Jingle Boy (9 page)

Where the hell did Scooby get the money to pay for all these presents? It wasn’t like we made much bank playing Santa all day. And he couldn’t be selling that many CDs, could he? Maybe his parents still gave him an allowance—like a hundred dollars a day. And it was tacky, the way he gave those presents to her in public so everyone could see how
generous
he was.

Sarah started to look up and I ducked away from the window, my pulse pounding. I didn’t want her to catch me spying on her and think I was pining pathetically. I wasn’t. Really.

“Hi, Santa,” I heard the little girl say as she climbed onto Scooby’s lap a few feet from the Santa Shack. “That pretty girl told me to tell you she loves the sweater.”

“Well, thank you for the message, sweet thing,” Scooby said. “How do you feel about rap music?”

I almost puked into my synthetic beard.

I peeked out the window again. The Hurleys were next and they were wrestling once more—all of them except the kid with the Game Boy, who was in a solid video game trance. Holly saw me and gave me a subtle thumbs-up. I smiled back hopefully. This had to work. It just had to. Scooby had to pay.

Soon the little girl was scurrying off and the smallest Hurley ran up the red carpet with inhuman speed.

“I’m first! I’m first!” he shouted.

This knocked Game Boy out of his trance. “Oh no you don’t!” he shouted, chasing the youngest.

“Hey! I’m oldest! I get dibs!” Jason yelled.

In seconds Scooby had all six Hurley tanks hurtling toward him. From my vantage point, he might as well have been staring down the Giants’ defense. I felt a chuckle building up in my throat. The taste of victory was so sweet.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Scooby shouted, breaking character and standing up in an effort to defend himself.

“Aren’t you supposed to say ‘ho ho ho?’” Game Boy Hurley demanded, stopping in front of Scooby and holding his struggling brothers back.

“Uh . . . you kids are supposed to come up one at a time,” Scooby said, tentatively returning to his throne.

“Yeah, well, we didn’t,” Jason informed him. “You got a problem with that, Fat Boy?”

I slapped a hand over my mouth to stop the laughter. The youngest Hurley curled and uncurled his fist menacingly. I couldn’t have written this better myself.

“Okay, kids, why don’t you all just take some free copies of my rap CD and go on your merry little ways?” Scooby suggested, leaning sideways to pull some CDs from the box he kept next to his chair. He handed one to Jason, who looked it over with interest.

“You rap?” Jason asked skeptically.

For a moment Scooby looked stricken. Revealing his true identity was totally verboten. Then, taking a hard look at his clearly curious audience, he cleared his throat. “Yeah, I do.”

“Like what are some of your songs?” the second-to-littlest Hurley asked, rubbing snot from under his cold-reddened nose.

Scooby gave him a wink. “Wanna hear one?”

“Yeah!” they all cheered. And they sat down at Scooby’s feet. Each one of them crossed his legs Indian style as if they were playing a giant game of Simon says. All I could do was look on in horrified awe.

My name is Santa and I’m da bomb!
The ladies can’t resist when I get my freak on!
If ya never heard my rhymes, well, then too bad for you,
But I’m layin’ down this track so you can hear me, too!
We got Santa over here,
Santa over there,
Santa on the mike,
Santa everywhere!

Okay, this was my worst nightmare come to life.

And suddenly the Hurley boys started clapping, keeping the beat for Scooby. People in line laughed and bobbed their heads. Santa was putting on a show! How novel! And he’d soothed the savage beasts that had made their wait in line a living hell!

This was so,
so
wrong!

“No,” I said under my breath, shaking my head. “No! Nononononononono! This isn’t happening! This isn’t supposed to happen!”

And before I knew what I was doing, I had kicked the wall of the Santa Shack in a blind fit of rage. And it felt good. It felt damn good. Until I heard a resounding crack. Then a pop. Then a really loud creak. Then, right in front of my eyes, the wall of the Santa Shack fell forward, then the left wall collapsed, then the right, then the back wall, which, luckily, took the roof with it. Otherwise I would have been a Paul pancake. Scooby and the entire crowd fell silent as I stood there in my Santa suit, my beard half attached and my brown hair sticking up for all the world to see.

