust him and his heart sagged in his chest again.

"What was that, dear?" the Nanny called over.

"I said I want out!"

"No, you don't, stop joking." A bright blue flame of a welding torch illuminated her enormous eyes as the Nanny carried on her senseless work.

Santa didn't exactly feel proud when he looked at her. When he looked at what was left of his workshop. When he looked at himself. He'd promised to stick to toys. He'd promised so faithfully.

He sighed.

"I'm sorry," he said as he stared at his boots. "I... meant it for the best. But then I always do."

He reproached himself some more.

The kids had a silent consultation. Finally Honoir stepped forward. He motioned Santa closer. Hope sprang up and Santa rushed over. He bent down. Honoir whispered in his ear. He made the clawing motion again. Santa's eyes bulged. "He's a myth, isn't he?" he whispered back.

Whisper, whisper, whisper.

BOOM!

Heavy fragments of metal clown pelted the cage. Honoir scrambled to collect and hide as much as he could. He stuffed it under the candy and in all his pockets. His friends jumped to help.

Santa straightened and studied the lights surrounding the cage, his hand thoughtfully combing through his white beard. It began to curl again.

*

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"A meeting about whether or not we have time to go to a meeting is still a meeting," Princess groused.

"We must away to the Conclave," Sir Walter insisted.

"We must away to find my daughter!" Emi shouted down at the rodent hard enough to spin his ruff around his neck. Sir Walter stood his ground.

"Clowns!"

"Wait until B comes back, everyone," Chloe held up her hands for peace. "We don't want to go flying off in any direction 'til we know where we're going."

"But..." began the groundhog.

"Sir Walter, we're on the spot and your council isn't," Chloe said. "We can afford to wait a little while." Big Mama was pacing back and forth, back and forth. "We have to think," Chloe went on calmly. "Yelling isn't helping. So everyone sit," Chloe made soothing down, down, down gestures. "Sit, sit, sit." She provided a good example and sat next to Merry Belle on an ice block.

Big Mama looked as if he were going to argue but Chloe shook her head. He sighed deeply and, to everyone's surprise, gave in and sat down on the snow. "At ease," he threw over his shoulder and his squad relaxed an inch. Big Mama gave them all a look of disgust but said nothing.

"Poor Pete," murmured Chloe, looking sideways at Merry Belle. "It's not easy being the boss."

"Nnngh," said Merry Belle. Which pretty much said it all. Chloe bumped her with her shoulder in a comforting way and the old woman smiled.

Everyone slowly sat. No one made a move to adjourn to the stables. The manure pile over there had grown tall and smelly. Best to stay outside while the weather was calm and the night sky was full of stars. They were bright and comforting.

"Breathe in and out, deeply," Chloe encouraged. "Be calm...and...just maintain."

"Oooommmm," said one of the elves.

Marlee glared at him. "Shut up, Scruge." He shut up.

The stars twinkled.

_I can't believe I'm here,_ Chloe thought. _One minute I'm on top of the world and the next I'm...I'm on top of the world. I suppose I'm having an adventure._ She sighed as quietly as she could. Emergencies she could handle. She wasn't sure if she was cut out for adventures.

Chloe shook her head and decided to take her own advice and relax. She closed her eyes and tried to soak in the still peace. She took a deep breath.

"Get up!" B was back.

"AIIGH!" Chloe screamed and Sir Walter toppled over.

B was breathing heavily. "We're attacking. We're attacking right now." He pulled Chloe to her feet. "There really is a tunnel. And you won't believe what else I've learned. No," he answered Chloe's instant fear. "The children are fine, just fine. I found them. We're going to get them out." He held out his hand. "Trust me?"

Chloe stared at his claws. Pointy. Very pointy. Then she looked him straight in the eyes for the first time since she'd met him and realized _they_ didn't frighten her at all.

She reached out and took his hand. "Of course," she said.

Cupid yowled in triumph. "Atta boy, B!"

The Bogeyman shot a look of Kentucky Fried Death at him. Then he cleared his throat and went on. "You can all trust me," he said.

Sir Walter made a harrumph of doubt. Big Mama crossed his arms, resentment cutting through the fog of his clown-fear. Monkeys see, monkeys do - his team crossed their arms, too. The Helper toys were also wary.

Chloe stepped up. "Listen everyone, I trust him. Look what he's done for us already. We wouldn't have gotten this far without him."

Big Daddy came forward, too, to Big Mama's surprise. "And we can't go forward without him either," he said. "I'm with B and Chloe."

Jiro shakily stood. "Let's go," He took one step towards the castle and face-planted into the snow.

Emi sadly looked down on him. "Will you please give up?"

"Never," was his muffled answer. "I'm going to help."

"The best help to be found is at the Conclave," Sir Walter patiently pointed out for the hundredth time.

B answered, "Sorry, no. We have to charge to the rescue right now." He flicked his thumb at the castle. "Forget the clowns, that saccharine beast in there is playing with explosives. She can't be allowed to continue."

"Explosives!" Chloe gasped.

Mrs. Claus stood up and a hush fell over the assembly. "The Bogeyman is right." There was a groan from Sir Walter's supporters. "And Sir Walter is right."

Now everyone was confused. Mrs. Claus rubbed her hands together. "Sir Walter, you, Jiro, Cupid, Punkin and Morgan head to the Conclave. Hear what they have to say. And tell them that the rest of us... well..." she eyeballed the castle. "We'll be along shortly. The third time's the charm."

Chloe looked at Big Daddy who looked at Emi who looked back at Chloe. A complete circuit of fear. They were going to storm a castle.

They were going to storm a castle ruled over by a powerful magical creature and guarded by killer robots!

"Well, this is going to be one for the diary," Big Daddy whispered.

"Four isn't too much for your broom is it, Mo?" Mrs. Claus was asking.

"Nah," the witch was grinning.

"No, I said! I'm not going anywhere!" Jiro protested.

"THERE WILL BE NO ARGUING, JIRO!" Emi exploded. "There will be no jokes! There will be no hesitation! Enough! You are ill! A liability! You will go to the meeting! THAT IS FINAL!"

Jiro opened his mouth again. Emi screamed something horrible in Japanese and towered over him, over the castle, over all the world.

The C.R.I.T.R. team blended into their surroundings again and didn't dare breathe. Even Big Mama was pretending to be a snowdrift. Mrs. Claus studied her fingernails as if she'd never seen them before. Everyone else openly gawked.

Jiro shut his mouth with a snap. Then he swayed dizzily and seemed to notice for the first time that he was swaying. He looked down at himself, at his thin hands, and everyone watching could see the exact moment when he finally broke.

He bowed to his wife. "Fine. Be that way, y'big meanie," he said. While he was bent over he picked up Sir Walter as if he were a fat cat, straightened, and walked to Morgan's broom. He plopped the awestruck varmint down on the bristles.

Punkin silently followed and gracefully jumped onto Morgan's shoulder. "We're away, then," she called and her whiskers quirked with amusement. "Good luck, Merry Belle."

"Thank you, Punkin, again. And you were right about everything," Mrs. Claus admitted.

Punkin just purred.

Cupid clumsily flapped up and roosted behind Morgan. "I'm only going because I'm not at my best right now," he said and gave the witch the hairy eyeball. She ignored him.

"B!" Jiro called as he slowly threw a leg over the broom handle.

The Bogeyman jumped. Apparently it still surprised him when someone addressed him directly but he recovered quickly. "Yes?"

"You were right about everything, too. We frightened Kicki worse than you ever did. _If_ you ever did, really." He waggled his daughter's wooden sword in the air. "We'll tell her everything the second we get our hands on her."

The Bogeyman nodded slowly. The broom lifted and Jiro threw his arms around Morgan's waist. Cupid was crushed between them. Sir Walter's ruff wasn't aerodynamic and he gagged as the wind caught it. Jiro was just able to pitch the sword to his wife, who caught it one-handed. "Once more, dear friends, unto the breach! Whatever that means."

His friends, even Emi, laughed and waved. Morgan kicked the broom into high gear and it shot up into the door-light and was gone. White feathers drifted down.

Mrs. Claus was all business. "B? What is it you learned?" she asked.

"Well, I've learned that no man is an island," he began.

"About the castle!"

"Oh, that!" He turned back to business. "As I suspected, there really is a tunnel. It's on the North side. The Ninny uses it to get in and out of the castle without disturbing her guards. We can sneak in any time we want." He rode out the wave of astonishment. Chloe was watching him. He just managed not to straighten or tweak anything or even run his claws through his hair.

_Fastidious and vain,_ Chloe thought.

She remembered the Nanny chirping about things remaining nice and clean and healthy and had a revelation. She rushed to share it. "Listen everyone. I've just now come up with a bit of a plan," she said. "It'll keep the Nanny busy once we get inside. If we can survive the clowns."

Big Mama flinched. "Clowns!"

"Yes, about Chuckypiffle's goons," the Bogeyman's vicious little grin was back. "The tunnel is the least of my discoveries," he said. "Listen to this..."

*

"Listen to this," Santa said as he dangled a strip torn from his coat.

Honoir listened even though he was pretty sure Santa's idea, whatever it was, was going to be a disaster.

The old elf enthused, "This is a sling! This metal chunk goes in the loop and then we whip, whip, whip it around our head and then we let go of one end and the chunk flies!" The chunk flew, right down onto the top of his boot. "Ow!"

"Or we could just throw 'em." Honoir took a piece of tentacle and tossed it overhand at the big light to their left. Glass shattered with a very loud and satisfying crunch and the beam fizzled out in a shower of sparks. "See? I can throw, I don't always have to run interference."

"But you guard really, really well, Honoir," Polly said, slinging a broken gear at another lamp. _Crash!_

"Good one!"

"Thank you."

_Crash!_ Kicki was in it to win it. _Crash! Crash!_ "Beat that!" she shouted.

The shadows grew.

The Nanny was shouting, her several eyes wide. "My dears, stop that immediately! You'll make it go all cold and dark! That wouldn't be nice!"

Crash!

"Santa, stop trying to make that thing work. Throw!" Honoir ordered.

"Ach! Fine!"

Santa dropped his sling, threw, and scored. Honoir busted two more lights and Polly one. Kicki missed and screeched at the disgrace. Santa got the last klieg and then the Nanny's tentacles were upon them, pinning them firmly to the floor while brooms and whisks brushed up every piece of broken glass, candy, and debris. Their noses were wiped with extra diligence and then they were released.

