Author's Note: This is a Christmas story, and I am posting it because Halloween is coming up… I am doing it this way because it's tradition to post Christmas stories during Christmas season, and those of you who know me very well will not be surprised by this but just shrug and wonder why I ain't still locked up in the hotel with the soft padded room and hug-yourself-jackets, the answer is, they were booked full….. ;)

Anyway, this is meant to be a cute little story about how the Duke kids gets to celebrating Christmas and I hope y'all will enjoy it.

Warning: The warning is placed here for vinsmouse, who wanted a spew warning here, claiming it might be a bad idea to drink while reading the funnier parts. So please keep in mind that drinking any kind of beverage while reading this, might be hazzard'ous to the health of your screen.

Disclaimer: The Duke Boys are not mine, I don't own the Duke boys, nor the General Lee. I promise that once I'm through with them, there will be nothing broken that a trip to Cooter's garage can't fix…. There is a few people in this story I have to claim responsibility for, and should you want them, I never really am impossible.

Big City Christmas

Chapter 1: Bad Boy

"Lucas K Duke," Jesse roared as he watched the small dark haired boy in the kitchen. "What in tarnation do ya think yer doing?"

Luke stood in the perfect centre of a mess. There were broken pieces of a cookie jar, flower pot and pitcher by his feet. Cookies, milk and dirt from the flower pot combined with a sad uprooted little plant covered the floor. The young boy himself was a complete mess to behold. The trousers and shirt had both been new but were now stained by who knew what, and had small holes and tears in them. His lower lip was protruding in a defiant expression while the baby blue eyes were filled with fear and anger.

"Well, what have ya got to say fer yerself?" Jesse demanded as he grabbed his arm to keep him from running off. Not always, but sometimes Luke bolted if he felt cornered in, especially if he knew he had done something wrong, and by the looks of the kitchen, he had done something very wrong.

"Nothing," Luke told him with that stubborn tone of voice Jesse knew so well by now.

"Ya call this whole mess nothing?" Jesse asked baffled.

"I ain't got nothing to say about it," Luke clarified.

"Well I do," Jesse told him sternly. "Ya clean this here mess up Luke, an' I don't wanna see no' speck of anything left. Then when yer done, I wanna see ya in the woodshed, is that understood."

"Yeah," Luke told him, glaring at the mess he was standing in.

"Good, now ya know where everything is, an' how to use it, an' mind yerself so ya don't cut yerself on that glass," Jesse cautioned him before letting go and heading outside to look for a good switch. There was no point in demanding he tell what it had been about, if Luke wasn't telling, then you could switch his bottom to the bone and he still wouldn't tell. That was just Luke, and Jesse had learned that sometimes Luke just refused to tell you what was going on in his young but busy mind.

It saddened him to think that the boy would be in any kind of pain over Christmas, but he couldn't let him go unpunished no matter the day of the year. It was however the reason why he was getting a switch rather than using his belt, and why he was cutting it rather then sending Luke after it.

Both boys feared the belt more than the switch and hated to be sent out to get the switch themselves. It would have Bo in such frightful fits of crying that Jesse had decided it wasn't possible and it had tears run down Luke's face at times. So Jesse was simply doing what he could to let him off easy at Christmas without letting him go unpunished.

Luke cleaned up the kitchen with painstaking carefulness not to miss anything. The glass shards, flowerpot and all the cookies went into the trash while the plant went on the dung heap behind the barn. He mopped up the mess on the floor and grabbed a rag to wash away all traces. Then he crawled over the floor on all fours to make sure he hadn't missed anything.

Only then he shuffled off to the woodshed with shoulders slumping to meet his punishment.

Jesse went easier on him than he thought maybe he should, but there were still tears in the boy's eyes when he straightened up and fought not to cry.

"Now Luke, ya know ya did wrong, so ya knew why I had to do that," Jesse told him as he watched the boy button up his small jeans.

"Yeah," Luke didn't manage the 'sir' as he sniffed.

