which is one thing Lottie has never been.
Forgetting her vitamins is her biggest sin.
In place of the watch, he wraps up a clot
of horrid, glistening, greenish toad snot.
From a package for Emily, he steals a doll
and gives her a new gift sure to appall.
It’s slimy, rancid, and starting to fizz.
Not even the villain knows what it is.
The stink could stop a big runaway truck,
it’s such gooey, gluey, woozy-making muck.
In jammies, slipperless, now on the prowl,
the girls go looking for whatever’s foul.
Right to the top of the stairs they zoom,
making less noise than moths in a tomb.
They’re both so delicate, slim, and petite,
and both of them have such tiny pink feet.
How can these small girls hope to fight
a Santa who’s liable to kick and to bite,
who has a chocolate-cream pie for throwing,
and a fearful ray gun that’s softly glowing?
Are these girls trained in tae kwon do?
No, no, I’m afraid that the answer is no.
Grenades tucked in their jammie pockets?
Lasers implanted inside their eye sockets?
No, no, I’m afraid that the answer is no.
Yet down, down the shadowy stairs they go.
The danger below, they can’t comprehend.
This Santa has gone far round the bend.
He’s meaner than flu, toothaches, blisters.
But they’re tough too-they’re sisters.
In the front room, at one of the trees
the bad twin of Santa is on his knees,
giggling as he stuffs another gift box
with a few pairs of his smelly old socks.
He snorts and he chortles with evil glee
and mutters, “No one will know it was me.
“They’ll blame my brother, Chris Kringle,
and then next Christmas the merry jingle
of sleigh bells will alarm and terrorize.
Every little kid will watch the skies
and scream aloud when the sleigh appears.
Oh, for one hundred or two hundred years,
“Santa Claus will be feared, distrusted,
because everyone will still be disgusted
by all the tricks that I play this night.
They’ll never forgive the harm and fright.
The toad snot and snail spit! The slime!
This scheme of mine is superb, sublime!
“The gift-wrapped broccoli and the spinach!
Oh, my goody-goody brother is finished.
Brussel-sprouts candy and unsweetened yams,
Chicken-gizzard jelly! Lima-bean jams!
Boxes full of spiders, worms, and bugs!
Old Santa won’t be getting any more hugs.
Instead, kids will scream, run, and hide,
and not one child on the earth will abide
the sight of his jolly, merry old face.
The cops will be hunting him everyplace.
“Searching alleys, cellars, and attics
from tropical jungles up to the Arctic.
If they jail him-won’t that be funny?
Then I’ll go after the Easter bunny!”
From the doorway, the girls have heard
every shocking, horrid, despicable word.
Christmas is now theirs alone to save.
They must be bold. They must be brave.
The troll left his ray gun out of reach.
Emmy sneaks to it. Isn’t she a peach?
Lottie makes fists of her small hands.
Oh, the time has come to make a stand.
Holding the ray gun, Emmy says, “Freeze!”
The troll insists: “Better say ‘please.’”
He rises-a giant. He turns and growls.
He hisses, grumbles, and softly howls.
His eyes spin. His nose spouts steam.
He’s a Santa monster from a had dream,
capering, threatening: “Booga-ooga-boo!”
Lottie says, “We aren’t scared of you.”
The elf declares, “I eat kids for lunch.
I eat ‘em for breakfast-by the bunch.
Sometimes I eat children for supper too,
baked in a crust or cooked in a stew.”
Lottie says, “Listen, mister, you framed
your brother, and you oughta be ashamed.”
Waving the ray gun, young Emmy commands,
“Up with your hands, up with your hands!
“This alien weapon will turn you to dust.
Or maybe to cinders. Or maybe to rust.
Or maybe to cornflakes or maybe to mice.
Whatever it does, I’m sure it’s not nice.”
The troll is not merely evil but quick.
Up his big sleeve he has one more trick.
From his hip holster he suddenly draws
a chocolate-cream pie. He knows no laws.
He’s a gangster, a thug, a bad boy indeed,
and he flings the pie with fearful speed.
Lottie studies ballet and has some grace.
She spins-but still gets pie in the face.
Emmy fires the ray gun. Oh, no! Oh, no!
The living room magically fills with snow.
It’s a weather gun, some strange device.
The fireplace mantel is all hung with ice.
From out of the ceiling a blizzard falls,
drifting over furniture and up the walls.
The malevolent elf can’t repress a giggle.
“From this one, child, you cannot wriggle.
For this big mess, you won’t be thanked.
In fact, I bet you’re gonna get spanked.
Spanked so hard that your ears will slip
all the way down, down, down to your lips.”
Then instead of cooking them in a stew
or brewing some tasty little-girl brew,
the giggling troll flees into the night.
The girls give chase, ‘cause it isn't right
that he should be allowed to skip and run
after ruining Christmas, spoiling the fun.
Like many bullies, he’s bluster and bluff.
He’s not really made of very stem stuff.
The two girls chase him out the front door.
He slip-slides across the icy porch floor,
falls down the steps, flat on the ground,
and lands with a rubbery, blubbery sound.
The sisters run barefoot into the snow
to make sure he doesn’t jump up and go.
“Knocked himself silly. What’ll we do?”
asks Charlotte as her pink feet turn blue.
Suddenly eight reindeer descend from above,
each deer flying with the grace of a dove
to the snowy lawn in front of the house,
making less sound than one wary mouse.
A deer says, “Christmas mustn’t be bleak.”
Emmy gasps, “Since when do reindeer speak?”
“Magical reindeer,” Charlotte supposes.
In agreement the deer twitch their noses.
One reindeer licks at Charlotte’s face
and says, “My, what a very unusual place
to find chocolate pudding Christmas night.”
Lottie replies, “I was in a pie fight.”
Girls, you must come with us to the Pole.
Santa’s in a dismal, deep, dark, dank hole.
We’ve deliveries to make-games and toys-
to millions and millions of girls and boys.”
The sisters aren’t dressed for the Pole
or for any dismal, deep, dark, dank hole.
So the reindeer wiggle their magic snoots,
and now the girls are standing in boots.
Pajamas transform into snowsuits of red,
nothing at all like what they wore to bed.
Woolen mittens, long scarves, jaunty caps,
“What about a driver’s license and maps?”