Kicki regained her honor by taking off her shoe and busting the light that shone down directly overhead. Glass scattered and the shoe fell back into the cage. Kicki jumped on it before the Nanny could. She shoved it back on her foot and tied it with a double knot.

"Oh! If I'd known how much trouble children would be I'd have never had any," the Nanny exclaimed as she swept up the extra glass. "And I'm especially disappointed in you, Santa Claus. You should be setting an example."

"Sorreee, Nanny," the unrepentant prisoners chorused in the gloom. She zoomed away and resumed her work. Most of the lights were gone but several were still shining. Honoir hoped it would be enough. He wanted out. He wanted to see his mom. Eat a vegetable. Pet the dog he didn't have. Boy and his dog running towards each other across a field? Oh, what an adorable ending to this rotten adventure that would make.

BOOM!

"You should give up on the rockets," Honoir called out. "Before you really hurt yourself or someone else."

"I know what I should and shouldn't do better than anyone. I know best!"

"No, you don't!" Honoir shouted. His friends stared. Honoir didn't care. He was sick and tired of being _above it all_ and _a tower of strength_ and _stiff upper lipped_ and all that other stupid... Honoir grabbed the bars and shoved his face against them. "You don't know what you're doing! Santa didn't make you right!"

Santa toed the ground in shame. Honoir unbent enough to pat his shoulder.

But he wasn't through. "Let us go home. Let Santa fix you. Otherwise you're just...you're just..." he waved his hands at the wasteland that used to be so warm and cheerful. "You're just making a problem. Remember Big Mama when he saw the clowns? You said he screamed and ran? You're just like him. You're not thinking!"

The square head on its track screeched sideways to hover over the cage. All three faces were still smiling. "Oh, you're just talking nonsense because you're hungry," the Nanny said. "Here you go, dears."

"Oh, not again," Santa moaned.

There was a sound like a horn honk and a fresh rain of candy poured into the cage.

"Listen to me!" Honoir cried as a candy cane embedded itself in his curly hair. "You're going to blow yourself up!"

"Honoir, she can't think so she really can't listen," Polly pointed out.

"Stop being logical," Kicki agreed and dove for an extra-large chocolate bar.

"But it's kind of you to try, son," Santa pointed out and the others agreed.

The tentacles stilled and hung limply for a moment. The Nanny's square head twisted this way and that on the enormous steampunk body of wheels and gears and chuffing bellows that she'd given herself. Her smiles faded.

Honoir was startled. Was she sad? Was she thinking after all? Was she going to give in? Would it really be that easy?

There was another blare, of a train whistle this time, and the Nanny perked up again. "No," she decided. "I _think_ you're wrong. Yes, you're wrong, and the rest of you are wrong, too, of course." She zipped away and began to pick up the pieces of her latest disaster. She dipped several brushes in colorful pots of paint. The gunpowder had damaged her latest creation's grinning face and she refreshed its smile. "I know what's best," she said with complete certainty. "After all, I wouldn't be able to accomplish so much if I weren't doing the right thing."

"Karma is with _you,_ eh, love?" said a strange voice and all the prisoners froze in excitement. "You'll keep going until the world stops you?"

"The world can't," the Nanny says. "It can't even get in, much less stop me. It...it...oh?"

"Hello," said the Bogeyman.

*

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"You!" the Nanny exclaimed. "That awful claw-creature! Eugh!" Tentacles dropped from the ceiling and turned the remaining lights on him. There were too few, they just made him squint, and they revealed others standing in the shadows behind him.

"Daddy?" Polly gasped.

Kicki jumped for joy. "Whee, it's Mother!"

Honoir shouted, "Mom?"

Santa was joyful. "Merry Belle! Oh, Merry Belle, you made it in!" Santa cheered.

Mrs. Claus's chin went up. "Of course I made it in, you dumpkopf."

"Howdy, Pilgrims," Chloe said. She swaggered forward a step, her long grey coat flaring dramatically.

Big Daddy Petersen stepped forward. His coat was open, too. Galahad the teddy bear, with a Rambo rag wrapped around his head, was still stuffed into his belt. "Since Pete and the rangers have gone kookoo-bird we had to step in. Ya'll don't mind, I hope?"

Emi cracked her knuckles.

The kids didn't mind a bit. Honoir wanted to cry. He settled for shouting, "Look out, Mom, she's got nitro or stump powder or something over there. She's blowin' it up!"

"We know, baby. When we let you out, _run._ Leave us behind and get out the front doors."

"But Mom, I can help!" Honoir argued. Leave her behind, was she crazy?

"You can help me by getting out of the kitchen!"

Tentacles thudded to the ground and the entire castle shook. "No one's going anywhere! It's not safe out there!" the Nanny proclaimed and she actually sounded angry.

The adults scattered in five different directions with writhing, snapping tendrils of destruction in hot pursuit. "Daddeee!" Polly shrieked as one of the tentacles found its mark and knocked her father to the ground. He rolled, jumped up again, and took off in the opposite direction.

"Ooh, look at me, look at me!" Emi yelled, crossing his path.

"Ignore her, look at me!" Chloe called, running up the center and swinging a piece of rebar she'd found embedded in the floor. The last explosion had flung it like a spear. "Look! I'm much prettier!"

"In your dreams. Unh!" Emi was caught in a writhing web. She kicked herself free. Chloe threw her rebar, hard, directly at the Nanny's face. One of her dinner-plate eyes went _fizt!_ in a burst of magical sparks. "Good shot!" Emi shouted.

The Nanny plucked her busted eye out and threw it down. It shattered on the floor. "That was naughty! That was incredibly naughty! Shame on you!" she shouted.

The Bogeyman appeared out of nowhere and took a swipe at the other eye. He scored. More sparks and that face was blind. The Nanny was appalled. Fully half her tentacles were snatched from the fight and reassembled to protect her remaining four eyes, like a great catcher's mask. Then she struck out in all directions. Chloe and the Bogeyman met below her then ran towards the cage together.

They didn't make it.

Whack!

They were sent flying. B hit the floor but Chloe's spider web coat caught on a jagged bar of the cage. She hung in the air upside down and kicking.

"Farewell, spleen, I'll miss you," B winced.

"Honoir! Are you all right?" Chloe called as she dangled. Honoir rushed to her and she held his hand tight.

"I'm fine, Mom. You?"

"The blood is rushing to my head a bit..."

B pulled her off the snag and stood her up while Honoir helped as well as he could. She bent and kissed him through the bars. "Honoir, remember, you run for the door when we get you out. Period."

B and Chloe went rushing back into the fight.

The kids and Santa Claus started bouncing from one side of the cage to another like the sugar-hyped apes they were, shrieking senselessly or shouting warnings and encouragement.

Honoir felt like he was going to hurl. Now that the time to fight and escape had come he was too worried to actually enjoy it. It was a mess out there. "Mom! Dodge! Dodge! Duck! Punch it!"

Big Daddy had caught hold of a large tentacle and was swinging on it. It tried to whip him off but he clung like Tarzan. "Yowwww!" Honoir heard as he went past over their heads.

"Daddy, get down from there! You're not trained to fight!" Polly cried. He flew back over their heads, cackling. "Stop having fun! It's not fun! Nothing is fun! It's all dangerous!" Polly stomped her foot.

The cage rattled and the prisoners startled. Mrs. Claus had arrived. She found a weak spot right away. One of the bars had been bolted in the center. "Help me bend this. You push and I'll pull." Santa pulled with all his might. "No! You _push!"_ He pulled again. "Aiigh!" she exclaimed. "Fine! You pull and I'll push." Santa pushed like an elephant knocking a tree over but before Mrs. Claus could object again she was snatched away. Santa grabbed for her but she was gone. The bar gave an inch and he staggered back in surprise.

Honoir jumped into the gap. He tackled the bar himself, literally, with his shoulder, and he could hear the roar of the arena as the bar gave another inch. He backed up and ran for it again. The bar gave entirely as the two pieces swiveled on their bolt. The crowd went wild! He stuffed Kicki though the gap, then Polly. "Go, go, go!" They went, running wildly for the door. Honoir turned to Santa. If he could fit down chimneys he could fit through that little hole.

He was surprised when Santa shoved him through, instead. Honoir was a big kid, Santa had to shove him through with his foot. "Ow." He landed on the floor and rolled to his feet.

Then Santa tried to get out but, yes, he was the one that stuck. He placed one finger beside his nose and concentrated, screwing his face up like a baby suffering its first taste of lemon. Nothing happened. He stuck the finger in his ear. Nothing. Up his nose? Nothing. Honoir grabbed his arm and tried to pull but Santa fought him. "No, no, I'll be fine. Go to the door!"

"But..." Honoir argued as Emi went tearing past, still free but being hotly pursued. Then Chloe was caught and pulled upwards. "Mom!" He tried to run after her but Santa caught his arm. "Let me go! They're losing!"

"Of course they're losing. They never had a chance."

"What?"

"So they must have a _plan,_ " Santa insisted. Honoir was confounded. Santa pointed towards the door. "The girls are coming back for you. Get them out! Trust your mother!"

"Honoir! Come on!" Polly shouted.

This was planned? Honoir looked up at his mother, kicking in the air again. She looked down at him. And smiled. And waved. "Go, baby!" Chloe called down to him. "Run! Hut one! Hut two!"

"Hut, hut, hut!" Honoir jumped aside and wriggling tentacles missed him by that much.

Graspers took hold of Santa. He batted at them with his hands but they shoved him back inside the cage with a sound like a cork being forced into a wine bottle. _Throonk!_ The bar was straightened and wrapped with a chain.

Honoir didn't see that bit, he was running for the door and he hoped his Mom appreciated it. "Weave! Weave!" he shouted to Kicki and Polly. "Do serpentine!"

"Hut, hut, hut," Kicki agreed and even Polly threw in a "Hut!" as they zig-zagged for the door. It seemed a long, long way away.

The Nanny's head zoomed after them. "Come back! It's not safe out there!"

BOOM!

_Screeeeeech._ The Nanny's head stopped moving with a jolt and a shower of hot sparks. The Bogeyman had gotten into the explosives and now her track was bent. Her head was stuck. Her pursuit of the kids dropped away.

