Title: Cookies for Santa

Author: LM Simpson (Kady the Red Panda)

Pairing(s): None

Rating: K

Warning(s): Oh come on, it's supposed to be a cute Christmas-themed story!

Disclaimer: I do not own Monster Allergy. Now that we got that out of the way…

Other tidbits: I came up with this over the 2008 winter holiday, but never finished it. Strangely, it took a listening to Peter Schilling's "Major Tom (I'm Coming Home)" to finally get inspired to complete it. Let's just call it a Christmas in July celebration type thing. The original title was "Milk and Cookies," by the way.

Enjoy!

0000

Bombo did not mean it. He meant to control it, he really did.

Only hours earlier, the detention oasis's halls were festooned with silver garland and the northwestern corner of the den was occupied by a ceiling scratching Christmas tree. Bombo spent his time watching Greta and Zick bake and decorate the one and a half dozen homemade sugar cookies with red and green colored sugar and white icing. Zick stopped believing in Santa Claus in second grade, but helped so Bombo would believe himself (he couldn't handle the truth).

Bombo had the hardest time sleeping on Christmas Eve, and this year proved consistent. This year, however, the cookies smelled especially scrumptious.

No, no me can no eat, he thought, if me eat cookies, Santa won't come!

His feet began to tingle, aching to dash next to the tree, and his stomach growled a protest. Yes, yes, he knew he had not eaten for awhile (ten minutes) but he could not eat now…

He snatched a nearby fruit bowl from a table, and consumed several days' worth of vitamin C. No effect whatsoever. Bombo shook as the aroma entered his nostrils.

He could no longer fight it. It just was not his nature.

The next thing he knew, Bombo was in the northwestern corner of the den. There was a table, a missing milk glass, an empty Christmas-tree shaped cookie plate, and an angel absent from the Christmas tree's top.

The monster gasped as he stepped away from the mess. "Oh, no…" he said, fighting back tears. "Santa won't come now… Me is bad Bombo!" He then began sobbing uncontrollably, regurgitated a now-slimy porcelain and silver fabric Christmas angel, and then resumed expressing his grief. He imagined the next morning: the bare space under the tree, the monsters and humans sighing and crying in disappointment, everyone putting the blame on him…

"Don't worry, Bombo! You will not be punished!"

Bombo turned around and gasped again. "Santa? Is that you?"

The obese, red-suited man ho-ho-ho'd. "Of course! Who else would it be?"

"Zob with fat suit and fake beard and strange voice?" The nose looked familiar.

"Ah, yes, little Zobedja Zick. What a wild child that boy was…" He tugged his wooly white beard hard enough to emit an "Ow."

Bombo grinned and jumped up and down, producing a tremor effect. "SANTA! It's Santa! It's Santa! It's Santa! Wait till Zick hear about this!"

Santa grabbed a couple of family pictures before they fell off a table and motioned a green-mittened hand to signify 'stop.' "Now we wouldn't like to wake everyone up now, now wouldn't we?"

Bombo stopped. "No…"

Ol' Saint Nick surveyed the scene. Spotting the empty plate, he said, "You like cookies, don't you?"

"Oh, yes, yes! Me love cookies very much!"

"Well, today's your lucky day! My wife wants to me shed a few pounds because I'm growing out of even the widest suits I have at the North Pole. So, I can't have any cookies. I've given several plates's worth to my reindeer, but the sugar is making them sick.

"Bombo, with your stomach so huge… Won't you eat my cookies tonight?"

The monster did not even hesitate. "Okay, Santa!"

"Then follow me!"

"But what about presents under tree?"

"Don't worry; I will do that later when I drop you back home!

"Now shh! You wouldn't want your tutor to find you leaving, would you?" He smiled and had a twinkle in his eye.

Bombo shook his head, and then tiptoed behind Santa. Everything was going fine until he tripped over a Christmas tree light cord. Down came him, the tree, a chair, and the chessboard, crashing to the floor.

"Me is sorry!"

0000

Bombo stared in awe at the nine reindeer on the roof. Why, there was Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen and Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen… But there was another that he could recall… Where was the most famous reindeer of all?

"Where is Rudolph, Santa?"

"Why, in the front, of course!"

Bombo looked at the reindeer in the front of the formation. "But he have black nose. Rudolph have red nose!"

Santa sighed. "His nose burned and shorted out. It happens with all North Pole reindeer—sort of like puberty for them, along with the antlers and the whatnots. Rudolph's just burned out later in life than usual. He's going to be retiring after this tour ends."

"Oh. Poor Rudolph." He petted the tall creature.

"Why, yes, poor Rudolph… Well, we still have three continents to cover tonight, and sunlight is eventually going to catch up. Let's get inside the sleigh, Bombo!"