If I hadn’t been so stunned, I probably would have realized that right then was a good time to run.

“Santa! Who’s that?” the youngest Hurley demanded, pointing his pudgy little finger at me. He was clearly traumatized by the sight of two Santas at once.

“Uh . . . I don’t know,” Scooby said in his Santa voice. “He must be an imposter! Get him!”

The Hurleys scrambled to their feet and rushed me, crushing the fallen Santa Shack walls beneath their feet.
That
was when I actually started to run.

“You get back here, you fat fake!” one of the Hurleys yelled.

I lumbered ahead as fast as I could, but with those big boots and all that extra padding, I wasn’t exactly able to reach my peak speed. I could feel them gaining on me, breathing down my neck. And suddenly one little body was thrown against me from behind and I sprawled on the dirty mall floor with just enough time to turn my head so that my nose didn’t shatter.

“You’re goin’ down, imposter!” Jason shouted before throwing the first punch.

“Get off me!” I yelled.

I rolled over just in time to see my savior, Dale Dombrowski, head of mall security, hauling Hurleys off my body, his salt-and-pepper mustache twitching over a barely concealed smile. Dale was a good guy and I loved it when my mom retold his mall conspiracy theories to me and my dad over the dinner table. He was definitely going to love telling
this
story—the day he somehow managed, even with his aging muscles, to get four or five psychotic kids off of one scared would-be Santa. But try as he might, he couldn’t get them all, and one of them was still pummeling my stomach quite vigorously. Luckily most of his punches were hitting my Santa padding.

“All right, kids, that’s enough,” Dale said, his tone calm, as if he held three squirming kids to his body every day of the week. “Leave Santa alone.”

Holly’s loud whistle split the air and the final combatants jumped off me, whirling to face her. She walked over and held out a hand, pulling me to my feet. My entire body ached and I was out of breath. The Hurleys’ mom had better not be thinking about having more children. The world couldn’t handle another.

“You okay?” Holly asked, her brow creased with concern. Funny. I thought she’d be laughing at me. Kind of like what Sarah and Scooby were doing at that very moment, standing over the crumbled pieces of the Santa Shack a few yards away.

“I’m fine,” I told her.

“That’s it,” Holly spat at the boys. “No Twinkies for you!”

A general groan went up from her charges.

“All right, show’s over,” Dale said to curious passersby. “There’s nothing to see here.” He clucked his tongue and hoisted his waistband before reaching out and taking my arm. “Come on, kid, let’s go get you patched up.”

Dale led me over to the up escalator and the first-aid room on the second floor. I could feel my right eye swelling up a bit.

“That’s right! Throw the lousy imposter in the clink!” Jason shouted after us, causing Sarah and Scooby to laugh even louder. All the kids waiting in line to see Scooby cheered. Plan B had officially tanked. I hung my head in shame as we ascended to the second floor. Where had I gone wrong?

And why, oh,
why
couldn’t I get back at Scooby?

WHEN SANTA HITS THE GAS, MAN, JUST WATCH HER PEEL . . .

I WAS QUESTIONED BY MALL MANAGEMENT FOR HOURS. Apparently the Santa Shack had cost a pretty penny and they wanted to know what exactly had happened to bring the structure down. I, of course, lied through my teeth. If I’d told them the truth, I would have had to pay for it, and we are already well versed in my negative cash flow situation. Mr. Papadopoulos, his head shining under the fluorescent lights, seemed skeptical that I had leaned against the wall while putting on my Santa boots and it had collapsed, but he finally let me go.

As I passed by the glass wall of his office, I caught a glimpse of my murky reflection. Mr. Papa-D had respectfully asked me not to return to work until my face had fully healed. (Apparently a Santa who looked like he’d lived through a gang war was unacceptable.) I had a nice shiner forming around my right eye and there was a bit of dried blood under the Band-Aid over my left. When I touched my face, I winced in pain and then felt a rush of angry adrenaline. This was all Scooby’s fault. I couldn’t believe he’d managed to turn the Hurleys on me. Why was he so untouchable?

