Halloween and Other Seasons (10 page)

His lecture finally ended, Fritz gathered his notes together and prepared to leave.

Momma and Santa had sat very still through all of this, but when it was all over they nodded slowly in understanding. I saw them turn to one another and smile sheepishly, and this was all very touching until Santa’s smile suddenly widened into that horrible toothy grin and both their eyes went big and white. I could swear I heard Santa say “Heh-heh-heh.” But it was all over in a second, and Fritz missed it, and the two of them were as normal and healthy as one of Momma’s pies again. The sheepish smiles were back, and they even kissed and held hands.

I thought I’d imagined it until we were all leaving and Santa suddenly turned to me and winked, flashing his fangs. “Everything back to normal for another eight hundred years. Right, Gustav? All in my head, eh?”

I gulped, gave him the thumbs-up sign, and scooted by him as he whacked me on the can. His smile had turned back to normal by then.

That’s why I’m getting out of the North Pole tonight while the getting’s good. I’ve told Fritz and the rest of them, but they just won’t believe me. They think everything’s back on track.

Maybe I’ll buy a house in Florida.

Wherever it is, it won’t have a chimney.

Baby Boss and the Underground Hamsters

A Feature-Length Cartoon

By Al Sarrantonio

REEL SEVEN

~ * ~

“Stop drooling!” Baby Boss snapped, in a fierce whisper. “You’re always drooling! And keep quiet!”

“
YES, BOSS
!
” Squirmy screamed at the top of his lungs. “
I’LL BE QUIET FROM NOW ON!
”

Squirmy cowered in fear as the hairy flat of Baby Boss’s right paw caught him flush on the head. He dropped to his knees, reeling, but continued to slobber and mewl.

~ * ~

“I said—!” Baby Boss began, then suddenly his rage turned to alarm and he pressed Squirmy tightly against the cavern wall.

“
Someone’s coming!
” he hissed.

Squirmy continued to whimper, and Baby Boss covered the slavering hamster’s mouth with his paw as he studied the cave gloom ahead.

From around the cavern corner came a happy clucking sound, and Doozy the Chicken appeared, her feathery dugs prominently displayed before her as she twirled her Magic Umbrella, which gave a sparkly luminescence to the dank, dreary cave.

“Cluck-CLUCK! Cluck cl-cl-cluck…” Doozy sang, until she spied Baby Boss and stopped dead in her tracks.

“You—!” she clucked.

“Yes, me!” Baby Boss snarled, jumping out into the center of the cave. Behind him, Squirmy’s drool-covered, asphyxiated body sank to the floor.

“I knew it would come to this…” Doozy avered.

“By all the chittering chipmunks in heaven, you’re right!”

Doozy twirled her umbrella, whose lights dimmed to a soft green glow. A target sight and trigger materialized from the instrument’s handle.

But Baby Boss’s twin six guns were already blazing, and Doozy disappeared in a cloud of brown feathers.

“CLUUUUUUUCK!” she cried, her last word cut off by the rain of deadly lead.

The walls of the cavern trembled and collapsed around Baby Boss’s ears.

“Oh, shit,” he muttered—

~ * ~

REEL EIGHT

~ * ~

“Ha!” Baby Boss cried, brushing dirt from his furry hamster torso as he stood in Hamster Central, the largest of all the underground caverns. “That was close!”

He strode with purpose to the Underground Hamster Alarm, and pushed the large, brightly lit button. Instantly the call went out, a high chirrupy squeal, and before long the Underground Hamsters were assembled before him expectantly.

“Hamsters!” Baby Boss shouted, throwing his paws into the air. “Our day of triumph has arrived! Doozy the Chicken is dead!”

“Not so fast!” came a clucky voice from the rear of the assembly. The sea of hamsters parted and there stood Doozy, unfeathered but alive. A neat line of bullet holes traced through her bodice above her massive dugs.

“But--” Baby Boss sputtered in disbelief.

With a grand gesture, Doozy drew a wing across the front of her body, which fell to the floor. Behind what had been an impenetrable shell, containing her false dugs and the line of bullet holes, each still containing the bullet which had never reached her, was her real chicken chest, brown feathers and all.

“Everyone knows chickens don’t have tits!” Doozy cried, and drew out her Magic Umbrella, already glowing green in weapon-mode.

Pandemonium, and the cries of frightened hamsters, filled Hamster Central until the roof, with a massive roar, suddenly caved in.

“Oh, shit,” Doozy clucked.