"I didn't want to do that son," Jesse went on. "It hurt me a lot more than you being forced to do it, so it's forgiven now, an' if ya behave, we ain't gonna say anything else about it, understood?"

"Yeah," Luke sniffed again and dipped his head so that the dark curls hid his eyes.

"Go on inside," Jesse urged him. There was no need to inspect the kitchen. He knew that Luke would have done a good job. If there was anything remaining, then the boy had honestly missed it, and Jesse knew that. He didn't need to watch the punishment to see that it got done, Luke would never be sloppy about it on purpose and it felt good to let the boy know he trusted him there.

However it wasn't fully the end of it Jesse and Martha soon discovered. The sore bottom made Luke very irritably and not very friendly at all. He kept away from his two cousins until it was time for supper and then he stood by the stove to eat while the others sat down, occasionally rubbing at his behind with a hand while sniffing a bit.

"Look at Luke," Daisy giggled as Luke dropped a morsel of food on the floor and bent awkwardly to pick it up.

Martha didn't have the time to scold her before Luke kicked her chair. "Shut up!" he cried angrily.

"Luke," Jesse said firmly. "Apologize to yer cousin right now."

"No!" Luke cried turning to face him.

"Lucas, don't you know that Santa won't come if there's a naughty boy in the house?" Martha stood up and went over to him. "Now, apologize to yer cousin."

"Sorry Daisy," Luke mumbled.

"That's good, and Daisy, I think you should apologize to, it ain't nice to laugh at someone," Martha reminded her charge.

"Sorry Luke," Daisy muttered grudgingly as she was still mad at Luke for acting the way he did.

Bo had been so startled he spilt his milk, but he was so scared he didn't really notice the milk that was dripping into his lap as the events registered into his young boy. He started crying just from watching it. Jesse comforted him while Martha wiped up the milk and everyone went back to eating, but Bo wasn't able to fully stop crying, and after the meal he and Daisy went to talk with their older cousin.

"Ya heard Aunt Martha," Bo whimpered. "We ain't gonna get any presents."

"An' it's gonna be all yer fault," Daisy went on. "Ya was the one was naughty, an' now Santa ain't gonna come to us at all."

"It ain't my fault at all, so ya shut up," Luke defended himself. He had never considered the possibility, but whatever his aunt and uncle said had to be true, and now he too was scared.

"I want Santa to come," Bo cried with big wet tears rolling down his face and dripping to the floor. "Please Luke, do something so he will still come, please."

"It is all yer fault an' ya know it, so ya had better do something," Daisy demanded.

"Okay, okay," Luke glared at her. "I'll make sure Santa comes here."

Daisy walked away and Bo threw tiny arms around his older cousin, whatever Luke said he would do, he did. Bo didn't trust anyone as much as he trusted Luke, well, beside his aunt and uncle. After them, no one could be better than Luke.

Luke pushed him away and went into their bedroom to think, aunt Martha was right, if there was a naughty boy in the house Santa didn't come, and he had been naughty, very naughty. Martha had spent the last days with Daisy and didn't have any time for him at all. He had gotten that muck on his clothes, and the holes in them, and she still didn't pay him any mind. Jesse was busy to, and Bo was playing with his cars, so he had been a really bad boy, and it had been a really stupid thing to do. Now he had promised to make sure Bo and Daisy could still get their presents, so he did the only thing he could think of that would make sure of it. He packed down a few apples from the pantry into a bag, and a spare change of clothes. Then he wrote a note to Santa saying he had gone away so that there would only be good little boys and girls in the house and put the note on the fireplace. After that, he let aunt Martha tuck him into bed, but as soon as the house was quiet he dressed, grabbed his bag and slipped outside.

Walking down the road he never noticed that there was a small shadow following him. Luke knew a lot of things about Hazzard, he knew that every night there was a truck going down the way, and it always stopped by the creek a little to look out over the water, so he waited there and when it came and stopped he climbed up and hid under the tarp in the back. It's was a very low flat bed truck, and since the driver had to go up in the back often there was even a footstep and a hand hold on the side. Luke and Bo had both climbed up into it many times in Hazzard when it was stopped there and they went over to talk with him or play. He never minded them getting up in the back and would talk with them, so climbing up was real easy. Once he was hidden away out of sight a smaller shadow climbed up as well and hid under another corner of the tarp.

