The Writer's E-Zine Home

Writers' Village University - F2K: Free Fiction Writing Course - ePress-online
Writers' Village University Membership Information

Fiction Short Story

by Clinton Lawrence

The Santa Claus Invisibility Theory

Todd and Pam Sharperson had invited Darrell and Bonnie for dinner one evening in early December, and they ended up watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, and Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.  The Sharpersons had an eight-year-old son, Billy, who was obnoxious, precocious, and very smart.  Darrell kind of liked him, although Bonnie frequently complained about how he got on her nerves.

"All lies," Billy said. "It's not like that at all.  Not like any of those shows."

Darrell smiled at him.  "You don't believe in Santa?"

"Of course I do."

"Then what's the problem?"

"Oh, god," Pamela said.  "You would have to ask that."

Darrell frowned.  "Ask what?"

Billy rushed off to his room.

"You’ll find out in a minute," Todd said.  "We've had to put up with this almost every night since Thanksgiving."

Sure enough, Billy returned with a notebook.  He sat next to Darrell on the couch, and opened it.  Darrell read the title page. The Santa Claus Invisibility Theory.   All spelled correctly.

"Hey, that's pretty good," Darrell said.  "I didn't know you were learning such big words in school."

Billy ignored him, turned the page, and started reading his eighteen proofs (most of which boiled down to the fact that Santa was never actually seen in the process of delivery, viewed from an astonishing number of perspectives for a kid his age).   Still, it was a fairly impressive exercise in logic for his age.  Darrell couldn't resist a little challenge.

"I see your picture on the mantle with Santa.  What's up with that?"

"Oh, that's a fake," Billy said.  "Santa's way too busy to be hanging out at malls this time of the year.  Those guys are just like all the phony Elvises."

"OK, but didn't I hear that Santa showed up here last year when you had Christmas dinner?"

"That was Uncle Jim.  He's not even a good faker."

Darrell glanced at Todd, who just shrugged.  "He has an answer for every question we've posed," Todd said.

Bonnie said, "If he's invisible, how do we know what he looks like?"

"We don't," Billy said.  "People made that up.  He might not even wear red."

"Well, if he's invisible, he can't be wearing red, or we'd see it, right?" Bonnie said.

"That's another proof of my theory.  Nineteen now.  Thanks."  He grabbed the notebook and started writing another page.

"What reason would he have for being invisible?" Darrell asked.

"I don't know," Billy said.  "Why are we visible?  That's just the way he is."

#

After Pam and Todd put Billy to bed, the four visited a little longer.

"He really has quite an imagination," Darrell said.

"Tell us about it," Pam said.

"I have an idea.  What if we disproved his theory?"

Todd scratched his ear.  "What do you have in mind?"

"I was just thinking it might be fun if Billy saw Santa on Christmas Eve."

"How are we going to do that?  He recognized Jim right away."

Surprisingly, Bonnie was the one against the idea.  "You can't do that to a kid."

Nobody listened to her.  After a brief brainstorming session, Darrell and Todd went outside.

"So your idea is to stage Santa's visit on the roof somehow," Todd said.

"Right, we don't want much light.  Maybe nothing more than a weak flashlight.  It's great that your pine trees block so much of the street lamp."

"I'm pretty sure we could make a decent sleigh out of some good stiff cardboard.  But what about the Santa and reindeer?"

"Plastic lawn ornaments?"

"That's a lot of deer to get up there.  Can you get a sitting Santa?"

"If your flashlight isn't too strong, I bet we could get away with four.  Maybe Santa stands, or we make the sleigh a little taller so you can't tell."

"OK, but here's the problem.  Even in the dark, Billy's going to figure it out if they're just sitting up there."

"Right."  Darrell traced an arc with his finger to the roof of his house, which was a two-story.  The Sharpersons' was only one.  "I got it.  What if we rig it so the sleigh takes off from your house and lands on mine?  We could put up some kind of pulley system, and try it out ahead of time.  In the dark, it probably won't have to look that good."

"A little more complicated, but that might just work."

"Just be careful where you shine that flashlight."

"What about bells on the sleigh?"

"We'd better be careful not to ring them when we're setting up."

#

They acquired the materials, built the apparatus in Darrell's garage, hiding it in a locked basement each night, and finally had the opportunity to test it the weekend before Christmas, when Pam arranged for Billy to spend the night with one of his friends from school.  It worked flawlessly, after a few minor design changes.

A little after ten on Christmas Eve, Todd came over.

"You're ready?" Darrell asked.

"Ready as we'll ever be.  We gave Billy some chamomile herb tea with a bit of honey, and he went to sleep right away."

"Let's do it."

It took an hour and a half to get everything set up, and then the two had a beer before Todd returned home just before midnight.

"I can't believe you're really going to do this," Bonnie said as Darrell opened the back door to leave.

Darrell chuckled, went outside, and climbed the ladder.  A few minutes later, he saw the flashlight, and three very faint shapes moving behind the glare.  He started pulling - a perfect liftoff, the bells ringing as the rope jerked the sleigh along.  Todd did a perfect job with the flashlight, just catching enough of the sleigh and reindeer to be convincing without illuminating the rope. The sleigh bounced as it landed on the roof, almost yanking the rope from Darrell’s hands.  He just managed to save everything from falling.

The Sharpersons hustled Billy indoors, and a few minutes later, Todd was back to help take the whole thing down.

"I think we might have done it," he said.

Bonnie refused to talk to Darrell when he came inside.

#

The next day, Darrell and Bonnie saw Billy and Todd playing catch in the back yard with a new football.

"Is that yours or his, Billy?"

"Very funny," Todd said.

"Anything interesting happen?"

"Oh, yeah," Billy said.  "Wait here a minute, I'll be back in a minute."  He went inside.

"So what's the verdict," I asked.

"He seemed excited last night, but he hasn't said a word about it today."

"You both should be ashamed of yourselves," Bonnie said.

Billy soon ran back, clutching an envelope in his hand.  "I've got something to show you."

Darrell took the envelope and pulled out the contents.  Bonnie looked over his shoulder and laughed.  He shuffled through about two dozen pictures of the reindeer and sleigh in his basement in various stages of construction, and one of a plastic Santa standing on its head in the corner.

"That was pretty lame," Billy said.  "Proof number twenty.  I already put it in my notebook."

Bonnie denied tipping him off.


About the Author
Clinton Lawrence is a graduate of the Clarion West Writers Workshop, and has fiction sales to Realms of Fantasy, Galaxy, The Fortean Bureau, The Color Computer Magazine, E-scape, Dark Regions, 2 AM Magazine, and Night Slivers.  For several years, he was a staff writer at Science Fiction Weekly.  In his non-literary life, he works as electrical engineer, and lives in Davis, California.