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I took a wobbly toy trolley car from the docks to the heart of Misfitville. The place hadn’t changed much. Once you got past the shock of seeing toys with missing parts or too many parts, it looked like most any place in the world, except maybe this one was in need of some kind of telethon. Goo-spewing baby dolls cried in door stoops ignored by anatomically incorrect Malibu Sues who were watching their soldier and astronaut boyfriends put some “automatic kung-fu arm action” to the engine blocks of various broken vehicles. A few of them gave me the stink eye as I cruised by, but I felt safe. In the state I was in, I was one of them.

It took a few minutes for Sherlock to answer the door. Zsa Zsa screamed from the deep bowels of the bunkhouse, “Go answerin’ zee door, you nincompoop!” A few minutes later, she said, “Zee front door, kraut for brains! Go to zee front!” I heard Sherlock pass by the front door a couple of times before he finally got a clue that he should open it. He seemed glad to have done so when he finally swung the door open and saw me standing there. “Why Lemondrop Coat, what a surprise,” he said.

“Hiya, Sherlock. It’s Gumdrop Coal, you remember me?”

“Why sure, Smallpox Cope, how could I forget you? C’mon in!” he said, leading me into the bunkhouse with a friendly hug. “It’s been forever since we seen you last. I’m sure pleased you came to see us. Zsa Zsa will be so happy that you’re here. I sometimes reckon she finds my company a mite tiresome.”

As if on cue, Zsa Zsa burst into the hall from the kitchen. “Vhere in zee tarnation did you put zee eggs?! Were you trying to hatchen zem again?” she hollered, but stopped short when she saw me. Her eyes flashed red for a half a second and I thought I had picked the wrong day to be an elf. But then a sly smile snaked across her face. “Vell, if it isn’t Gumdrop Coal!”

“No, it’s Porkchop Hole, sweetie,” Sherlock corrected her.

“Shut uppen before I kick you in zee chaps,” Zsa Zsa snapped. “I been listening datz you had some trouble, my vittle Gumdrop,” she said to me. “A vittle trouble. It is good zat you come to talk to Zsa Zsa. I vill fix. Kitchen.”

Those were marching orders, so I obeyed and followed her into a room of uncommonly good smells. Sherlock showed up a few minutes later, having forgotten to follow us. When he was glad to see me all over again, Zsa Zsa shoved a sausage in his mouth. “Quiet, idiot. Me and my vittle Gumdrop has to talk smart!” she barked.

“I can’t believe the news about me getting canned traveled so fast,” I said. “It’s not that big a deal.”

“It is large deal,” Zsa Zsa said. “Now you are out vit Santa? Like a Misfit? Vhy? Zee fat man love the bad kinder, but can’t find a place in his heart for Misfit Toys!”

“It seems that Candy Cane has a better way of handling things,” I said. “And maybe he does, I don’t know.”

Zsa Zsa huffed. She began kneading a roll of dough like she was trying to tear the hide off an animal. “Candy Cane is impressive, yes,” she said. “But me think he is not so smart to get my vittle Gumdrop fired. Are you sure you did not make Santa mad?”

“Not that I know of,” I said. “I mean, Santa’s always been a little uncomfortable with the idea of the Coal Patrol. He doesn’t like to leave anyone out.”

“Zat is not true,” Zsa Zsa said, strangling the dough. “This island is full of toys he left out.”

“Sorry, I meant kids.”

“I know what you meant,” Zsa Zsa said. “But it is not fair what he did to us, not fair. Misfit Toys vould be loved by some children if only Santa didn’t spoil zem so vit perfect toys.” She slammed the dough down, making sure it was dead. “What do you tink zis Candy Cane vill do?”

“I don’t think he’ll do much,” I answered. “I think he’ll give kids, good and bad, what they want, and that Santa will kill himself trying to please everyone, but that’s just how Santa is.”

Zsa Zsa stopped with the dough and gave me a level look. “Do you tink Candy Cane is trying to get Santa out of zee vay?” she asked. Rosebud asked more or less the same thing. Folks had way too much time on their