A 00Carter Christmas
Part 8 of 9
In eleven days,
FANS robbed near a dozen more houses
Leaving crumbs
much too small for a dozen more mouses
And on the
twelfth day, the twenty-fourth of December,
Passing skaters
in the Plaza, enjoying the weather,
Dr. Rough sent
his minions on the ultimate scheme:
Rob FAO Schwarz
and blow up the big tree!
Even
Dr. Rough was in a festive mood on Christmas Eve. He sang under his breath as he and his merry
minions marched up 49th Street.
“On the twelfth day of Christmas,
my minions stole for me…”
“Twelve cookies waiting,” sang Joey, patting his belly
appreciatively through the green tunic that was stretched so taut across its girth,
the seams threatened to split.
“Eleven carols playing,” chimed in Abs, whose eyebrows
had been scorched clear off (though, to his relief, the death ray spectacles
were not yet fully operational).
“Ten pies-a-baking,” added Justin Jeffre, just
happy to have a part at last – and pie, of course.
“Nine gifts-a-stacking,” crooned his buddy Jeff,
carrying a bulging package in his hands.
“Eight light-up reindeer,” followed Jacob, his dreadlocks
dancing on his shoulders beneath the elf hat perched jauntily on his head.
“Seven blow-up snow globes,” articulated Erik, adjusting
the crotch of his flaming red tights.
“Six plastic Santas,” belted Dan, too boring to warrant further description.
“Five holly wreaths,” trilled Trevor,
tripping over the curly toe of his shoes.
“Four j-jingle bells,” squeaked Donnie, shaking in
his own elf boots.
“Three stockings,” intoned Brad, satisfied with
his three notes.
“Two mistletoe,” descended Devin, bowing
towards his master.
“And a trimmed family
Christmas tree!” finished Dr. Rough grandly, outstretching his arms toward the
colossal Rockefeller Christmas tree that towered before them. “Isn’t it exquisite?” he asked his
minions. “It will be even more beautiful
when it’s burning. In a few hours, all
this will be nothing but a smoldering pile of ashes. While the world weeps, we’ll be roasting red
and green marshmallows over its charred remains.”
“Ooh,
can we make Christmas s’mores?!” asked Joey eagerly, the bells on his shoes
jingling as he jumped up and down. His
eyes were round, and so was his belly, which shook as he bounced like a bowl
full of jelly.
“Silence!”
snapped Dr. Rough. “Let us not get ahead
of ourselves. First, we must plant the
bomb.”
“How
are we going to do that with all these people around?” asked Jeff, looking
around. Rockefeller Plaza was packed
with tourists, posing for pictures in front of the tree. Below, even more people skated in circles
around the ice rink. And the city
sidewalks, busy sidewalks, were packed with last-minute shoppers, dressed in
holiday style.
Much
as it irked him to do so, Dr. Rough had to admit, the minion had a point. “We’ll have to create a diversion,” he
decided. “Then Donnie will be free to
sneak under the tree undetected.”
“M-m-me?!” squeaked Donnie. “But Master, why does it always have to be me?”
“Trust
me, I would much rather Drums do it. But
as he is overseeing the other half of our mission, I’ve decided to give you the
honor. I know you won’t let Dr. Rough
down, now, will you?”
Donnie
quivered. “N-no, Dr. Rough, of course
not. But, if I m-might make a
s-suggestion, maybe you yourself should do it, Master. You’d have an easier time getting under the
tree because you’re sh-”
“Shh!”
hissed Abs, who had seen what happened to minions who insinuated that their
master or the world he sought to dominate was small in any way.
Donnie
seemed to realize his mistake and quickly tried to cover it up. “Shape!” he blurted. “In shape!
‘Because you’re in shape’ is what I meant to say – s-sorry, Master.”
Dr.
Rough puffed out his chest. “Yes, it’s
true that my body is a wonderland. But
my brain is even more wondrous. I shall
oversee the diversion, while you
climb into that tree.”
Donnie
sighed miserably and nodded. “Yes, Master.”
“Timmons!”
Dr. Rough barked. “The package!”
Jeff
handed Donnie a large box, wrapped up like a Christmas present. Beneath the big red bow, the bomb was ticking
away. As Donnie reached out to take hold
of his throbbing package, Jeff asked, “How will we create a diversion?”
“Leave
that to me and MJ.” Dr. Rough reached
inside his fur-lined Santa suit and pulled out his minion penguin, who was
wearing a striped scarf. He scouted out
the plaza, then pointed in the direction of a Salvation Army bell-ringer on a
nearby street corner. He whispered
something in MJ’s ear and set the penguin down on the ground.
