Chapter 10
A Sleigh Ride through Town
It was the night before Christmas. And yes, Emeron has Christmas. It's called Christmas there, too.
Anyway, it was the night before Christmas. Not a single creature stirred. Or, at least, that was how it was supposed to go.
Peggy was awoken from deep slumber by a loud tapping sound. She tried to ignore it and go back to sleep, but the tapping persisted until she had no choice but to sit up, scowl all cranky-like, and go investigate.
"Bah, humbug! Just what is making that racket?" She grumbled to herself as she trudged over to the window. That was where she thought the tapping came from.
She drew open the curtains, rubbed fog off the glass and was about to take a peek when the window burst open letting a sharp cold breeze.
"Yikes!" Peggy yelped. She hurried to close the window and stop the snow from coming in. But just when she happened to look outside while doing that, she froze. Her eyes popped out and her jaw dropped, for standing outside her window was a tyrannosaurus rex wearing a Santa hat.
Peggy stared at the hulking prehistoric titan, and it stared back. And then it opened its jaws, revealing a set of huge, sharp fangs, and it yelled, "MERRY REX-MAS!"
"Huh?"
And then the tyranno threw a red sack over Peggy's head. The next instant, the bag was pulled from her head, and Peggy found herself sitting in a big ol' sleigh. She turned her head left and right, shouting, "WHO? WHAT? WHERE? WHY? Wait, Boss!?"
Sitting next to her was Boss, wearing a red Santa coat over a matching necktie and vest. He gave Peggy a small salute, wore crooked, and really stress-filled smile, and said, "Hey, Peggy. Merry Christmas."
"Boss?" said Peggy.
"Yeah, Peggy?" said Boss.
"Are we riding a sleigh that's strapped to the back of a meat-eating dinosaur?" Peggy asked.
"Yes," Boss answered. "Yes, we are."
"Why?"
"Because it's Christmas," Boss replied.
"Uh . . ."
"Come now, son," said the T-rex. "You're not going to introduce your own mother?"
"Mother!?" Peggy could not hide her surprise.
Boss sighed.
"Well, Peggy, as you can see, this dinosaur is not really a dinosaur," he said. "This is actually one of the rare few Six-Star magicians in the world, nicknamed the Goddess of the Free-spirited and the Queen of all Vampires, my mother."
With eyes as wide as china plates, Peggy looked from her boss to the dinosaur that was stomping through down an avenue with a spring to her dino step. The young lady from Earth tried to let the words of her boss sink in, but understandably, that was hard to do. She remained at a loss for words for a great while of the dino sleigh ride, but she soon regained her voice and spoke up.
"Okay," she said, "there is A LOT I need to unpack from that intro. But before that, I have to ask, why are you a T-rex?"
"Because I felt like it," the Queen of the Vampires replied.
"I . . . see," Peggy said. She actually did not see, but moving on . . . "What's this all about anyway? Why am I sitting in a sleigh strapped to the back of a dinosaur in the middle of a snowy night in my PJs? What are we even supposed to be?"
"I would think that was obvious," said the Vampire Queen-slash-tyranno. "You're on a sleigh. Sonny here's wearing all red. And I'm a dinosaur. What else could we be but Santa Claus?"
Peggy looked at the T-rex, perplexed. "Okay, only two of those things relates to Santa Claus."
"Hmm." The T-rex rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "You're right. You should have worn a different outfit, Son."
"She was talking about the dinosaur!" Boss shouted back. But his mother ignored his retort and moved on.
"Anywho!" went the T-rex. "That's enough chitchat. We've got a sack of presents to deliver and only one merry night to deliver them. Let's go!"
And so off, the trio went, into the night to deliver presents to all the good little boys and girls in the modest town of Featherkeep. They went from avenue to avenue, house to house, dropping off lots of toys and goodies under trees and in stockings.
The role of each was clear. The T-rex served as the Christmas steed, carrying the sleigh and its riders through the snowy night as it stomped down roads and streets with a merry cheer to her step. Peggy, it looked like, had naturally become the little helper of this unusual sleigh ride, which displeased her slightly, since it made her feel like she was being treated like a child. As for her boss, by the grace of his mother, he had taken the starring role of Santa Claus himself, taking presents from the big, magic sack and sneaking into people's homes to deliver them.
From up above on the sleigh strapped to the dino's back, Peggy would watch her boss swiftly unlock doors with his trusty lockpicking tools, and disable magical defenses and traps with his smooth magical skills before scurrying inside like a mouse, quiet and unnoticed like a ghost. When he was done, he climbed back up the sleigh, presentless of course, and they moved on to the next house. Sometimes, he would come back with a prize of milk and cookies, which he graciously shared with the others.
While munching on cookies under the snowy night sky, Peggy had a question.
"Say, Boss?" she said.
"Yeah, Peggy?" her boss responded.
"Where'd you learn to break into people's houses like that? And WHY do you know how to break into people's houses like that?"
Her boss stuffed a cookie into his face and slowly chewed it down before swallowing it. And then he peered over the sleigh's edge and cried out, "Oh, look! We're at the next house already!" After that, he jumped off the sleigh with presents in hand, dodging the questions that burned in Peggy's mind.
After what seemed like forever, like all things, Peggy's night of exploring the snow-blanketed town and its dimly-lit streets while playing Santa's helper soon came to an end. There was just one more present to deliver, but it was a present that her boss and his mother could, and should, do themselves. And so Peggy was returned to her room, which she climbed into through the window using the T-rex's hand as a platform.
"Good night, Peggy," her boss said to her after she settled inside.
"Good night, Boss," Peggy said back. "It was an interesting, but admittedly fun night. Merry Christmas."
"I suppose it is," Boss said with a wry grin. "Merry Christmas, Peggy."
Peggy watched as mother and son disappeared into the snowy night before climbing back onto bed and drifting back into sleep. Come morning, she will wonder if the things she experienced that night was all a dream. But one look at the present left on her bedside table, where there used to be none the night before, would be all the proof she needed that it was not.
Meanwhile, mother and son were slowly trudging through the snow on their way home after returning the sleigh and present sack back to Santa Claus. Boss got to keep his costume and his mother shrank down, but remained in her dino state.
Apart from the crunching of snow beneath their feet and the gales of winter, all was quiet until Boss spoke up.
"By the way, mother," he said. "Do you mind telling me why you took Peggy from her world and brought her here?"
The mini-sized T-rex glanced sideways at her vampire son. "What makes you say that?"
"Peggy acted like she didn't know you, but you don't usually drag strangers into these field trips of yours so you two must have met somewhere before," Boss reasoned. "And knowing that Peggy was from another world and that you can travel to different worlds, it wasn't hard to guess HOW you two met.
"But that begs the question, what happened? Peggy likely doesn't remember the meeting, or she would have said something about you before. Meeting you isn't really something forgettable. In fact, it's something people normally CAN'T forget. Which means whatever happened between you was so bad, you had to erase Peggy's memories. Am I wrong?"
The T-rex was visibly uncomfortable. Avoiding her son's gaze, she went, "Well . . ."
"Mother," said Boss, "what did you do?"
"I could tell you," said the Vampire Queen, "but you're not going to like it."
And she was right. The Boss did not like it.
Come Christmas morning, Peggy pulled out a card from the fancy, cream-colored envelope that came with the present. She read the card's letter out loud.
"Dear, Peggy. Merry Christmas from your boss's mom. Again, sorry about your head."
Peggy stared at the card. Her face darkened and she went, "Huh?"
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