~ * ~

BABY BOSS AND THE UNDERGROUND HAMSTERS HOLIDAY SPECIAL…LIVE FROM HAMSTER CENTRAL…!!!

~ * ~

Scene: Hamster Central, a huge, dome-ceilinged cavern, and the underground rallying point for all hamsters. It is Christmas Eve. Hamster Central has been decked out in holiday colors, greenery and red bows, twinkling Christmas lights
—
it is a veritable Fezziwig’s Ball. From somewhere, the muted sounds of Christmas music is heard, Nat King Cole’s “Christmas Song”. A massive sideboard is crowded with food and drink: a glistening moist turkey, two huge pink hams, a punch bowl as big as a child’s swimming pool lapping waves of spiked eggnog.

~ * ~

In the center of Hamster Central, alone, two figures dance slowly: Baby Boss and Doozy the Chicken. Their happy voices murmur and coo; amidst their whispers of affection the sound of contented laughter. We listen in:

~ * ~

DOOZY (sighing): I wish this evening could go on forever, Baby. I wish this could always be (sighing again)
our
Christmas Eve.

~ * ~

BABY: Me, too. It’s a mystery to me how one magic evening could change everything. Yesterday we were bitter enemies, and now…

~ * ~

DOOZY (blushing): Yes, now…

~ * ~

BABY (sighing himself, a regretful sound): But soon the Underground Hamsters will be back, and the promised party will begin. (gazes lovingly into Doozy’s eyes, his eyes glittering with a sudden thought): Our special night will be a night to be shared by all!

~ * ~

BABY, SUDDENLY SHY, PUSHES DOOZY GENTLY AWAY AND THEN ABRUPTLY GETS DOWN ON ONE KNEE. HE FUMBLES SOMETHING FROM HIS FUR, SOMETHING WHICH SPARKLES WITH THE CAUGHT REFLECTION OF A THOUSAND TWINKLING CHRISTMAS LIGHTS
—

~ * ~

DOOZY: A ring!

~ * ~

BABY: (holding the knuckle-sized diamond up toward Doozy, while placing his other paw over his heart) Doozy Chicken, will you marry me?

~ * ~

DOOZY: Will I? This is a dream come true!

~ * ~

THERE ARE SOUNDS FROM THE MANY CAVERNS LEADING INTO

HAMSTER CENTRAL, AND NOW THE UNDERGROUND HAMSTERS

APPEAR, LAUGHING, JOSTLING ONE ANOTHER, IN GOOD SPIRITS

AND LOOKING FORWARD TO THE PARTY TO COME. BUT, AS ONE,

THEY HALT AND GASP AT THE SIGHT OF THEIR BOSS AND DOOZY.

~ * ~

SPIFFY: It’s Baby Boss! And he’s in the clutches of Doozy!

~ * ~

ALL HAMSTERS, AS ONE: Let’s get her!

~ * ~

BABY (his voice drowned out by the roaring torrent of screaming hamsters around him): Stop!

~ * ~

HE HOLDS UP HIS PAWS FOR SILENCE, BUT IS IGNORED AS THE HAMSTERS, THEIR MOUTHS FROTHING IN FURY, TEAR DOOZY TO SHREDS. FEATHERS FLY MADLY AND THERE IS A SINGLE STRANGLED CLUCK AND THEN SUDDEN, COMPLETE SILENCE.

~ * ~

BABY (staring in horror at what is left of his beloved: a pile of bloody feathers, a beak, two wrinkly feet): What have you done! This was the last chance for reconciliation between hamsters and chickens!
And…I loved her!

~ * ~

HE BEGINS TO WEEP AS THE CEILING SUDDENLY COLLAPSES, SENDING TONS OF ROCK, SOIL AND SNOW FROM THE WHITE CHRISTMAS ABOVE DOWN UPON THEM.

~ * ~

HAMSTERS (as one): Oh, shit
—

~ * ~

REEL EIGHTEEN

~ * ~

Baby Boss awoke at his desk with the sour taste of bourbon in his mouth.

How long had it been? Two weeks? A year?

He groaned, as memory, along with the desk calendar in front of his face, told him the real story: it had been only a week, for today was New Year’s Day.

“Oh why! Why!” he cried, throwing his paws out, knocking the empty Jim Beam bottle from his blotter to the floor, where it crashed atop a pile of three-dozen others. “Just when happiness was in my grasp!”

He looked up at his paw, which closed into a furry fist
—
and then a bout of weeping overcame him and he covered his face with his paws and lowered it to the desk. “Oh Doozy, my love, you are gone!”