Honoir, Kicki, and Polly had a clear shot at the big double doors where the Nutcrackers in their golden uniforms had stood, a million years ago. Polly was unexpectedly fast. Kicki was lagging behind. "Faster, Kicki!" Honoir yelled. "Hut hut hut!"

"I'm coming! Shut up!"

Polly was first, then Honoir, then Kicki, who couldn't stop turning around to watch her mother evade every tentacle. "Look at her go!"

"LATER!" Honoir bellowed. He shoved the doors open. They were dented but they swung easily. A burst of frigid arctic air swept over the kids as they dashed out. They skidded to a stop, Honoir whirling his arms.

They had no coats or boots, they couldn't stay outside without freezing right slap to death. That was Cold Hard Fact #1.

They didn't notice.

In front of them was a wall of brightly painted metal. Mr. Chucklypuff and his Fun Squad were still guarding the castle. There were hundreds of them, shoulder to shoulder, all around the perimeter, between the children and deadly freedom. They were Cold Hard Fact #2 and Polly screamed, Kicki put up her fists, and Honoir just stood there with his mouth open.

The wind slammed the door shut behind them.

"Oh, crap," Honoir said. "Oh, crappitty crap crapcrapcrapcrap..."

*

Inside, Emi was caught at last and the Nanny dragged her up to join Big Daddy, Mrs. Claus, and Chloe.

"Well, I had a good run," Emi said and Chloe laughed.

One final fireball and the explosives were all gone. The Bogeyman jumped clear of the Nanny's building space, his arm over his eyes.

The Nanny seized him mid-air. She trained every light she had left on his face. It was enough. He was solid. He was caught.

"There!" she gloated. "There! Now you can't sneak in and out of the shadows, can you? Gracious me, how ugly," she observed, turning him this way and that. "Some sort of Halloween creature of Madame Punkin's, I suppose," she said. "You!" She gave him a shake. "What are you?"

"What am _you?"_ he mocked.

"I know what I am but what are you?!" She gave him a shake.

He didn't care. B pulled his nail file out of his sleeve. He began to scritch at his claws again. He blew black dust away. The Nanny scowled and waited. "What am I?" he said.

He paused for effect.

"I'm the Bogeyman."

The Nanny tried to process that.

"The what?" she finally asked.

B was insulted. "The Big Bad? The Supreme Monster of Childhood?" The Nanny had two working faces left and they both stared at him. B twisted around to the parents. "Explain to her."

"He's kind of a big deal," Emi volunteered. "Every kid's worst nightmare."

"He wasn't mine," Chloe said, thoughtfully. "I was terrified of sharks in the bathtub."

"In the tub?" Emi asked.

"Hey, I was an imaginative kid."

"I was afraid of Bigfoot," Big Daddy remembered. "Heh, and then I married him."

B glared at them and they all grinned back. "I'm a little more complicated than that, thank you very much," he said. "Have you noticed, Ninny, how people are always in a rush to be frightened?"

"No."

"It's true. They create Haunted Houses, roller coasters, scary movies, and terrifying books. They go skydiving or they just move to a new town. Whenever they need to forget their problems, whenever they want to feel truly alive, whenever they want to stretch themselves and grow, humans head straight for what they fear." He scratched his hair with the point of his file. "Facing fear gives them strength. Gives them confidence. Do you understand?"

The Nanny didn't understand a word. "That's very silly. And unsafe."

B continued anyway. "Humans can live without sugar but they'll die without salt." He glanced up at the Nanny with his black eyes. "I'm the salt."

She was unimpressed. "No, you're some sort of banshee or vampire or..."

The Bogeyman interrupted. "I'm a warning, too. Chloe, will you demonstrate?"

"You'd better not go into dangerous places, kid," Chloe called. "Or the Bogeyman will get you." She worked her arm free of a tentacle and pointed her finger in the air. "It works, too. I kept Honoir out of the road that way. If I'd only known..."

The Nanny turned B this way and that again. Then she shrugged six or eight tentacles, confident as ever. "You won't get me, Bogeyman. You're only a pest."

"And there's no getting rid of a pest," he whispered, and he crooked a finger to bring her a little closer. She held him just underneath her big, boxy head. "Especially this pest. I've learned your secret, you see." The file disappeared up his sleeve. "The Nanny's most terrible secret."

*

Outside the door the kids were beginning to panic. "We can't go back into the cage," Kicki said.

"Wanna freeze to death here?" Honoir asked.

Polly pointed at the back of Mr. Chucklypuff himself. "We have to go back, we can't get past them!"

"Oh, yes, you can!" called out a very welcome voice from just beyond the ring of grinners.

"Mama!" Polly jumped into the air, thoroughly happy.

Big Mama Petersen stood up, his white coat flapping in the wind. His team appeared behind him and Honoir gasped. The team. The entire C.R.I.T.R. team! He wanted autographs...he shook himself to keep his mind on business. "Pete, the Nanny's got Mom! She's got all of them!" Honoir pointed back inside the castle.

Big Mama smiled. "We know. We're counting on it."

"Oh, okay," Honoir said and wished he knew what was going on.

Big Mama wasn't through. "Now hurry. Run here." He waved them closer.

Polly was appalled. "Mama, we can't get past these things!"

"Yes, you can, come on! All of you! Hurry before I vomit again," Big Mama did look green.

Polly darted forward an inch, looked up at Mr. Chucklypuff's bullet head, and shot back again.

Big Mama swallowed hard and walked forward one step. The sharpened teeth on Mr. Chucklypuff's chainsaws went 'round. Big Mama stepped back and the _brrzzzz!_ stopped. "Be brave, Angel," he said. "Go right between their legs! Or stumps or wheels or whatever they've got." Big Mama and his team made frantic come-here motions.

Polly whimpered. But right in front of her was the man that personified safety in her life. She couldn't not go. "AIEEEEEEEEE!" she battle-shrieked, surprising everyone, and shot forward. She went between Mr. Chucklypuff's tank treads as if she were crawling under a table and ran straight to her mama.

Kicki and Honoir weren't about to be out-couraged by Princess Polly Pureheart and they were right behind. Honoir felt horrible creeping chills all up and down his back the moment he was facing away from Mr. Chuckiething and all those grinning nightmares. He went faster. And they didn't move.

He stopped and looked back. "Are they frozen?"

"Don't stop!" Big Mama barked. Honoir jumped and instantly obeyed, shooting forward again. Big Mama caught Polly up and took off running. Another ranger seized Honoir and threw him over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. Honoir was astonished. It had been a couple of years since any adult had been able to pick him up.

"Why...are...they...just...standing...there?" he asked as he was jostled up and down.

"We'll explain later!" Big Mama called back. He was running faster than anyone away from the clowns. Another ranger had Kicki over her own shoulder and could barely keep up, her knees almost up to her ears with each frantic step. Big Mama shouted, "To the stables! Marlee and the big toys are waiting for us!"

"But Mother's still in there! Where's Daddy?" Kicki shouted. Honoir's rescuer turned around, covering the retreat, running backwards almost as easily as everyone else ran forward. Honoir and Kicki were head to head.

They were just able to shrug at each other then Kicki shouted again, "Is there a plan? What is it?"

"Run! That's the plan!" Big Mama shouted.

"Good plan!" Kicki approved, as if she had a choice.

Everyone ran and ran and ran.

*

The Nanny was looking at B as if he were speaking Chinese. "Secret? I have no secret." she said. "Don't be ridiculous. No one is more straightforward and uncomplicated and pure than I am."

"You're pure something, all right," B muttered. Then his claws slashed the tentacle holding him and she jerked in surprise. The Nanny dropped him. B landed lightly on his feet.

Mrs. Claus raised her hands and slipped out of her coils to fall to the ground alongside him. She didn't exactly stick her landing. "Ow!" She caught up her left ankle and hopped around on one leg. "Ohhh." B winced in sympathy but Merry Belle recovered quickly.

"We know your deepest, darkest secret!" Mrs. Claus shouted up. The Nanny snatched her into the air again, "Oof!" but the Bogeyman swayed and stepped gracefully out of her every reach.

"We know!" Chloe shouted. "And you're gonna lose."

Big Daddy joined in. "We know!"

"We know everything!" came from Emi.

The Nanny was baffled and suddenly furious. "I know _best!_ What more do I need?"

"You don't know how we got in here," B pointed out. "Aren't you interested?"

The Nanny thought about that for a moment. Then her remaining eyes went wide. "The tunnel! I forgot to put a guard on the tunnel. And you brought them through. Oh, I'd lose my head if it weren't screwed in!" She gave her box a quarter turn. It clanked.

B continued. "Also? Allow me to point out that there are no guards at all in here."

The Nanny was still confused.

"You see, _dear,_ you told them to guard the outside. They don't care at all about what's happening inside." B flicked his long claws at the echoing wasteland. "The Fun Squad won't even turn around."

The Nanny blinked. "What?"

"That means no one will help you if we decided to do this," the Bogeyman took a thick ball of braided straw out of one of his bottomless pocket. He threw it at the Nanny's face and it _splattered._

Straw and reindeer manure went everywhere. The stink filled the world. The Nanny shrieked and wiped her eyes.

"Eww," Chloe laughed. She pulled out a bag of filth from her own deep pocket. "Hit her!" Dung and straw exploded from all the captives.

Grunt Grenades! It had been Chloe's idea to put the reindeer's manure pile to good use. Simple, disgusting, and effective.

The most deadly accurate arm belonged to Big Daddy who was an adult softball champ. He could throw a turd-ball underhand at eighty miles an hour. He got the Nanny in the face. Twice. "That was for Polly!"

The Nanny screeched, "Stop it! The mess! The mess!" Brooms, mops, dustpans, dust rags, lemon cleaner, mouthwash, everything, descended from the ceiling and began to scrub frantically but there was no escaping the smell. "Disgusting! How dare you! How _dare_ you!"

Mrs. Claus missed and sputtered in disappointment but the smell got stronger.

Chloe bounced another putrid ball off her bicep and onto the floor.

Splat!

The Bogeyman had saved some gunpowder and a fuse. He pulled a basket of filth the size of a ten pound bag of flour out of his infinity pocket, added the extras, lit the fuse and ran.

BOOM!

A stinking fog filled the air that no broom could touch.

Forgotten in his cage Santa Claus was laughing so hard he was going purple. "Ho! Ho, ho gaaaasp bwahahaaaaaa!" He rolled around on the floor.

