Chapter 2
Hollie, Rudolph, and Kandy raced back to Santa’s home. Mrs. Claus was out front, sweeping some snow.
“Hello, dears,” beamed Mrs. Claus. Then she noticed their exhaustion. “What’s all this fuss, then?”
Hollie, puffing and panting, finally managed to get the words out. “Have you seen Santa?”
“Santa, who?” replied Mrs. Claus, smiling down on the trio like children who had lost a few marbles.
“You know, Santa Claus. Kris Kringle. Father Christmas. Your husband!” Hollie exclaimed.
“Kris Kringle? My husband!?!” chuckled Mrs. Claus. “I don’t think so, though I did know a Kris Kringle once. Such a nice young man; had the most gorgeous ginger hair. But that was many years ago now. Haven’t thought about Kris in years. I wonder what he’s doing now?”
Mrs. Claus wandered off, reminiscing, leaving two elves and a reindeer dumbfounded.
“Something’s wrong here,” concluded Hollie.
“You think!?!” cried Kandy Kane.
Hollie went on regardless. “First Santa’s diary entries disappear, then his own wife has no memory of him even though we were talking to her about him a few minutes ago."
“About who?” asked Kandy.
“Santa,” replied Hollie.
“Santa, who?” asked Kandy.
“Oh no,” cried Rudolph. “Kandy too!”
“Quick, Rudy!” Hollie dashed off. “We have to get to the other reindeer!”
Rudolph ran after her. “Why? What can they do?”
“I don’t know, but at least we can do a real search for the Big S.”
******
“Santa, who?” asked Dasher and Dancer, Prancer and Vixen.
“Never heard of him,” said Comet and Cupid, Donder and Blitzen.
“Just follow us to the sleigh loading dock, will you,” ordered Hollie.
“I don’t think we’re going to find Santa, Hol,” said Rudolph, trying to keep up.
“I know, but we have to do something.”
Hollie strapped together the nine reindeer, even though the other eight were a bit miffed about being ordered around by a junior elf and a young reindeer.
Hollie climbed into the seat of the sleigh and picked up the reins.
“Oy!” cried an elderly elf. “Git off that sleigh!”
Another elderly elf joined the first in telling the youngsters off. “It’s got all the Frostmas presents on it!”
“Frostmas!?!” cried Hollie and Rudolph. “What’s Frostmas!?!”
Suddenly, the sleigh loading dock and all the elderly elves start to fade away as if they had never existed.
“Aggghh!” yelled Rudolph. “The sleigh loading dock and the elderly elves are fading away as if they never existed!”
“Not only that. Look! Santa’s workshop’s disappearing too!”
“But why aren’t we disappearing?” asked Dancer.
“That would be because of me.”
“Father Time!” nine reindeer and a junior elf gasped.
Indeed it was Father Time. The old man, dressed in dark robes was bald on top, with a long white moustache and beard hanging down to his knees. In one hand he held a scythe. In the other, he held an hourglass.
“It’s fortunate I got here in time,” he cackled at his own joke. This resulted in a coughing fit.
“Please excuse me. Not as young as I once was. Well, for the moment anyway.”
“Um, yes,” interrupted Hollie. “Anyhoo, not that’s it’s not good to see you, Daddy Time, but what are you doing here?”
“Firstly. Please don’t call me ‘Daddy Time.’ Secondly, my knees get terrible arthritis when the time stream gets messed around with. I can’t describe the excruciating pain I felt when I woke up this evening.”
“Don’t you mean morning?”
“No. I mean evening. Time is relative.”
“Is it?”
“My Great Uncle’s second cousin twice removed, I think.”
“Uh, who is?” asked a very confused Hollie.
“Doesn’t matter. All that does is that someone very naughty has been playing around with the time stream. And I would say, if my observations are correct--”
“That Santa’s been taken out of time?” queried Hollie and Rudolph together.
“Oh,” said a crestfallen Father Time, “you noticed.”
“Of course we noticed!” cried Hollie. “First we couldn’t find the Big S. Then his diary started erasing itself. Then everyone, except Rudy and I, forgot about him, and then the whole workshop just disappeared!”
“Yeah, we did have a few clues,” supported Rudolph.
“Who's Santa?” asked Dasher again.
“Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” said Father Time. “This is a tad worse than I was expecting.”
“Whatever changed the past, has progressed into our present far sooner than I anticipated.”
“Huh?”
“Meaning that whomever did go back into the past, went back some time ago, not giving us a lot of time to rectify the past, to fix our present to ensure all the children get their presents.”
“My brain hurts,” moaned Rudolph.
“So do ours,” moaned all the other reindeer.
“But how come we’re still here?” asked Hollie.
“I told you that was my doing. I was able to put a protective chronal bubble around all of us. It protects us from the effects of the time damage.”
“Oh, I see,” said Hollie, not understanding a word that Father Time said. “But why do Rudolph and I remember Santa?”
“You two are only young and haven’t known Father Christmas as long as the other reindeer or Mrs. Claus.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” complained Hollie.
“It’s not supposed to. You’re dealing with time here.” Suddenly Father Time becomes somewhat introspective. “But is this just localized to Santa Claus and Christmas? Quite a bit of damage has been done to the time stream already.” Just as suddenly, Father Time snaps out of his introspection and addresses the others once more. “I think we are going to need some help.”
“What for?” asked Hollie.
“To save Christmas!”
“How?”
“First, we must find others to help us gather information about the current state of the present. Once we know precisely what changes we’re dealing with here, we can go to the future to find out who is behind all this and how they managed to go back in time. Then all we have to do is pop back into the past to stop them.”
“Why don’t we stop them in the future?” asked Hollie.
“Oh my young, innocent elf, you clearly haven’t had much experience with time travel, have you?”
“Well, no, but what’s that got to do with it?”
“We can’t stop whoever it is in the future.”
“Why not?”
“It hasn’t happened yet.”
“Gah!?!”
“Our brains still hurt,” the nine reindeer moaned again.
But Hollie and the reindeer didn’t have time to moan or contemplate their brains, as Father Time suddenly swung and swirled his hourglass around and around, above their heads.
“Hold on, everybody,” Father Time shouted above the swirling time winds. “Here we goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo…”
