‘Very well then,’ Basili said, rubbing his hands – he was really getting into this – ‘it is time to be talking to some elven peoples.’
‘Well, that could be a bit of a misnomer; it’s more like we’ll look at them blankly while their mouths make noises that could perhaps be construed as talking, then we’ll try to make some sense of whatever we think they’ve just said. And we’ll have to do this one hundred times,’ I replied. ‘Just so as you know, this will be like pulling teeth, only more painful. I suspect that by the end of the day your ears will be bleeding and you’ll wish you were back with Aladdin.’
‘Oh, Mr Harry, I do not think so. Surely nothing could be worse than spending year after year stuck in that lamp waiting to grant one final wish.’ He did have a point there, although it was probably a photo-finish to decide which was worse.
After the seventh interview, I suspected he was having a change of mind. I could see his eyes were glazing over and a thin trail of drool trickled from the corner of his mouth. He was rapidly losing his sanity, his grip on reality and his will to live – and we had another ninety-three elves to talk to! He buried his head in his hands and wailed mournfully. ‘Oh, Mr Harry, I do not know how much more of this I am taking. I am failing to comprehend any word these elvish folk are speaking.’
I understood his plight; I was hovering on the brink of complete mental breakdown too. My grasp of what was real – already eroded by Christmas decoration overdose and my conversation with Rudolph – was now being washed away in a sea of double talk and nonsense. Just to give you an example:
Conversation One:
Question: When did you last see Mr Claus?
Answer: The gentleman in red was perambulating the environs some weeks hence but has not been in attendance at the child’s plaything fabrication facility for some thirty-six planetary rotations.
Conversation Two:
Question: Are you aware of any reason why someone might want to harm Mr Claus?
Answer: Gentleness is his path; harm will not be the stone upon which he trips.
If I was to interpret what we were being told correctly, Santa hadn’t been seen at the North Pole since his last visit some thirty-six days earlier and no one knew of any reason why anyone might want to do him harm. At least, that’s what I think they were telling me. I wasn’t sure the other ninety-three interviews would change that.
Or would they?
Candidate eighty-six set all kinds of alarm bells ringing. His story was the same as all the others, but when he’d left the room I told Basili we needed to carry out further investigations into that particular elf.
‘Why so, Mr Harry?’ he asked.
‘Well, did you notice anything strange about him?’
‘No, I was so concentrating on staying awake that I did not fully take in what he was talking about.’
‘No, Basili,’ I said. ‘It’s not what he was saying; he sounded just the same as all the others. Did you not notice anything about his personal grooming?’
Basili raised an eyebrow.
It looked like it was time for elves 101. ‘Let me list them for you: he was unshaven, his hair was greasy (and not tied back in an ever so look-at-me-I’m-cool ponytail), his clothes weren’t ironed and, most importantly, he had BO.’
‘So?’ Basili was even more confused.
‘So, when have you ever seen an elf that wasn’t immaculately turned out? They fancy themselves as style icons (if you like Lincoln green tights and pointy boots, that is) and are obsessed with personal hygiene. I think it’s fair to say elf number eighty-six is a ringer and a badly prepared ringer at that. He really should have washed himself, or at least applied some deodorant.’ I stood up, excitement building now that we had a lead at long last. ‘Let’s see what we can find out about him.’
‘Why don’t we take him down to the station, let the boys be sorting him out?’ Basili was hopping up and down enthusiastically (and let me tell you it wasn’t a pretty sight). I wondered what kind of TV shows he’d been watching while stuck in the lamp.
‘That’s not how things are done,’ I said – although, it being elves, the idea did have some merit. ‘Anyway, we don’t want to let him know we’re on to him. The best thing to do is keep a discreet eye on him and see what he does; or maybe,’ a thought had just struck me, ‘we can try to get close to him and see if he’ll let anything slip. He certainly doesn’t strike me as being too bright.’
‘Yes, but how? We are much too big and, anyway, you are a pig. Even he would be spotting the attempt at deception.’ Basili was right. Apart from the three elves we’d met when we arrived, all the others were northern elves and much smaller than their southern cousins. In fact, they were just like the elves you’ve seen depicted in those cheerful Christmas cards showing Santa’s workshop – just a lot less cheerful and a lot more pompous in reality. Even the dimmest of elves would have no difficulty seeing through whatever disguise we might adopt. No, we needed someone else; someone smaller; someone with the brass neck to be able to pull a deception like this off.
I smiled broadly. ‘Basili, I think I have a plan.’
‘No way! There is no way on this planet that I’m wearing those things.’ Jack Horner was indignant. He flung the fake ears we’d given him on the ground. ‘They’re the most idiotic things I’ve ever seen. They look like they were made out of a cereal box.’
There’s ingratitude for you. With Mrs C’s help, we’d managed to fly him at inordinate expense to a place most children would give both arms to visit and all he had to do in return was dress up as an elf for a few minutes. Sometimes I just don’t understand children.
I tried to placate him. ‘Jack, Jack, take it easy. We need someone to mingle with the elves and find out what number eighty-six is up to. That someone has to be fearless, able to think on his feet and be brave in the face of certain danger.’ OK, I was laying it on with a trowel, but I knew how to get to him. ‘When I started to draw up a list of suitable candidates only one name sprang to mind. I still remember how you risked certain death to rescue me from Edna’s.’
Jack preened himself. I could see my hyperbole was working. ‘You know, I might just be the answer to your prayers,’ he said. ‘But there’s still no way I’m wearing those stupid cardboard ears. Get me something that looks real and I’ll think about it.’
Result!
I grinned happily. ‘Looks like the team are all together and hot on the trail once more.’
‘Yep,’ replied Jack. ‘Now we just need to find some fake ears.’
