Tracy Tam: Santa Command (12 page)

He stomped through the snow for a long time, bringing each foot up and pounding it back to the ground. It made him feel better, like he was accomplishing something. Or maybe it just made him feel not so lost. Because that was how he'd felt for one year and forty-five days. No. It was past midnight. Forty-six days.

He stomped and screamed. The ground quivered beneath him. He smiled.

Stomp
. Scream.
Stomp
. Scream.
Stomp
.

Crack!

Without realizing it, he'd stomped onto the ice. It was a very thin patch of ice, with very cold water running beneath it. And as he plunged into the water, he forgot to scream.

Tracy

Chris whispered some instructions to his wife, then said, “Follow me,” to Tracy. He led her into a hallway where he poked around in a closet. Well, closet wasn't the right word. It was more like “Place where he stored every object ever created.”

The sight of Chris rummaging around in that closet with his rear end sticking out of the mess was enough to make Tracy laugh.

Chris tossed his belongings into the hallway as he searched. There were coats, of course, and a vacuum cleaner, some boxes of Kleenex, a few board games, a Jello mold, a hamster cage, a painting of a seal on the beach, a ball of string, a vase, a kite. The list went on and on. Tracy even thought she saw a dog peek out of there at one point.

Finally, Chris emerged with a small canvas bag held high in the air. He handed it to Tracy. When she opened it, she found a pair of socks covered in red and green reindeer and a pair of fur lined boots. They were just Tracy's size. But even crazier, the socks looked just like a pair both she and Pim had gotten for Christmas one year. From Santa. Her chest tightened as she traced the outline of a reindeer with her finger. Her eyes blurred over.

“You'll want to change out of those wet sneakers,” he said.

“Oh, right.” She snapped out of her daze and squished her toes up inside her shoes. She hadn't realized until then that her toes felt numb. Her own shoes and socks were still soaked from walking through the snow.

“Thank you,” she said, although what she really wanted to ask was, “How did you know?”

Once she had changed, and they were on their way back to the barn, Chris said to her, “You still have questions.”

Tracy shrugged, a gesture that made her feel very small inside that big coat. Chris knew so much. She could chalk it up to the hot chocolate like Jared had, but she didn't want to. She had sneaked out on Christmas Eve to find the truth. What if the truth really couldn't be explained with a science project? She stuffed her hands in her pockets, because she couldn't find the right thing to say. Too much was whirling about in her mind.

“Okay,” Chris said softly, “how about we start with this? You didn't leave with Jared.”

“No.” Tracy had seen no sense in that. All he was doing was throwing a hissy fit. It must have been terrible to lose his parents, but running away wasn’t going to fix anything. “But that doesn't mean I don't agree with some of the things he said.”

“Such as?”

She took a deep breath. The cold air filled her lungs and gave her courage. Although, she wasn't sure why she needed the courage to speak her beliefs. Maybe it was because her beliefs didn't seem that solid anymore. “Magic can't be real.”

“And why not?”

She looked up at him thoughtfully. Their gazes locked as the two of them trudged along in the snow. The moonlight reflected in his eyes, and for a moment, he seemed not quite human. People were hard edges and solid facts. He was more like a teddy bear come to life. She wanted to believe him. No, that wasn't exactly right. She wanted to believe
in
him. “Earlier tonight, you said you were Santa.”

“I did.”

“What does that mean, exactly?”

Chris took in a long, slow breath, then blew it out. His breath turned into little snowflakes dancing inside a cloud, then fell softly onto his belly and melted. “How about I tell you a story?”

“I think that will be okay.” All stories had some truth in them, and sometimes they were easier to tell than the facts.

“Once upon a time, a man and his wife lived in a very small, very poor village, far across the ocean. They had no children, but that was okay, because their village was full of children who spent their days laughing and playing in the streets. The couple enjoyed the sound of laughter so much, that whenever a child was in need, they did what they could to help. Sometimes, it was milk for a crying baby. Sometimes, it was new clothing for a child who only had tattered rags.”

“That was nice of them,” Tracy said.

