For Santa

Reindeer began screaming in the late hours of the night. So late that when Kris Kringle began his investigations he was clad in nothing but a heavily used pair of overalls and house slippers. The season was warm for it to be Christmas season but he thought nothing of it. Out to the deerfield he went, determined to find the culprit. Most nights unsuccessfully.

Then, about two weeks after the mysterious cries began, Kringle started noticing sparkling dirt leading away from the deerfield. On nights it was quiet, the dirt was normal. But when the reindeer shouted, like magic, Kringle found the dirt to shine like glitter in his flashlight.

"Could it be?" thought Kringle out loud. Yet he had his theory, and perhaps there was, after all, some answer to the screaming reindeer.

One night he gave more space to his thoughts with his wife; "I think we have a fairy problem out there..."

"Nonsense," said Mrs. Kringle, with a look of shock on her face that was close to what looked like a queen discovering-

"Treason!"

"Now don't jump to conclusions, dear." said Kringle. Laughing at her.

"Well," said Mrs. Kringle. The resignation rising in her voice. "You'll just have to be vigilant now won't you, Kris? What a fairy would want with a reindeer I can't imagine."

"Don't you fret, milady. I'll get to the bottom of it. Soon."

"Well be careful, dear. One scream out of you and I'll be calling a wizard to sort things out, you mark my words..."

Kringle fell silent.

The very next night as Kringle was investigating, he decided to follow the trail of fairy dust.

Into the grass, away from the, by now, quiet reindeer, out of the deerfield, past the sleighs he didn't use anymore and into a large grove that was saved for romantic walks with Mrs. Clause, under a bush the glittery path stopped. Next to a pot of gold and a small bottle of gin.

Both had been marked "For Santa's use only. Merry Christmas from the Leprechauns of the North Pole."

He shared the gold and gin with his wife. Telling her the good news. She was relieved to know it was, in her words, "a more complicated fairy."

fin