Christmas Caper

by millennium87

"Hey! Come over here, Tillina," cried Pattie, the Kougra. As Tillina, the Gelert, came running across the road, her friend Ailla the Aisha came with her. Max the Fuzio and Jet the Mynci were also part of the quintet As Tillina, Pattie, Max, Ailla and Jet reached the end of the street from walking from school, they started talking about Christmas.

"Let's do the Secret Santa's this year!" suggested Jet.

"What's a Secret Santa?" asked Ailla.

"It's when we all put our names in a hat and pick them out again. We all have to have someone else's name, though. Let's just say that I got Max's name..." said Pattie but was interrupted by Ailla.

"Can I get Tillina's name out of the hat?"

"No, this isn't real yet! Anyway, so I have Jet's name. I would have to buy him a Christmas present. But we cannot tell each other who we picked out of the hat!" explained Pattie.

"Okay! Sure we can do that!" cried Jet and Tillina in unison.

So Max donated his Neo baseball cap for this occasion. They all wrote down their names on pieces of paper and put it into the hat. Each, all very excited, reached in to the hat to produce a small folded paper.

"Does everyone have a piece of paper? Good, now look," said Tillina.

"Wait! I have my own!" cried out Jet.

"Me too!" said Pattie.

"Well let's do it again. C'mon put the pieces of paper back in the cap!" Ailla told them.

So they put all the small folded papers back in the hat and shook it up for good luck. Next they drew out the papers one by one. Tillina got Max, Ailla got Jet, Pattie got Tillina, Jet got Pattie and Max got Ailla's name.

"Okay. Now everyone has to go shopping for their gifts. Remember don't tell anyone about who's name is on your paper," explained Max.

So after a week that went by, everyone had gotten their presents all ready. Ailla was coming back from the mall when someone, all dressed in a Santa suit, ran by and before Ailla knew it, the gift was taken from Ailla's hands. The crook was down the road by the time she realized what had happened.

***

"Help! Help! That Santa just stole the present I bought! I thought Santa was supposed to give not take!" exclaimed Ailla. Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, Ailla saw a red flash go by. It sped towards the Santa that stole Ailla's package just moments ago. A few minutes later, Max came back with a glum face. Ailla knew that Max was the red flash that went after the Santa.

"I couldn't catch up! Guess what? He stole my present and the other's, too!" cried Max.

"We should go to the police station to report this," suggested Jet who came up behind them with the others.

They started down the road toward the station when Max discovered something. "It's a present! A whole trail of presents going down this next street," said Max.

"Tillina, Max and I will follow the trail of gifts while you two go find the police," Pattie said. As the threesome followed the trail, they hoped they would find the animal who stole all those boxes of gifts. The other two went their way and after 2-3 minutes, found the police. They found the Chief, Mr. Float.

"Mr. Float! Someone stole our secret elf..."

"No, no, no! It's Secret Santa!" exclaimed Ailla. Then she let Jet finish the story. "Well anyway, someone stole our Secret Santa presents!" Suddenly a scream was heard from a tree down the road about a few feet away. Under the tree stood Tillina, Max and Pattie. They were looking up into the tree and gesturing for the others to come along with the police.

"Maybe it's the thief!" cried Ailla. Another policeman hurried after them to the tree. Up in the tree was a little house in which a whisper was heard. Mr. Float started ascending the tree and in a few minutes started descending the tree.

"We have our capers right here," Mr. Float told them. There, standing in front of them, was Bobby and Moona, two Jetsams that went to their school. After explaining what happened, they were taken home for the police to talk to their parents. It seems that they didn't have any money so they stole someone else's gifts.

"Well, here you go, Ailla. This is your present from me," said Max. They all exchanged their gifts and no one, on any Christmas, ever stole presents again.

THE END