Rudolph Saves Christmas

12 and a Very Important Bit

"Not quite," said Flop. "There's still the fact that he managed to send everyone to sleep, including Santa, and he's blown up the sleigh!"

The fact that Rudolph had finally been proven innocent seemed to clear whatever blockage had been caused in his mind. He could suddenly see things clearly and knew exactly what was needed. He was back to the old reindeer who planned things and made up games.

"Don't worry about that!" he said, smiling broadly. "We've got work to do!"

He turned to the snowmen. Three were carrying Whipple out of the Factory, but he ignored them. He couldn't worry about that now.

"Get the presents and carry them out!" he instructed.

"Where are we taking them?" one said. It was an odd looking snowman with two heads - although one of the heads looked somewhat familiar.

"To the Museum! We haven't got a sleigh here anymore, so we have to get the old one out of retirement. We can't let Whipple win. We've got to save Christmas!"

"But who's going to fly it?" asked Flop, hesitantly. "Santa's been Dazzled!"

Rudolph clapped his hooves together.

"WE ARE!"

It was at that point that Flop fainted. He awoke to a whistling in his ears and a sense of falling. Then he realised that he wasn't falling, he was...

... FLYING!

He was sitting, gripping on so tightly his knuckles were white, in the seat of Santa's sleigh! In Santa's seat on Santa's sleigh! In front of him, pulling the sleigh all by himself, was Rudolph, his red nose glowing brighter than Flop had ever seen it.

He dared to look down, over the side of the sleigh and immediately wished he hadn't. Whizzing by so fast they were a blur, were houses and fields and streets. Flop felt sick. Very sick. He wished he could faint again, but realised it's very difficult to faint on demand.

"What are you doing?" he shouted to Rudolph.

"It's Christmas Eve! What do you think we're doing?" the reindeer called back, laughing. "We're delivering presents!"

Flop gulped. There was a reason he didn't climb trees. It wasn't because he couldn't - he had sharp claws and was fast and light. No, the reason he lived in a tree rather than up one was that he didn't like heights! So to find himself flying so far above the ground that the clouds were dropping by to say hello was a little unnerving for the poor squirrel. But he couldn't bring himself to tell his friend that.

"What if I fall out?" he asked.

"Don't be silly, this is Santa's sleigh! It won't let you fall out!"

That night, the presents were delivered in record time. Whipple had thought he could ruin Christmas by changing the Lists and claiming all the presents for himself, so it meant no-one knew who had really been Naughty or Nice. Rudolph had a fine solution to that little problem.

He gave all the children presents!

For the first time in the history of Christmas, every single child on Earth woke up on Christmas morning to gifts under the tree with their names on them. Some of the Naughty ones even decided to be Nice, at least for a while.

And as the night went by, the familiar sound of Santa's "Ho, ho, ho!" seemed a little off. That could be, though, because a certain, very nervous, little squirrel was actually crying out "Oh, oh, ohhhhh!"