Keeping Holiday (18 page)

The penguin made a courtly bow. “Welcome to Winter-land Manufacturing. We excel in tinsel and fresh icicles. We’re delighted to have your company.” Then, a little less formally, he added, “Looks like you had a hard time finding the place, eh?”

Dylan tried to answer, but his tongue felt like a thick wooden block in his mouth and he could hardly feel his jaw, it was so cold. The penguin held up a wing to stop him. “Ah-ah-ah,” he said. “Time to chat later. Right now, it’s hot baths, hot soup, and naps in a warm bed for you.” By then, the last figure to come toward them, a reindeer, had arrived. It pulled a sled, more blankets piled on the seat. Again with his wing, the penguin indicated the sled. “In you go,” he said. “He’ll have you somewhere toasty in a jiffy.” The children clambered into the sled and under the blankets on the seat. With another bow, the penguin waved the reindeer on.

Several hours later, having been thawed in warm baths, strengthened by hot soup, and refreshed by long naps under thick quilts, Dylan and Clare felt like new people. Upon rising from their naps, they had found heavy parkas, fur-lined boots, mittens, and woolen caps in just their sizes. Now, wearing these, they followed the penguin around the center of the clearing on a tour of Winterland Manufacturing, Inc. “Just one question,” Dylan was saying, “how did you happen to have all these warm things here, in just our sizes?”

“Oh, well, we do get visitors, you know,” the penguin replied. “And the Founder likes to make sure that, when they come, they have exactly what they need. Have you heard of the Founder?”

“Oh, yes, that’s why we’re here,” Dylan replied. “Originally, we just came to try to see the real Holiday, and to get authorized to come whenever we want to. So it was actually the Founder we were trying to find, since he is the only who could authorize us.”

Here the penguin interrupted. “Oh, you can’t find the Founder,” he said quickly, before Dylan could stop him, “he finds you.”

“Right,” Dylan said. “That’s what we’ve heard. Everywhere we’ve gone, we’ve heard more about the Founder, and he even seems to be kind of following us—or going ahead of us—or something. Anyway, I get the feeling that he knows all about us—”

The penguin glanced sharply at Dylan. “Of course he does,” he interposed.

“—and the more I learn about him, the more I’d really like to meet
him
, even more than I want to get authorized to go to the real Holiday. I don’t suppose he’s here somewhere? The stars said they couldn’t show us where he was, but they said we should come here.” And Dylan looked around, half-hoping, half-certain of disappointment.

“Well,” the penguin replied, “I can at least show you all around. Like everything else in Holiday, Winterland Manufacturing is here in his honor. If you don’t actually meet him here, you’ll at least learn more about him.” Dylan and Clare agreed, and the penguin puffed himself up proudly.

“Whether it’s at the Visitor’s Center at vacation time or in the town of Holiday itself, you’ll find tinsel garlands and icicle decorations. Well,” and the penguin’s chest puffed even fuller, “this is where all those decorations come from. Right here. We make them.” He waddled into a long barn, followed by the cousins. “This is where the caribou sleep at night. Right now they’re all out at work, although they’ll be coming home soon. It’s getting on toward evening. They go out each day, into the forest, and select the very finest icicles they can find. Long, silvery, beautiful—that’s the criteria. Only the best icicles can bear the Winterland Manufacturing name. The caribou reach up into the tree branches and carefully remove the very best icicles.” The three exited the barn, opposite the door they had entered, walked a few steps, and entered a smaller building.

“This
is the kennel for the Saint Bernards,” the penguin explained. “They go out with the caribou, carrying insulated padded containers strapped to their backs. The caribou lay the icicles very carefully into those containers, to be brought back here.” The penguin led Dylan and Clare out of the kennel and to another building, far larger than any of the others. As the door of this building opened, a wave of noise poured out, greeting the newcomers.

Upon stepping inside, Dylan and Clare understood the reason for all the noise. Just inside the door, a huge company of penguins scurried about, all obviously very busy, and chattered contentedly to one another as they worked. At the far end of the long building, large polar bears shuffled about, also clearly busy with something. Near the large exit doors, walruses slid over the floor, kept wet for their sake, with some task of their own. Although Clare would not have thought it possible, the penguin’s chest swelled even larger here. “In this factory, we have our unique, prize-winning, secret process—which, sorry, I’m afraid I can’t show you—for turning regular frozen, meltable icicles into permanent, non-melting icicles—still long, silvery, and beautiful, of course, but in no danger of disappearing into a little puddle on the floor—the very icicles you will find as decorations in Holiday. That’s what the penguins do.”

The penguin led them on to the bears’ area. Each polar bear had a pile of icicles next to him. One by one, he took the icicles from the pile and strung them together into a long garland. Two polar bears held up one of these tinsel garlands, just completed, making sure that all the icicles stayed securely fastened. “Tinsel garlands, that’s the polar bears’ job,” the penguin stated, leading them past and over to the walruses. “Walruses are in charge of packaging,” he explained. Walruses on one side of the aisle were busy putting icicles into blue boxes, while walruses on the other side put garlands in silver boxes.