The
minions all watched the penguin waddle off across the street. “What is he going to do, Dr. Rough?” they
wanted to know. “Steal the donation
kettle?”
“You’ll
see. Come – to the ice rink!” commanded
Dr. Rough, leading the way. “While MJ
distracts that wretched volunteer, we shall attract the attention of everyone
else in the plaza by starting the world’s longest ice skating chain.”
“But
Dr. Rough-” Always the voice of
dissention, Abs couldn’t help but frown.
“-beg pardon, sir, but do you even know how to ice skate?”
His
minion’s assumption made Dr. Rough’s blood boil, but he knew he couldn’t gun
Abs down in the middle of Rockefeller Plaza.
A pubic execution would only attract the wrong sort of attention. No, he had to play it cool, so he simply
scoffed, ignoring the heat creeping up his neck. “Of course,” he said, waving the minion’s
concern away as if he hadn’t a care.
“How difficult can it be?”
Meanwhile,
MJ was moonwalking his way towards the man in the Santa hat who stood on the
sidewalk, resolutely ringing his red bell.
“Hey!” the man shouted, as something small skidded straight into the
stand that held his donation kettle, knocking it over. As the red kettle crashed to the ground, its
top came off, and coins rolled every which way down the sidewalk and into the
street. The bell-ringer looked down in
dismay and blinked in bewilderment at the strange sight that awaited him: a red-eyed penguin in a striped scarf. “Why, you’re a penguin!” he cried.
MJ
honked in reply.
“Well,
what is a penguin doin’ here?” the man wondered aloud.
MJ
brought one of his flippers up to his brow, pantomiming searching for
something.
“You’re
lookin’ for a stick?”
MJ
shook his head.
“A
branch?” the man guessed. “A log? A pole?”
The
penguin honked, nodding.
“The
North Pole? No… the South Pole!”
MJ
honked and nodded again.
“Well,
little fella… that’s on the other end of the Earth. You’re just about as lost as you can get,”
the bell-ringer said. “You better come
with me. You need someone to take care
of you.”
MJ
leapt into the man’s arms and used his beak to plant a penguin kiss upon his
cheek.
“Now,
now, cut that out!” laughed the bell-ringer.
“Come on, eh… Topper! I’ll call
you Topper! Okay?”
MJ
honked twice, which meant, “Fuck you,”
though the man took it to mean “Okay.”
He
laughed. “Come on,” he said, scooping
the coins back into his kettle. “This
way, little fella.”
The
man started to lead MJ down the street, but they both stopped in their tracks
when they heard voice boom, “WHO NEARS MY MOUNTAIN?!” They turned in terror toward the alley they
had just passed, where a bum wearing a Burger King crown over his long, stringy
hair was perched atop a heap of trash.
“Go back!” he bellowed, his long beard quivering, “or you are…
DOOOOOOOOMED!”
The
bell-ringer smiled. “Merry Christmas to
you, too, sir. Here-” He bent down and picked up a stray dollar
bill that had blown away from the spilled contents of his kettle. “God bless you,” he said, handing it to the
homeless man. “Come on, Topper.”
But
MJ squawked and waddled off in the opposite direction.
“Topper,
come back!” called the bell-ringer, the coins clinking in his kettle as he
chased after the penguin. The chase led
him all the way back to the ice rink in the center of Rockefeller Plaza, where
a small man in a Santa suit stood shakily upon a pair of skates. MJ moonwalked circles around him, at home on
the ice. “Oh,” said the bell-ringer
sadly, as he started to make sense of the scene in front of him. “I see… this is your real owner, huh,
Topper?”
MJ
honked.
“Many
thanks for bringing back my beloved minion – er, I mean, penguin,” said Dr. Rough,
his weak ankles wobbling as he struggled to stay standing on the rented
skates. He found that he had grossly
overestimated his ability to ice skate, though he wasn’t yet ready to admit it. Dr. Rough, admit defeat? Never!
“Come, MJ,” he called, and the penguin glided smoothly to a stop at his
feet. He reached down and took hold of
one end of the scarf he had knitted for his flightless friend last Christmas,
when his ice lair was still intact. “You
shall lead the world’s longest skating chain.”
MJ
obediently moonwalked across the ice, pulling his master along with him, but
Dr. Rough promptly lost his balance and face-planted flat upon the ice. “WHY DID NO ONE BREAK MY FALL?!” he ranted,
glaring up at his human minions, who were exchanging guilty glances.
“You’ve
never skated before, have you?” the bell-ringer observed, as “Santa Rough”
struggled to his feet.
The
FANS leader felt his face redden. “I’m
from Florida!” he snapped. “I’ve never
had a reason to! Who knew it would be so
difficult to learn to skate?!”
