Chapter 27 — Peter Has a Frightening Experience with Jumeau, the Creepy Porcelain Doll Girl
A traitor! A Catholic elf in the workshop! In cahoots with the Holy Spirit! Cahoots! And she nearly squished Peter to death with a Loony Tunes sized croquet mallet! All night he lay in bed, eyes wide, fear driving the blood in torrents through his heart, wondering who she could be— where she could be. Was she out there, a rosary in one hand, a butcher’s cleaver in the other, prowling the shadows of Santa’s workshop? Did she recognize him when he was three inches tall? Was she coming for him right now?
But these terrible thoughts were squashed with memories of Squee’s kiss. He had a girlfriend now. Or did he? When would he meet her again? Tomorrow? Could their relationship work out with the size difference? She could always shrink him again, right? Every time they wanted to be intimate, magic dust had to be involved? And what about the other elves? What about Santa? Were they off limits now that Squee had claimed him?
He felt like he didn’t even really know the other elves, or Santa, but he didn’t want to break Squee’s heart by fooling around. He imagined his future with a 3-inch-tall, mouse girlfriend. Would they share a bed? What if he rolled on top of her? Was this going to end in marriage— divorce? How could he sleep with the infinite possibilities of love and death stretched out before him?
But then he remembered the traitor! The traitor and her Roman Popery! That was more important. His mind whipped back and forth between Squee and the near death experience. Tomorrow morning, he had to tell Santa. He couldn’t trust any other elf with the information. The fate of Christmas depended on it.
When Yumeka, the air-headed French maid elf, came into Peter’s room to wake him, he was already up and dressed. He grabbed her by the shoulders and said, “Where’s Santa? I have to talk to her now!”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“I have something really important to tell her. And I have to tell her now.”
“You can tell me and I’ll send her the message.”
“No! This is for Santa’s ears only!”
Yumeka saw the determination in Peter’s countenance, the fiery passion in his eyes, and gasped so hard she covered her mouth at the sudden realization. He was going to confess his love to Santa! What else could be so important? But Yumeka never had any alone time with Peter! He didn’t know how she felt about him! She couldn’t let him confess to Santa before she confessed to him!
Yumeka swallowed and put on a fake smile, “Come with me.”
Together they navigated the festively decorated workshop, Peter wringing his hands nervously and eyeing every elf that passed by— was she the traitor? Or her? Is that one carrying a knife? When Yumeka saw how jumpy Peter was she wondered if he wasn’t just going to confess, but propose to Santa. Propose?! Her eyes were wide with disbelief— shocked by her own wild fantasies. Yumeka secretly beckoned an elf passing by to come to her, and whispered her suspicions into her long ear.
“What? Already? I was planning to seduce Peter under the guise of swimming lessons!”
“Oh! That’s a good idea!” Yumeka whispered.
“We have to cockblock Santa Claus. It’s imperative!”
“Tell the others!”
As Yumeka and Peter descended a flight of spiral stairs, a school of elves ran off in the opposite direction, hurrying down a different flight of stairs, rushing from room to room into the dining hall. There they found Santa, reflecting profound intelligence, sitting at the head table politely cutting her breakfast into bite-sized pieces. They babbled and lied at the astonished giver of gifts until she reluctantly excused herself and followed them out.
“Oh wait! There’s Santa!” Peter pointed into another room. There was the black haired, red capped girl of Peter’s dreams, ushered off and away by a barrage of elves.
But before Peter could enter the room, a flood of elves poured in and body blocked the doorway. A great sexy mass of blonde hair and pointed ears crammed into the parlor and then stood there, and, to Peter’s bewilderment, even pushed and crammed the furniture over the exit. Peter and Yumeka turned and went down a different route.
Word spread around the workshop of Yumeka’s wild and imaginative rumors, and like a game of telephone, each elf heard it slightly differently. Some believed Peter would confess his love, others believed he would propose, others thought he was going to seduce her, or seductively dance for her, or rip her bodice open and cover her chest and neck in kisses, or axolotl her urn under the mistletoe!
“Axolotl Santa’s urn?” a confused elf repeated.
“I don’t know what it means either but hurry!”
Toy stations were abandoned. Forklift drivers dove off their puttering vehicles. Bookcases swung open to secret passageways, and out rushed elves, cutting off routes, corralling Peter east while Santa urgently moved west. The whole workshop got up and scurried to secure every route, and lock every door behind sensible and intelligent Santa. Like rats in a maze, the chaos could only be truly understood from an omniscient point of view, looking down into the many chambers of the workshop like a roofless model, and seeing the avalanche of blondes cascade from one room to another. The architecture shifted with their passing, rooms unfolding against the two currents of bodies, and Santa and Peter with their separate mobs, flowed off in opposite directions.