There was a thin film of sheer nastiness on everything, everything! The Nanny's tentacles dripped with it and she shook them.

"Ew," Santa said, suddenly sober, and picked sadly at his splattered beard. It wasn't white anymore.

The Nanny bowled her prisoners away and Chloe shrieked as they all went slipping across the floor. B slid into her path and caught her. He pulled her to her feet. She was a filthy mess.

She was beautiful.

The Nanny flung down her brooms and dustpans, too. Her tentacles clamped together until they formed something like a flipper. A flipper? She curled it into a tube.

It was a bullhorn. She held it to one of her mouths and shouted "MR. CHUCKLYPUFF!" The noise echoed all through what had been the workshop and reached the outside. The far doors were open. B could see Mr. Chucklypuff turn his head completely around at the summons. His tank treads rumbled into life and he reversed through the doors into the castle.

"FUN SQUAD! FUN SQUAD!" the Nanny shrieked. "ALL OF YOU! GET IN HERE!"

The others didn't bother with doors. They plowed in through the walls. Stone rubble scattered everywhere.

The fresh air didn't help the stink much.

"To the cage!" the Bogeyman shouted. The others scrambled to their feet.

Mr. Chucklypuff and all the metal clowns were congregating under the Nanny. The workshop filled with line upon line of frightful, brainless metal.

The prisoners ducked and ran through and around them, avoiding wheels with spikes, stiff legs, and, in one dreadful case, a clown with several crab-like claws that went _clickety clickety clickety_ on the metal floor.

Chloe and the Bogeyman were the first to make it to the iffy safety of Santa's cage, an island in a robot sea. Emi, Mrs. Claus, and Big Daddy were right behind them. Santa grasped Mrs. Claus's hands through the bars.

Chloe turned to the Bogeyman. "It's not very dark here," she gasped. "Can you get us out?"

"I can but try," he said and put his arm around her waist to pull her back as a clown went by too closely. It was a real pity no chicken was nearby to 'atta boy' him this time but it really wasn't an 'atta boy' moment. "Everyone hang on to me," the Bogeyman said. They did so, Santa reaching out through the bars to grip him by the shoulder.

The dark man concentrated.

There was a brief, whirling sensation.

But no movement.

The Bogeyman opened one eye and frowned. Finally he shook his head. "I can't. There's still too much light."

"Oh, we tried!" Santa said. "We tried to get them all."

"It's all right," Chloe reassured him and looked around fearfully. "We should have done something about them when we were running wild."

"When? When we were being twirled around like lassoes?" Big Daddy pointed out.

"And we would have been stumbling around blind," Emi said.

"Well, excuse me!" Chloe shot back.

"Now now, everyone," Mrs. Claus made peacemaking gestures and the parents left off.

The Workshop was full. They were completely surrounded by metallic death.

"Everyone calmly and very, very quickly go to the doors," the Bogeyman ordered, gently tugging Chloe away from the cage.

Mrs. Claus gasped, "What about my husband?"

"Go!" said Santa.

"But..."

"Go, go, go. Merry Belle! Go!"

"Don't be an idiot. Not without you," she said. "The rest of you go."

"No!"

The argument would have gone on but Mr. Chucklypuff was receiving his orders.

"LOOK AT THE NASTY MESS THEY MADE!" All the clowns obediently looked down. "NOW THROW THEM OUT! THROW EVERYONE OUT! NO ONE IS TO BE INSIDE THE CASTLE! ABSOLUTELY NO ONE!"

Heads snapped up again, gears, hinges, and ball bearings rattling as one. Arms and pincers and scoops reached out.

"Oh, hey, that'll work, too," Chloe said.

The nearest robots seized them. but they couldn't move. The metal floor was packed. So they began to pass the prisoners from claw, to hand, to spike, to pincer over their grinning heads towards the door.

It was painful.

"Ow! Ow! OW! Be careful!"

Still, no one struggled. B was broken apart from Chloe but as long as they were all headed towards the doors he was just fine.

"Everyone okay?" Chloe called out.

"Uuugh, I've been better," Big Daddy called back as he was lifted ten feet into the air. "I think it's gonna hurt when I land, though."

Mrs. Claus was pulled off the cage. Her cardigan tore against the jagged rivets of one robot or another. Santa didn't like that at all. "Easy! Easy on her! Hey!"

His cage lurched as two bruisers picked it bodily up and sent it on its journey towards the door. The bars made a terrible steel-on-steel squeal as they bent and scraped along. _Sssskkkrrrrrrriiiiiiiinkk!_

"OUT! EVERYONE OUT!"

There was an uncharacteristic "Wheeee!" from B as he was tossed through the air. He hit the snow and rolled. He felt his strength returning as he gazed up into the night sky. He sighed with relief as Big Daddy, Chloe, and Emi landed beside him.

Inside the castle there was the loud buzz of a chainsaw. Two chainsaws. And a screeching whine and the pop of fizzling power as cables and wires were cut.

"EVERYONE OUT...wait, what are you doing?!" The Nanny suddenly shouted in horror. B leaned up to watch as Mr. Chucklypuff's chainsaw arms finished cutting the Nanny's boxy head clean off. It bounced on the floor. "What?!" she said. All the tentacles attached to her enormous body went limp as severed connectors sparked and fizzed. "What are you doing?" She struck out with what tentacles her head had, the original red and whites, but Mr. Chucklypuff caught them and tied them into a knot. With his chainsaws?! That took talent. "What are you doing?" He pushed aside the lesser robots as he hauled her to the doors personally. _"What on Earth are you doing?!"_

"Everyone out!" Mrs. Claus crowed as she was pitched through the doors herself for the fourth and last time. "Out, out, out!"

"But not me! Not meeeeeee!" the Nanny shrieked as Mr. Chucklypuff wound up and flung her far. Everyone watched her trajectory in awe before she hit the snow and skipped several times like a flat stone on a smooth lake. A crack appeared in her extra face, leaving her with just the one. Finally she stopped and lay still, her limbs trailing limp all over the snow. "Not me," she said.

The cage went crashing along after her, poor Santa riding it out as best he could. When it stopped tumbling he crawled from the wreckage with a groan.

Inside the workshop the heavy, bloated body the Nanny built became completely lifeless. There was a _whoooosh_ of escaping air and weird pings and snaps as all the gears, levers, and pistons stopped. There was a fizzling, hissing sound. A smell of burnt lemon. The glass dome of the Workshop cracked and cracked some more with a high squeaking sound. Cracks everywhere, a spider web of disaster growing and growing.

"Go, go, go!" B ordered. "Get out of the way!"

Everyone crawled upright and ran for it, putting as much distance between themselves and the destruction as humanly and inhumanly possible.

The onion dome shattered. Gravity became the top power at Santa's Castle as the Nanny's body peeled away from the roof like a great, nasty pancake. Tons of machinery came crashing down on the Fun Squad.

A crunch echoed out over the North Pole and a blast of wind smoothed the snow in all directions.

Mr. Chucklypuff was blown out and rolled over and over in the snow until his treads broke.

The Fun Squad's fun was over.

*

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Chloe stood and watched glittering dust fill the air around the ruin. "Ohhh, wow," she whispered and shielded her face from a brief rain of stone, glass, sizzling hot metal, and shreds of tentacle. "Santa's Castle."

Santa's Castle. Only the four towers were left and they stood alone. A plume of dark smoke blotted out the stars above it.

"Mom!"

Chloe forgot all about the stupid castle and whirled around. Marlee, her elves, the Helper Toys, the C.R.I.T.R. Squad and the kids were all charging across the snow, the children in over-sized winter survival gear. They were all waving flashlights or magical torches. Chloe had never seen anything so beautiful in her entire life. She ran to meet Honoir. "Baby! Oh, my baby! C'mere!" Honoir tackled her and they hit the snow. "Ow."

"Mom! You okay?"

"I'm fiiiiine!" She fought his hair back, reached his head, and kissed it. "Muah! How about you?"

"Fiiiiine! Oh, wow, you stink."

"All part of my brilliant plan."

Honoir looked over her shoulder. "B? You all right?"

Surprised, Chloe looked behind her. Well, of course he was back there. The Bogeyman smiled at her son and nodded.

"Mother!"

"Kicki!" Emi was crying as she seized and hugged her girl. "He's just sick, Kicki," she said. "Your dad's just sick. He's on antibiotics for a lung infection. He'll be fine when he gets some rest." She set her daughter down and shook her skinny little shoulders. "We have to make him rest."

"And he won't die?" Kicki asked.

"He will not die," Emi promised. "I'm so sorry we scared you. We didn't want to worry you."

Kicki nodded as silent tears ran down her face. She threw her arms around Emi again.

The Petersens were together at last and Polly was telling them all about it. "I was worried 'cause the team are always behind Mama and I mean kind of a long way _behind_ Mama and when the Nanny said 'clowns' I thought _uh oh_ and got worried more and then Daddy was there and that was so bad 'cause he's not a professional and..."

"Angel, you worry too much," Big Daddy said and hugged Polly again, then he took Galahad from his belt and handed him over. "Galahad sez the world is not on your shoulders. You've got to believe him," She hugged her bear and then she hugged her parents again.

Big Mama turned and looked thoughtfully at his team, ranged in a line far behind him just as Polly said they usually were.

"Hmmm." Big Mama hmed. Then he broke out a mischievous grin. "Hey, Angel, if you want a teddy bear, check that guy out." He pointed at Bertram, the enormous blue grizzly, as he lumbered past on his way to Mrs. Claus. "Say hi."

Bertram overheard and turned around. Polly stepped up. "Hi," she shyly said and he waggled his ears at her.

"Whurf!" he said, by way of a hello. "Wanna ride?"

"Pleeeease!"

Big Mama lifted her up onto the bear's back and they all strolled around, grinning.

*

Santa Claus was aching in his every particular but he found the strength to get slowly up and find his wife. "Merry Belle?"

"Nnnngh," came from a sprawled figure in the snow. Princess, the elves, and the Brigadier had surrounded her. But they were smiling, relieved. Mrs. Claus was weakly making a snow angel.

"Merry Belle?" Santa gently asked again.

"Oh," she said. "It's you." She slowly sat up. Something popped. Her spine. "Ow."

"Thank you for another brilliant rescue," Santa said.

