A Christmas Story

A whip cracked, and a scream sounded somewhere in the distance. The elves in the boardroom all shuffled in their seats; no one making eye contact. One hesitantly cleared his throat, and instantly all eyes were on him; he sank even further down in his seat.1

Santa Claus turned his gaze slowly to the shaken elf. After taking a long deliberate puff of his cigar and blowing the smoke in the elf's direction he said, 'You have something you want to add? Or you just got a frog in your throat.'2

The smoke made bizarre shapes as it passed under the single light swinging lazily in the center of the room, and wafted over to envelope the poor elf; who burst into a fit of coughing. Once he had waved the smoke away to join the haze lurking near the roof, he gathered up the courage and managed to stutter, 'W-w-well sir, we have some... some... some p-parents who aren't, well, p-p-paying this year.'3

'Is that so,' Santa mused. 'Well, you know what to do about it.'4

Gaining a bit more courage the elf continued, still stuttering slightly, 'I-is it really necessary?' 5

Santa snapped his full attention to the elf, who pathetically tried to continue, 'I mean, surely a couple of p-people don't matter, we've still got more t-then enough parents who p-pay,' he finished lamely.6

Santa picked up a couple of walnuts from bowl near him, then slowely stood, and started to walk to the elf, who was a shaking wreck now. 'So, you think I should ease off a bit, after all, it's Christmas right? Season of good tidings and joy, so we shouldn't be too harsh, is that what you're saying' 7

The elf hesitantly nodded his head. 8

'Wrong!' Santa bellowed. 'Do you know what would happen if we eased off? Those pathetic parents would start to feel safe, feel like they could get away with it, soon, more then a couple would stop paying; it would snowball. And I will not let that happen. We've got them by the balls, and we're going to squeeze and squeeze, never a moments relief,' saying that, he crushed the shells with one of his massive hands, and popped the nuts into his mouth. 9

He started to laugh, not a pleasant laugh like you might hear if a couple of friends shared a joke, but a deep rumbling laugh that shook the whole room, the folds of fat around his middle vibrating more and more. 'Ho ho ho, HO HO HO HO HO HO HO.' Then with a deft movement he raised his giant candy cane and brought in down with a crack on the elfs head. The blood splashed onto it, adding to the swirls of red and green; suspiciously more red then green. 10

Santa turned his attention to the rest, then strolled back to his place at the head of the table and lowered himself into his chair. The smoke lazily swirled around his head as he settled down. He proceeded, 'Now, does anyone else have any bright ideas? No? Good. Lets continue then.' He stopped and took another puff of his cigar before turning to one of the elves to his left. 'Hayward, how are the finances coming along this year?'11

The small elf adjusted his glasses and ruffled through the paper in front of him. He flicked a nervous glance over at the dead elf before saying, in a slightly snobbish voice, 'Well, as has already been raised, certain parents feel that they can get away with not paying this year. But so far not enough to really effect our turnover by any significant amount-' He searched through the paper till he found the sheet he was looking for- 'But, if the growth of the rebellion continues at its current rate, within 5 years it will really start to show.'12

'You've done good,' Santa said. 'So, who has any ideas on what to do to, ho ho ho, rectify the situation?'13

Another faint scream sounded in the background as they looked at each other; studiously ignoring the corpse. No one wanted to be the first to speak. 14

'No takers?' Santa asked, slowly scanning the room. 'Hand me that list Hayward.'15

Hayward ruffled through his papers, then passed a couple of sheets over to Santa. 'That's the complete list of everyone who hasn't paid yet.'16

Santa reached over and took them. Sitting back, he scanned that pages. 'Alright, this is what we're going to do, we're going to take 20 parents from this list, who have been naughty, not nice, and be good citizens and anonymously report them, and make sure the rest of them find out about it.' He pulled out a pen and wrote a couple of notes on the paper, then handed it back to Hayward. 'Make it happen guys, the meeting is over,' saying that, he started to stand, then, almost as an after thought added, pointing to the corpse, and the pool of congealed blood on the table, 'And someone clean up that mess.' He flicked his cigar into a trash-can near the door, walked out.