Page 50 of Run, Run Rudolph
I sighed. If their fight was bigger than an injured Rudolph, that likely wasn’t a good sign.
I addressed Santa. “Can you move?”
“She’s upset,” he said flatly.
“About Rudolph?”
He leaned awkwardly to one side, muttering to himself about misunderstandings.
“Maybe we can get you out of your sleigh to assess its damage?”
“On Dasher, and Olive and Pickles and Cucumbers!” Santa announced in his booming, jolly voice. He had righted himself, and he wiggled the reins in the air.
“Is that us?” Dancer asked in his Swedish accent.
“Yes!” Dasher cried. The sleigh twisted and creaked beneath me as he pawed at the snow.
“No. Don’t move, boys,” Comet commanded.
“I think we’d better get you checked out, Santa. My barn is just over there. Let’s move inside.” I gestured through the storm, realizing I might have trouble finding the barn again through the wildly swirling snow. But it was too cold to stay here. We needed to move.
I got out of the sleigh and began unhooking the reindeer from their harnesses. I told Comet to go get Haden, hoping the animal’s instincts would guide him through the dark, and that he wouldn’t get lost. Then I began coaxing Santa from the sleigh, hoping Haden would know what to do.
Chapter 15
~ Estelle ~
I’d been following Tamara’s progress tonight, at the ready for when she decided to make a wish. But she’d made no wishes. I’d even been checking the wish catching machine as well as my private, secret wish amplifying app, as if her life depended upon it. Which it likely did.
But no wishes. And things were getting worse. So much worse.
Gram-Gram pulled a chair up to her desk for me to sit in. Trainees were never invited to sit. We never stayed in the big pink office long enough while giving our reports to worry about it. But tonight, the two of us were secretly cramming our brains with archaic rules and regulations after pretty much everyone else had left for the day, reading tomes that didn’t even apply to fairy godmothers. We needed a loophole that would allow us to intervene, and her rosewood desk was buried in books. The air smelled like ancient paper and dust.
Gram-Gram had even asked me to use my secret, quick index that I’d made for the book of rules to help me find passages faster. She wasn’t supposed to know about it, as I hadn’t asked permission to use tech. It made me wonder what else she knew about. But more concerning was that she was looking for ways to circumvent Mrs. Claus’s authority, should it come to that tonight.
Because if something didn’t fix Tamara’s growing problems soon, we were going to have to alert the authorities. And Mrs. Claus. And that was the last thing we wanted to do.
The offices were quiet, and I took a moment to take in the peace. Even the wishing machine in the corner of the bullpen was almost silent. Normally, the head fairy was home by now, along with everyone else. But tonight we were both still here, and I was very aware that this might be my last few hours as a fairy godmother. By not alerting the magical world authorities about the shroud breach, we were breaking protocol. We could get pulled into the Magical Court of Rules and have our titles as fairy godmothers stripped.
But it turned out Gram-Gram had a soft spot for the reindeer, and didn’t want them to get in trouble. She’d kind of paled when I told her they were drunk, and that had been the reason Tamara had hit Rudolph with her car.
That wasn’t enough reason for us breaking protocol, though. If we tattled about the breach and growing list of problems, we could absolutely blow up Christmas, which was Mrs. Claus’s domain. With it being so close to reindeer take-off time, she had the power to make snap judgements if anyone was caught interfering with the holiday. She could even do it without taking them to trial in the magical courts, and we feared tonight’s transgressions might tip her angry black magic over the edge of reasonableness. We could send her into a rage that might cause her to destroy the holiday out of spite.
We were taking a risk, but it was a calculated one.
Dread poured through me as my imagination supplied me with plenty of things to worry about. Gram-Gram began pacing in her large office, the big book she’d been reading, ignored.
She was frowning, not looking all that inspired.
She stopped beside my chair. “We need loopholes!”
“We do,” I agreed.
“You’re good at loopholes.”
I smiled proudly. I’d found a few of those last summer. I’d even received a creativity award because of it.
“Now!” She clapped her hands. “We need some now.”