Santa jumped over a side; the jingle bells jingled. Bombo entered on the other side, cramming Santa against the side. Mister Claus could not breathe, at least not at a life-sustaining oxygen receiving rate. He whipped the reins, and it was off they go.

Having experienced the speed of light for millennia, Santa was an old pro. Bombo, however, felt like he was being sick—when he was aware that time was still passing by, that was. He lost count after getting sick ten times straight.

The group hopped from home to home, as fast as they appeared. Bombo would barely devour an entire plate of cookies whole before it was time to move on. What a shame—there were so many cookies: chocolate chip, sugar, strawberry, oatmeal raisin, chocolate lentil, peanut butter, dulce de leche, snickerdoodle, fortune… And then there were the new desserts he never heard of: mooncakes, beignets, brownies, lemon bars…

"Can we slow down, Santa?" He said as they crossed a large body of water.

"No!" Santa said while looking forward.

"Why not?"

"Turn around, Bombo!"

Bombo struggled to turn his head around like an owl. Forward was caped with darkness. Backwards, meanwhile, found the light.

"I swear, ever since time zones were created, the sunlight has gotten faster. Now it zooms faster than it used to so that the entire time zone experiences sunrise and sunset at the same time!" Santa grumbled something unintelligible to Bombo, then sighed and stayed silent.

Bombo groaned. Even with millions, even billions of cookie plates consumed singlehandly by him, his belly still resembled a bottomless pit. Eating them at this speed barely made him appreciate the variety of goodies the world provided for his and other's pleasures; he definitely wanted to try that Pavlova stuff he had in Australia again. He regurgitated some paper covered with Chinese or Japanese writing that probably came from one of the desserts.

Suddenly, he heard a "crack." He whimpered. "Santa?"

"Yes, Bombo?"

"What was sound from sleigh?"

Santa only heard the sounds of the bells lining the sides along with a tuft of polar bear skin. "Why, that's nothing to worry about, Bombo! It's only my jingle bells! Nothing to worry about!"

"No, sound is not from bells!" He heard a harder, louder, "crack." "That sound!"

"That sound? Why, that sounds just like—"

The two heard a booming "snap" and Bombo fell through a hole under where he sat. Bombo cried out as he witnessed broken shards and boards of wood plunge into the ocean below. He whimpered once more, and closed his eyes as he awaited a watery death should his gluttonous girth not act as a life preserver.

He waited for the impact. And waited. And waited.

"Huh?"

Bombo opened his eyes. Still lying on his stomach, he scanned the detention oasis's living room. Everything was spick and span and normal. He tiptoed towards the Christmas tree. Strangely, there were presents under the tree. He also noticed that the cookie plate was empty, with the exception of a gang of crumbs atop it.

"What is going on? Was all what happened a dream?"

He heard a ho-ho-ho on the other side of the room. "Of course not, Bombo! I only teleported you back to safety with the magic of Christmas! I completed the rest of my tour while you were 'out.'"

Bombo frowned. "What happened to cookies?"

"That's for me to know and you to find out." The old man winked; his other eye twinkled. He patted a closed, thigh-high cardboard box beside him. "If I need your help, I will see you next year. Until then, have a merry Christmas and a happy new year!"

The man disappeared in a silver dust gust of wind up the fireplace. Bombo heard the bells jingle immediately afterwards, and sunrise's beams seeped through the window's glass. Upon processing what happened, he stormed upstairs towards a certain disbeliever's room.

"ZICK! Zick!" He yelled as he rammed down the boy's door with his weight and hopped up and down in glee.

The tamer stirred up and rubbed his eyes. He groaned and said sleepily "What is it Bombo? Did you find where I hid my Rudolph slippers or something?"

"No, no! Me saw Santa!" Bombo said with a grin. "The real Santa!"

"Really?"

Bombo nodded frantically.

"Did he have a beard?"

"Fluffy white ones, just like in the movies!"

"Did he say 'ho-ho-ho?'"

"A couple of times!"

"Was he fat, with a belly like a bowl full of jelly?"

"Yep!"

"Did he have a nose like Dad's?"

"Yes! But it was not Zob, it was Santa!"

"Bombo, you probably just saw my dad trying on a fat suit and a fake beard last night. My parents were actually planning to do that this morning while we were unwrapping presents. Just pretend that you didn't hear this from me, okay? I'm going back to sleep…"

As Zick buried his head with a pillow and resumed his soft snoring, Bombo grinned. What he saw last night was definitely not something Zob or any other tamer could do unless there was a Christmas-Cheer-Dom he never heard of.

Besides, Zick just couldn't handle the truth.

THE END