A highly guarded secret known to only a handful of Santa’s closest associates, the rare Magic No. 9 Mine Coal Dust, when sprinkled over the nine reindeer, not only fuels their power of flight, but the sooty blackness also provides a natural cloaking mechanism to conceal the flying sleigh in the night sky to ensure the element of Christmas morning surprise. The eons of time trapped in the fossil fuel is released instantaneously, making it possible to encircle the entire globe in a single night, too.
But not just any old coal dust will do. The magical properties only exist in certain pockets of the appropriately named No. 9 Mine running below the ground off Bullfrog Road. Just prior to that last Upper Kittitas County mine’s closing in 1963, stockpiles of the stuff were hoarded away in a North Pole warehouse. But the remaining stash had gone missing. And it was up to me and my trusty agent Mindy Mintycane to find the goods.
The first order of business was to assess the damage from the crash. “Report please, Tallymaker,” Claus shouted with a slightly dizzy laugh. The stockroom elf and several others peered out nervously from the Impossible Capacity toy sack in the back of the cattywampus sleigh. “Yes sir, right away sir,” he stammered as he crawled out and made quick work of sorting mission critical problems from minor boo boos. “Well Boss, the right runner is busted beyond repair and will need replacement, the GPS is fried and your seat cracked from the, er, impact. The toy sack has a medium present sized tear. Pointyshoe is looking a little greener than usual, and you sir, with all due respect, have a bump on your noggin to rival the golden goose egg Christmas present you picked out for the Missus last year.”
“Well what are you waiting for, Christmas?” I barked at the entourage of elves and reindeer to break them out of their frozen shock. Somebody had to take charge of the situation. I quickly scribbled out assignments on scraps of wrapping paper for the elves based on the damage report, “Get started on your tasks while Mindy gets a jump on solving our case. You’re with me Boss. We need to get you patched up.”
