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CRACK!

I was free. Dingleberry would be proud. I looked like the hero in a By George Adventure.

“Hey, Gumdrop honey!” I heard Butter say above the din. I turned and there she was, riding Ginger. “Hop on. We’re not out of the woods yet, sugar.”

Butter pointed to the stands and I saw that Not So Tiny Tim was rounding up the drummers and pipers and pointing in my general direction. I took Butter’s hand and she pulled me up on Ginger and put me behind her. There was one bad-looking swan dead ahead, its wings spread and its neck coiled like a cobra. Butter looked over her shoulder at me and said, “Hold on tight, darling. Momma’s going through.” Butter gave Ginger a kick in the ribs and she charged. Cow 1, Swan 0.

Ginger headed to the nearest hole in the wall at a full gallop with me and Butter hanging on for dear life. The other cows and milkmaids pulled in right behind us, blocking us from most of the mob, but the chase had begun.

“We have to get to the bridge at the river before they cut us off,” I yelled to Butter.

“You are preaching to the choir, sugar,” Butter said. “Ginger here is running so fast we’re going to be toasting our escape in Kringle Town with milk shakes.”

We galloped at full throttle, not stopping for any lights. We had a pretty good lead ahead of the mob, but there were side streets and alleys everywhere; it was only a matter of time before something jumped out.

Drummers!

They skidded around a corner in front of us and brought a few pipers with them to block the street. They were a motley bunch, Yule Pirates, screaming and waving flutes and drumsticks to beat the band. Getting past them wasn’t going to be as easy as mowing down a swan.

“Any ideas?” Butter asked me, but my swash was unbuckled. If we charged them, there was a good chance that Butter and I would be yanked off and Ginger would be tenderized. The other milkmaids and cows might then make it through, and while it would be good for them, they wouldn’t be much help when it came to going to Misfit Isle and saving Santa. As bright as the full moon was, it wasn’t illuminating any escape paths on the dark street and my hope sank.

But then, the Lord works in mysterious ways.

The leaping lords do too.

They came bounding out into the street ahead of us like a house on fire, trying to help. But they were wild, launching off the sides of buildings like popcorn in a popper. Just like in the mansion, the lords rained down on the pipers and drummers like comets, crushing the menacing musicians like a jackhammer on an anthill. An instant later, the pipers and drummers were spread out across the intersection as flat as pancakes and the lords were arching back up into the sky.

“Go!” I yelled to Ginger. We had just a few seconds. If we could get the herd through fast enough, the only thing the lords would squash coming back down was the mob behind us. Ginger put her head down and ran, and the other cows were close at her hoofs.

The next thing I heard behind me was the wet, sticky SPLAT of a few swans and Pottersville citizens meeting the business end of a leaping lord’s boot. It was a beautiful sound, giving us a little more distance. And we were going to need it too. I looked up the street and there were the Six Geese a-Laying waiting for us. By the stack of eggs behind them, it looked like they had plenty of ammunition.

The first egg caught me in the shoulder and lit a pain inferno! The eggs were hard-boiled, cooked to hurt. We were about to be stoned to death by a gaggle of geese.

But sometimes you just get lucky. You might remember in A Christmas Carol how the Cratchit kids loved chowing on goose, making a lot of happy noise when Momma Cratchit served up even the scrawniest bird. Years back, some of the Cratchit cousins had crossed the bridge to Pottersville, miffed that Dickens had not featured them in a sequel. The Cratchit cousins were the worst gang of hooligans you ever saw, closer to a pack of werewolves, but they loved a good goose too. The next thing I knew the Cratchit