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Bad Brad Saves Christmas

  Copyright 2015 Joe Corcoran

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  Bad Brad Saves Christmas

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  About the Author

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  Bad Brad Saves Christmas

  Once upon a time, in a far, far distant country, there was a little boy called Brad, although no one called him just Brad. Everyone called him Bad Brad. He never said please, and he never said thank you. He never shared, and he never wanted to wait his turn.

  "If you're not good," said his parents, "then Father Christmas will put you on the naughty list, and you won't get any presents on Christmas Day."

  "I don't care," answered Bad Brad, "I don't believe in Father Christmas."

  Well this was bad enough, but it wasn't the worst that Bad Brad could do. He was determined that no one else should believe in Father Christmas either.

  "I hope Santa will bring me a puppet theatre on Christmas Eve," said Sally Perkins, one day in the playground.

  "You'll be lucky," sneered Bad Brad, "Father Christmas doesn't exist."

  "But I wrote a letter to him and everything," wailed Sally, "I put it in the fireplace, and in the morning, it was gone."

  "Your parents probably lit the fire after you'd gone to bed," said Bad Brad, "and the letter got burnt up all into ashes."

  Sally ran off crying, and for days afterwards she looked quite miserable.

  Then Bad Brad told Steve Prado that reindeer couldn't fly – how could they if they didn't have wings. And he told Mario Smith that Father Christmas did exist, but that he'd been arrested by the police, last Christmas, for breaking into Buckingham Palace, and he wouldn't get out of prison for at least twenty years.

  "I'll be all grown up by then," said Mario, "will Father Christmas still visit me?"

  "Not a chance," replied Bad Brad, and he went away laughing.

  The Christmas holidays arrived. The children all exchanged cards and arranged playdates, but no one had a card for Bad Brad, and no one wanted a playdate with him. Even so, he wasn't worried. He had enough fun by himself. Nevertheless, on Christmas Eve even Bad Brad was surprised to find himself feeling a little bit excited about the thought of the day ahead. He told himself that it was because his parents would have got him a nice present, but deep inside him there was still a tiny bit of Christmas Spirit - burning brightly in the darkness and warming him from within.

  BUMP.

  Brad woke with a start. Everything was quiet in the house, but something had woken him up. He listened very carefully … were those sleigh bells? Carefully, quietly, stealthily, Brad slid out of bed and crept over to the window. He pulled open a corner of the curtains and peered outside. The snow that had fallen the night before still lay on the ground and the rooftops, making the world seem bright despite the darkness, but otherwise everything was silent and quiet and ordinary.

  A big dollop of snow fell past the window, and Brad looked up. There, poking over the edge of the roof, was something that looked like the back end of a ski. As Brad watched, more snow fell from the roof, and the ski started to move. There was a clattering on the tiles above, and then, to Brad's amazement, a large sleigh fell backwards off the roof. He thought it would smash onto the patio below, but before it hit the ground it stopped, just hanging in mid-air. Then it started moving upwards – slowly at first, but getting faster and faster. It shot past the window, up into the sky, and Brad lost sight of it in the clouds. A few seconds later, down swooped the sleigh again, pulled by a team of reindeer. It wooshed past Brad's window then up and over the roofs of the houses opposite. The last Brad saw of it, the sleigh was doing a loop-the-loop and disappearing into the distance. It certainly looked like Santa's sleigh, except for one thing. Father Christmas had been nowhere in sight. The driver's seat had been empty.

  Determined to get to the bottom of this mystery, Brad pulled on his dressing gown and slippers. He tiptoed out of his room and onto the landing. It was much darker here than in his bedroom, but he was so familiar with the small space that he found his way to the top of the stairs with no difficulty. From here he could see a faint glow coming from under the kitchen door, and the unmistakable smell of cinnamon wafted to his nostrils. Could mummy be cooking at this time of night? Slowly, he went down the stairs, trying to tread lightly and wincing as the old stairs creaked. Now, crouched on the bottom step, he could hear a voice coming from behind the door.

  "Yes … forgot to put the handbrake on … I know … they've gone … no, I've still got the presents … that's too late, I need transport now!"

  Brad crept quietly to the door and silently pushed it open, so that he could see inside. There, talking on a glittery mobile phone, stood a large man in a red coat. He was facing away from the door, but Brad could still see the edges of a big white beard, poking out and scratching against the phone.

  "Just get that sleigh back here, prompto," said the man, "or Christmas will be ruined."

  Then he popped the phone back into the inner recesses of his big coat, and without turning around, said:

  "And you can stop skulking in the shadows. Yes, you Brad. Come on out."

  The man looked straight at where Brad was crouching behind the door, and any doubt disappeared. This was Father Christmas for sure. His outfit was a giveaway, but Brad had seen people dressed up as Santa before. The thing that made it definite was that, wherever this man moved, he was illuminated by a soft white light – like the light on the snow outside.

  "What are you doing here?" asked Brad, edging around the door and into the room.

  "Exactly the question I was asking myself, seeing as you're on the naughty list," replied Santa, "but I don't like giving up on people, so as I was passing, I thought I'd drop in to see if you'd changed your ways. Any small sign would have done. A good school report, some cards from friends or even just leaving a snack for Rudolf, and maybe, you could have earned a present from my sack."

  Here Santa looked down, and Brad noticed, for the first time, a huge brown sack of presents that was sat by the cooker.

  "But there was nothing," Santa's shoulders sank as he sighed a big sigh, "I was just about to leave when I heard the reindeer taking off. This was an unscheduled stop, you see. It was going to make me late, so I was rushing and forgot to put the handbrake on. Now the reindeer are off on a joy ride, and I'm stuck here while my elves try to catch them. Every minute I spend here means another child who won't get their present this year."

  Brad thought about saying how this didn't sound like his problem, but then he thought about how real Father Christmas looked and about how full of presents that sack looked. Finally, he thought very hard about how he could help Santa and, maybe, get his name off the naughty list. His scooter was too slow. Nowadays his fastest mode of transport was …

  "We could take my bike," he said. Then, after thinking a bit more, "You could ride Dad's bike." Father Christmas raised an eyebrow, so he added, "It's really fast, it's a racer."

  Father Christmas shrugged and picked up his sack.

  "Well," he said, "it's better than doing nothing. Let's go."

  Brad led the way out, through the back garden and to the shed where the bikes were kept. He was surprised to find that while he was near Santa he felt toasty and warm, and his slippers didn't seem to get the least bit wet from the snow. Brad unlocked the shed, using the key he'd taken from the hook by the back door. First, he got out his own bike, and then he got out his dad's bike for Father Christmas. Together they opened the back gate and wheeled their bicycles out into the alley.

  "Well," said Santa, painfully lifting his leg over the crossbar of the shiny racing bike, "they say you never forget how to ride a bike."

  He got a little book out of his pocket, studied it carefully, looked down at the bicycle and said, in a commanding voice, "Sally Perkins."

  Of course, nothing happened, but Santa seemed surprised. He banged the handlebars, rang the bell and finally exclaimed, "This bicycle is broken!"

  "You need to pedal," said Brad, "like this," and he cycled up and down the alleyway.

  "That looks a lot like exercise to me," said Father Christmas, doubtfully. Then he had a thought, "My magic sleigh takes me straight to the right house when I say a child's name. How will I find the right house without it?"

  "Please may I see the list," said Brad, concentrating hard on being polite. Looking down the names, he realised that they were all children from his school.

  “I know where all these children live,” he said, “you just need