“Difficult?” The bell-ringer chuckled. “Why, look here. Learning to ice skate is as easy as… taking
your first step!”
Out
of nowhere, a band of street musicians struck up a snazzy tune, and the
bell-ringer began to sing. “Put one foot in front of the other… and
soon, you’ll be skating ‘round the ri-i-ink! Put one foot in front of the other… and soon,
you’ll be skating all in sync!”
“Hell
yeah!” said Joey, taking Dr. Rough’s free hand.
“C’mon, guys!”
The
other minions joined hands, forming a chain, as Dr. Rough took one tentative
step and then another across the ice.
“You never will get where
you’re goin’… if you never get up on your feet,” sang the Salvation Army
volunteer. “Come on, there’s a good tail wind blowin’! A fast-skating man is hard to beat!”
“Just
ask Apollo Ono!” added a man in a pink, sequined elf costume as he sashayed by,
his frosted hair blowing in the breeze.
Dr.
Rough knew he hadn’t dressed any of his minions in pink, but he was
concentrating too hard on keeping his balance to give the man a second
thought. Encouraged, he let his skates
slide a little more smoothly across the ice, as all around him, skaters
scurried to join the growing chain, singing along to the words of a song they
somehow all seemed to know. “Put one foot in front of the other,”
they chorused, cheering him on, “and
soon, you’ll be skating ‘round the ri-i-ink! Put one foot in front of the other… and soon,
we’ll be skating all in sync!”
“Yes
we will!” sang the flamboyant elf, slipping one of his pink angora mittens into
the hand of the last link in what was quickly becoming a long chain of
skaters. MJ towed them around and around
the rink. Snakelike, they zigzagged
across the ice, forming figure eights and singing all the while. In the midst of such a festive scene, surely
no one would notice the lone elf creeping under the Christmas tree to leave a
present the city wouldn’t soon forget.
Dr. Rough smirked to himself, feeling sure his plan had succeeded.
Ninety feet
tall, in the center of Rockefeller,
Rigged to
explode in a blast quite stellar!
"Despair to
the world!" he was wickedly humming.
"This
catastrophe should keep Christmas from coming!”
“That
was some diversion, Dr. Rough!” Jeff commended him, once the minions had broken
the chain. “Did you know that was going
to happen when you sent MJ over to that Salvation Army guy?”
“Never
underestimate Dr. Rough’s foresight, Timmons,” said Dr. Rough ambiguously,
secretly delighting in his stroke of luck.
Donnie was back, the deed was done, and soon, very soon, the city’s
Christmas spirit would by incinerated right along with their tree.
“When the tree
goes up in flames, I know just what they'll do!
Their mouths
will hang open for a minute or two,
Then all the New
Yorkers in the City will cry, BOO-HOO!
That's a
noise," grinned Dr. Rough, "That I simply must hear!"
So he paused.
And Dr. Rough put a hand to his ear.
“Listen,
my minions,” he said. “Can you hear it
ticking?”
“Hear
what, the bomb?” asked Joey. “There’s no
way we’ll be able to hear it from here.”
“Not
the bomb.” Dr. Rough’s eyes gleamed with
wickedness. “That’s the heart of
Christmas, slowly dying. Its beats are
numbered, my minions. When the tree
explodes, it won’t just take out the city’s Christmas spirit. The whole country’s morale will drop, as they
mourn for New York, the same way they did after September eleventh. Nothing will be the same. No one will feel like celebrating, and they
certainly won’t be shopping. Santa’s
stock of sweatshop goods will go to waste.
We’ve done it, minions. We have
successfully hijacked Christmas.”
Dr.
Rough’s own heart raced with anticipation, as the frosty air was filled with
his minion’s cheers. And then, he heard
another, more ominous noise.
And he did hear
a sound echoing through the skyscrapers.
It started out
soft and began to taper...
But then it was
back! This wail was not crying!
He couldn't be
merry, for it was a police siren!
“It’s
the cops! Run!” hissed Dr. Rough, and
the minions scattered. Dr. Rough himself
took cover in an alley ruled by a territorial bum who kept insisting that he
was “DOOMED!” Crouching on the cold
ground behind a trash can, he watched as a squad car skidded to a stop in the
middle of the street, blocking the intersection. With a sinking feeling, Dr. Rough realized
there were two people in the back seat.
He stared as the
NYPD car raced by.
The sight inside
made Dr. Rough pop his eyes!
Then he shook;
what he saw was a shocking surprise!
The minions from
the toy store were handcuffed inside!
