Dougal McCoogan vs. Santa Clause

 Dougal McCoogan had made it. Finally, after walking for weeks, through blizzards and blinding cold, he had done it. The dishevelled, skinny boy looked down on the scene below him with a definite sense of pride and smiled. The North Pole was exactly like he though it would be.

 No, this is not the story of a boy explorer trekking in the wilderness. That is just incidental to our tale. And the north pole Dougal was now staring at is probably not the one you have seen in pictures. I am not sure you know this, but there is in fact three different and distinct places that go by the name "the North Pole". There is the magnetic north pole, not true north, but where all of our compasses point us. There is also true north, the geographic pole that marks the invisible axis that our world spins on. I am sure the more astute among you knew the difference, but even the most scientific of you would, perhaps, never have even read of the third. It is The North Pole. The only one you can send mail to, the only one that even has a letterbox. It is the Magical North Pole, the greatest source of magic on our planet, and the home of one Santa P. Clause. Don't ask me what the "P" stands for, nobody knows. Also strangely enough, it is the only north pole, that actually has a pole, a fairly small candy cane looking, red and white, striped thing.

 Everything looked exactly as Dougal had imagined it. Brightly coloured buildings, the largest of course being the home of Santa. Well that wasn't exactly how he had imagined it. He hadn't actually really thought about where Santa would live, he also hadn't thought his house, or more accurately, his palace, would be larger than any of the workshops. But it was brightly coloured. The workshops looked a little more like concrete factories, but Dougal could tell, that before the paint had chipped and faded, they too had been brightly coloured. And on the out-skirts of the compound he could see the Reindeer. They looked a little thinner than he thought they should, but they were all there. Perhaps their cage should have been bigger thought Dougal. A better question may have been why there was a cage at all, but Dougal was not thinking completely clearly yet, it had been a long and supposedly impossible journey.

 Wow, a real Elf! Dougal looked up at the guard tower on top of the wall that surrounded Santa's compound, and there above the wall, and the razor wire, was a real, genuine, very mean looking, tiny elf. And his little military uniform was so cute. He even had a tiny gun. Okay, so this wasn't exactly how Dougal had imagined the north pole looking, it was just a wee bit scarier than he had expected. Dougal brushed away his concerns, he didn't know very much about organising Christmas, a considerable amount less than Santa would and he was going to give the old guy the benefit of the doubt. Dougal took a deep breath and began walking down into the valley below him, glad his journey was finally at an end.

#

Almost twelve months earlier Dougal woke up at the usual time any child wakes up on Christmas morning, which is of course far earlier than anybody should ever wake up on any holiday. He jumped out of bed and tore down the hallway, only stopping to bash on his sister Maddie's doors, and ran directly into his Parent's room waking them up, in the traditional way of jumping, knees first, onto their still sleeping bodies. After many groans and complaints, Dougal, his younger sister, and their parents were now sitting down stairs, around the Christmas tree, bleary eyed, trying to read the names off presents before wrapping the paper off. Wrapping paper has one of the shortest but happiest lifespans, although it tends to end violently.

 Christmas was Dougal's favourite day of the year. He even liked it more than his birthday. Dougal thought everything about Christmas was brilliant, and somehow magical. He maintained a big part of that was because of one jolly, fat man, in a red suit with a taste for eggnog, at least that's what Dougal left out for him every year.

 Dougal was particularly excited this year. A month earlier he had written Santa a letter asking for a bike. And not just any bike, this one was a black, glorious looking, BMX bike, with flames painted on the metal. It didn't have a bell or a basket like his last bike did. Instead it had alloy pegs for stunts on both wheels and the fattest tyres Dougal had ever seen. He had cut a picture out of a catalogue and included it in the envelope so that Santa would know exactly what he wanted. And there messily wrapped leaning against the wall was something shaped like a bike.

 Dougal went to that present first. He ripped off the wrapping paper, took a step back, and sat down dumbfounded. It was a bike alright, it was a pink bike. A pink bike with a basket and a bell. With flower decals where their should have been flames. He looked at his parents, they were as shocked as he was. Mum shook her head, dad shrugged sympathetically. Maddie was tearing the paper off what she guessed was, a one month earlier requested, Ball-gown Barbie, the one with two dresses. Instead she tore the wrapping paper off a G.I. Joe figurine with scuba gear and matching harpoon gun. Where Dougal had been dumb-founded, Maddie just burst into tears and was inconsolable for the next 20 minutes.

 Sometimes Dougal didn't get exactly what he wanted for Christmas, but it had always been something he liked. He would just put it down to Santa's immense work-load. There was probably 2 billion children in the world, and even discounting the ones that didn't celebrate Christmas, that was a lot. One year he hadn't received a gift from Santa at all. That year he had almost lost all faith in Christmas, and had even uttered that Santa Claus was all pretend. His parents had shushed him, and told Maddie not to believe him. But the next Christmas the presents from Santa returned and Dougal, quite logically, decided that an actual present could not be received from an imaginary person, so Santa did in fact exist.

 There were of course more presents from his parents, and a couple that Grandma had sent in the post. Some of them were very cool. Dougal's parents had given him some new video games that he had desperately wanted. But after the mix up with the bike, Dougal found it hard to get very excited. After a fairly subdued breakfast Dougal asked if he could go out for a while and visit his friends. Dougal's mother smiled at him sympathetically, "Sure, but make sure your back by 11, we're going to Gran's for lunch."

 Dougal headed out the front door and up the street to Tom's house, Sebastian was already there. Tom and Sebastian were Dougal's best friends from school. Dougal could see as soon as he looked at them that things had not gone according to plan for them either.

 "A remote control helicopter, that's was I asked for". Sebastian held up a pair of fluffy socks.

 "All I wanted was a new soccer ball", said Tom, "Just a soccer ball, and all Santa brought me was a book".

 "At least you didn't get a pink bike, for toddlers”, said Dougal.

 Tom held up the book so Dougal could see it was Dictionary.

 Dougal was aghast. This had to be the worst, most terrible, utterly awful Christmas ever. And something had to be done about it.

 Christmas ended, and almost everyone forgot about the terrible mixup that must have happened in the north pole that winter—but not Dougal. First he wrote letters to Santa. No replies came. Of course Dougal couldn't be sure that the post even ran to the north pole all year round. Without a reply he had no idea what had happened. For all Dougal knew Santa could be in trouble. Well the only way to find out, Dougal decided, was to go. He would visit Santa in person and ask him, face to face.

 Dougal figured that the trip would take around 6 weeks, and that he should get there before Christmas to make sure things happened right this time. So around mid-october Dougal packed all of his camping gear together, put on his warmest clothes and went down stairs. He found his mother in the Kitchen. "Mum?"

 "Yes dear", she was a little distracted. Her head stuck in the cupboard looking for something for dinner.

 "Mum, can I trek to the North pole to find Santa and find out what went wrong last Christmas." Asked Dougal.

 Dougal's mother sighed. "Dougal I am trying to get Dinner ready, play whatever game you like, and let me cook in peace".

 If she had looked up and seen the large rucksack on Dougal's back his mother may have actually listened to what he said, but she did not. Dougal took her statement as permission, tightened the shoulder-straps on his bag, went out the front door, checked his compass to see which way north was, turned left and walked down the street.