"Hmmph, don't thank me, thank them." She waved an arm around vaguely. "If it weren't for them..."

"Merry Belle?" Santa said again, for third time's the charm. Mrs. Claus finally looked at him. _"Thank you,"_ he said and he never meant anything more.

Her weariness was replaced with surprise. She studied him and her expression slowly smoothed into sympathy. "You silly old goat," she said. She pulled him closer by the beard and kissed him. "Oh, yuck." She scrubbed her lips. "Reindeer ka ka."

Marlee broke in. "Er, Mrs. Claus? We don't have any food and the fire in the stable just went out."

Mrs. Claus sighed and rolled to her feet. "Break time is over. Let's go," she said and her people followed her as she walked slowly towards the stables. Santa watched them go. Merry Belle was saying, "Let's get Punkin on the snow globe. Poor kitty, I'm the worst friend she has."

Unregarded, Santa stood and cautiously went back towards his castle. Well, 'castle' might be too strong a word. 'Ruin' would fit. So would 'smoking heap' and 'derelict' and 'pile.' Santa Claus sighed from the bottom of his boots. His castle. His home. The elves' home, the reindeer's home, the Helper Toys' home. And the Workshop.

Gone.

All gone.

Something under his foot crunched and he looked down. He'd stepped on a frayed, smoking scrap of blue fabric attached to a broken frame. It had words on it, he could just read them.

It said, _STICK TO TOYS._

Santa rolled his eyes because that was really rubbing it in, universe. He dragged himself around it and set out across the snow, searching.

He found what he was looking for. She was stirring feebly. "This isn't correct!" the Nanny said when she saw him. Magical sparks fizzed in the air as she worked a single tentacle free of its knot. "This isn't at all nice or comfortable, either. But I know exactly what to do."

"So do I," he said and knelt beside her.

"And so do we," said a strange, accented voice behind him.

Santa turned with a jerk. Even the Nanny had the strength to be interested. She raised herself up to look, one of her enormous eyes rising over Santa's shoulder like the full moon rising over a broad, red mountain.

Sir Walter Wally was back and he wasn't alone. Oh, boy, was he ever not alone.

"Hola, mi amigo," said a tall, vivid entity and Santa gasped, he couldn't help himself. It was El Muerte. El Muerte himself, and he was perpetrating a bony grin. Everything El Muerte did was bony.

Arrayed behind him was Mother Earth, the Easter Bunny and many of her children, Punkin, Morgan, Baron Saunday, Tom Turkey, Father Time, Sir Walter Wally and other assorted groundhogs, a family of Leprechauns, Jack Frost, a chicken (?!) the Tooth Fairy, Jiro Kita, the Sandman, Uncle Sam, John Bull, Slewfoot Sue with Pecos Bill, and so many, many others. All the holidays, all the legends, looking hard at Santa. They all glowed faintly in the night.

Through the horrified humming in his ears Santa realized Sir Walter was talking.

"Santa Claus, Kris Kringle, Pere Noel, Saint Nicholas, etcetera, etcetera," Sir Walter began and, to his credit, he didn't sound like a self-important buffoon. He was serious and grieved, his whiskers pointing almost straight down. "This Holiday Conclave, after hearing the testimony of Madame Punkin, Morgan the Witch, and Master Jiro Kita as well as mine own opinion," the groundhog took a deep breath, "Has decided t'would be meet to move the proceedings here, to this, your barren land."

"Oh! What...what an honor, I'm sure," Santa said. A Conclave! He was in big trouble. "Somebody go get Merry Belle back, please?" he asked.

Nobody moved.

Santa drooped.

El Muerte casually stepped forward with his hands behind his back, the fingers making _tink tink tink_ noises as he twiddled them. He turned to look at what was left of the castle and then he came even closer to cock his head down at the Nanny. "You did this?" he asked her. She raised her one tentacle and weakly wiped his nose holes.

El Muerte stepped back. Santa had no idea what was going on in that hollow noggin. He noticed the poor humans that had been dragged through, uh, recent events were slowly walking forward. Jiro Kita broke free from the ranks of holidays and enveloped his wife and daughter in a relieved hug. "Are you two covered in ....?"

"Everyone's here," drawled the Bogeyman right into Santa's ear and he almost fainted. "But I bet we could take 'em."

"No," Santa whispered back.

"Oh, come on. The bunnies at least."

"No, no, _no."_

"Que? Who on earth are you?" El Muerte asked the Bogeyman.

"Council for the deceased. Excuse me, the defendant. So under the circumstances I think I'll go stand wayyy over there."

And B left, striding across the snow to join Chloe and Honoir.

And Santa Claus was left all alone.

Again.

Still, he felt his strength returning. Ah, the Nanny was broken. His magic was leaping from her and her crushed Fun Squad back to where it belonged. He felt as if all his dents were being gently smoothed out. What a relief. If he didn't feel so terrible he'd be feeling great.

He put it to the test. Santa clapped his hands together once and the stink and filth that covered him, that covered all of the former prisoners, disappeared in a blast of fresh polar air.

"Thank you!" Big Daddy called out.

It really was a huge relief and Santa straightened to face his peers with a little dignity and a pristine, white beard.

El Muerte gave that horrible jaw-dropping smile again. "Well, Santos, the Nanny has done enough damage here, yes?"

"Oh, certainly." Santa shook his head. So much was obvious.

El Muerte nodded and went on. "The Conclave is busy. We have to plan reconstruction here and, ah, there are other items to discuss," his empty gaze lingered on the Bogeyman for the briefest moment. "Oh, and Punkin, Tom, the Baby New Year, and Uncle Sam have lodged formal complaints against you, Nick." He leaned in confidentially. "Something about arrogance but I'm sure they're just being overly sensitive, right?"

Santa looked down at the snow and didn't answer.

El Muerte went on. "So take care of your monster so we can get down to business."

"Take care?" Santa asked.

"Destroy it."

Everyone was staring at him. Santa looked down at the Nanny. She was building a tiny snow-robot with eight sharp icicles for arms. "What?"

"Make all your problems go away," El Muerte said, flicking a dismissive hand at the Nanny. "Hurry up."

Santa shook his head. "No."

"Excuse?"

"No, I won't destroy her. I'm going to fix her."

"You're going to what?"

"Fix her!"

El Muerte waved his hand. "Don't waste your time. Or ours. Look what she did!"

Santa wasn't even tempted to lie. "No, I did this," he said.

"Que?"

"I did this. I...a craftsman crafts. But a craftsman takes time and care. I didn't. I want to do it right this time," Santa said.

El Muerte leaned in close and put a dry, rattling hand on Santa's shoulder. His voice hissed out in a whisper. "You're on thin ice, Papa Noel." Santa Claus stared down in sudden fear. El Muerte dope-slapped him on the back of the head. "Not that kind of thin ice, stupido. Now I tell you this 'cause I like you. Do you want to lose everything?"

"I...I don't care!" Santa puffed his chest out.

El Muerte glared at him. The jolly marigolds painted on his skull seemed to go a frightful purple. "That's your final word?"

"Yes. I..." Santa slowly turned to face the other holidays and his cheeks were even more rosy than usual. "I'm sorry," he said to them. "If there's one word to describe me it's 'overly impulsive.' I thought I could build a better boss. I should have _been_ a better boss. And I'm sorry if I offended anyone."

"If?" Punkin's hiss was low but everyone heard it.

"That!" he corrected. "That, that, that. I apologize." Santa threw his arms wide. "I was arrogant. And greedy and overbearing. I haven't been listening to my friends. I _have_ been listening to all the wrong people. The polls and the television producers and I..." He came out with it. "I listened to what I wanted to hear. Well. I'm stopping now and I'll make it up to all of you, I promise," He turned to El Muerte who said nothing. Santa dropped his arms and went even redder. "I really am truly sorry."

The skeleton looked at him for a long time.

Then he nodded. "I believe you." He smoothed his lapels. "And I am proud of you. The Conclave accepts your apology. You, Santa Claus, are free."

He raised his skeletal hands and cracked them together. He did this several times before the others realized he was applauding.

Several of the little bunnies joined in, then the Easter Bunny herself. The leprechauns began to clap, then John Bull.

The applause grew and Santa breathed out in relief. He waved with both hands and beamed on everyone.

He noticed Punkin and Tom weren't clapping. Punkin's tail-tip was shaking like a rattlesnake's.

None of the humans, the Helper Toys, nor Marlee's elves were applauding either.

Santa's relief and enthusiasm left as fast as it had arrived. Then he heard...

Clap.

Clap.

Clap.

It was the Bogeyman.

Clap.

Clap.

He was slowly walking back.

Clap.

He loomed over Santa. The old fellow gulped.

"Ab-so-lute-ly not," B said. "I object."

"Eh, what? What are you objecting to?" El Muerte demanded.

"I object to this farce," the Bogeyman answered. "Santa Clause shows a little moral fiber. Witnessed by everyone. Good boy, you say. You've passed the test and learned your lesson. Then what? Then you leave?"

El Muerte was offended. "We are showing mercy."

B sneered. "No, you swan off and Mrs. Claus cleans up the mess again."

El Muerte rallied. "Just who are you, senor?" He threw his hands up and faced the Conclave. "Who is this?"

He turned around to find the stranger standing not two inches away.

B stood still, unnaturally still, but the shadow that he was grew. Dark spread to dark and the lights were all blazing within it.

But it suddenly became clear to everyone that every light goes out. Even the sun will go out someday. The galaxies will all spin out and die in a sad cosmic fizzle given enough time. But the dark is forever.

El Muerte, El Muerte himself, stepped back.

B moved even closer and the night moved with him. "I'm the Bogeyman," he whispered.

"The Bogeyman?!" one of the groundhogs shrieked and hid behind a big blue ox.

B grasped his lapels and strode up and down. "I submit to the Conclave that Santa Claus has been grossly irresponsible _yet again_ and should not be let off with a smack on the wrist."

"He's lost his castle," El Muerte began, trying to rally.

"A castle? Who cares about a pile of rocks?" the Bogeyman pointed the Finger of Doom at Santa Claus. "That thing must be stopped."

The Nanny perked up. "I know exactly how best to go about it, my dear!"

"No, you don't, shut up," Santa muttered.

"Yes! _Gwobble!"_ Tom cried. "Kick him out!"