‘We’re in the biggest toy-manufacturing facility in the world; just how difficult do you think it’s going to be?’
Very, as it turned out.
Play-Elf outfits were so last year that no one wanted them any more. All available stock had been recycled as Robin Hood costumes, but as Sherwood Forest’s most famous inhabitant wasn’t noted for having pointy ears, they had all been melted down and remoulded into Hubbard’s Cubbard action figures (and they weren’t selling too well either; rock bands aren’t in great demand as toys). We had scoured workshops, storage bins and were rummaging through a disused warehouse full of obsolete toys when Jack shouted, ‘Would this work?’ and waved a large, if somewhat battered crate at us. We gathered around to see what he’d found.
I blew years of accumulated dust off the top of the box and read the contents. ‘Yes, this might just do the trick.’ Opening it, I took out a pair of black pants and a dark blue top. Throwing them to one side, I continued to search. ‘So far, so good,’ I murmured. ‘Now somewhere in here there should be … aha, got you.’
Very carefully, I removed what looked like two dead pink slugs and carefully unrolled them in my hand. ‘I haven’t seen one of these in years. They were all the rage in the sixties.’
Beside me, Jack picked up the cover of the box and studied it.
‘What’s logic?’ he asked. Before I could answer he continued, ‘What’s a phaser?’ and, barely pausing for breath, ‘Who’s Mr Spock? He looks kinda weird.’ He handed me the box and I read it:
Now you too can be a master of logic.
Be the envy of your friends as you stun them with
your Vulcan nerve pinch.
Beam up this box and be Mr Spock.
Note: the phaser is a toy and will not disintegrate
either humans or aliens (batteries not included).
A picture of one of science fiction’s most famous pointy-eared non-humans adorned the cover.
‘This guy was one of the most famous TV aliens of all time but, most importantly,’ I held up the two unrolled pink things, ‘he had pointy ears. Let’s try them on, but be careful, they’re old so they might be a bit delicate.’
Ever so gently, I attached them over Jack’s ears. They snapped on easily and when I took my hands away they stayed upright.
‘Live long and prosper,’ I said to him. He looked at me blankly. ‘Before your time, never mind. Now we just need to borrow one of those Robin Hood suits and you’ll be good to go.’
Once we’d dressed him up he looked just like any of the Santa’s little helpers who swarmed around the workshops building, packing and shipping millions of toys.
‘Are you sure this is going to work?’ Jack asked anxiously as he attached a small microphone to his vest (we’d ‘borrowed’ it from an old James Bond Junior Spy Kit).
‘Nope,’ I said, ‘but I don’t think you’re in any danger, if that’s what you’re worried about.’
‘It isn’t. I’m just wondering how long I’m going to have to wear this stupid costume – it itches.’ He scratched his back furiously – mostly for effect.
‘You’ll be fine. Just talk to our suspect as if you’re his best friend. Judging by his personal hygiene I suspect no one else will so he’ll probably be glad of the company. Don’t be too pushy’ – which, of course, was like asking water not to be too wet – ‘don’t bombard him with questions. Just play the “I’m new here too” routine and see if he responds.’ I patted him reassuringly on the shoulder. ‘Remember, we’ll be listening in. If there’s any hint of trouble, we’ll pull you out of there faster than blackbirds out of a pie, OK?’
Jack nodded once. ‘Right, let’s do it.’
‘Good man. Remember, we’re counting on you.’
‘So no pressure then.’
‘Absolutely not,’ I said.
‘Good. Now where do I go?’
‘You see all those elves over there building toy robots?’ Jack nodded. ‘Yep.’
‘See the way they’re all studiously avoiding that one guy who’s attaching the legs?’ There was a large elf-free space around our suspect (which didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest).
‘Yep.’
‘Well, he’s your guy. Just try not to mention the smell.’
‘What smell? Hey, you never told me the guy smelled. How close will I have to get to him?’
‘It’s not too bad and after a few minutes you won’t even notice it. Now get to work.’ I pushed him away and into the workshop. Within seconds he’d disappeared into a sea of bright-green elves. I spoke into the microphone that was taped to my jaw. ‘Jack, can you hear me OK?’
‘Messages are clear; communication will be unbroken this day.’ Well at least he was getting into the spirit of things. Maybe he was suited to undercover work; two minutes in and he already sounded like an elf. I just prayed he wouldn’t stay like that as I didn’t fancy having to listen to elfspeak twenty-four seven; I didn’t think my head could take it.
As Jack tried to ingratiate himself with the world’s most slovenly elf, I mulled over the case and our progress to date – or, more accurately, our lack of progress. We hadn’t really got very far other than establishing that something fishy was going on and the two people closest to Santa were not telling me the entire truth. Santa had clearly been abducted, otherwise why would someone have tried to kill us? But the big questions were why? And indeed who? In terms of the case itself, we still had very little to go on – elf impostor aside. I suspected he was planted purely to keep an eye on things and wasn’t a big player in whatever was going on, but he might know something.
There were a few things that we might be able to follow up on though: we’d been attacked by a jet-powered sleigh. It was most definitely a luxury item, so who might have bought one? Surely there couldn’t be too many winging their way through the skies – and, after our little adventure, there was probably one less. Mrs C might be able to point me in the direction of flying-sleigh vendors; after all, she had enough of them.
Who dropped the pseudo-elf into the workshop – and why? That one was a long shot, but you never know.
Why were Mrs Claus and Rudolph not telling me the whole story? Although I didn’t think they had anything to do with Santa’s disappearance, they’d been evasive when I’d asked them about it. They knew something they were unwilling to tell me; but what – and how did it tie into the case?
I sighed in frustration. There was something strange about this case; something I couldn’t quite figure out, but I knew I’d get there eventually – as long as I didn’t get beaten to a pulp first.