I walked over to the railing around the food court and leaned my forearms against it, looking down at the scene below. The North Pole had been closed for the night so that the Santa Shack could be rebuilt. Shoppers were pausing to stare at the destruction as they walked by, and there stood Scooby, right next to the fallen walls, wearing a red-and-black flannel shirt and black jeans, talking to some young guy in a suit. They were laughing and pointing and yukking it up. Even from here I could see that Adam’s apple bounce. For Scooby, it was all just a funny story that was probably growing in hilarity with every retelling. Meanwhile I could feel my bruises swelling every moment.

There was a slight bulge in the back pocket of my jeans of which I suddenly became very aware. Something I’d taken from my practical joke box that morning as an afterthought. I’d only brought it along in case of an emergency. I’d never used it before in my life and I never really thought I would. I never thought I’d find someone I hated enough to test it on.

But now I had.

I headed to McDonald’s, purchased a Super Size fries, and pulled the little packet out of my jeans pocket. On the surface of the white package was a picture of a rotund cartoon kid with green bubbles floating away from his backside. Over his head were the words
Ultimate Gaspiration
in big purple letters. At that moment, those two words were my salvation. I emptied the entire packet of powder over the fries, shook them up for good measure, and hopped on the escalator. I never took my eyes off Scooby as I descended.

As I approached, Scooby and his cohort turned to look at me.

“Is this the guy?” the suited man asked, a gleeful smile on his face as he looked me over.

“This is the guy,” Scooby said, laughing.

I barely registered the fact that they had been talking about me. All I could see was green bubbles. I held the fries out to Scooby.

“Gotcha something to eat,” I said. “Just to show there’s no hard feelings.”

“I hate McDonald’s fries,” Scooby said, frowning and crossing his arms over his chest.

“What?” the suited man and I asked in baffled unison.

What was this guy, some kind of alien?

“I’ll take ’em,” the suited man said.

He had the fries out of my hand and had shoved a wad of them into his mouth before I even got over the shock that somebody didn’t like McDonald’s fries. As far as I was concerned, they were the fifth major food group.

“Ugh!
So
good,” the suited man said. That was when I snapped out of it and realized what he was doing.

“Hey! Don’t eat—”

“Yo! Christopher!”

Two large men walked up and set down a ton of camera equipment next to the suited man’s feet. They were soon joined by a frenzied woman who was wearing headphones too big for her small head. Her frizzy black hair stuck up all around her head like a lion’s mane and she was wearing lipstick the color of grape bubble gum.

“Hey, guys! We all set?” Christopher asked, his mouth full.

“Yeah, we got permission to film,” the woman answered, holding one hand over one side of her headphones. “But we got to get the shot set up fast. We’re going live in a few minutes.”

“Is this the guy?” the bigger man said, scratching at his itchy beard as he lifted his chin at me.

“This is the guy,” Christopher replied, shoveling fries into his mouth.

“What
guy
? ” I asked, irritated by the refrain.

“The guy who destroyed the Santa Shack,” the woman said as if I were completely exasperating. “Didn’t Christopher tell you? He’s going to interview you on the air. We’re from News Twelve. We want you on the live six o’clock broadcast.”

Wait a second, they wanted to interview me? Live? With a black eye? While the reporter was ingesting a carton full of power laxative? I glanced over at Scooby, who was watching me intently. I swear for a second there I felt like he could read my mind. God, I hated him.

But I couldn’t focus on that now. I had to get out of this. I had to—

“Okay, black-eye kid, you stand on Christopher’s left,” the little woman said, grabbing me by both arms and shoving me up next to Christopher. “Lumberjack kid, you stand to Christopher’s right,” she said, manhandling Scooby as well.