"Tom!" Punkin hissed. "A little more decorum, please."

"I object!" Polly Petersen called out from the sidelines.

Her family gasped.

"I object, too!" Tom said, glaring at the black cat. "I have a right to my opinion!"

While Punkin and Tom sniped at each other, all the holidays and humans eagerly moved closer to make a loose circle around the action.

*

Honoir was amazed. He shot a look at Kicki. Her mouth was hanging open, too, as Polly slowly slid off Bertram's shoulders.

Polly walked forward jerkily as if she were desperate to walk backwards. Her parents tried to walk with her but she stopped and blocked them, her arms wide.

"No, go back," she said. "I'm the Defense. Just me."

"Just you? Really?" Big Mama asked.

Polly nodded her head. She gave Galahad a quick hug and handed him over. Big Mama slowly took the bear.

Honoir expected a lightning strike but nothing that dramatic happened as Polly walked, empty-handed and alone, into the arena.

"Just me," Polly repeated.

"Wait..." Big Mama was already fretting.

But Big Daddy stood firm. "Nope. She can do this." Pete clearly didn't like it at all but he stood down again.

The Bogeyman moved to the dead center of the circle. He looked like a great black spike in the snow.

Polly stopped.

"Go get him, Polly!" Honoir encouraged.

Kicki ran up to her friend, shoved her wooden sword into her hands, and darted back again. Polly grabbed it by the hilt, hard, and took another step.

"I'faith, look out! She's armed!" one the leprechauns called out.

The Bogeyman called out mockingly, "Ooooh, the Peerless Pollykins Par Excellence is coming after me." He fluffed his cravat with his claws. "No blankets to throw over your head here."

Chloe called out, "That's not nice, B!"

He shrugged his shoulders, "It's what I _do_ , Snugglebunny."

"Snu...whaaat?" Chloe gasped, blushing.

"What?" said the Easter Bunny.

Polly whispered. "I...I'm not afraid of you."

The Bogeyman put a hand to his ear. "Sorry? I can't hear you over there."

"She said she's not afraid of you!" Honoir bellowed and there was a burst of laughter from the Conclave.

El Muerte snapped his fingers several times and there was order in the court.

Polly drew in the deepest breath. "I _said,_ I'm not afraid of you. And I object!" she declared again and waved her sword. "Santa didn't plan for any of this to happen. He was only trying to help."

B shook his head. "It's common knowledge that the accused agreed not to make anything other than toys," the Bogeyman said. "He broke faith."

"He meant well," Polly shot back.

"What did he mean by the snow machine? The free-falling giant gingerbread men incident? Raleigh is still rebuilding." B said. Sir Walter reacted to that one, growing even rounder and fuzzier with anger. The Bogeyman went on. "Then there were the Everlasting Christmas Trees that took root in the floors of every house they were brought into. And the Mistletoe Madness that struck the United Nations."

"He was trying to inspire joy and peace!" Polly shouted.

"Peace? Canada almost went to war with the Conch Republic over a pretty intern!"

"But they didn't," Polly insisted.

"Yes, so many disasters ducked. But this one wasn't," B said, jerking a pointy thumb at the smoking ruins of the castle. "His home, and the home of hundreds of North Pole elves and toys, is in ruins. Three innocent human families put through a mangler. Three hundred year old Live Oaks turned into firewood."

Mother Earth put a pained hand over her heart. "Houses and property damaged, peace of mind destroyed."

"I..." Polly looked at the debris all around her. "Well..."

The Bogeyman went on. "The Carnivorous Poinsettias debacle. People think Global Warming is to blame for the polar bear decline but noooo."

Polly was shocked. "Seriously?"

"You didn't hear about that one, Polly? Well, we don't know everything do we?" he said.

Polly frowned. "I know lots of..."

B interrupted. "We don't have all the facts. We are not using our head. And you know what that means?"

Polly went pale. "No. Don't you say it," she muttered.

"We're not very bright, are we?"

"No..."

"We're just not college material."

"No! Shut up!" Polly covered her ears.

Big Mama was chewing his hand in a rage.

The Bogeyman unleashed the worst. "We will _never_ get into Harvard!"

Polly's face went red. She shouted, "EEEEEEE!"

"Go, baby, go!"

And Polly charged, her hair streaming behind her. She hauled off and batted the Bogeyman's knees with her sword like a perfect little berserker. Her mighty arm cut the air, again and again and again, whackity whack!

"Ow!" The Bogeyman fell and curled up, his arms over his shaggy head.

As a change she whacked his shoulder, too, and poked him. "You take it back, you take it back, you take it back!"

"Give him another!" came from Big Mama.

El Muerte snapped his fingers again and the uproar slowly stopped. Polly gripped her sword and panted with fury. The Bogeyman uncurled and stood. He shook the snow out of his hair and tightened his ragged queue.

Polly stood her ground. If he cast a shadow she'd be standing in it.

He smiled proudly down at her. "Fine," he said. "I take it back."

And every man, woman, child, and holiday cheered.

Honoir jumped up and down and whooped wildly.

Polly blinked with surprise at the noise. Then she gasped and staggered backwards as she realized what she'd done. The tears began to flow, as usual, but then she smiled, too. Polly turned and saluted her parents and her friends and they all hooted like excited owls.

_Snap, snap, snap, snap, snap_ , and the hubbub faded. El Muerte shook his head. He seemed confused over what had just happened so he ignored it.

"So, one side says Santa Claus is mad, bad, and dangerous to know," El Muerte said. "The other side says he isn't. That clears up everything."

B and Polly glared at him, looking as if they could say plenty about the current judicial system. Polly jabbed her sword in the snow. B inspected his sharp claws.

El Muerte ignored all that, too. "Concluding arguments, por favor," he demanded.

Polly's was simple and to the point. "You can't cancel Christmas. You just can't. Santa's always been there and he's always been good even when he screws up." She waved her hands through the air. "Christmas morning! It's everything that's pretty and warm and wonderful. There's lights that flash and everything's shiny. Everything smells wonderful. Everything is wonderful. The snow smells sweet, the wrapping paper smells so _papery,_ and something is cooking in the kitchen that smells like cinnamon and cloves and butter. And Santa Claus came! And there's stockings! Then the whole family comes for dinner. And everybody's singing."

She gestured at Santa Claus and her eyes were huge. "You can't take that...that heart away. It would be terrible!" She turned to another part of her audience. She opened her arms wide. "Life is hard! We all deserve Christmas. And Santa Claus deserves another chance. Don't fix what ain't broke, like my Mama says.

There was a gentle murmuring at her words.

Polly pointed at the Bogeyman. "Your turn."

B stood even taller. "Ladies and gentlemen and others," he said. "I think my sentimental little friend is arguing in favor of tradition. But traditions change."

Honoir saw Santa flinch for some reason.

B went on. "Ask yourselves this. Just how many second chances has Santa had? And thrown away?"

The Conclave paused to count them up. Yes, there'd been quite a few. An angry muttering began.

"D'you think that gathering here to shake our finger at him will reeeeally change him?"

Mutter, MUTTER, mutter.

"Shall we assign him a keeper? Oh, wait, he already has one. Poor Merry Belle Claus, what that poor woman must suffer."

The Bogeyman put one hand over his heart and raised the other into the air for attention. There was silence again. "I would _never_ cancel Christmas. There must always be an evergreen winter holiday of feasting, friends, and beautiful, bright lights. I would never get in the way of that." He addressed the other side of the ring. "It's necessary to have that hope and joy in the middle of the coldest, darkest days of the year. It pains me to admit it but it's the truth."

He turned his head slightly and looked straight at Chloe. "Without a little light the dark is meaningless."

"Atta boy, B!"

The Bogeyman shouted, "Shut it!" and white feathers flew into the air as the chicken was suppressed by Sir Walter. You'd think a creature with such stubby legs wouldn't be able to kick that well.

The Bogeyman cleared his throat and regained his cool.

He slowly ambulated around the circle, "But Santa can no longer be large and in charge. It's unwise. And unsafe." His stroll around the ring brought him back to the little girl opposing him. "And you know it," he said to Polly. "You, of all people, know that he's not the right one for the job." He knelt down and looked her square in the eye. "You have a good heart, Polly, but you don't think with your heart, do you?"

Polly opened her mouth. Then she shut it. She looked at the gutted castle, at the Nanny, at her friends, at her parents. She didn't say a word.

The Bogeyman's voice carried a little pity. "The prosecution rests."

El Muerte glanced down at Polly. "The defense rests," she finally said and her head dropped in defeat.

"Poor girl," Chloe whispered and gripped Honoir's shoulder as if to comfort him. Honoir didn't need comfort. He agreed with B. But then what was going to happen to Santa Claus? It's not like he could go sell insurance or anything. Honoir hated to see anyone out of a decent job, especially after what had happened to his Mom. It was just so confusing.

El Muerte backed away slowly. The circle opened then tightened into a knot as the Conclave went into a huddle. Intense whispering and murmuring began, Tom Turkey occasionally stretching his long neck out to glare out at Santa. Punkin's tail was lashing now.

Polly trudged back to her parents and they hugged her. Honoir and Kicki patted her back.

*

"Why didn't someone come get me?" Mrs. Claus demanded and her husband leapt three feet into the air.

"Oh! Merry Belle, you startled me."

"What's going on?"

Santa noticed the Bogeyman cutting his eyes at him. Under cover of scratching his nose, B pointed at Santa and then pointed at Merry Belle.

"Huh?" Santa said.

"I said what's going on?" Merry Belle repeated.

"Uh..."

The Bogeyman casually faced the children and his shoulders moved as he signed to them.

Understanding dawned on all three. Polly looked intensely relieved.

B sauntered away and coolly stared back at those in the Conclave who were taking a break in the debate to stare at him.

Honoir waved to catch Santa's attention. He gave a couple of football signals.

"Foul?" Santa guessed. "Touchdown?"

Honoir shook his head and made a broad throwing motion.

"Toss?" Santa tried.

No.

"Uh, play?" Santa made Xs and Os in the air.

No.

"Go long?" He pointed at the horizon.

No.

"Hail Mary?" Santa clasped his hands together.

No! Honoir mimed _throwing_ something at Kicki who mimed catching it.

"Candy fight?"

No! Throwing motion. Catching motion. Santa wanted to throw a tantrum. He was more of a skier, not a football player.

