Slay

Our Heroes Officially Become Criminals

There were several fundamental flaws in Noel and Ava's plan to find Robyn - and, by extension, Santa - by inspecting 13 Shell Avenue. The first, and most obvious, was that they couldn't get to it. They stood on the damp pavement, looking despondently at the yellow tape barricading the ruins and the single police car still parked outside, illuminating the wreckage with flashing blue light.

"There's a police car outside," said Ava, unnecessarily.

"Oh, wow, Sherlock. You don't say!" Durban summer weather had, with a small rainstorm, achieved the remarkable feat of being simultaneously too hot and too cold, and it was getting to Noel. Give him a decent, below-freezing snowstorm any day. 

Ava looked at him quizzically, then turned her attention back to number 13. "We can't go in. They'll recognize me. Do you have anything we could use to find Robyn? Some magic or something?"

"Only Santa can use magic."

"Well, d'you have any cool technology? Like the sleigh?"

Noel sighed. "Oh, yes, let me just pull out my super-cool magic tracker screen that's miraculously attuned to Robyn! I can't believe I didn't think of using this earlier! Honestly, if we had stuff like that, Mrs Claus would already be using it. Besides, our resources are limited. It's not like we have a secret army of little elf spies spying on every single household." 

He paused. "Wait. Actually..."

"What?"

"Elves on the Shelves!"

Ava gave him a look usually reserved for people who say things like 'Hey, if we strap rubber ducks to our feet we can walk on water!' 

"Those creepy little dolls that your parents move around while you sleep?"

"No! Well, actually, yes."

"They're real? They actually come alive and travel to the North Pole?" Ava's eyes widened, as the first rays of dawning horror crept over the horizon. "We had one in our bathroom!"

"They don't come alive!" Noel laughed. "That would be silly. That story's completely made up."

She breathed a small sigh of relief.

"They're a surveillance system. Tiny cameras."

Ava's face returned to shocked, indignant horror so quickly it was almost comical.

"They have microphones, too, and they were supposed to send the feed to the North Pole. The Naughty and Nice lists aren't always accurate, and this would also help us find out what you kids wanted for Christmas. It was a bit of a failed experiment, really; the footage didn't always send, and the parents kept moving them around, so they weren't very helpful. They did catch on, though. Quite the trend. If Robyn has one in her house-"

"Then we can watch her sitting on the toilet." Ava snorted with laughter. "Why did Mom have to put it in the bathroom? That's just creepy!" 

"Then we might have her plans on video."

Ava folded her arms and looked skeptically at Noel. "Right. How do we get this video?"

"Um... " Noel looked down at his feet. "I... haven't really got to that part yet."

"Could you ask someone at the North Pole to help us?"

"I don't know... I think they've got enough to worry about. You know, just a couple of attacking armies, a tiny little war, that sort of thing."

"So how else are we going to get the video footage?"