There came a sound behind him in the doorway that separated his office from the cave beyond. A tentative knock followed.

“Baby, are you in there?”

The voice was a soft cluck.

Could it be?

Baby sprang from the desk and ran for the door, which flew open to reveal…Doozy Chicken!

“You’re safe!” Baby cried.

Doozy smiled
—
and then pulled from behind her, where it sat waiting in it’s special hidden holster, her Magic Umbrella, glowing with menacing green light. Her eyes were filled with sudden hate.

“But Doozy
—
our love
—
!”

“Did you think I’d send the real me to test the depths of your treachery? That was no chicken you asked to marry you
—
it was a Cyber Doozy, produced in my secret lab at the Center of the Earth!”

She laughed, pulling the trigger, and the evil light intensified to a blinding flash.

“But Doozy
—
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
—
!”

Baby Boss disappeared in a sour flit of green smoke, leaving only the smell of ozone behind.

“Ha!” Doozy cried, shouldering her weapon and turning about-face. “Now to deal with the rest of the Underground Hamsters!”

The cave roof, with a tremendous roar, collapsed around her
—

“Oh, shit
—
” Doozy said.

~ * ~

REEL NINETEEN

~ * ~

“Ha! That was close!” Doozy Chicken effused, brushing dirt, along with the remains of a housing project that had been built above the hamster cave, from her sleek brown feathers.

She stood in Hamster Central, the tip of her wing pressing the Underground Hamster Alarm, which would bring all of the hamsters scurrying to what they thought would be a meeting called by Baby Boss.

“A meeting with their own doom!” Doozy amended, throwing her head back to cluck a laugh.

There was the roar of tiny feet, and the many tunnels leading into Hamster Central were suddenly filled with hamsters armed with atomic pistols
—
the new, and deadly, Platinum Model. Hate glowed in their tiny mammalian eyes.

And there, pushing his way through the furry crowd in the largest cave opening, and armed with nothing less than a golden Hydrogen Rifle, the most powerful weapon in the Universe, was Baby Boss himself!

“But I
—
” Doozy clucked in stupefaction.

“Yes, you vaporized me
—
not
!” Baby Boss chortled. “Did you think I was stupid enough to let the real me ask your Cyber Chicken to marry me? That was a Cyber Baby, manufactured in my secret underground facility on the planet Pluto, that you vaporized, you clucking wench!”

He lowered the yawning foot-wide barrel of the Hydrogen Rifle toward Doozy.

“And now,” he cried in triumph, “chicken dinner!”

There came a tremendous roar, and the ceiling of Hamster Central, recently upgraded with what Baby Boss had thought were infallible reinforced concrete arches, providing a dome as smooth as that on St. Peter’s Basilica, and on which had been painted by Spiffy beautiful and colorful scenes of hamster life which, in their intricacy and inspired imagination, rivaled those of that great Michelangelo work, collapsed around them.

“Oh, shit!” everyone said.

~ * ~

REEL THIRTY-NINE

~ * ~

Spiffy said, “I think it was a mistake to leave our Underground headquarters.”

The steel in the hamster’s voice made Baby Boss look away from the port window of Space Station One, where he had been dreamily watching the pinpoint beauty of the stars. “It had to be done,” he said at last. “We had to take this war to Space.”

“But
—
”

Baby fixed his subordinate with a cold gaze. “The final battle will be fought in the heavens.” He threw a paw out to point through the porthole. “It is here that the fate of hamsters and chickens will be decided.”

Spiffy lowered his head and nodded. “It’s just that…”

Baby let his paw drift to rest on the younger man’s shoulder. “I know. You miss your underground life.”

“Yes.”

“It can’t be helped.” Baby’s gaze wandered back to the porthole, and the beautiful vista beyond, white tiny diamond chips against a background of black velvet. “Soon,” he said, and it was as much sigh as conviction.

~ * ~

Space Station One had been designed to mimic, as closely as possible, the labyrinthine cave lair of the Underground Hamsters. It consisted of a series of steel tunnels radiating from a central hub which, except for its Spartan metal nature, resembled nothing so much as Hamster Central. The dome overhead exhibited a half-finished mural of colorful hamster life.

And, when the Hamster Alarm was sounded, as it was now, the response was no different than it had been on Earth: all hamsters had been summoned, and they ran as fast as their furry feet would carry them to the meeting hall.

Only now when they ran into Hamster Space Central, they converged on the laughing, clucking figure of Doozy Chicken, who stood with the tip of her wing pressed tightly to the alarm!