The Fat Man (24 page)

“Are you waiting for an invitation?” Rosebud screamed. “Do something!”

I scanned the crowd for inspiration. There wasn’t much. Halfway across the square I did spot little Ralphie. He had come to the Loading of the Sleigh Parade in his cowboy outfit, but now looked like he was wetting his chaps. But he was carrying his Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model BB Gun with a compass in the stock. An elf’s gotta do what an elf’s gotta do.

“Is this thing loaded?” I asked Ralphie, jerking the Red Ryder from his hand.

“Y-y-yes,” Ralphie stammered. “I’m not supposed to have it loaded, but sometimes I do.”

“Good,” I said, giving the lever a yank. “You might want to take cover, Ralphie. Go and get yourself a good hiding place.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to blow that balloon out of the sky before it gets to Santa’s sleigh, pilgrim,” I said.

“You’ll shoot your eye out!” Ralphie cried out of habit, but I didn’t really hear him. I took aim at the balloon, but it was hard to keep the Red Ryder steady in the middle of the elf stampede. I needed a place to take careful aim, so I flew up to the rooftop of a nearby building.

Being closer, I could see the Misfit balloon was barely together, its seams were connected by a hodgepodge of string, ribbon, wrapping tape and Band-Aids. All I had to do was find a weak spot and blast away. If I got it right, the Misfits would drop like a sack of hammers before getting to Santa’s sleigh.

I didn’t quite get it right.

I lined up the sight on the Red Ryder with an ugly seam on the front flank of the body and squeezed the trigger. The BB shot into the air and hit the seam, bull’s-eye, and caused a hole to rip open, about the size of a bale of hay. But instead of a slow leak and sink, the balloon started zipping around the sky like a crazed comet, the hot air spewing out of the hole thundering like a rocket engine. The Misfit balloon was out of control: dipping, climbing, looping left and right, taking out Kringle Town roofs one second, big chunks of buildings the next. Elves were mowed down on the ground and in the air. In one whipping zigzag across the square, Dingleberry was scooped up right into the Crocodile Cobra’s mouth and, a second later, was up to his innocent neck in demented Misfits. Santa, Rosebud and anybody who’d had the guts to look up before turned their heads to keep their eyes from being burned from the horrible sight. But anywhere you turned was ugly, heartbreaking lunacy and I had caused it. Somehow, I had managed to make things worse. Again.

I was mad and sunk. This had to be rock bottom. I ripped off my coat out of temper and to get ready for another fight. When I did, out came the parts of Sherlock Stetson I had picked up. The mangled little toy stared at me and seemed to be mocking. I ripped it to shreds and threw the pieces as hard as I could in every direction, but I was still mad. “Why does this keep happening to me?!?!” I screamed.

“Because you’re doing it for all the wrong reasons,” a little voice answered me. I turned, and sitting just as pretty as you please on the roof ledge was a little kid, about seven or eight, although he could have been younger because most kids that old were done with sucking their thumb and carrying a blanket. This kid did both, but his habits must have brought him a fair amount of peace because he didn’t seem concerned at all about the pandemonium exploding all around us.

“What did you say, kid?”

“You keep messing up because you’re doing things for the wrong reasons.”

The Misfit balloon careened through the air and took out the Kringle Town clock tower, and bricks rained down on the elves that couldn’t fly. I didn’t have time for games. “Who are you?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”

“Why have you been doing all this?” the kid asked instead of answering. “Why do you do anything? For instance, why did you start the Coal Patrol?”

“To keep everything fair,” I said. “The meaning of Santa wasn’t getting through to the hardheaded bad kids. They needed a wake-up call, a kick in the rear. I thought there needed to be a little justice.”

“How did it work out for you?” the kid asked.

“Don’t be such a wise guy, kid,” I said. “The Coal Patrol did a lot of good work. A lot of bad kids got the message and went straight. Justice served.”

