Cynthia Manson (ed) (46 page)

Crouchback himself had made a
surprise appearance, coming out of hiding to deliver his now famous “Plastic
Lives!” speech. “Hardnoggin says plastic is inanimate. But I say that plastic
lives! Plastic infects all it touches and spreads like crab grass in the
innocent souls of little children. Plastic toys make plastic girls and boys!”
Crouchback drew himself up to his full six inches. “I say: quality— quality
now!” The crowd roared his words back at him. The meeting closed with all the
elves joining hands and singing “We Shall Overcome.” It had been a moving
experience...

As he expected, Bigtoes found
Bandylegs at the Hotel St. Nicholas bar, staring morosely down into a thimble-mug
of ale. Fergus Bandylegs was a dapper, fast-talking elf with a chestnut beard
which he scented with lavender. As Vice-President of Santa Enterprises, Inc.,
he was in charge of financing the entire Toyworks operation by arranging for
Santa to appear in advertising campaigns, by collecting royalties on the use of
the jolly old man’s name, and by leasing Santa suits to department stores.

Bandylegs ordered a drink for the
Security Chief. Their friendship went back to Rory Bigtoes’ jacksmith days when
Bandylegs had been a master sledwright. “These are topsy-turvy times, Rory,”
said Bandylegs. “First there’s that bomb and now Santa’s turned down the Jolly
Roger cigarette account. For years now they’ve had this ad campaign showing
Santa slipping a carton of Jolly Rogers into Christmas stockings. But not any
more. ‘Smoking may be hazardous to your health,’ says Santa.”

“Santa knows best,” said Bigtoes.

“Granted,” said Bandylegs. “But
counting television residuals, that’s a cool two million sugar plums thrown out
the window.” (At the current rate of exchange there are 4. 27 sugar plums to
the U. S. dollar. ) “Hardnoggin’s already on my back to make up the loss.
Nothing must interfere with his grand plan for automating the Toyworks. So it’s
off to Madison Avenue again. Sure I’ll stay at the Plaza and eat at the
Chambord, but I’ll still get homesick.”

The Vice-President smiled sadly. “Do
you know what I used to do? There’s this guy who stands outside Grand Central
Station selling those little mechanical men you
wind up and they march around. I
used to march around with them. It made me feel better somehow. But now they
remind me of Hardnoggin. He’s a machine, Rory, and he wants to make all of us
into machines.”

“What about the bomb?”
asked Bigtoes.

Bandylegs shrugged. “Acme
Toy, I suppose.”

Bigtoes shook his head.
Acme Toy hadn’t slipped an elf spy into the North Pole for months. “What about
Crouchback?”

“No,” said Bandylegs
firmly. “I’ll level with you, Rory. I had a get-together with Crouchback just
last week. He wanted to get my thoughts on the quality-versus-quantity question
and on the future of the Toyworks. Maybe I’m wrong, but I got the impression
that a top-level shake-up is in the works with Crouchback slated to become the
new Director General. In any event I found him a very perceptive and
understanding elf.”

Bandylegs smiled and went
on, “Darby Shortribs was there, prattling on against dolls. As I left,
Crouchback shook my hand and whispered, ‘Every movement needs its lunatic
fringe, Bandylegs. Shortribs is ours.’ “ Bandylegs lowered his voice. “I’m
tired of the grown-up ratrace, Rory. I want to get back to the sled shed and
make Blue Streaks and High Flyers again. I’ll never get there with Hardnoggin
and his modern ideas at the helm.”

Bigtoes pulled at his
beard. It was common knowledge that Crouchback had an elf spy on the Board. The
reports on the meetings in
The Midnight Elf
were just too complete. Was it his friend Bandylegs? But would Bandylegs try to
kill Santa?

That brought Bigtoes back
to Hardnoggin again. But cautiously. As Security Chief, Bigtoes had to be objective.
Yet he yearned to prove Hardnoggin the villain. This, as he knew, was because
of the beautiful Carlotta Peachfuzz, beloved by children all around the world.
As the voice of the Peachy Pippin Doll, Carlotta was the most envied female at
the North Pole, next to Mrs. Santa. Girl elves followed her glamorous exploits
in the press. Male elves had Peachy Pippin Dolls propped beside their beds so
they could fall asleep with Carlotta’s sultry voice saying: “Hello, I’m your
talking Peachy Pippin Doll. I love you. I love you. I love you. . .”