Though
he didn’t want to believe what he was seeing, his eyes didn’t lie. He recognized the two men as his very own
minions, the same ones he had sent to rob F.A.O. Schwarz. “Damn you, Danny and Jon!” he screamed,
shaking his fist at the sky.
Just
then, a familiar voice came through the communicator in his ear.
"Dr. Rough,
come in!" my voice crackled in his ear.
"Jon and
Danny been caught; we gotsta flee here!"
Every minion in
FANS, the tall and the small,
Were running,
without any stolen toys at all!
“What’s
your location, Drums?”
“Yo,
I’m in the sleigh, headin’ towards Rockefeller Center. If y’all can get to the top of 30 Rock, I’ll
pick your asses up there. You best
hurry, though, yo.”
“Or
you will be… DOOOOOOOMED!” echoed the bum.
“Shut
up!” snapped Dr. Rough. “No, not you,
Drums.” He sighed heavily. “Half my plan has been foiled. But it’s not a total failure. There’s still the tree…” He was talking more to himself now than
either Drums or the bum. He rose from
his hiding place and paced back and forth across the alley, wringing his hands.
“You
don’t understand, Dr. Rough. They on to
you, dawg! Somehow, they done figured
out our plan! They know ‘bout da tree!”
And
sure enough, even as Drums spoke, the streets were suddenly swarming with
police cars and fire trucks. Even the
bomb squad was on the scene, surrounding the Rockefeller Christmas tree in
their protective gear. Dr. Rough knew
then that he had to bail. Drums was
right. He had failed.
He HADN'T stopped
Christmas from coming! IT CAME!
Somehow or
other, it came just the same!
And Dr. Rough,
with his dainty feet cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling
and puzzling: "How could it be so?"
“How?”
he asked, stunned. “How did they find
out?”
“The
question ain’t how,” said Drums. “You should be axin’ who? I’ma give ya three
guesses, but ya only be needin’ one.”
And
then Dr. Rough knew. He didn’t
understand, but he knew it just the same.
"It be
HimTak again, yo," I said in his ear.
"That
Carter and his posse, they found out, and they here!
They onto us -
caught the New Kids in the sto-
Set up booby
traps and then called the po-po!"
“CURSE
YOU, 00CARTER!!!” roared Dr. Rough, his voice reverberating so loudly off the
nearby buildings that the rest of his minions heard him even without their
communicators.
They
rendezvoused on the roof of the GE Building at 30 Rockefeller, where Drums was
waiting with the sleigh. Dr. Rough
slumped into his seat, his Santa hat hanging limply over his rapidly twitching eye. “We’ll get ‘em next time, Dr. Rough,” said
Drums, placing a consoling silver hand upon his shoulder, but Dr. Rough merely
shook it off.
“Yesss…” Drums was right. He had been disappointed yet again, but the
despair wouldn’t last forever. His mind already
beginning to work on his next diabolical scheme. “Next time… next time…”
“That’s
right, Dr. Rough,” Abs agreed sportingly.
Then, in a high, operatic falsetto that pierced Dr. Rough’s eardrums and
sent rage coursing through his veins, he began to sing. “There’s
always… tomorrow... for dreams to come true.
Believe in your dreams, come what may.
There’s always… tomorrow; there’s so much to do… and so little time in a
day.”
The
other minions came in softly underneath him, harmonizing with a chorus of “oohs” and “ahhs,” as Abs lilted, “We
all… pretend… the rainbow has an end… and you’ll be there, my friend…
somedaaaaay! There’s always… tomorrow…
for dreams to come true. Tomorrow is not
far away…”
“Pity
it’s not,” said Dr. Rough, his voice a deathly hiss. It was taking every ounce of his self-control
not to shoot Abs right then and there.
“Because tomorrow, I will be perfecting my death-ray spectacles, and my
dreams will come true when I finally
succeed in vaporizing you. Merry Christmas, Abs.”
“Merry Christmas,” added Joey gleefully, glad to
be off the hook.
“Merry Christmas,” Drums echoed, and together,
they sang, “And happy ho-ol-i-days!”
And what
happened then? Well, in FANS, we say
That Dr. Rough's
rage grew three sizes that day!
“But
not his height,” coughs Nick, interrupting the poem.
Drums
slams down his book in anger. “Yo,
Carter, dat’s whack!
You know dat ain't right! Don't
you be dissing Master, or we gonna fight!
Now where the hell was I in dis rap anyway!” He looks down at the book in his lap. “Oh yeah… “
Clearing his throat, he continues to read.
As we fled to
the rooftop and got on our sleigh,
Dr. Rough looked
out the window, and then he done say,
"I'LL GET
YOU, NICK CARTER! I'LL GET YOU
SOMEDAY!"
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