The figure stood at just over eight feet tall, a solid black base with red patches all across it. A green heart was stitched onto the chest with red thread. It's face bore a crooked red stitched smile and green outlined sharp red eyes. The nose was a simple series of raised stitches. His ears were stitched on top, pointy, and accompanied by a series of six red and black horns.
"Excellent work! Now let's put'im to the test!" the thousands of bugs flooded into the slim body, it was as if they were acting of one mind. Boo moved the head down to watch as his hand came out and flexed its fingers- his fingers, before his own eyes. "Well, tonight's the night, beginning of a new year, beginning of a new era. The era of Boo!"
Boo dashed out of the door, his goal quite clear, he was out for revenge. But, more important in the long run, was his goal of destruction for all the holidays!
Boo snuck around the edges of the town and toward a section of the woods outside town that was seldom visited. The wood between worlds was filled with a light fog. Boo stepped up to one of the doors and prepared to pass through. The door was in the shape of a large firecracker with a baby on the front. Boo shoved the door open and stepped inside to a whole new world.
The New Year's town was filled with men in business suits and average Joe working class men. They were bustling about collecting papers or working on long conveyor belts. There were belts where firecrackers were assembled and some with bottles being filled and still others with stacks of papers being sorted. Boo snickered at the absurd sight of the well-dressed business types sitting at a conveyor belt sorting out- well what were those papers?
Boo snuck over and snatched one of them up. NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION, it red in bold print, and down below in cursive were the words: to be a better husband and father. There was a series of pros and cons written below in small print, and then the word DENIED was stamped in large bold red letters.
Boo saw the head of the operation a baby on a throne, wearing a sash labeled New Year across his chest. The master of disaster began the slow approach toward his target. When Boo arrived he found that the diapered figurehead was reading from a stack of loose papers. Boo pondered for a moment how he ought to act then found his tool of deception. He grabbed a small blue rattle from the floor and with his lanky arm dangled it in front of the curly blonde head of the baby. New Year's commanding voice suddenly turned to a series of coos gurgles as he reached for the distracting noise making bauble. Boo smiled evilly as he dropped the rattle in the baby's hand and then snatched up the stack of papers. With several swift motions of a quill ink pen Boo made his necessary adjustments and then returned the stack to the table before the baby's throne. He turned with a sly grin and set his eyes on a door labeled The Ball. He was almost to the door when a hand grabbed his shoulder.
"Pardon me," said a gruff voice behind him, "But what do you think you are doing here?"
Boo turned about to see one of the business types, bearing a trimmed black goatee and jet black hair. The man held a bottle bearing an anonymous XXX label and his free hand still rested on Boo's shoulder. Boo smiled as he answered, his red cross-stitch lips parting slightly.
"Why, I'm simply touring the facilities my good man, ensuring everything is in order for the new year."
Now, either Boo had impeccable timing and there was in fact a maintenance tour that day, or the manager of the Resolutions Department had taken one too many slugs of his drink; whatever the case the response was better than Boo had hoped.
"Well here, lemme open the Ballroom for you good sir," with that the goatee'd man produced a series of keys, and after fumbling with the lock for a moment opened the door, "You know sir, I dun really op'n up to any'wun, evuh."
The business type was beginning to slur as he swung the door open for Boo. The ball-room was an expansive open room, several work benches were scattered about where tools and designs were laid out haphazardly. But there in the center of the room was the ball. A massive object on which a series of numbers were inscribed.
"But i's really no' fair," Boo's guide stated, "I ough' t' be the figgerhea' for thi' stupi' 'oliday. Not that stupid baby, all he does for half the year is sleep. Meanwhile ol' Lu is working sleepless nights, not that going without sleep bothers me, quite a deal Ah struck for that li'l skill, and yet he gets all the glory."
At this Lu took another long slug from his bottle, something Boo quickly took advantage of, a moment of silence in which he could probe.
"Excuse me, what is this contraption?" Boo asked, pointing at the large sphere.
"Oh tha', why it's the New Year Ball, we craft on every year and then it's dropped in New York, a focus of New Year's festivity for that nation. Don't get me started on the festivities of other nations-"
"I won't," Boo cut him off rather irritably, "What makes it so special?"
"The Baby New Year is loaded up in it, and when the ball drops he returns here and the New Year begins."
Boo stroked his chin, an idea formulating in his oh so clever conglomerated mind. "Lu, you're a hardworking man," Boo stated, his lips twisting and parting, I like a hardworking man. How about I ensure that next year you are the king of the New Year, and not the baby?"
That statement was all it took. Boo fed Lu a series of modifications and they were quickly made to the ball. Then Boo was loaded up inside, followed by the Baby New Year, who Boo later released in a small black sack to the consistently intoxicated Lu. Finally he felt the ball enter a state of suspension, and there he waited, for the festivities to start according to his design.
