Tracy
Tracy hadn't anticipated Santa's enormous size. The sleigh lurched as he climbed in, shifting the bags above her, and pushing her shoulder into the wooden floorboards. She clutched her neck pouch to her chest. Every time she'd run through this night in her mind, she'd envisioned only one thing going wrong—Santa accidentally grabbing her neck pouch and gifting it to some well-deserving child. Keeping her limps intact had never been part of the scenario. The back of Santa's seat squished her arm against her body until it went numb. The point of her scissors jutted out the top of her bag and pressed into her thigh. Did scientific experiments have to be so painful?
The next house was only a block away, and while Santa was gone, Tracy had time to shake out her tingling fingers, but little else.
For the next three stops, she kept sneaking her phone up above the bags to take blind shots of what she hoped were the reindeer, but she was so crunched up in the bottom of the sleigh, she couldn't see if she'd gotten anything worth using.
The reindeer weren't helping. They didn't make a single sound, not a snort or a huff to tell her which direction to point the camera. Their silence was good evidence for her theory that they were holograms, but there was also the fact that she couldn't hear anything else. The elves didn't say any more, and Santa never uttered a single “Ho Ho Ho.” Who knew a ride with Santa would be so…quiet? An eerie tingle crept up her spine. Or maybe that was the stupid toy box digging into a nerve and making her back go numb.
Her luck finally kicked in at the fourth stop when Santa removed the offending bag and took it down the chimney with him. She twisted her arm behind her back to examine the spot where her skin was screaming. She winced when she touched the tender area. This was for Pim, she reminded herself. What was one little scar compared to getting her cousin back?
With one less bag in the sleigh, Tracy was able to poke her head out and get her first glimpse of the reindeer. They looked pretty much like they did in the movies: antlers, brown and white fur, cow-like faces. But they didn't prance or paw their hooves, or move at all. Even if they were holograms, her grandmother had claimed they were majestic. These guys looked as if they'd been stuffed and mounted, a fancy rooftop decoration instead of the living, breathing creatures they were supposed to be. Was Santa even trying to make them look real?
She snapped about a dozen pictures, but just as she was about to climb out to get some close ups, a yellow plume of smoke appeared out of the chimney signaling Santa's return. Tracy ducked back down into the sleigh. The bag was dropped on top of her once more, minus the toy box with the sharp corners.
As they zoomed off to the next stop, Tracy went down her mental check list of items that she needed. At the next stop, she planned to see if she could get a video of her hand waving through the reindeer projections. Once more of the toys were gone and she had room to maneuver in the sleigh, she could snap some better pictures of them in flight. Would they actually look like they were flying, or would they stay stiff and still like they had been on the rooftop?
Pictures of Santa at his job might be a little harder to get, but not impossible. The hardest things would be the snippet of Santa's beard and saliva sample. Those were vital for the DNA testing. They would prove whether he was human, or some unknown species. For Tracy's hypothesis, she asserted he was something else. Santa was way too old to be human. Besides, how awesome would it be to prove the existence of a new species? With the money from that, she would be able to save Pim and buy her parents a huge mansion, probably in Beverly Hills.
When the sleigh was still once more, and Santa's clomping boots were out of hearing range, Tracy finally heard another voice.
“Show time!” chirped the squeaky elf from before. The sound was followed by a bunch of chitter chatter which she couldn't understand. The voices soon disappeared as the elves presumably slipped down the chimney.
Tracy counted to ten before popping out of the sleigh. She ditched her plan of examining the reindeer at this stop. She couldn't pass up the opportunity to video tape the elves at work. Oddly, the reindeer were gone again.
She figured it had something to do with the projector and searched for a way down to the ground.
The house was two stories, making it too dangerous to drop onto the driveway. And how would she get back up? No trellis to climb, and even if there was one, she doubted it would hold her weight. Only palm trees in the front yard. But in the back yard…Yes! There was an oak tree with several low branches.
She grabbed hold of the first one and swung down to the ground. There was a large set of windows lining the back of the house. The curtains were open, providing the perfect view of Santa stuffing stockings. Tracy squealed with joy, then clamped a hand over her mouth. She could ruin everything if Santa heard her now. Not to mention the fact that she was trespassing in a stranger's yard. She really needed to be more careful.
Tracy crept up to the window, kneeling in the sand below it in order to blend into the shadows. The Christmas tree inside was brightly lit, providing more than enough light to get her pictures. She snapped a few of Santa, but then realized the real action was happening on the couch. She switched her phone to video and smiled. It was like a live action replay of what happened to her the year she turned eight.
She had slept on the couch with one end of a fishing line wrapped around Santa's milk glass and the other end tied to her pinkie finger. As soon as her finger jerked and she opened her eyes, a shimmery dust blew across her face, producing a vision of cartoon sugar plums dancing in front of her. Now she could watch it happening to another child.
Eight tiny elves moved into her camera's view screen. They looked like cute, wooden puppets, but the way they moved made her shiver. At first she thought it was simply an effect of the camera. They seemed to glide more than walk. But when several of their bodies fuzzed and changed shape briefly to fit between a chair and a wall, she rubbed her eyes, wondering if the Red Bull was wearing off. She shook her head. That was one thing she hadn't anticipated, getting tired so early. Maybe she could find some candy in the sleigh to get another sugar rush.
She blinked a few more times, as she watched the creatures arrange themselves around the couch. A small boy, maybe five or six years old, stretched into a yawn and opened his eyes. Before he saw anything, one of the elves reached into his pocket, pulled out a tiny fist full of something, and blew a cloud of sparkly yellow dust into the boy's face. The boy blinked and rubbed his eyes. Tracy knew exactly what he was seeing—dancing cartoon sugarplums!
This was science fair gold. She wondered if she could spot the street name from the roof so she could find the boy in a day or two and interview him about his experience. Plus, if she brought her mom's Dustbuster, she could vacuum up some of the powder and view it under her microscope.
Tracy squealed again, too excited to cover her mouth this time. She realized her mistake and held her breath for one second. Two seconds. Three. When Santa didn't look her way, she relaxed and vowed to be more careful from now on. Scientists observed with their eyes, not their voices.