It was December twenty third when the strikes began. The snow had just begun falling, dusting the frigid tundra with powder. Nestled behind a glacier in a little valley, sat a variety of squat buildings, their lights glowing brightly through the frigid snow. The building’s appearance wasn’t deceiving, the inside was just as busy as the outside. All that could be seen of the floors of the shipping hub of the North Pole was bodies. Little elvish bodies scattered across the floors. Squeaky chants could be heard even from Santa’s house. Kris Kringle sat in front of the fire, his cheeks red and rosy and his eyes all a glitter. He rose from his old worn rocking chair and declared to the room that he was finished. “I am finished!” Mrs. Claus kept rocking in her chair, knitting stolidly. “Did you hear me?!” He bellowed once more. She nodded her head and kept on knitting. “Nick, you knew this would happen, tensions are high. We’re a nonprofit organization, free labor is almost impossible to come by. You should have seen it coming.” Santa sat down heavily. “You’re right of course.” He muttered. “What about China? We could relocate, it’s not free but it’s cheap.”
“Where would we get the money dear? It’s not as if people pay you to do all this. Anyway, we don’t have time to relocate. Christmas is in two days.” They both lapsed into silence and the chants continued from the warehouses. “What race is the most exploitable?” Santa asked, voicing the question that they’d been pondering for the past hour. The click of knitting needles and the sound of the crackling fire filled the room. Suddenly Santa jumped up. “I’ve got it!” He yelled, bouncing round the room like a child on Christmas. “Children! We’ll use children! We can pay them with toys and they’d be only too happy to help me of all people!” Mrs, Claus peered over her spectacles critically. “You think parents would just let us take their children?” Santa looked perplexed for a moment and then his eyes lit up. “I have an idea.”
It was drizzling resolutely outside Mrs. Scutt’s orphanage in London. The clock tolled ten times. It was late for these two visitors to the orphanage. Mrs. Scutt looked appraisingly at the two people over a piece of paper. “You mean to say, you’d like all of them?”
“Well Misses... Um... Scutt. I think we’d be perfectly happy, we only want the ones ten years old and younger.” Said Mr. “Klauss”.
“We’re sure they’re all perfectly sweet,” cut in Mrs. “Klauss.”
“Well, very well then, you seem well to do. As long as you treat them well. Sign here and here, both of you.”
The night of december twenty third marked a world record for most children adopted in the history of orphanages. The recorded number was just around ten thousand. No one saw them again until they were old and when they returned, they all seemed to have a touch of magic about them.
-Rowan