Christmas Crackers

‘You certainly fit the description,’ admitted Smith, sweating slightly. ‘Wearing a red suit, sitting in the chair, listening to whiny children, making promises for presents that their parents can’t afford.’

‘That’s not the point! There is no Santa Claus! He’s a marketing tool! And there certainly isn’t one that has bloody missiles attached to his bloody sleigh!’

‘It’s too late to take them off now sir,’ said Smith, stepping back slightly. ‘And besides, you’ll need them.’

Smith looked back over his shoulder and called out.

‘Open the bay doors, Hal!’

A large green door began to slide open in the near distance. Meanwhile, the sound of a jet engine whirred nearby.

‘That’s not-’ Donnie faltered, trying to find the right words, ‘the-ohhh…’

He focussed the confusion into annoyance.

Donnie stood and raised a hand with finger pointed skyward. ‘Now look, mate–’

‘I think this will make us go,’ said Carol, pointing at a big green button on the dashboard.

‘What,’ asked Donnie, glancing down and momentarily distracted.

‘Good luck sir,’ said Smith, stepping well out of the way. ‘The fate of the world rests in your capable hands.’

‘I think we should hang on,’ said Carol, sitting back and strapping herself in.

‘Now, just a bloody minute–’ Donnie exclaimed as Carol pressed the button.

The jets roared.

‘Wahhhh!’ exclaimed Donnie, toppling over backwards into the cargo-area of the sleigh, his legs sticking up into the air.

He stared up into the now open sky, his conscious still astonishingly put-out to have been poured into the mould of a hero, and his unconscious observing hundreds of little black dots, getting bigger by the second.

‘What are they,’ he asked in a small voice.

‘You should release the reindeer sir,’ said Smith via a speaker.

Carol pressed a button and the reindeer whooshed away and engaged the enemy.

Carol jumped over the seat and landed in Donnie’s ample stomach. Her knee struck gold once again.

‘Gawhhh,’ exclaimed Donnie, clutching his nethers in an attempt to prevent them falling off.

‘You should steer,’ she declared, grabbing the laser-cannon which had whirred up from the bodywork.