“They did what they could, and because the children were happy, they were happy. Soon, the couple became known throughout the village, but the villagers were often too embarrassed to ask for help. The old man and his wife were smart, though.” Chris tapped his finger to his temple. “They got word out to the children and told them to slide a letter under the couple's front door if they needed anything. If the children left their shoes outside their house at night, the old man would sneak little gifts or coins into them. Does that remind you of anything?”

Tracy knew where this was going. “Is that where Santa Command got the idea for everything? Children's letters and stockings by the fireplace.”

He touched his finger to her nose. “You're very smart, but I'm sure you also know many things changed over the years.”

“Like adding the reindeer and only giving gifts on Christmas?”

“And the red suit.” He tugged at the collar of her coat, and she giggled. At the sound of her laughter, his smile spread wide across his face. “So anyway, these traditions continued for decades, until the man and the woman were very old. They were so old in fact, that the man could no longer leave his bed, not even to stand by the street and listen to the children's laughter. This made him very sad.”

“Did he die?” Tracy asked, even though she was afraid of the answer. She didn't want the old man to have died alone in his bed.

They reached the barn doors, and Chris turned to her. He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes as if he were studying her. “This is the part where the story becomes fantastical. And I must ask that you believe every word.”

Tracy eyed him carefully, ready to say that she couldn't promise anything. As her mouth formed the answer, his body seemed to fuzz around the edges, and for a split second, she saw him as a younger man. He wore a cloak that looked like it came from a picture in her history book. Then, he turned back into Chris, the guy who looked like a well-dressed grandfather. She could have chalked it up to the late hour and the fact that she was so tired, but she didn't. “What is it?” she asked in a whisper.

He held up a finger, telling her to wait just a moment as he opened the barn doors and led her to a dark corner near the front. There, he knelt beside a small wooden chest and placed his hand on top, as if he wasn't ready to open it just yet.

Tracy sat down beside him. He hadn't said a word since entering the barn, and so she hadn't either. Her heart fluttered, and she was surprised at how much she needed to hear his story. She stared at him, wide-eyed.

Chris continued. “One night, just as the old man thought he would draw his last breath, a creature appeared before him. Some might call her an angel. Some would say fairy. All he knew was that she was about to change his life.” He paused, drawing out the moment until Tracy sucked in her breath. “She granted his desire to do good in the world, by granting him two gifts—magic and immortality.”

Tracy sat up straight. No one was immortal. It wasn't possible.

Chris must have noticed the doubt in her eyes, because he said, “Please, wait until you've heard and seen everything.” And with that, he opened the box.

Tracy

A brilliant, golden light filled the barn, blinding Tracy for a moment until she blinked a few times and got used to it. It came from the box. If Tracy had been asked to draw the light, she would have drawn a sunshine with glittering rays shooting out of it in every direction.

“Whoa!” She scooted backward, afraid all of that light would burn her, even though it didn't feel hot, just tingly.

“This is the source of my magic,” Chris said, but he said it slowly, like he was testing the impact of each word on her. “I've carried it through the centuries and across the ocean. As long as I have this, the world has a Santa Claus.”

“But how…” Tracy couldn't finish. She knew it couldn't be real, but it was. It was the color of her cast, the color of the portal, the color of every magical thing she had seen that night. Her skin prickled with the same tingles she had felt time and again whenever she encountered something magical.

Excitement threatened to burst from her veins as her new hypothesis formed.

Magic. Was. Real.

And she was looking right at it.

“How does it work?” she asked.

“Watch this.” He scooped his hand into the box and brought up a ball of light, barely larger than his palm. He blew gently across the surface. The golden colors swirled and settled into a picture of Tracy standing by Pim's bedside only a few days ago. Pim's dark hair was spread across her pillow. She was too pale, and she stared off at nothing. That vacant gaze sucked away all of Tracy's excitement. Her stomach turned.

“I'm going to fix you. I know what to do,” said the Tracy inside the ball. A TV flickered in the background.

Pim lay in her bed, staring, blinking. Her fingers tapped up and down on the covers. Tracy never knew if Pim did that on purpose or if it was just her nerves moving them.