I felt like my heart was going to pound right through my chest. The large men trained the camera on us and I wiped my palms on my jeans, staring at the dwindling number of fries in Christopher’s carton. He was starting to slow down, but he was still eating. This poor guy. He had no idea what was about to happen.

“Nervous?” he asked, letting out a little belch.

“Uh . . . kind of,” I said. Scooby, of course, laughed.

“Have a fry, you’ll feel better,” Christopher told me. When he held out the carton to me, my stomach lurched. Green gas bubbles danced in my head.

“Uh . . . I don’t think so,” I replied, stuffing my hands under my arms. My black eye started to throb and I felt prickly sweat forming along my hairline.

“Come on, have one,” Christopher said.

“No . . . no, really.” I took a step back.

“What’s the problem, loser?” Scooby asked, looking over Christopher’s head at me. There was a suspicious glint in his eyes. “Why don’t you want to eat them?”

All of a sudden a wave of realization came over me. Scooby knew something was up. And if I didn’t eat at least one fry, his suspicions would be confirmed. And when Christopher went running for the bathroom, Scooby would
know
I’d done something to the fries and then the frantic producer lady would call the police and I’d be arrested for giving the News 12 reporter food poisoning, I’d be pegged as a delinquent, and they’d know I took down the Santa Shack not entirely by mistake. I was going to jail. And then I’d never get back at Scooby.

“Fine,” I said. “Thanks.”

I took one fry—a small one—said a little prayer, and popped it into my mouth.

“Huh,” Christopher said. “I don’t feel so good.”

He placed the fry carton on the ground at his feet and came up holding his hand over his stomach. I swallowed with difficulty.
Just don’t let him get sick on the air.
Just don’t let him get sick on the air—

“And we’re going live in five, four, three, two . . .”

The woman pointed at us, the red light went on over the camera, and Christopher let out the loudest, longest fart imaginable. And I used to bunk under Fat Willy after he ate four sloppy joes at dinner back in camp. There was a moment of silence, then the smell came, and then Scooby collapsed in convulsive laughter.

“Uh . . . this is News Twelve field reporter Christopher Wallace, coming to you live from Paramus Park mall in Paramus, New Jersey, where tonight, shoppers witnessed a Christmas tragedy of sorts—”

Ppppppttthhhhhhhllllllllttttt!

Scooby was crouched to the floor, one hand braced on the linoleum, the other arm over his stomach as he laughed. His Adam’s apple bulged dangerously. Christopher was sweating buckets and seemed to be scanning the area for a method of escape. The producer woman held her nose. She was turning red, but she waved her free hand frantically at Christopher, trying to get him to talk. Amazingly, Christopher continued.

“Dozens of children were in line to see Santa Claus when they heard a terrifying noise—”

Pppppttthhhllllllaaaaatt! Phlat . . . pppt . . . pppt . . . ppppt!

My stomach shifted dangerously. Between the smell that was now thick in the air, my nerves, and my own french fry starting to work its magic, I felt like I was about to throw up.

“Uh . . . Paul!” Christopher practically shouted my name in desperation as he turned to me. He bent slightly at the waist, clearly trying to . . . well . . . hold things together. “Why don’t you tell us what happened here tonight?”

Phhhlllloooot!

That time it was me.

Scooby pulled himself into a fetal position on the floor, laughing uncontrollably. The guys behind the camera were almost choking. The producer threw up her hands and turned away.

“Okay, this is Christopher Wallace, signing off,” Christopher said. He waved his hand at the camera-men, his eyes bulging. Somehow he waited until the red light went off. Then he ran. My stomach, now a mass of shifting bubbles, told me to follow and so I did, running as fast as I could, leaving a noxious trail of green bubbles behind me.

“Go! Go! Go!” Dirk whisper-shouted later that night from his lookout spot behind the train station in the center of Montvale. Rudy and I emerged from the bushes across Grand Avenue, the awkward, seven-foot-tall plastic Santa balanced between us. We hightailed it across the street and chucked the Santa into the back of Ralph’s Toyota pickup, where it landed with a crack on top of seven other Santas.

