The Fat Man_ A Tale of North Pole Noir - Ken Harmon [41]
As a rule, giant monster nutcrackers made of solid wood are not as nimble as the dancers that play them in the ballet. It takes a lot of effort to swing that lumber around, and Tannenbomb was about a second late. And a second was all I needed.
I darted between Tannenbomb’s legs, put my hand on the door handle and yanked. The door came to me, but then slammed back into place. Tannenbomb had returned the door with a thump of his paw and bounced me back into the middle of the room. I was a sitting duck.
Tannenbomb’s arm was about to fly down and slap me redheaded, when a pecan bounced off his noggin. I turned to see Dingleberry with an empty, guilty slingshot. Rosebud was beside him, ready to heave another handful of nuts at the giant. “Step away from the elf, stick boy,” Rosebud said with a snarl. “Or Momma will huff and puff and blow your house down.”
I’m pretty sure Dingleberry wet himself just then.
I wasn’t so sure how long I was going to stay dry either.
At first Tannenbomb looked hurt at Rosebud’s remark, as if she’d told him their romance was over and that she had fallen for a marionette. “It was beauty that killed the beast.” Getting past Tannenbomb was going to be easier than I thought.
But just as I let out the tiniest of breaths, the big nut ape reached down and swooped up Rosebud in his mitt and held her above his head at what looked like cloud level. I was back at the drawing board and running out of chalk.
Rosebud screamed like a cold shower. Since I had known her, Rosebud had always been flatline calm, but I guessed that when a twenty-foot nutcracker is looking at you like you’re a goober to be gobbled, you’re allowed to have a hissy fit or two. She kicked and squirmed, pounding her tiny fist on Tannenbomb’s big wooden fingers. “AAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHHH!” she screamed loud enough to be heard on Pluto, but Tannenbomb could only hear his heart skipping a beat.
“GUMDROP,” Rosebud yelled with bloody tonsils. “DO SOMETHING!”
Dingleberry was frozen. Apparently, years of studying every heroic feat of By George had not prepared Ding for actual combat. In desperation, Dingleberry flung his empty slingshot at Tannenbomb, but his nerves had gotten to him and Ding couldn’t hit soot if he fell down a chimney. I needed to think of something fast because it was starting to look like the nutcracker wanted to be alone with Rosebud and that meant sending Dingleberry and me to Shell Town. But how do you hurt a sequoia?
You get the sequoia to chop itself down.
“Follow me,” I said to Dingleberry. “Watch me carefully and do what I do.” I didn’t wait for him to ask for more instructions and I jumped into the air like a rocket with good old wonderfully loyal Dingleberry right behind me.
We made a wide circle around Tannenbomb’s gigantic head, buzzing by close enough to get his attention. His empty hand went to swat us down, but we inched up in altitude just out of reach. This made Tannenbomb mad, and he lurched at us, jumping as high as he could, which wasn’t much.
With Dingleberry right behind, I made a wider circle and came around the giant tree, hooking one of the golden ornaments with my hand. I zoomed back to the sky above Tannenbomb, dropping the ornament so it would hit Tannenbomb square on the head.
Bull’s-eye.
Dingleberry did the same, landing a direct hit.
Our elf air force came around again a few more times, launching ornament bombs at the big ape with all the fight we had in us. Golden glass rained like a rainbow had exploded. The only thing louder than the ornaments crashing was Rosebud’s shrieks. She was either scared out of her mind by now, or was trying for some kind of record.
Tannenbomb was getting steamed, using his one free hand to slice the air like a madman shooing away