A Newfangled Christmas Read Online Free

a strand of his pony
tail. He threw me a frantic glance. “SC? What am I going to
do?”
    “Maybe I can get them to listen,” I said.
    “Hey, guys! Buddies! Yoo-hoo!” I called.
“Listen up, would you?”
    I might as well have been spitting into a
blizzard for all the good that did. I’d never seen the Elves so
riled, and I don’t mind telling you it made me feel uneasy. I
needed these guys. These good buddies of mine. Without them, not a
single boy or girl would get a present from Santa this year.
Christmas would be ruined!
    I raced to the red dinner bell hanging by the
front door. It always got their attention. Surely it would now. I
rang it as loudly as I could.
    BONG! BONG!
    This time all the Elves got quiet. One by one
they stood up straight, twisted around and looked at me.
    I couldn’t help noticing how angry their
expressions were. That sent a prickly feeling racing up my back
bone.
    “Thanks,” I said, grinning and nodding at the
same time. I hoped they wouldn’t notice how nervous I was. “I’d
like to introduce Nerdly. He teaches The Missus all about
computers. And that’s not all. He’s been to a lot of technology
schools and he belong to MESS.”
    For a second, I thought the Elves would break
out laughing. Their faces looked startled. Their eyes opened wide.
Eyebrows flew up. Then I realized what I had said.
    “Wait a minute,” I said hurriedly. “You don’t
understand. MESS is a very important organization. It
means...um...Monsters of....”
    Thank goodness Nerdly came to my rescue. “It
stands for Masters of Electronic Structural Success!” he blurted.
“And it means I know how to make robots, among other things.”
    The Elves looked at Nerdly with their faces
stern again. Then they looked a me the same way.
    Finally, Edgar, their four-hundred seventeen
year old leader, stepped forward. He took a deep breath and said,
“Santa, the Elves and I have talked this over and have only one
thing to say.”
    “Okay, Edgar. Have your say,” I said, not
knowing what would come next.
    Edgar blinked a couple of times and looked
around for reassurance. The other Elves all nodded.
    “All right, then,” Edgar said. “Santa, we’re
going on strike!”
    And they did.
     

Chapter 8
     
    WHATCHAMADOODLES AND DOODAWHITCHIES
     
    With that, the Elves turned toward the door.
They walked out of the workshop in single file. They didn’t look at
Nerdly. They didn’t look at me. They just looked straight
ahead.
    I stared after them, but I couldn’t believe
my eyes. My Elves--all seven-hundred twenty-two of them--were
refusing to make toys. And Christmas was only two months away.
    I looked around the empty workshop at all the
half-made toys. There were bicycles without wheels. There were
dolls without hair or dresses. There were puzzles without boxes.
And no one had even started making electronic toys!
    What was I going to do? How could I save
Christmas?
    The techie was pulling the diagrams and
graphs and charts off the walls and packing them in his briefcase.
Next he gathered up all the electronic toys and stuffed them in,
too. I suppose he was thinking his services wouldn’t be needed
now.
    I thought about all the e-mail messages
waiting in my computer. And all the snail-mail letters that I’d be
getting soon. I couldn’t disappoint all those boys and girls, no
matter what I had to do!
    “Nerdly! Don’t pack everything up!” I
shouted. “We have work to do!”
    I flew into action. I put The Missus in
charge of reading the e-mails and entering all the wishes in my
ledger. Then I started learning all about making electronic
toys.
    Nerdly couldn’t have been happier. He
launched into a whirlwind lecture on circuit boards and terminals.
On diodes and electronic chips. On whatchamadoodles and
doodawhitchies. My head was spinning. My eyes were crossing at all
that information.
    “Hold your reindeer!” I shouted. “Don’t you
know you’re talking to an old-fashion kind of guy?”
    Nerdly looked