Tracy went on, speaking very low as if she was afraid someone would come in and hear what she was saying. “I heard your mom talking to my mom on the phone. There's a doctor, and he can fix you. No one has the money, but I know how to get it. I promise you, everything's gonna be okay.”

Just then a commercial came on the TV, reminding children to send in their lists to Santa Command. It caught Pim's attention. She looked at the TV and gasped. Then, one word came from her mouth, “Saaaanta.”

“Yes!” Tracy said. “Yes! That's how I'm going to help you. I'm going to find Santa.” She hadn't told Pim her whole plan, because there was no need. The point was, Tracy was going to fix her cousin, and her cousin understood!

The image disappeared from the ball. Tracy had tears in her eyes. “I let her down,” she said while rubbing her sleeve across her cheek. “I messed everything up.”

Chris considered that for a moment, then with a regretful tone in his voice, he said, “Tracy, I have something else to show you.”

Tracy nodded. She was upset that she hadn't been able to help Pim, but she was ashamed of what she had done that night. It was time to own up to it. “Is this about the computer?”

His answer was to blow another breath across the ball of light. The scene shifted to a forest, one with a dry, barren ground and skinny, skeleton trees. In the middle of the forest was a wall. That wall didn't have bricks or cinder blocks or any of the normal things that make up walls. It was a shimmery, flowing barrier that looked like the surface of a soap bubble. It reached all the way up to the sky.

“What's that?” Tracy asked.

“A mistake.” He looked at her, and she knew that he meant it was her mistake.

“Can it be fixed?” She didn't know what it was, but at that moment, she would have given anything to fix it. Not only did the bubble look scary, it looked wrong in a way that made Tracy's head spin.

“I don't know,” Chris said honestly. “In order to fix the computer, they had to stop time, but when they started it again, this is what happened. They're lost, Tracy, in another time. And I don't know how to get them back.”

“Lost? Is it just Santa Command?”

Chris shook his head. The forest in the ball zoomed out to show a map of the United States.

Tracy saw little pinpricks of light, indicating big cites, but in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama, she saw nothing. All three were blacked out.

Chris pointed to the dark section. “The entire Southeastern sector.”

Tracy gasped. She thought she'd just crashed a few programs and that Santa Command could run things manually if they had to. Why hadn't she thought about the consequences? “My…My parents are gone.” Did that mean she wouldn't see her parents or Pim ever again? “Why didn't you tell me this before?”

“I was hoping I'd come up with an idea.” He let the ball slip back into the box. “But I'm old, and the world just doesn’t work like it used to.”

“What do you mean it doesn't work? Time can't be altered. No matter what the world is like, time is constant. Just like science.”

Except, if there was magic, then maybe the world wasn't as constant as she'd always thought. And the more she thought about it, she remembered another scientist who knew that too.

“Einstein,” Tracy said. She'd done a book report about him in fifth grade, and that book report was forming into an idea.

“Yes?” Chris narrowed his eyes like he was trying to see the cogs and gears turning in her brain.

Tracy didn't remember exactly what the book had said, but she had the general idea. “He said that it was possible to travel through time if we had the right catalyst, something to set it off.”

“What would set it off?” Chris took her hand, encouraging her to figure it out.

“Something big, like a star exploding.” And then she knew. She had a plan that would bring her family and everyone else in her sector, back to the right time. While the plan took shape, she chewed on her knuckle. They needed a plastic bag and a cloth bag and maybe two handfuls of the magic sitting before them. It was the perfect combination of science and magic. “I know what to do,” she said, hoping she had calculated correctly. If she overestimated, she could blow up half of Alabama. “We're gonna need the sleigh.”

Chris smiled, like he never doubted she would come up with a solution. With a tilt of his head, he indicated the other side of the barn. “Do you see what's back there?”

Tracy turned. Behind her, the horse stalls transformed. Yellow sparkles twirled around the broken wood and splintered signs until everything looked brand new. There were eight stalls, freshly painted and with name signs on each one. The one that said “ond” earlier now said, “Donder,” and poking his head above the stall door, was a magnificent reindeer.