But once it had just been
Rory and Carlotta, Carlotta and Rory—until the day Bigtoes had introduced her
to Hardnoggin. “You have a beautiful voice, Miss Peachfuzz,” the Director
General had said. “Have you ever considered being in the talkies?” So Carlotta
had dropped Bigtoes for Hardnoggin and risen to stardom in the talking-doll
industry. But her liaison with Director General Hardnoggin had become so
notorious that a dutiful Santa—with Mrs. Santa present—had had to read the riot
act about executive hanky-panky. Hardnoggin had broken off the relationship.
Disgruntled, Carlotta had become active with SHAFT, only to leave after a
violent argument with Shortribs over his anti-doll position.

Today Bigtoes couldn’t
care less about Carlotta. But he still had that old score to settle with the
Director General.

Leaving the fashionable
section behind, Bigtoes turned down Apple Alley, a residential corridor of
modest, old-fashioned houses with thatched roofs and carved beams. Here the
mushrooms were in full bloom—the stropharia, inocybe, and chanterelle—dotting
the corridor with indigo, vermilion, and many yellows. Elf householders were
out troweling in their gardens. Elf wives gossiped over hedges of gypsy
pholiota. Somewhere an old elf was singing one of the ancient work songs,
accompanying himself on a concertina. Until Director General Hardnoggin
discovered that it slowed down production, the elves had always sung while they
worked, beating out the time with their hammers; now the foremen passed out
song sheets and led them in song twice a day. But it wasn’t the same thing.

Elf gardeners looked up,
took their pipes from their mouths, and watched Bigtoes pass. They regarded all
front-office people with suspicion—even this big elf with the candy-strip
rosette of the Order of Santa, First Class, in his buttonhole.

Bigtoes had won the
decoration many years ago when he was a young Security elf, still wet behind
his pointed ears. Somehow on that fateful day, Billy Roy Scoggins, President of
Acme Toy, had found the secret entrance to the North Pole and appeared suddenly
in parka and snowshoes, demanding to see Santa Claus. Santa arrived, jolly and
smiling, surrounded by Bigtoes and the other Security elves. Scoggins announced
he had a proposition “from one hard-headed businessman to another.”

Pointing out the
foolishness of competition, the intruder had offered Santa a king’s ransom to
come in with Acme Toy. “Ho, ho, ho,” boomed Santa with jovial firmness, “that
isn’t Santa’s way.” Scoggins—perhaps it was the “ho, ho, ho” that did it—turned
purple and threw a punch that floored the jolly old man. Security sprang into
action.

Four elves had died as
Scoggins flayed at them, a snow-shoe in one hand and a rolled up copy of
The Wall Street Journal
in the other. But Bigtoes had
crawled up the outside of Scoggins’ pantleg. It had taken him twelve karate
chops to break the intruder’s kneecap and send him crashing to the ground like
a stricken tree. To this day the President of Acme Toy walks with a cane and
curses Rory Bigtoes whenever it rains.

As Bigtoes passed a
tavern—The Bowling Green, with a huge horse mushroom shading the door—someone
inside banged down a thimblemug and shouted the famous elf toast: “My Santa,
right or wrong! May he always be right, but right or wrong, my Santa!” Bigtoes
sighed. Life should be so simple for elves. They all loved Santa—what did it
matter that he used blueing when he washed his beard, or liked to sleep late,
or hit the martinis a bit too hard—and they all wanted to do what was best for
good little girls and boys. But here the agreement ended. Here the split
between Hardnoggin and Crouchback—between the Establishment and the
revolutionary—took over.

Beyond the tavern was a
crossroads, the left corridor leading to the immense storage areas for completed
toys, the right corridor to The Underwood. Bigtoes continued straight and was
soon entering that intersection of corridors called Pumpkin Corners, the North
Pole’s bohemian quarter. Here, until his disappearance, the SHAFT leader
Crouchback had lived with relative impunity, protected by the inhabitants. For
this was SHAFT country. A special edition of
The Midnight Elf
was already on the streets denying
that SHAFT was involved in the assassination attempt on Santa. A love-bead
vendor, his beard tied in a sheepshank, had
Hardnoggin Is a Dwarf
written across the side of his
pushcart.
Make love, not plastic
declared the wall of The Electric Carrot, a popular discotheque and hippie
hangout.