The kid worked his thumb for a moment and said, “True, some kids did learn the lesson, but the Naughty List kept growing, didn’t it, Gumdrop? It wasn’t as simple as delivering a rock anymore. Kids still needed something. So you decided to go after parents, didn’t you?”

I didn’t know who this kid was, but he was putting me on trial and I didn’t much like it. “That’s right,” I snapped back. “When I got fired, I promised Santa that I would leave the kids alone, but I never said nothing about not cleaning the clock of a bad parent who didn’t have the guts to jerk a knot in their own kids’ heads. If the bad kid grew up to be a bad parent, they were fair game.”

“And justice would be served,” the kids said.

“That’s right,” I said.

“Sounds a lot like something you’d hear in Pottersville,” the kid said. That stung. He looked below at the terrified elves and above at the out of control ship of Misfits ricocheting around, destroying everything in its path. “Kind of looks like Pottersville now too, doesn’t it?”

From the mouth of babes. As much it hurt, the kid was right. Looking at the square below, Kringle Town was as full of fear, confusion and anger as Pottersville ever hoped to be. The whole world was getting that way no matter how hard I wanted to push it back. I suddenly felt as empty as a forgotten cup in the desert. “Why?”

“Because you get more done with mercy,” the kid said. “See, Gumdrop, when all you see is the bad, it is only natural to want to set things right, to make something just. But if you do that, what use then is the Child? We need the Child because none of us are worthy, none of us are really Nice, so there is His mercy. To need His mercy—and get it—is the greatest gift we’ve ever been given. His mercy, His love is what makes things right, not justice. Love. He came here on that starry night so long ago to give us the gift of mercy and love so that we could share it with each other, like so many Santa Clauses. Even though we should all be doomed to the Naughty List forever, His love erases our name from that list and there is no need for coal or justice. It’s nothing we do. Pottersville is full of folks who have settled scores, but when you keep score, you never stay ahead for long. But if we really accept the Child’s mercy, we truly change. The Child wants us to unwrap the gift of mercy every day and pass it on to others—especially to those who don’t deserve it because that’s all of us, Gumdrop. That’s why the Child came. I said it before and I’ll say it again, that’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”

And that was all I needed to hear from the peanut gallery. There was something in my eye and it took me a minute to get rid of it, and when I did, the kid was gone, vanished into thin air. But that didn’t matter.

It was time to do some good for goodness’ sake.

CHAPTER 28

Take it from me, brother, your guardian angel is always just around the corner. Especially when you’re heeling the wrong side of the street.

—G. B.,
By George Adventures
, issue 359,
Lassoing Lava Lizards

B
ack when I was a kid grunting through Black Pete’s elf boot camp, I would curse the little general because I couldn’t figure we’d ever need all his training. We were going to be toy makers, so why was Black Pete constantly drilling us with flight training and weights and leaving us out in the cold for nights on end? As I soared toward the Misfit balloon, I knew why. When I finally caught the towrope at the end of the balloon, I knew was going to need every muscle I had and then some.

The hole in the side of the balloon was now bigger and causing the dirigible to whip and slash across the sky even faster. I could hear the Misfits screaming, trying to hold on, as their ship spun out of control. The rope I held was getting the worst end of the deal, whipping me back and forth across the sky, but I held on for dear life. Letting go meant an out-of-control flight into the wild blue yonder that no amount of elf flight school could help. In the back of my head, I could hear Black Pete screaming at me to hold on as I inched my way up to the lip of the Crocodile Cobra. When I got to the top, Zsa Zsa had other ideas.

Standing on the edge of the mouth and not one bit afraid of falling to her doom, Zsa Zsa put a boot on my fingers as I tried to hang on to the cobra’s lip. “Vell, my vittle Gumdrop,” she said with a sneer. “I alvays knew you’d come back to me.”

“It’s strictly a business call, Zsa Zsa dear,” I said carefully. “Now, give me a hand and let’s talk this thing out nice and easy.”

“No, my vittle Gumdrop, I think I prefer that you die with all the zee rest of us Misfits,” Zsa Zsa said. “I think that would be only fitting, ya? For even as an elf, you are a Misfit too. Vee should all go down together!”