"Pass?" Santa guessed with desperation.

Yes! Honoir nodded. Kicki and Polly silently clapped. She pointed frantically to Merry Belle.

Pass? Pass what? Santa Claus looked at his wife. She had her head cocked at the Conclave, trying to hear.

And then he got it.

"Ohhh. _Pass."_ Santa was so happy he understood that he grinned at all the world.

Mrs. Claus was still baffled and alarmed. "This is some sort of trial?" she asked.

Santa took a deep breath and gave the children a double thumbs-up. They returned the gesture. Then Santa looked at the Bogeyman and gave the thumbs-up again. B returned the smallest nod. Yep, Santa got the message.

And what a perfect solution it was! Relieved, really, Santa turned to Merry Belle. "Yes. It's a trial." He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. "And this is the end of Christmas."

She clutched her grubby cardigan and wrung it. "No," she said. "No, they won't do that."

Santa agreed, "No, they won't." He looked around at the holidays and myths flailing their arms, paws, or wings around and arguing. He looked down at the Nanny, building another snow-robot with two heads. Then he took his wife by the hand. "I'll do that."

"Whaaa?" she said.

"You have to promise me that you'll let me continue making and delivering the toys," he said.

She gasped as she realized what he was saying.

"That was always my favorite part, the best part, making all the children happy," he said.

Merry Belle's eyes filled with tears. "But... me?"

"Nobody better."

She covered her mouth in awe. Then she began to think. Santa watched her closely as she slowly brought her hand down again. And nodded. "Are you sure?" she asked.

Punkin yowled, "Tom, for the last time, we will _not_ off with his head!"

Santa rolled his eyes. "I'm very sure. I _will_ mess up again. It's what _I_ do, Snugglebunny."

Merry Belle chuckled and a tear dropped down her rosy cheek. But she didn't argue.

Santa went on. "Both of us are getting what we deserve." He smiled, but his eyes were misty, too. "Promise?"

She looked at the huddled Conclave, the oblivious Nanny, and the wide-eyed humans. Then she took a deep breath. "Yes. I promise."

He kissed her again. "Then this is for you," he said and took both her hands in his.

The Northern Lights blazed up, green and red and gold across the night sky. A whipcrack sound, like the snap of glacial ice breaking, shot through the peaceful air. The Conclave staggered and stared upwards, confused, alarmed.

The auroras whirled and cast wild colors on the snow below. They shone in Merry Belle's eyes. She gasped.

The Bogeyman spun away from the brilliance. "Agh!" He crouched and covered his face with his hands. There was a running step and a wide shadow fell over him. He looked up. Chloe and Honoir were blocking the light from him.

"Thank you," was all he said.

"Sure," was all Chloe answered.

"Wowww," Honoir gasped. "Guys! Look at that."

Polly held up her hand and the glowing colors streamed through her fingers.

Kicki danced in it, jumping from one ribbon of cool fire to the other.

Then the Northern Lights were gone and the stars came blazing back. Merry Belle stared up into the sky for a long moment and then she looked at her hands. Her cardigan was whole and a pristine white again. The sequins around the collar shimmered like diamonds. They _were_ diamonds.

"Are you all right?" Santa whispered.

"Yes," she said and straightened. "Everything's all right," and there was no arguing with the new assurance in her voice.

The Conclave gawked at her.

Punkin broke first. She came bounding over the snow, her black fur at attention. She looked downright fluffy. "Merry Belle! Did what I think happened just happen?"

The Bogeyman made it official. "Ladies and gentlemen and assorted whatsits. I present your new Winter Holiday!" He bowed to her while Mrs. Claus blushed. The Conclave exclaimed and squawked.

The Bogeyman straightened and said, "I pronounce myself satisfied." He looked at Polly.

She gasped, "I'm okay with it, too!"

El Muerte tapped his bony fingers against his jaw for a moment. Then he nodded. "Yes. That'll do perfectly. And since both counsels agree," He snapped his finger bones one last time. SNAP! "Case dismissed."

The Conclave fell apart in loud confusion. Mrs. Claus was rushed by those that weren't too stunned to move. She hugged Santa tight and then she was pulled away. He watched her go, the New Christmas, and was so relieved.

Tom the turkey didn't want to let it go. "But what about...? Hey! Punishment!" he gobbled. No one was listening. "Aww, why are we even here?" he cried.

"Be thankful it's all over, Tom," one of the leprechauns snarked.

"Oh, shut up."

Merry Belle was already making plans. "Punkin, can my people impose on you a little longer? We can't all stay in the stables while we rebuild. Vixen wouldn't survive. And I mean that."

"Certainly," the cat purred.

"What were those lights?" Marlee demanded, appearing as suddenly as Mrs. Claus. She'd missed the entire thing. Big Mama approached and knelt down to explain things to her. She listened carefully. Then she took off her cracked glasses, folded the arms, and handed them to the big man for safekeeping. Then, "YEEEHAW!" She jumped up and punched the air.

"Yeeeeehaw!" Pecos Bill and Slewfoot Sue answered and a lone star above their heads twinkled.

"Well! Don't hide your feelings or anything," Santa huffed. Then he dusted his hands and went back to the Nanny. "All right, you," he said. "Come on. We have repairs to do."

The Nanny was game. "I'll need fifty miles of cable, some thumbtacks, and a flamethrower!"

"Ab-so-lute-ly not," Santa said and began to drag her away to the stables.

*

The Bogeyman watched them all go. He watched the holiday turmoil, too. He felt smug. Not a bad entrance onto the larger stage.

"You made Santa Claus quit," Honoir said, leaning towards him. "I didn't know that could happen."

B shrugged. "I made him take a well-deserved retirement." He looked down at the boy. "Are you sorry I did?"

"Nooo," Honoir shook his head. "He was a little out of control." He looked at the wreck of the castle, the four towers standing lonely but tall. "And it's not like he has to hit the road. He's still Santa Claus," Honoir finished.

He suddenly noticed something odd. "Why is that chicken following Mom around?"

"I've no idea. Better rescue her," the Bogeyman suggested and Honoir loped off to do just that.

He felt a presence over his right shoulder. He casually turned to look into the eye sockets of a skull, painted with flowers.

"Now about _you,_ Senor," El Muerte began.

"Nyerrr," B said and walked away. "Come along, then," he called to all his new friends. "Let's go home."

*

AND AT THE END

All the trees were bare in Beaver Crossing. The beavers were all snug in their snowed-over lodges, too comfortable to even dream of spring yet. The white picket fences sparkled with frost.

At 240 Avery Lane the Victorian had white lights wound through the rails of the porch. A grapevine herd of one stag, one small fawn, and one big moose was grazing tinsel. Through the window could be seen a small tree on a table, its branches dripping with little tartan bows, ribbon candy, and glass ornaments, all in the best Victorian Era tradition. No candles, however. Polly had declared them a fire hazard.

But the lights were all bright enough without open flames as the Petersen's Christmas Eve party was underway. The place was packed with the entire neighborhood.

"Mama's on again!" Polly called out and everyone in the vicinity of the retro turned to watch.

Cole Kolar had his 'highly concerned' face on and was leaning towards the camera. Madison McCurry (INTL News) seated next to him at the anchor desk was breathing heavily through her nose and her mouth was twitching. _"Commander Petersen,"_ Kolar started, _"Would you care to speculate on the socio-political ramifications of a banshee running amok outside of Ireland?"_

" _No,"_ Big Mama answered. Everyone waited. Nothing else came out and the guests in his home sniggered.

Kolar tried again. " _Would you say that your team were hindered by the special needs of your new recruits?"_

" _What special needs?"_ Big Mama asked.

" _Yes, what special needs?"_ Marlee the elf echoed as she slowly climbed up big Mama's leg and into the shot. She was dressed in camo and had a well-loaded utility belt strapped around her waist. _"What kinda problem do you have with our saving half the royal family?"_ She shoved her glasses up and waited for an answer. The party guests cheered her on.

" _Er..."_ Kolar tried to scrape himself together but Big Mama had had enough.

" _Troops!"_ the big man yelled. _"Our ride home is waiting. Goodbye, London, and Merry Christmas!"_

" _Sir, yessir! Merry Christmas, sir!"_ Elves, humans, and a large robot with chainsaws for arms (painted a cool flat black) broke for the magically enhanced jet that served as transport for C.R.I.T.R.

" _I'll be hooooome for Chriiiistmaaas! If only in myyy dreeeeams!"_ sang one of the elves.

" _Scruge! No more Elvis!"_ Marlee shouted. There was a final shot of the jet lifting off into the sunset.

"They've defeated the Windsor Banshee, woo hoooooo!" Polly sang. She hugged Honoir from sheer joy, jostling Spot who was trying to catch a nap in his lap. "I feel so much better now that Marlee's with Mama," she admitted, for Honoir's ears alone. "The other guys just follow orders but she and Sergeant Chuck Puff watch out for him."

Honoir could tell she felt better about things. She'd been without a teddy bear for two months.

"Are they playing that again?" Big Daddy said, passing by with a fresh plate of sandwich rolls made of whole grain tortilla, organic kale, and black beans. Uuuugh. "Put in a movie for everybody, Polly. Put in _White Christmas,_ I haven't seen that in forever."

"Oh, good, I love Jimmy Stewart!" exclaimed Mrs. Claus, wandering through to escape the loud rock 'n roll carols in the kitchen.

Merry Belle Claus was the guest of honor, though no one knew it. She was incognito, dressed in purple. Everyone thought she was a dotty older relative of Big Daddy's. The poor thing's salt 'n pepper hair was frazzled but she otherwise looked well considering she'd rebuilt her home and her holiday in just two months. A massive job, even with the extra help from the Conclave.

Honoir had seen the new castle. It was beautiful. The four surviving towers (where the toys had been stored, hallelujah) were now connected by great marble galleries so finely worked they were lacey. Merry Bell's magic had turned the courtyard into a warm, open area of flower gardens and fountains. Everyone loved the break from the freezing winds and ice. A new workshop was built apart from the castle next to the stables and the elves loved the extra space. Vixen was less thrilled with her new neighbors but everyone ignored her.

And Santa Claus enjoyed his retirement more and more every day. He was no longer bothered by any problem bigger than a breadbox and his beard was more lustrous and white than ever. He'd even started a bowling team, Polar United, and they were burning through the Holiday League.