My stomach instantly cramped up and I doubled over just as Rudy tried to high-five me. He caught air and nearly threw himself off his feet. Dirk rushed out from behind the train station and jumped into the passenger seat of the truck.

“Paul, what are you doing? Get in the car!” Holly demanded, leaning out the window of her Bug. A car raced by, but luckily they didn’t seem interested in the fact that there were two vehicles in the train station’s handicapped lot at one o’clock in the morning.

The truck peeled out and Rudy and I lurched toward the VW, gravel shifting under our feet. Rudy stuffed himself into the backseat next to Flora, and I slumped into the front and slammed the door.

“Are you okay?” Holly asked, pedal to the metal to catch up with Ralph.

“Fine,” I replied. I didn’t feel the need to tell her that I’d taken twenty Pepto-Bismol pills since six o’clock and was now fairly certain that I was never going to have another bowel movement for the rest of my life. I couldn’t believe the effects of one fry! And poor Christopher Wallace had been hospitalized for dehydration. I was officially a menace to society.

“Whooooo!” Rudy shouted in the backseat, raising his fists. “How great was that? We are the anti-Christmas
kings
!”

He raised his hand for another high five and looked at us hopefully. Holly was driving and I was moping, so Flora finally leaned forward a bit, slapped his hand, and then sat back to look out the window again.

“What’s
wrong
with you people?” Rudy demanded. “We kick butt! Don’t you love how it feels to kick butt?”

“Yeah!” Holly said with a laugh, now that we were speeding along Kinderkamack Road with no police lights flashing in the rearview. “Santa is history!”

Rudy whooped in joy and I looked at Holly out of the corner of my eye. She smiled over at me, but when she saw my face, her forehead creased. She stopped at a red light and put the car into neutral.

“What is up with you, Nicholas?” she asked, tucking her hair behind her ear. “You’ve been out of it all night.”

“I just don’t get it,” I replied, flicking the heat vent open and closed. “It’s like Scooby has some kind of personal force field.”

Holly let out a sigh and shoved the gearshift into first as the light turned green. “Will you get over it already?” she asked, focused on the road. “Scooby is just one guy. We just pulled off a major act of anti-Christmas mayhem here! Seven town Santas! I mean, come on, Paul!”

“Yeah!” Rudy shouted, grabbing the back of my seat and leaning forward so that his smiley face was right next to mine. “We rule!”

I couldn’t help smiling back at him. Rudy is one of those infectious-energy guys. “You’re right,” I said, sitting up. I watched the Santa bodies bouncing up and down in the bed of Ralph’s truck up ahead. “Christmas is going down, baby! Yeah!”

“Whooo-hoo!” Rudy shouted. He looked at Flora. “Come on, say it one time with me—”

“Whooo-hoo!” they both shouted again.

Holly laughed and turned on the radio, loud, and we sped back through the deserted streets of Washington Township, rapping along to P. Diddy at the top of our lungs. By the time we piled out of the car in Dirk’s driveway, my mind-set had readjusted. I was elated. Euphoric, really. Here I was with my best friend in the world, along with all these new friends, and we had just pulled off a serious rebel act without getting caught. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever done anything rebellious before in my life. It was kind of . . . freeing.

Ralph and Dirk started to unload the Santas, leaning them against the side of the truck like a North Pole police lineup. As Ralph sat the last Santa down on the ground—a hollow plastic one with a chipping face and a faded red suit that had clearly been used for one too many seasons, I felt a surge of hatred course through me. As I stared at the Santa, its bulbous face suddenly morphed into Scooby’s laughing one.

Laughing. Always laughing.

I looked at Dirk. He twitched and smirked, like he knew what I was thinking.

I pulled back my fist and sank it right into Scooby’s nose. His entire face collapsed around my hand and everyone cheered. It felt very, very good.

And suddenly I was completely exhausted.

“I think it’s time to go home,” Holly said, putting her arm around my shoulders.