Deranged with desperation, Peter spun about, going from room to room with Yumeka trying to slow him down by gripping his wrist, saying to himself, “Where did she go? She was just here! Where is she?”
Until Yuzuka, the busty Valkyrie, skilled at hunting all things that walk or crawl, burst into the room and complained at Peter’s tardiness for target practice. Yumeka, saved by the elf, pushed Peter into her arms and said, “Yes! Target practice! Oh my! Don’t be late, Peter!” And when he tried to complain about more pressing matters, she stuffed a buttery croissant into his mouth and said, “Here’s your breakfast! Remember sledging lessons with Yukina when you get back!”
And just like that, Peter and Yuzuka were shooed out the door into the snow and wind, and the imaginary crisis was averted, while the very real threat of the elven traitor was known to no one else but Peter.
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Much later, Peter was walking through the workshop, his fingers frozen to the bone, and face cut red with frost when he spied a roaring fireplace, large enough to walk into if he were so inclined. He dropped his rifle case on the floor, kicked off his snow boots with all the carelessness of a teenage boys, and thrust his hands towards the flames until some semblance of warmth and feeling cooked back into his flesh. And while the fire was so delightful, Peter’s mind misgave some foul omen hanging among the quaint and curious gingerbread architecture, and unfixed the hairs upon his neck.
Instinctively, he turned, and there out and down the hall was Jumeau in her witch hat and ridiculously frilly ruff, like some kind of 16th century pilgrim cosplayer. Inexplicably she tiptoed around like a stiff and roboticized ballerina, brushing past elves dutifully fufilfilling chores of some sort. Peter picked up his rifle case and, walking on cats feet, silently fled the room and slipped into a dark and unwelcome chamber devoid of life. He shut the door, and illuminated only by the aurora outside the window, ducked behind a clawfooted sofa.
“Go away,” he whispered. “Go away you spooky bitch.”
But the life sized porcelain doll’s footsteps drew near. And if Peter’s ears were capable of echolocation, he imagined that they stopped just outside the door. He held his breath and stood frozen. The doorknob rattled. Locked. In his mind Peter repeated the phrase ‘Go away! Go away!’ He dared not whisper it in case Jumeau had supersonic hearing within her porcelain skull.
A strange, girl-shaped lump stirred on a nearby sofa. Peter looked at the silhouette, and a pair of feline eyes looked back at him from the shadows. He couldn’t make out who she was, but a long tail curled up and hung in the air like a parascope.
Then the door thundered. Three concussive explosions of wood! It was Jumeau, and she breaking down the door! Did she know he was here? Did she see him? How? He could have disappeared into any room in the workshop. How did she pinpoint his location? Iron hinges clattered. Wood splintered. The hammering was like artillery fire. Peter shivered in fear when the realization hit him that Jumeau was going to punch a hole right through the door. And then a poker from the fireplace suddenly tore through a shower of splinters. And there, in the freshly ripped hole was Jumeau’s dead eyes and wide porcelain grin.
Peter screamed. It was involuntary. Then Jumeau screamed back at him, a horrible, falsetto, shriek, that doubled and harmonized with Peter’s terror. And so Peter screamed even harder, not knowing why Jumeau was screaming at him. Had she come to kill him? Was this how he was going to die? A giant porcelain doll was going to bash his brains in with a fire poker in the North Pole?
Jumeau unlocked the door. The poker clattered to the floor, and the terror subsided as she walked en pointe across the room.
“I found you!” she said.
Peter sighed, feeling a little dumb, but mostly disappointed that she found him so easily.
“What are you doing here in this dark and cold room all by yourself?”
“It’s my natural habitat,” Peter said.
“Hmm. Yes. That’s very interesting. I don’t understand. But yes.”
Peter shrugged and made a face. What was this conversation?
“Tchaikovsky sent me to find you. You remember her, right? From the dinner, where she tenderly put her hand on your inner thigh?”
“Yes. I remember that.”
“She would appreciate it if you paid a visit to her bedchambers now. Do you know where they are?”
“I don’t know, Jumeau. I mean… I’m kind of busy. I gotta practice quick-scoping with Yuzuka, then I’ve got reindeer riding lessons with Yukina, then I gotta get some lunch in me, and I really need to see Santa again.”
“Ah. Yes. I understand. I didn’t think you’d be interested. After all, they’re rehearsing a ballet now. Nothing that would interest you. Just dozens and dozens of young elven girls in cute costumes…” Peter shifted his attention. “…practicing their boring ballet. Girls with zero body fat, dancing to keep warm, shivering in the cold winter night. No men in sight. No one to help massage their tired legs or stiff shoulders after their long recital. Nothing that would interest a young man like you.”
Peter stood up and clapped his hands together.
“So can you show me where Tchaikovsky’s bedroom is?”