Christmas with the Calvins

Chapter Thirty-Three

Saying that Scott's date that night had turned out cataclysmic was an understatement. So he was not in a good mood the following afternoon when he got a phone call from Charlie's school. Laura and Neil were both at work so Scott decided not to bother them. After all he'd raised Jessie on her own and she turned out just fine. That's why when Principle Newman asked where Neil and Laura were, he told her with confidence that he'd decided to tackle Charlie on his own.

"You've really lost weight." Principle Newman commented as she led Scott and Charlie to an empty corridor. "Are you feeling alright?"

"Well I was until I got this phone call." Scott told he before glaring at Charlie. He worried that his de-Santafication was starting to become noticeable. But he was more concerned with Charlie's misbehavior than anything. If the kid kept this up, maybe he should give up being Santa. The principal led them to a row of lockers that had been defaced with some pretty creative graffiti. Sprayed into the lockers was a caricature of Newman. A large speech bubbles that extended past three or four lockers read 'trim a tree go to jail.'

"Charlie, you promised you weren't gonna do this again. Now you've broken a promise. What's a matter with you, Charlie?" Scott was at his wits end with this kid. What on earth would make him think he could get away with something like this? There was a fine line between showing your Christmas spirit and just being disrespectful. "I'm gonna have to punish you! I'll ground him for...two months."

"I thought you were on my side!" Charlie complained. Scott opened his mouth to argue but Principal Newman cut them off.

"I'll do you one better . Charlie, you're suspended."

"Hold on now." Scott looked over at the principal. "I'm just as upset as you are, but isn't there a way we can punish him without taking him out of school?"

"What did you have in mind?" Carol Newman shrugged. Scott had to think about that for a minute. It had been a long time since he'd had to come up with a punishment. At the pole Bernard took care of the elves. And Jessica had been a model student in school. She'd practically raised herself after her parents divorced. She always made sure to get at least Bs in every subject, she was involved in every school play, the yearbook, a ton of community service...that's it!

"Community service."Scott suggested to the fearsome woman before him.

"Huh." Principle Newman mulled the idea over. "That's not a bad idea. Ok Charlie. I want you to start by cleaning up these lockers. I want everything, everything, off of there by tonight. And then for the rest of the week you can clean up every mark off every locker in this hallway."

"Every one?" Charlie repeated.

"Do as she says, Charlie."

"But I have homework! Tests to study for!" He whined.

"Not my problem." Principal Newman shrugged. "I have a detention program that meets on Saturday so we will all get together at the Sullivan Rec Center and scrape off grafitti at eight am. See you both there. And Charlie, we'll take about the suspension."

Jessica trudged through the snow behind Curtis and Bernard as they argued about Toy Santa. The imposter-of-Christmas was toting along behind the elves reading form the enormous Christmas Handbook.

"Well I think he's learning at an excellent rate!" Curtis was saying.

"Oh, really? This morning he ate an entire bowl of wax fruit!" Bernard countered.

"Wait a minute!" Toy Santa interrupted. " need to see the naughty and nice list."

"No." Bernard put a stop to that notion very quickly.

"Oh yes, yes!" Toy Santa argued. "It says I'm suppose to check it twice."

"Santa already checked it." Jess interjected. Ever since the first Christmas when the N&N list was mailed to their house, Scott always make sure to check the list often and on time. She now found herself wondering who had thought it was a good idea to give Toy Santa the Christmas Handbook anyhow.

"The real Santa." Bernard sighed. The plastic copy was starting to get on his nerves. He wished that his father in law would come back soon.

"I am the real Santa!" The toy insisted with a hearty laugh.

"I'm sorry?" Bernard snapped. Jess and Curtis could tell their Head-Elf was dangerously close to full meltdown mode.

"I'm in charge here!" Toy Santa bellowed in Bernard's face. "I'm suppose to check the list twice. That's the rule! And I think you're aware of how I feel about that."

"I think you're misunderstanding something." Bernard hissed.

"I'VE GOT A GOOD IDEA!" Curtis yelled, interrupting the argument. "How about we have some fun?"

"Huh?" Toy Santa looked at Curtis with intrigue.

"It's good to have fun!" Curtis explained.

"Right!" Jess agreed. "Santa," She rolled her eyes, but managed to resist the urge to use air quotes at least. "Why don't you go play some tinsel Football." She pointed out into the courtyard where a group of elves were just starting a game of Scott Calvin's favorite sport.

"What's the object of this Tinsel Football?" Curtis explained the rules to the toy and it quickly ran off to join the elves. Within seconds almost every elf on the field had been tackled to the ground, most of them sporting minor injuries.

"Great Idea!" Bernard mumbled sarcastically before walking towards the injured elves.

Jessica, Curtis and Bernard were walking out of the infirmary after ensuring all the elves involved in the Tinsel Football incident had not sustained any serious injuries. Luckily they were all fine. Jess and Curtis were able to convince them all that Santa was acting out due to the stress of the season. The story seemed to be believable enough as the elves has seen this behavior before in other Santas. The trio of lead elves were about to return to their own holiday tasks when they heard a hearty chuckle from the Naughty and Nice room.

"Curtis, what is it doing in the N&N?" The number two elf was used to this sort of angry snarls from Bernard, but her certainly wasn't expecting it from Jess. "What's going on here?" She snapped at the three of them barged into the Naughty and Nice Center.

"Well, I'm checking the Naughty-Nice list." Toy Santa explained. A plastic smile stuck on his eerie face. Actually, I'm checking it twice!"

"WE ALREADY TOLD YOU," Bernard raised his voice, which caused several of the N&N elves to look up from their work. "It's been check." he continued in a more even tone. "Don't worry about it."

"Well I do worry about it!" The imposter disagreed. "There's a lot of mistakes on this list! I'll give you a big fat for instance! In Denmark there's a guy names Sven Hoffstrat who apparently was wiping his nose on his sister's shirt! YUCK! THAT'S NOT VERY NICE! and yet he's on the nice list!"

"We try to cut most of the children a little bit of slack this time of year." Curtis suggested.

"I DON'T UNDERSTAND THAT!" The toy hollered in his face. "It looks like kids are misbehaving everywhere! They're running with scissors! They're always sticky! I'M NOT GONNA STOP THIS CAR! NO WE'RE NOT THERE YET! BRUSH YOUR TEETH! PICK UP THOSE CLOTHES! It goes on and on!"

"But they're just kids!" Bernard countered. Sure he'd never had any kids of his own but he liked kids. And sometimes he hundreds of elves under his control sure felt like kids. He often joked that his job was 90% babysitting. "Everybody misbehaves sometimes!"

"BUT ACCORDING TO THE SANTA HANDBOOK," Toy Santa snapped. "Naughty kids get lumps of coal in their stockings. Right? And if they don't have stockings, we will make them stockings. In my little personal opinion I think they should all get coal in their stockings, don't you?"

"NO. That's not how it works!" Jessica tried to stop him. "Santa, Dad, don't you think you're over reacting a little bit?"

"No-ho-ho! Not at all, Princess." The Toy Santa told her, his metallic voice full of condescension. "Get me the Naughty-Nice List! Get me every list! Get me everything!"