Page 18 of Run, Run Rudolph
His innocent act might work on Santa, but not me. I clicked the lid closed, locking him out of the boozy fruit.
“I left a message with Haden, the vet, since it’s after hours,” I told Rudolph and his buddies, refraining from letting them know I had the man’s personal number. “By the way, where’s Vixen? According to the song and stories, there are nine reindeer. Is he lost or hurt or something? Should we be out looking for him?”
“We know where Vixen is,” Comet replied.
“And he’s okay?”
“She.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
I swore Comet rolled his eyes at me for my assumption that they were all male.
Wait a second. “All of the reindeer have antlers in the picture books.”
“And?” he asked dryly.
“Only male deer have antlers.” I hadn’t made a sex-based assumption after all!
“Both male and female reindeer have antlers,” Rudolph informed me from his prone position.
“Oh.” I glanced at the antlered beasts surrounding me. “Why do you still have your antlers? Don’t you lose them in the fall?”
“We’re a special magical breed,” Comet said in a bored tone, like he got asked this a lot.
“Oh. Right.” Every time I opened my mouth, I proved how little I knew about them and their world.
“It’s just the guys tonight,” Dasher told me.
I grumbled under my breath about gender politics in the workplace.
With a sigh, Prancer said, “We were having a stag party.”
Dasher chuckled flatly. “Stag. Get it?”
“Are stag parties the same in the reindeer world as they are in the human world?”
“I’m getting married,” Dasher said.
I aimed a “Congratulations” his way. Suddenly, their booziness made sense. As well as the absence of Vixen. And the painted words Hitch me up on Dasher’s flank.
“Wait.” I held out a hand, working to piece it all together. “Santa let you go out and get drunk the night before you all have to fly around the world—the planet?” A whirl of panic did a devilish spin through me. Referring to the world as a planet made their job feel extra-large.
Blitzen sighed. “I already told you. No rule against it.”
“There should be,” Prancer muttered.
I clapped a hand over my mouth as I realized what they’d done. “You snuck out! And now Santa’s going to be mad because Rudolph got hurt,” I whispered loudly. Automatically, I’d leaned in as though someone might overhear us and, thus, their secret.
“We can leave the compound at any time,” Dasher said stiffly.
“This is really good,” someone said from behind the group. I craned my neck around Comet’s rump and spotted Blitzen, antler deep into my cooler, his antler ornaments swinging wildly.
“Get out of my yukaflux!”
“We don’t have fruit like this at the North Pole,” Blitzen said, his muzzle pink and dripping from the alcoholic mix.
Dasher, with his hitch-me-up painted flank, and Donner, with his mistletoe and holly, zeroed in on either side of him. They tried to angle Blitzen’s head out of the way so they could try some yukaflux, their antlers clacking as they collided. One of Blitzen’s ornaments hit the barn floor and broke.
