Tracy
When Tracy's phone went off, she aborted Plan A and went straight to Plan B: Join the Party. She didn't like that she didn't get any video of Santa in her house, but she knew Plan B was where she would find the strongest evidence for her experiment.
She'd had her pillows and wig set up in her bed for hours, so it was a simple matter of climbing out of her window, which overlooked the roof. All she had to do was ease her way past her parents' window onto the larger section of roof over the garage. With no moon visible, she hoped it was dark enough that Santa and his elves wouldn't spot her. Did he bring his elves with him? She wasn't clear on the details, but that was where this experiment came in.
As she approached the sleigh, she noticed the absence of reindeer. Their reins were attached to the sleigh, sticking straight out, as if the animals were still in them, but they were nowhere in sight. She made a mental note: Reindeer = holograms? To her, that was more logical than the sign hanging on Santa's sleigh—Out for a drink of water. Be back in a flash.
Her grandmother always said that Santa's reindeer were glorious creatures, and that children should stay up at least once in their life to sneak a peek at them in flight. But Tracy knew that reindeer did not have wings, and without wings, they couldn't fly, plain and simple. Whatever her grandmother had seen had been an illusion.
Tracy circled the sleigh looking for a tiny projector or camera lens on the front of it to prove her theory. She couldn't find one, but at the back, she found something even better—a pair of jet engines attached between the sleigh's runners. Yes! Solid proof that the reindeer didn't actually fly the sleigh. By dawn, she was going to have a logical explanation for every aspect of Santa's big night.
She snapped several pictures with her phone, and then hopped into the back of the sleigh, breathing a sigh of relief that there weren't any elves hiding in there. After a quick glance around for Santa or nosy neighbors, she opened the notes file on her phone and added two words to the bottom—jet propulsion. Then, she slid her phone back into her pocket and burrowed beneath four giant red bags, settling in for a long night.
She had been preparing for this night for the past two and a half months, ever since she'd heard her mom talking on the phone to her Aunt Susan. Tracy only heard one side of the conversation, but it had been enough.
“That's wonderful, Suze!” her mom had said. “I can't believe you found a doctor that can help Pim!”
Tracy nearly screamed for joy when she heard that. Her cousin, Pim, had been her best friend before the accident. After Pim fell out of that tree, all she ever did was lie in bed and stare at the TV. Her doctors said she should be fine, but she wasn't. She couldn't walk, and she rarely spoke. Most of the time Pim wouldn't even blink to show she understood what people were saying to her. If her aunt had found a doctor who could help, that was the best news in the world.
Of course, it was followed by the worst news in the world.
“It's going to cost how much?” The sadness in her mother's voice made Tracy sick to her stomach. There was a doctor out there who could fix Pim, but her aunt couldn't afford him. “Oh honey, I'm so sorry. If we had that much, I'd give it to you in a heartbeat, but we just don't.”
The words rung through Tracy's ears and bounced around in her mind. It couldn't be the truth. After the phone call ended, Tracy marched straight up to her mom. “How could you tell her that? There's gotta be some way to get the money.”
“Sweetheart, I know you miss having Pim around, but you have to understand that some things just aren't possible.” Her mom reached out to tuck Tracy's hair behind her ear.
Tracy ducked out of the way. She was furious that her mom had done nothing. She hadn't talked to her dad about it. She hadn't asked her boss for a raise. She hadn't offered to take out a second mortgage on their house. In the movies, people did all of those things to come up with money when it was important.
Tracy folded her arms across her chest and leveled her eyes at her mom. It was a stare that often made her mom give in, or ground her, depending on the situation. “There is a way, and if you're not willing to find it, then I am.”
The next week, her science teacher, Mr. Danner, gave her the answer on a bright green flyer.
“You should enter this,” he said. “You're on the younger end, but I think you're smart enough to come away with at least an honorable mention prize.”
“Prize?” Tracy's heart hammered wildly against her ribs as she traced the black lettering with her pointer finger.
State Science Fair
Open to all students Grades 5-8
Grand Prize: $5000
Tracy stopped reading there. Forget honorable mention, she was going for the grand prize. Five thousand dollars had to be enough to pay the doctor.
She spent the next few weeks combing the Internet and the library for ideas. It wasn't until she saw a magazine ad from the Santa Commission that she had her project. It reminded kids to have their lists in no later than November 20th so Santa's elves had time to organize. But still, it wasn't the reminder that gave her the idea—it was the slogan.
Even magic needs a helping hand.
Tracy had never believed in magic. Behind every famous magic act, there was a foundation of science. Simple physics did not allow one man to travel the world in one night, but somehow he did it. The Santa Commission's slogan became her hypothesis.
The first part of her plan was simple—wait upstairs until Santa arrived.
She went to bed like normal, but she wore a pouch around her neck that contained all of the necessary supplies: bags for collecting samples, fingerprint kit, and a zip drive, just in case the sleigh had a computer. For the next two hours, she chugged can after can of Red Bull, keeping herself awake until she heard a scuffling sound on the roof. Then she grabbed her phone and crept into the hallway.
Her phone had a video recorder on it. Cameras often caught things the human eye couldn't see, and she planned to analyze her footage frame by frame for anything that could prove her theories.
After the hypothesis was formed, the next step of the Scientific Method was to collect data. That could only be done on Christmas Eve in the middle of the night. Climbing out of her window was easy. It was Santa's sleigh, with its lack of padding that was hard.
After she gave up on getting comfortable in the sleigh, she pulled a pair of scissors from her pouch and snipped a long strip from one of Santa's bags. The thin fabric felt like water in her fingers, slippery and silky, nothing like they sold in the sewing section at Walmart. She dropped it into a plastic baggie and mentally prepared a list of how she would analyze it later. She would study the fabric composition, and then she would cut it into pieces and check for water and fire proofing. A thorough scientist was a winning scientist.
She heard a tiny voice echo up the chimney right before a plume of dust escaped out the top. She ducked under the bags before anyone could spot her. A toy box poked out of one of them, its corner stabbing her in the spine. Cellophane crinkled as she tried to shift it to the non-poking side.
“Did you hear that?” asked a tiny, shrill voice.
Tracy froze, holding her breath while listening for the answer.
It came about a minute later when another voice said, “Squirrel. Over in that tree.”
“Good eyes,” said the first voice. “You ready?”
“Always.”
Then, Tracy heard the jingle of bells. She sunk further under the bags, hoping to stay hidden for at least an hour or two. By then it wouldn't matter if she was caught. She'd seen enough movies to know that Santa didn't mind a stowaway every now and then. He'd pat her on the head and take her home, probably with a snow globe or sleigh bell to remember him by. Little would he know that in addition to her trinket, she would have plenty of hard evidence for her project. Pictures. Video footage. Hair samples. Full chemical analysis of his red toy bags.
She smiled to herself and settled in as she heard Santa's boots clomping across the roof. He was here. And it was time to go.