A bunch of Misfits were holding Dingleberry prisoner, and he looked scared to death. The other Misfits looked spooked too, seeing the balloon was now cutting backflips. And not a one of them dared to try and cross Zsa Zsa to get out.

“It doesn’t have to be this way, Zsa Zsa,” I said. “I think I know how to get all of you Misfits into the hands of kids this Christmas. I think Santa will listen to what I have to say. I’ve had a big change of heart about bad kids and bad toys.”

That got the attention of the Misfits in the balloon. They looked at each other with a mix of doubt, fear and hope. Zsa Zsa wasn’t buying though. “It’s a lie!” she screamed. “You vill only banish us to someplace else. You and Santa hate all that is not perfect, not nice.”

“If I wanted to banish you, why am I holding on to this balloon?” I asked. “I’m trying to pull you back, but I need help. Dingleberry is a good flyer. Let him go, and together we’ll help this crazy blimp land safely. Then, I promise, you Misfits will be on Santa’s sleigh this Christmas Eve.”

Zsa Zsa ground her boot down on my fingers until they were black. I could not hold on much longer. “Please. I’ve caused enough trouble. Let me fix things.”

Behind Zsa Zsa, the Misfits were discussing my proposition and leaning toward believing me. But before a vote could come to the floor, Zsa Zsa lifted her foot off my fingers, kicked me in the face and sent me packing.

The kick stung, but what was worse was the helpless feeling when I blasted off into space, out of control. In that first instant, I went cold with fear and could see myself spinning and falling, not able to get right before it was too late. I wondered if I would pass out from flying aimlessly, or would it be more like turning out the lights when I blew into the side of a mountain or hit the ground? Nothing I imagined was appealing, but that’s just how my luck was going. And then, in the very next instant, somehow, Dingleberry Fizz had me by the hand.

The Misfits had let Dingleberry go and, in a move pinched from
By George and the Skunk Pirates of the Gypsy Sea
, Dingleberry grabbed a Crocodile Cobra fang, looped around it a couple of times to build up speed and then launched himself over Zsa Zsa’s head and out of the balloon’s mouth. He beelined to me and snatched me from death’s door before I had a chance to wipe my feet on the mat.

“I’ve got you, buddy,” Dingleberry said. The next second, he handed me one of the towropes to the balloon and said, “Let’s bring this balloon back to the parade.”

Dingleberry double-checked that I had a good hold of the cord and then he leaped into the air and snagged another towrope. He wrapped the cord around his hand and gave me the high sign. “PULL!” he shouted over the rushing wind.

Like a couple of plow mules, Dingleberry and I bent into the air with the balloon ropes over our shoulders and flew straight down as hard as we could. If we could move the balloon closer to earth, the winds would be less, but it was tough sledding. The hole in the balloon was huge now, and the gas blowing still steered the blimp willy-nilly. But Dingleberry and I just kept at it. We’d gain a foot and then lose a yard, but inch by inch we were getting closer. When we came through a cloud, we could see an itty-bitty speck way down below: Kringle Town Square.

The sight gave me and Dingleberry a boost and we were able to tug at the balloon a little harder. Then we heard one last
pffffffftttttttttt
raspberry behind us and realized that the Misfit balloon was out of gas and was just a big piece of rubber in the sky.

The Crocodile Cobra suddenly looked like it had swallowed a pit and shriveled up into a long, wrinkled raincoat. It started to drop fast and the Misfits inside screamed like there was no tomorrow. And if we didn’t hurry, there wouldn’t be.

“Grab the tail,” I shouted to Dingleberry, “and I’ll grab the head.”

Dingleberry swooped through the sky and snagged the tail first, stopping the Crocodile Cobra’s free fall. I swung over and grabbed a bump on the critter’s nose and flew up until the balloon was straight and steady. Inside, the Misfits went from crying to shouting for joy. Even Zsa Zsa said, “Tank you, my vittle Gumdrop.”