The Man in the Blue Box
Mikan Sakura looked out through panes of glass at the snowflakes that dropped from the dark sky toward the white ground below. The flakes fell leisurely past the window, drifting sometimes one way and sometimes another before finally coming gently to rest on the smooth wintery carpet that had formed below.
"Mikan, stop steaming up the window."
That was Hotaru. Mikan would have protested if the window had been her own, but they were both in Hotaru's room so the girl complied and turned from the window, her brown pigtails swinging on either side of the broad grin plastered on her face.
"Oh, Hotaru!" she exclaimed, spinning happily on her tiptoes. "The snow is so beautiful!" She stopped and clasped her hands together. "I love winter!"
Hotaru said nothing from the white humanoid creation she sat working on. With her Invention Alice, Mikan's best friend was very good at making mechanical wonders to suit her purpose; and she had done so many times in the past, resulting in many such creations.
"I cannot wait for tomorrow to come!" Mikan continued, undaunted. "We can go sledding and make snow angels and have a snowball fight and make snowmen and snowforts..." She paused for breath and a tool clanked to the floor from Hotaru's hand. "After we go to classes," Mikan said with a little less enthusiasm.
"The snow won't go anywhere," Hotaru stated calmly.
"I know," Mikan conceded. "But why do they make us wait? I do not want to wait! We always have classes, but it does not always snow! I remember when it snowed years ago and you and I built the talking snowman!"
Something like a smile flickered across Hotaru's face before vanishing. "Our teacher did not like it," she remembered.
"We revived her with a cup of Grandfather's hot cocoa," Mikan smiled. "Then she killed the snowman. I think she thought it was possessed..."
Several small pieces of metal fell to the ground in front of Hotaru. The girl's short black hair fell barely over her eyes as she fastened a piece to the white torso of the mechanical creature before her.
"I just cannot wait for tomorrow, Hotaru!" Mikan exclaimed, squeezing her fists together over her heart with excitement. "I wish that we could go out in the beautiful snow now. It looks so pretty at night! And soon it will be Christmas!" She squealed with delight at the prospect. "Christmas decorations, Christmas clothes, Christmas food, Christmas everywhere! Soon we will be..." She stopped her words. "Hotaru, do you hear something?"
"Yes, I hear you rambling."
"No, not me!" Mikan retorted. "Listen!"
Hotaru halted her work and glanced up, listening for the sound of which Mikan spoke. After a few moments she heard it too.
"It sounds like the war cry a very large bird," she commented. "It's probably fierce."
"Is there a very large, probably-fierce bird at Alice Academy?" Mikan asked with saucer eyes.
"I don't think so," Hotaru told her. "But there may be."
Mikan walked back to the window and looked out into the darkness. The snow still dropped on the other side of the glass, but aside from that all was still.
Then the sky split open and a tall blue box sailed through it, increasing the volume of the strange noise. Mikan squeaked with surprise as the box spun through the air toward them, lurching from side to side erratically and descending rapidly.
"What is it?" Mikan breathed.
Hotaru didn't reply.
The blue box coasted lower and met the snowy ground, landing hard and sliding closer to the Elementary School Dorm on the frozen covering before it slowed and tipped over onto its side, coming finally to a halt.
"There are windows," Hotaru said, as calm as ever.
Mikan looked and saw that she was right: along the top-or what would be the top if the box were upright-ran windows, two per side.
"Do you think anyone is in it?" she whispered with still-wide eyes. "Hotaru?"
The door clicked open behind her and Mikan turned in time to see the last of Hotaru disappear through it, her scarf trailing immediately behind her.
"Hotaru, wait!" Mikan called, racing also toward the door. She grabbed her own coat and scarf on the way and ran down the hall after her friend.
The hour was late and the two did not encounter any other students as they made their way to the ground floor and ran outside, where they were met by the wintry night air.
Mikan shivered and swung one end of her scarf over her shoulder as she hurried forward after Hotaru toward the blue box that lie on the snowy ground.
They reached it and Hotaru began without hesitation to inspect it closely.
"Be careful, Hotaru!" Mikan begged, wondering what the box was and if it was at all safe.
The blue box was long enough that if Mikan had lain with her feet at the bottom she could not have reached the top with her hands, and it was wide enough that she and Hotaru could have lain lengthwise beside each other with room to spare on either side. At what was normally the top of the box, above the windows on each visible side, was a sign that read "POLICE BOX" in white letters in English.
Hotaru passed between Mikan and the box and then around to the other side, looking with interest.
On one side of the box-which was the top at present-was another sign, this one white, but Mikan did not venture close enough to read what it said.
The snowflakes still fell, landing on the ground, the blue box, and the two girls near the latter.
Suddenly half of the wall currently on top flew open, scaring both girls silly; Hotaru jumped backward away from it while Mikan let loose a high-pitched cry of alarm.
For a moment nothing happened, then a man poked his face up through the opening and looked around. He had a tall face and smartly-styled brown hair on top of it. The boyish smile on his face combined with the crazed glint in his eye to create an unsettling, ruffling effect.
He drew up his arms and braced them on the box, bringing first one foot up and then the other so that he crouched atop the fallen blue box. He stood upward fully, revealing his especial height, and took a step forward off the box; but his high-top clad foot met nothing but air and he tipped forward and faceplanted in the snow.
Mikan looked on with wide eyes and open mouth. Hotaru quietly made her way around to stand next to her friend.
After a second the tall man moved his arms and raised himself on them. He climbed again to his feet, this time on soft snow, and turned around unsteadily, gazing about. When he turned to where Mikan and Hotaru stood he started slightly, clearly not remembering having seen them several seconds before.
"Oh!" he cried in an English accent. "Hello there."
"Hi!" Mikan managed.
"Are you okay?" Hotaru inquired.
The man reached up and smoothed his disheveled hair. "I've been through worse."
"My name is Mikan Sakura!" Mikan introduced herself, less nervous now that she saw it had only been a man inside the blue box and not a fierce bird or angry teddy bear.
"Hello, Mikan-chan!" the man greeted her warmly. He shifted his eyes to look at Hotaru, but the dark-haired girl stared with her eyes into his in silence.
"This is Hotaru Imai," Mikan spoke up again. "She's my best friend!" She grinned.
"Hello, Hotaru-chan." The man continued to meet her gaze. Then he broke off and looked back and forth between the two girls several times. "I am the Doctor!" he declared.
"I didn't know Alice Academy had a doctor," Hotaru stated.
"I've never seen you before," Mikan said, furrowing her eyebrows. Then she added, "And there were several times when we could have used you."
"No, I'm not the Academy doctor," he replied, "I'm the Doctor! The definite article, you might say." He paused, and then his voice lowered before he said, "I need your help."
"You need our help?" Mikan asked in surprise.
"Yes." The Doctor nodded once. "It is in regard to Christmas."
Mikan's eyes widened. "Do you need us to help you save Christmas?"
The Doctor grew sober. "No. I need you to help me stop it."