Santa's Dilemma

This story won the "The Writer's Cramp"  for December 17!

Santa's cell phone rang a melody of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" just after a pair of twins asking for stuffed Spongebob Squarepants jumped down from his lap. He stood up from his chair and walked behind the fake house that had been set up at the mall and pulled the phone out from under his big red suit. "Yeah, Jessica?"

"Oh! It's terrible! The reindeer...they're sick!" Jessica Claus' voice was frantic.

"I'll be right home." Santa hung up and told the elves at the mall that he was away on pressing business. Fortunately there were no more children in line for the day. He drove to his home at the North Pole to find Jessica awaiting him outside the reindeer's stable.

It was worse than he thought. All eight reindeer were under the weather: Dasher and Dancer had high fevers; Prancer wasn't eating and felt nauseous; Vixen, Comet and Cupid all felt numbness in their legs and couldn't stand, while Donner and Blitzen coughed and sneezed terribly. But the worst was Rudolph, whose nose wouldn't light in addition to all the symptoms the other deer had.

"Oh dear," Santa said, shaking his head sadly with a frown. "I have never had this happen before. I suppose I'll have to get some of the forest animals to pull my sleigh." He looked out at the snowscape around him. There were no animals in sight.

Jessica adjusted her glasses. "All the other animals here are hibernating, Santa."

"Then it looks like we might have to cancel Christmas, like we almost did Rudolph's first year pulling the sleigh. Too bad he can't pull through for us again," he said with a sigh.

Retreating to his den, Santa turned on his computer and checked his email, which he hadn't done of late because of the Christmas rush, so he could get his mind off of his current dilemma. To his surprise, there was a message from Herbie the elf, who had set up a dentist's office in India. It read:

Santa,

I'm still not used to the warm weather here and the lack of snow. The job has been a big success, and there are a lot of beautiful smiles here.

The animal life here is so different from that of the North Pole too. I have never seen a real elephant before! They are amazing creatures, very strong too. Yukon Cornelius is bringing some back to you so you can see them for yourself.

By the way, how is Rudolph?

Herbie

So the large cargo that Yukon had carried in his truck a few weeks prior wasn't a shipment of gold at all. Then he got an idea.

He called the man up on his cell phone and asked if he could borrow the animals for one night. The elephants could eat the reindeer's magic corn and pull his sleigh for them. It was perfect.

Not long after the truck pulled up behind Santa's house, the corn was laid out for the elephants to eat. Fortunately for Santa, the big creatures took to the food quickly, and in no time the entire pile was gone, and all eight pachyderms had eaten their fill.

Hooking up the elephants to the sleigh was a task, but with the help of Bumble the snowman it was made much easier. The elves began loading up the sleigh with the sacks of toys, and Santa smiled at his own cleverness at avoiding another Christmas disaster.

But there was another problem. Apparently the magic corn, while tasting good to the elephants, it had given them the runs, and they still couldn't fly for the test takeoff. "Darn it," he grumbled as he sat in the sleigh with no way of getting off the ground.

"Umm, Santa?" a rather soft voice spoke from inside the truck. It was another elephant, with very huge ears. "I think I can help." The small elephant flapped its ears and soared into the air. It was a miracle!

Santa smiled with glee. "Yes! You will be our last hope yet! What is your name, little one?"

The meek elephant replied with a bashful blush. "Dumbo, sir."

Soon enough, Dumbo was reined in front of the other eight elephants and with a flap of the ears, the sleigh took off into the night. Christmas was saved after all.