Disclaimer: All Sonic characters are copyrighted © Sega Enterprises, and A Christmas Carol was written by Charles Dickens. Anyway, I have a Christmas gift that you can read and enjoy for years to come! MERRY CHRISTMAS!

"A Sonic the Hedgehog Christmas Carol"
by Catherine Ray
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!


Dr. Ivo Robotnik...Ebenezer Scrooge
Nack the Weasel...Jacob Marley
Sonic the Hedgehog...Bob Cratchit
Rocket the Sloth...Master Fred
Bocoe and Decoe...Debt Collectors
Miles "Tails," Prower...Tiny Tim Cratchit
Miss Opossum...Fannie Scrooge
Sonia Hedgehog...Ghost of Christmas Past
Manic Hedgehog...Ghost of Christmas Present
Knuckles the Echidna...Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come
Once upon a time -- of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve -- old Robotnik sat busy in his counting-house where there was a sign outside that said 'Scrooge and Marley'. Robotnik's partner, Nack Marley was dead. He had been dead for a year now. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy withal: and he could hear the people in the court outside, go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them. The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already -- it had not been light all day -- and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.

The door of Robotnik's counting-house was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank was copying letters. Robotnik had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn't replenish it, forRobotnik kept the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the clerk, Sonic Cratchiet came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. Sonic tiptoed over to try to sneak some more coal to the fire, but he was caught by Robotnik! Robotnik lashed out at him and told him money burns faster than coal.

''A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!'' cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Rocket the Sloth, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach.

''Bah!'' said Robotnik, 'Humbug!''

He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, Rocket that he was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again.

''Christmas a humbug, uncle!'' said Rocket. 'You don't mean that, I am sure?'

''I do,'' said Robotnik. 'Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough.''

''Come, then,'' returned the sloth gaily. ''What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be miserable? You're rich enough.''

Robotnik having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, ''Bah!'' again; and followed it up with ''Humbug!''

''Aw come on! Don't be so cross, uncle.'' said Rocket.

''What else can I be,'' returned Robotnik, 'when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas. What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every blasted item in them through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will,' said Robotnik indignantly, ''every pathetic idiot who goes about with ''Merry Christmas' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!''

'Uncle!' pleaded the sloth.

''Nephew!' returned the tyrant, sternly, ''keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.''

''Keep it!'' repeated Rocket. ''But you don't keep it.''

''Let me leave it alone, then,'' said Robotnik.''Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!''

''There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,'' returned the sloth. ''Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round -apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that-as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, 'God bless it!'''

Sonic was clapping his hands for good old Rocket. Becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark for ever, and Robotnik was REALLY steammed!

"What!" said Sonic, nervously. "It...was...a great speech, so sue me, fatso!"

''Let me hear another sound from you,'' said Robotnik as he grabbed Sonic by the back of his neck, ''and you'll keep your Christmas by losing your job! You're quite a powerful speaker, sir,'' he added, turning to the sloth. ''I wonder you don't go into Parliament.''

''Aww, don't be so angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us tomorrow, please?''

Robotnik said that he would see him-yes, indeed he did. He went the whole length of the expression, and said that he would see him in that extremity first.

''Why did you get married?'' said Robotnik.

''Because I fell in love.'' smiled the cheerful sloth.

''WHAT! Because you fell in love!'' growled Robotnik, as if that were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas. ''Good afternoon!''

''Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that happened. Why give it as a reason for not coming now?''

''Good afternoon,''

''I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why can't we be friends?''

"Good afternoon,''

''I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. We have never had any quarrel, to which I have been a party. But I have made the trial in homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas humour to the last. So A Merry Christmas, uncle!''

''Good afternoon.'' sneered Robotnik. "And get off of my property!"

''And A Happy New Year!''

"I said 'Good afternoon,' you sad, pitiful, pathetic excuse FOR A MISERABLE SLOTH, YOU!'' said Robotnik, as he tossed him out the door and into the cold weather.

"Happy Holidays!" Rocket the Sloth called back in a sweet, cheery voice.

"AND A 'BAH, HUMBUG TO YOU!" he shouted back."Good riddance!"

And then he turned to see Sonic looking outside, feeling sorry for poor Rocket.

"GET BACK TO WORK, CRATCHIT! NOW!!!!" he screamed at Sonic with fury.

"All right, all right, already. Sheesh, for crying out loud, Mr. Scrooge." Sonic muttered under his breath as he marched back to his desk. "Man, you give me a way past major headache..."