The penguin led the children back out of the building. Right outside the door, a number of small sleds waited in rows. “Tomorrow, husky dogs will use these sleds to take a shipment of garlands and icicles into Holiday. Too late for any more to go out today, though.” The penguin glanced at the setting sun. “In fact, it’s quitting time. Excuse me for a second.” He stepped back into the large noisy building and made a loud whistle.

(
Is that just a loud penguin noise?
Clare wondered.
Or does he
actually have a whistle?
She never did find out.) The penguin rejoined them. “Let’s go get a bite to eat. Of course, you’ll stay the night?” he asked.

“Thank you, yes, I guess we’d better,” Dylan replied. “I’m a little worried about going back through that frozen wasteland, even in daylight. I certainly don’t want to at night. But then, tomorrow’s our last day. Our passes will be used up at the end of the day. And I’m not sure we’ll ever find the Founder—or get found by him,” he added hastily, before the penguin could interject the familiar jingle.

“Not to worry about the frozen wasteland,” the penguin said, as they walked into a low log cabin that served as a dining hall and sat down. “You’ll go out with the dog sleds, riding one of them in fact. And you can keep all the warm clothes until you don’t need them anymore. Just put them all back on the dog sled when you take them off. And not to worry about the Founder, either. I’m sure you’re on the right track. Or he’s on the right track.” And the penguin chuckled and winked, but would say no more about it.

The children ordered chili and the penguin ordered fish. As they waited for their meal, Clare asked the penguin, “Do you have any idea why someone would work really hard at trying to keep people from ever finding the Founder and getting authorized?” And she explained about Mr. Smith and his snowmobile, along with all the other encounters with him they had had.

“Well,” the penguin answered thoughtfully, “the Founder didn’t just rescue the town to let it run along on its own, you know. He
rules
the town. He is its King. And he requires those who live in the town to obey the great Emperor as well. My guess is that your Mr. Smith is like the Darkness Dwellers. They don’t want to leave the darkness, because there, they’re free to do what
they
want to do, with no one telling them they shouldn’t do it. Mr. Smith probably thinks like this: If there’s no
real
Holiday, there’s no real Founder. If there’s no real Founder, there’s no King. And if there’s no King, I don’t have to obey anyone other than myself. So when people try to find the real Holiday and the real Founder, he wants to stop them.”

Clare agreed that the penguin’s theory made sense. Then their food came, and no one said anything for a few minutes while they all ate hungrily. Spending so much time outside on a cold day had given Dylan and Clare quite an appetite. Once they had slowed down a bit, Dylan said politely, “Thank you for the tour. It was very interesting. The icicles really are beautiful, and it’s amazing, that secret process you have for making them non-melting. But, I’m not sure I see what they have to do with the Founder or why we always see them on our Holiday vacations.”

“Well,” the penguin explained, “legend has it that the Founder first came to the town that is now Holiday in the dead of winter. The funny thing is, as much good historical evidence as we have about so much else that has to do with the Founder, no one really knows what day he first showed up. It probably wasn’t winter at all. But the dead of winter would have been a really appropriate time for him to come, wouldn’t it, because the conditions of the people he came to were certainly winter-like. Think about it. In winter, everything’s dark, dreary, and dead. Days are short, and people feel depressed. There’s very little sun, so nothing grows. Plants go dormant, producing nothing. Tree branches are naked and they can’t bear any fruit. Winter’s a wasteland, like the one you came through. Before the Founder rescued them, those he rescued lived in a winter of their own making. They were hopeless; they were lifeless. They could produce nothing worth anything at all. Even if they’d wanted to return to the good Emperor they’d rebelled against, they would have been able to bring him absolutely nothing as a gift to win his favor. The Founder came and changed all that. He burst in upon them all like springtime. He brought light and life and worked so many changes in them and in their town that they became wonderfully productive. Now, the real citizens of Holiday grow all kinds of fruit and produce all kinds of gifts for the Emperor, gifts that he not only accepts, but accepts with delight. So people decorate Holiday homes and Holiday vacation spots with icicles and garlands, reminders of the winter barrenness from which the Founder rescued them.”

“What about the Founder?” Dylan asked. “Does anyone give
him
gifts? He’s the one who has done all this for these people.”

“Oh, gifts for the Emperor, gifts for the Founder—it’s all really the same you know,” the penguin answered vaguely.

Dylan
didn’t
know. But he was only half listening. “I think
I’d
like to give the Founder a gift,” he said. He looked the penguin full in the face. “What would you give to the Founder?” he asked. “And how would I get it to him?”

“Well,” the penguin began. “I can’t tell you how to find him to give it to him, because, well, you know,” and the penguin glanced at Dylan who nodded. “But I think you could leave it for him at the Holiday chapel. Many people who find him—or, who are found by him—” and even the penguin seemed confused for a minute—“anyway, it often happens there. At the chapel. And I really can’t tell you
what
to give him. But you said that on this whole trip, he’s been going ahead of you, or behind you, or whatever, and seems to know all about you. He’s probably been providing for you all along the way, hasn’t he?” And the penguin nodded at Dylan’s fur-lined boots. “I rather suspect that you’ll find giving him a gift to be the same.” The penguin, who seemed to feel important when he talked in riddles and who seemed to like feeling important, would say no more. Dylan and Clare finished their chili thoughtfully, told the penguin good night, and went off to bed.