The Electric Carrot was
crowded with elves dancing the latest craze, the Scalywag. Until recently,
dancing hadn’t been popular with elves. They kept stepping on their beards. The
hippie knots effectively eliminated that stumbling block.

Buck Withers, leader of
the Hippie Elves for Peace, was sitting in a corner wearing a
Santa Is Love
button. Bigtoes had once dropped a
first-offense drug charge against Withers and three other elves caught nibbling
on morning-glory seeds. “Where’s Crouchback, Buck?” said Bigtoes.

“Like who’s asking?” said
Withers. “The head of Hardnoggin’s Gestapo?”

“A friend,” said Bigtoes.

“Friend, like when the
news broke about Shortribs, he says ‘I’m next, Buck.’ Better fled than dead,
and he split for parts unknown.”

“It looks bad, Buck.”

“Listen, friend,” said
Withers, “SHAFT
’
s
the wave of the future. Like Santa’s already come over to our side on the
disarmament thing. What do we need with bombs? That’s a bad scene, friend.
Violence isn’t SHAFT
’s
bag.”

As Bigtoes left The
Electric Carrot a voice said, “I wonder, my dear sir, if you could help an
unfortunate elf.” Bigtoes turned to find a tattered derelict in a filthy button-down
shirt and greasy gray-flannel suit. His beard was matted with twigs and straw.

“Hello, Baldwin,” said
Bigtoes. Baldwin Redpate had once been the head of Santa’s Shipping Department.
Then came the Slugger Nolan Official Baseball Mitt Scandal. The mitt had been a
big item one year, much requested in letters to Santa. Through some gigantic
snafu in Shipping, thousands of inflatable rubber ducks had been sent out
instead. For months afterward, Santa received letters from indignant little
boys, and though each one cut him like a knife he never reproached Redpate. But
Redpate knew he had failed Santa. He brooded, had attacks of silent crying, and
finally took to drink, falling so much under the spell of bee wine that
Hardnoggin had to insist he resign.

“Rory, you’re just the
elf I’m looking for,” said Redpate. “Have you ever seen an elf skulking? Well,
I have.”

Bigtoes was interested.
Elves were straightforward creatures. They didn’t skulk.

“Last night I woke up in
a cold sweat and saw strange things, Rory,” said Redpate. “Comings and goings,
lights, skulking.” Large tears rolled down Redpate’s cheeks. “You see, I get
these nightmares, Rory. Thousands of inflatable rubber ducks come marching
across my body and their eyes are Santa’s eyes when someone’s let him down.” He
leaned toward Bigtoes confidentially. “I may be a washout. Occasionally I may
even drink too much. But I don’t skulk!” Redpate began to cry again.

His tears looked endless.
Bigtoes was due at the Sticks-and-Stones session. He slipped Redpate ten sugar
plums. “Got to go, Baldwin.”

Redpate dabbed at the
tears with the dusty end of his beard. “When you see Santa, ask him to think
kindly of old Baldy Redpate,” he sniffed and headed straight for The Good Gray
Goose, the tavern across the street—making a beeline for the bee wine, as the
elves would say. But then he turned. “Strange goings-on,” he called. “Storeroom
Number 14, Unit 24, Row 58. Skulking.”

“Hardnoggin’s phone call
was from Carlotta Peachfuzz,” said Charity, looking lovelier than ever. “The
switchboard operator is a big Carlotta fan. She fainted when she recognized her
voice. The thrill was just too much.”

Interesting. In spite of
Santa’s orders, were Carlotta and Hardnoggin back together on the sly? If so,
had they conspired on the bomb attempt? Or had it really been Carlotta’s voice?
Carlotta Peachfuzz impersonations were a dime a dozen.

“Get me the switchboard
operator,” said Bigtoes and returned to stuffing Sticks-and-Stones reports into
his briefease.