Bertram, Princess, and the Brigadier had the entire North Pole humming along like clockwork.

Still, Merry Belle was having fun away from it all. The awful food she hid in a bottomless purple pocket. Honoir snickered.

"Pete called," Big Daddy announced to all. "He'll be home within the hour." There was loud applause. Big Daddy turned to Polly. "He said he's bringing you a genuine tea set from London. Veddy proper."

"Yayyy!"

"You're so spoiled," Honoir said.

" _I_ am?" Polly shot back, looking at Spot.

"Joyeaux Noel!" Jiro burst into the room with Kicki over his shoulder. He tossed her up in the air before plopping her down on the floor. He wasn't winded at all. Kicki crawled over to her friends. Emi brought up the rear with a bag full of gifts. Big Daddy welcomed them in.

Jiro spotted Honoir. "Oh, hey, show us the new puppy."

Honoir grinned and held up his pet. "This is Spot."

"Mrowr?" said Spot.

"Ummm," Emi rubbed her chin. "I hate to point this out..."

"She fetches and everything," Honoir laughed. Spot crawled onto his shoulder and purred.

Jiro leaned over to scratch Spot behind the ears. "As long as you're happy, Emi won't say a word."

She tried, though. "But it's not a..."

"There will be no pointing out the obvious," Jiro said, raising a warning finger.

"Awww."

"Mom's in the yard," Honoir offered.

"Chloe's in the yard?" Emi said, looking at Big Daddy. "It's freezing."

"She's on the patio. We're grilling tofu," Big Daddy proudly announced.

"Oh. Yum." The Kitas all smiled with as much enthusiasm as they could.

"Miss Nell, come in!" Big Daddy was at the door again. "Aw, you didn't have to bring food, I've got plenty. Hey, Cal."

"Hey, honey," Miss Nell and her son swept in. Cal had a casserole dish and Miss Nell had a crock pot. The smells rising from both made Honoir's mouth water. "We'll just put these in the kitchen," Miss Nell said.

Their host couldn't protest. The two were already battling their way through the crowd. Big Daddy leaned down and whispered, "Don't worry. I'll hide that unhealthy stuff in the garage. Hi! Come in!" He was off again.

"Don't worry," Polly whispered. "I'll bring it back out again."

Emi grinned. "And Kicki brought caramels."

"Ooooh, What would Big Daddy say?" Mrs. Claus asked.

"He'd say, hey, who stole my caramels?" Jiro said.

"What?" Polly asked.

"Who's got two thumbs and stole Big Daddy's secret stash?" Jiro gave his audience two thumbs up and then he rotated them to point at Kicki. "This bad girl right here."

Kicki the Ninja struck a pose as her adoring public cheered. "Right from under his nose. It was awesome," she said modestly. "I can't wait to tell Big Mama."

The door opened again and an ill wind swept into the room.

Big Daddy drew in a deep breath. "Welcome, Maw Maw Battle," he said. Some of the guests turned and made faces in a very non-spirit-of-the-holiday way.

Honoir sighed and braced himself.

The little woman at the door pitter-pattered in. "I ain't your Maw Maw," she corrected Big Daddy. She kept her coat on and was clutching a very small plate of cookies wrapped tight in green cellophane.

"Merry Christmas," he answered graciously, because he was raised right.

"Yeah," Maw Maw said and focused on Mrs. Claus. Big Daddy turned around and wandered over to his daughter. Polly welcomed him to her side with a sour look at the intruder.

Maw Maw looked the unofficial guest of honor up and down. "I heard you took over. Shouldn't you be up in the sleigh throwing down presents?"

Merry Belle stared at the little woman in wonder.

Honoir wondered, too. Who told Maw Maw, of all the people in the world, the new truth about Christmas? He looked at his friends. Kicki shrugged. Polly was still scowling.

Merry Belle put on a little dignity. "Santa Claus brings the presents. He always has and he always will."

"Just the delivery man now, huh? You should've kicked him out entirely," Maw Maw said.

"Uh?" was the only sound Mrs. Claus could make. Honoir felt the old anger building. T

Maw Maw rolled right on, of course. "Speaking of presents, I brought you a plate of my special cookies, boss-lady!" She thrust her tiny plate at Mrs. Claus. "The best cookies in the world just for you. Don't share."

"Don't share? At Christmas?" Mrs. Claus asked.

Maw Maw simpered, "It's a treat between us two old girls, all right?" Mrs. Claus looked at the plate, at Honoir again, and then back at Maw Maw. "Made with love!"

Maw Maw struck a pose as if she expected applause.

Mrs. Claus drew in a deep breath. "Made with love? Is that right?" she said. She slowly took the plate and peeled back the green plastic wrap. "Let me see." She picked up a cookie and looked at it sharply. She put the plate off to the side and it hovered in thin air like a flying saucer from Mars. "Yes, let's see what you really put into this."

Mrs. Claus cracked the cookie in two and there was a strong, arcing spark between the halves. A slimy black ooze began to drip from the break. It stank of treacle gone rancid. Maw Maw's fussy voice could be heard jabbering from it as the gunk dripped to the floor.

"...give her a present so she don't forget ME when the good stuff falls down the chimney tonight because i want all the presents i want stuff gimme stuff gimme stuff gimme all for ME i want presents gimme gimme gimme ME it's all about ME ME ME ME ME!"

Mrs. Claus dropped the two halves onto the floor and the voice stopped. She dusted her fingers off with disgust, then looked Maw Maw full in the face. There was a loud ripping sound and a few odd sparkles filled the air. Then she turned and walked away.

Maw Maw stood rigid right where she was. She blinked. A strange, thoughtful expression appeared on her face as she looked down at the cookie on the floor. Then she whipped around. "What're _you_ laughing at?" she said to Honoir, picking this moment to notice him.

Honoir wiped his eyes. "You."

She glared at him.

He looked steadily back. "We're watching a movie. Do you want to watch it with us?"

Without another word Maw Maw snatched her cookies away from where they were floating and shot out of the house just as Big Daddy was opening the door to even more guests.

"B'bye," Honoir said. The door shut. Well, he'd tried. He went back to enjoying his holiday. The bit he liked most of all? When the party was over he and Chloe would go home. To _their_ home! A small apartment with a balcony full of flower pots and was all theirs. No Maw Maw in sight. He would go to sleep with a peaceful heart and Spot sleeping on his pillow. Bliss.

Mrs. Claus reappeared. She was shaking her head. "That there are some things magic can't fix is the hardest lesson I had to learn," she admitted. She snapped her fingers at the mess on the floor and the bitter goo disappeared.

Honoir had a feeling Big Daddy was relieved.

Suddenly her cardigan pocket gave out a musical tweet. With a smile of pure mischief, she pulled her snow globe out. She gave it a shake and it lit up, green and lovely, as the snow swirled around the tiny igloo. "Hello," she said. "Merry Belle here." Her friends grinned at her. The other party guests didn't notice. For all they knew she was talking into a bright cell phone.

"My dear, hellooo!" caroled the sweet voice of the Nanny over the sound of jingling sleigh bells. Sleigh bells! The kids swooned in anticipation. "Santa and I will be over your head in just a moment to pick you up...Vixen, stop whining! Donner is not making faces at you behind your back."

"Ach, yes he is," said Santa Claus and the kids applauded the sound of his voice. "So am I. Nyah, nyah, nyah!"

"Do _not_ encourage bad behavior, Santa," the Nanny scolded. "It's unprofessional. And you're off course yet again."

"No, I'm not! I know what I'm doing."

"I know best! Turn right fifteen degrees or we'll wind up in Canada. Again."

"Listen to the Nanny, darling, or you'll be alarming the Mounties," Mrs. Claus said. "I'll be waiting. Merry Belle out."

"Ta!"

"Oh, the Nanny is marvelous," Merry Belle said. "A real masterpiece. Nicholas did an excellent repair job." She popped her globe back into her pocket and held out her arms. "I've got to go. Huggies huggies!" Kicki, Honoir, and Polly lunged for her and she was huggie huggied. Even Spot gave her a stroke with her head and purred even louder.

"Fourth of July?" Big Daddy asked, kissing her on the cheek.

"It's a date. Oh! Let me say goodbye to Chloe. G'bye!"

Polly gave her another hug, Honoir waved Spot's tiny paw at her, and Kicki perpetrated some elaborate salute she'd picked up from a kung fu movie. The Winter Holiday waved one last time and finally tore herself away. "Merry Christmaaaaas!" Honoir sang to Spot. "And God help us, everyone."

"That's not how it goes," said Polly.

*

Mrs. Claus wormed her way through the crowd to the kitchen and out the back door. Chloe was grilling in the yard they said. The grill was warm but abandoned. Where was Chloe? It was freezing cold out here in the Petersen's dormant garden. And darker than the bottom of a well.

Oh, of course!

She plowed through the snow to the very darkest part, in the back.

There, under a grape arbor dripping with icicles that glittered like diamonds in the starlight, Chloe was dancing.

Learning to dance, actually.

"The waltz," said a beautiful voice, "Is lovely and not that complicated. And so much more fun if you're dancing it _with_ somebody."

"Can I believe that, B?" Chloe laughed. "I'm so used to dancing by myself."

"Do you trust me?" B asked. He wound up a tiny music box made of gold and flicked open the dime-sized lid with a claw. A lively little tune chimed out.

"I trust you."

He took her by the hand. "Away we go!" Away they went in the box-shaped swirl of the waltz. Chloe was a quick student but she did step on his foot. They laughed.

At the end of a turn he stopped and looked down at her as if he couldn't quite believe she was there. He slowly put his arms around her waist. "The Bogeyman will get you if you don't watch out," he warned her.

"Good," Chloe said. He smiled and knelt, just a bit, and Chloe stood on her toes, just a bit, and there was a lovely kiss there, under the stars.

Something at Merry Belle's feet whispered, "You are welcome, _bok!"_ and she jumped back. A chicken? Still? Ooh, that witch could hold a grudge.

"Scat!" she whispered and shooed him. Cupid left with a smug chicken strut. Mrs. Claus turned and slipped away.

Slowly the _ching, ching, ching_ of bells filled the night sky.

She grinned and, placing a finger beside her nose, disappeared in a beautiful burst of green sparks.

And the bells jingled merrily away.

Finney

Author

*

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