Читать книгу The Christmas MEGAPACK ® - Nina Kiriki Hoffman - Страница 15

A HELL OF A CHRISTMAS, by Michael McCarty

’Twas the night before Christmas, which is Christmas Eve—not sure why they just don’t call it Christmas Eve, it’s a lot shorter, rolls off the tongue better than “’Twas the night before Christmas” does.

Anyway—on this Christmas Eve, not a creature was stirring—well not exactly true—there were a couple of creatures stirring around. In the living room, Marty the old beagle was letting out stinky farts as usual—everyone outside the Webster family called Marty “Farty” because the goddamn dog would fart all day and all night long. Besides the farting dog, Mouser the cat was under the Christmas tree knocking off ornaments and watching them smash—getting the evil pleasure from it that only cats can get.

Everyone in the Webster household was snuggled up in their beds, dreaming of sugarplums dancing in their heads. Well except the father Danny, who had stopped by the strip club Sugars’ that night, all his visions were of strippers twirling around a big silver pole and all the exotic dancers had names to match the Christmas holiday: there was Holly, Merry, Noel and Starr whose giant silicon hooters had tiny shiny gold stars glued to them.

And Danny Jr. was tossing and turning...the kid was naturally a worrywart, he worried all the time—perfect if he grew up to be an accountant for the mob or a nitroglycerin truck driver in the rain forest (a tropical suicide jockey). Junior was distressed because over Thanksgiving, the family changed the chimney from a wood burning to a gas and he was troubled that Santa wouldn’t be able to climb down it. He laid in bed listening for the sleigh and eight reindeers to land on the rooftop and if Saint Nick would have any problems he’d be there to help old man Christmas out.

All this fretting about caused the young one to get thirsty. He was going to turn on his light and put on his glasses, but figured the light might scare off Santa, so he walked in the dark downstairs without any glasses on.

He opened the refrigerator, grabbed a bottled water and started to walk out of the kitchen, when he heard a motorcycle driving in the backyard. The chopper had driven across the yard, to the side of the house.

Young Danny walked into the living room for a better listen. The motorcycle was shut off and the driver was climbing up the chimney, it sounded more like the person was scaling the side of the chimney.

He wished he had his glasses because he wanted to see what Santa looked like when he came down the chimney. All he could see was some red tall guy.

The man was all in red, he wasn’t very fat, he didn’t have a beard, and he had two pointy things on the top of his head, a tail, and was carrying a big black bag.

“Santa?” Danny asked.

“No, close—Satan,” The Devil smiled. “Santa and Satan are almost spelled the same—which really isn’t the Christmas spirit, if you think about it. I came here to get the soul of Danny Webster Jr.”

“That’s me,” Danny said scared.

“I know it is a bad time, Christmas Day coming tomorrow,” the Devil said. “But tough break, kid. I am trying to keep my quota—it is nothing personal.”

“Don’t I get to challenge you to a contest to keep my soul?”

“Like ‘The Devil Went Down to Georgia?’”

“Yeah.”

“I hate that song,” Satan said. “Do you know how to play the violin?”

“No,” Danny said timidly.

“Do you know how to play any instrument?”

“I know how to play the oboe.”

“I don’t thinking dueling oboes is that challenging,” Satan took out his soul-sucking vacuum cleaner and stuck it near Danny’s face, “it will only take a minute—”

Danny’s face was being smashed; he scrunched his mouth together and said, “How about a spelling bee contest?”

“Interesting—a very interesting idea. What the hell,” Satan said putting the soul-sucking vacuum cleaner down. “Are you a good speller?”

“I came in second place in a spelling bee contest in school once,” Danny said proudly.

“Second place?” Satan said with a smile. “Being it is Christmas tomorrow, and I am all-giving.... Here are the rules: I will give you three words—if you spell each of them correctly, you keep your soul. If you spell one wrong, I get your soul. Sound fair?”

Danny nodded.

“The first word is spectrophotofluorometrically.”

“What’s that?” Danny asked.

Satan sighed. “Hell if I know. I just know how to spell—I don’t know what it means. Kinda of ironic, wouldn’t you agree kid?”

“I guess so.”

The boy scratched his head.

“I’m waiting.”

“S-p-e-c-t-r-o-p-h-o-t-o-f-l-u-o-r-o-m-e-t-r-i-c-a-l-l-y.”

“Damn it to hell—scratch that, that is where I live. Damn it to Cleveland.” The Devil grumbled. “Unfortunately that is correct.” He paused for a moment. “This next one is a little harder—floccinaucinihilipilification.”

“Is that a made-up word?”

“It is often cited as the longest word in the English language, but there are longer ones. I can tell you are no science-fiction fan—Robert A. Heinlein used a variation of the word floccinaucinihilipilificatrix in his book The Number of the Beast. I wish Heinlein would have came down to hell, but he went up to heaven—hell is for horror writers and heaven is for sci-fi writers. Well, at least we still have Edgar Allan Poe,” the devil said with a laugh.

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“It is an easy word, that comes up in everyday conversation—it is so easy that even a fifth grader should know it.”

“I am in fifth grade and I never heard of it,” Danny said. “What does it mean?”

Satan sighed. “It means to make something out to be useless or irrelevant by depreciation—like that last question you asked.”

“This is just a guess—f-l-o-c-c-i-n-a-u-c-i-n-i-h-i-l-i-p-i-l-i-f-i-c-a-t-i-o-n.”

“That is a hell of a guess. And it is correct. Are you being coached by the big guy upstairs?” he points to the ceiling.

“My dad?”

“Never mind. If the last word was spelled correctly, you will win this contest and probably win any game of Scrabble. The word is,” Satan cleared his throat. “The word is pseudohypoparathyroidism.”

“Can you use it in a sentence.”

“Yes, if you don’t spell pseudohypoparathyroidism correct, I will get your soul.”

Danny paused and thought about it. “That’s a hard one.”

“Chop-chop, I have other souls to collect.”

“I’ll give it a shot—p-s-e-u-d-o-h-y-p-o-p-a-r-a-t-h-y-r-o-i-d-i-s-m.”

Satan’s wicked smile quickly turned into a frown. “Young Danny Webster, you are a walking dictionary.”

“Well, that is what I want to be when I grow up, an author of a dictionary.”

“You won.”

“Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!!!”

Then Satan took out his soul-sucking vacuum cleaner and put it in front of Danny’s face.

“But I won,” Danny cried out.

“Sorry kid, I don’t play fair.” Satan then flicked the switch; in a matter of seconds Danny’s soul was sucked up. He emptied the soul into his black bag.

Danny crumbled into dust and the Devil vacuumed up the dust. He then grabbed his black bag and crawled back up the chimney. It was a Hell of a Christmas after all.