The truck stopped in the morning by a diner in Atlanta, and the truck coming to a halt woke Luke up where he had been sleeping. Crawling over to jump off the truck he stepped on something that squirmed and cried out. Pulling back the tarp Luke cried out in surprise.

"Bo!" What are ya doing here?" he demanded.

"I'm doing what yer doing," Bo told him.

"I went so that Santa would still come to you an' Daisy," Luke pointed out. "Ya can't be here Bo, ya gotta go home."

"Where am I Luke?" Bo asked fearfully as he looked around and couldn't spot anything that looked familiar.

"Atlanta I reckon," Luke told him as they got down on the street. "But ya can't be here Bo."

"Yer here," Bo stuck his thumb in his mouth.

"Don't ya get it Bo, I had to go or Santa wasn't gonna come," Luke told him angrily.

"That mean Santa ain't coming to me?" Bo asked and his eyes filled to the brim with tears. Luke took a deep breath to calm himself down. Like it or not, Bo was now his responsibility and he had to make sure he was going to be okay.

"Don't worry Bo," he told him, gathering him up in a hug. "When Uncle Jesse took me first he told me that Santa knew where ever kid is, so I didn't have to worry about him not finding me cause I lived with them. I bet he knows yer here now, an' we ain't at home, so he'll come to ya even if I's naughty."

"Really?" Bo asked hopefully.

"I'm sure of it Bo," Luke took an apple from his bag and handed to him. Bo had to go back home he thought as they walked down the street with him holding Bo's hand, he just didn't know how to make that happen.

"Luke?" Bo mumbled around a mouthful of apple. "Why'd ya have to be bad? I's wanted to be home with ya fer Christmas."

When Luke asked his uncle one of them serious questions he would always either put him on his lap or kneel down in front of him. He said that it was because it was easier to have a serious talk if you were both on the same eye level, and Luke guessed he was right. Sometimes it made him feel really really small when his uncle was standing there so much bigger than he was, and he guessed Bo felt the same way at times. So sitting down on the step to a door Luke pulled Bo down to sit beside him.

"Bo, I didn't mean to be so bad that Santa wasn't gonna come," he explained to him. "I just felt all kinda funny, and I had to do something. It wasn't till I done it I realized it was a real bad thing to do an' I should've done something else."

"But why did ya then?" Bo asked, trying to understand, but it was hard to understand what Luke was saying at times. His uncle always told him not to worry, he said that Bo was only just four years old, so it was hard to understand a lot of things when you were four. He also said that even though he was lots older than four, uncle Jesse didn't always understand Luke either….

Luke thought about it, trying to find a way to explain it to Bo's satisfaction.

"Sometimes, ya know ya wanna do something, but ya don't know how to do it, so ya just have to do something an' hope it's the right way," he stated slowly.

"Why didn't ya ask Uncle Jesse?" Bo asked, the apple forgotten now that he was talking to Luke. "Uncle Jesse always knows everything."

"I tried, but he just said he didn't have the time," Luke told him, still feeling a bit of the rejection that had stung so bad when he said that. "I think I was kinda afraid they wasn't ever gonna have time for me anymore Bo. I felt like they was so busy with ya an' Daisy an' the farm that there wasn't really no place for me anymore."

Bo knew what that meant, it meant that Luke thought no one wanted him anymore. Once when Luke was mad Bo had asked aunt Martha why, and she had explained it to him very carefully.

"Don't go Luke!" Bo wailed and dropped the apple on the ground while throwing both his small arms around Luke's neck and holding on as if his life depended on it. He was wailing and crying while Luke tried to comfort him and calm him down, promising Bo that he wasn't going to go away, he'd go back home after Christmas when he didn't have to worry about Santa not coming no more.

TBC

Please review, the Cricket is hungry……