"Look," Clara huffed, running over to the quiet boy, "Look, you have to come with us."

Mike nodded in agreement. "She's right."

The boy looked downcast. "Christmas just… doesn't work out for me… It never has."

"But Christmas is such a wonderful, beautiful time!" Clara insisted. "It's about giving and being thankful! People hang up decorations and lights… And then Santa comes and puts presents under the tree!"

"It just… Doesn't work out for me."

Mike looked between the two. "Look, I don't know if Christmas works out for you or not, but this is Christmas Eve, and you're at the North Pole of all places!" Mike sided with Clara. "Don't stay here by yourself!"

Clara nodded. "Yeah, come with us… We'll all go together."

The boy looked between them.

Suddenly, the car shook, and the lamps inside all went out.

Mike looked to the door, and ran over, pulling it open. They were rolling away from the train, fast. Mike cursed to himself, as he realized he must've hit the lever for the coupling mechanism.

"Aw, crap." Mike turned around, running to the platform, the two children following. "Alright, guys, just stay calm…" He tried to tell them, as the car rolled through a tunnel. "Everything's going to be fine."

The car rolled over a sensor on the track, and it buzzed, as the track up ahead switched.

"Alright, I lied!" Mike admitted, as the car began speeding down a sharp, curved decline. "The brake!" Mike frantically looked around. "Where's the brake!?" He left the two at the front, pulling himself back through the car, "I can't find a brake!"

Something clinking outside grabbed his attention, and he poked his head out, looking towards the wheel on the side, and the mug clanging against it.

"Take a break kid!" Jack laughed, sitting on the corner of the roof. "How 'bout a nice, good hot cuppa joe?" He poured some out into the mug, the liquid spilling, before he threw it back.

Suddenly, Jack vanished into nothing, as the train sped into another long tunnel, the metal kettle and cup falling to the ground.


Mike began turning the brake wheel, the wheels underneath sparking as they ground against the track, lighting up the tunnel.

"We're gonna crash!" Clara screamed from the front as they came out of the tunnel.

Mike began running back inside, before the car hit something, and all three of them were thrown to the floor.

Mike staggered to his feet, balance shifting all over the place as momentum threw him around. "We're spinning!?"

The spinning finally slowed enough for the three to balance out fully, and Mike looked out. "Oh, you've got to be kidding."

Mike wasn't too familiar with railroad terms, so he didn't know the exact name to call the place, but the car had stopped in a junction, six bridges extending out evenly from the central platform, frozen waterfalls flowing from waterways on each wall of the hexagonal room.

"Did you guys see which one we came down?" Mike asked, over the echoing voices of the Andrews Sisters singing Winter Wonderland.

"No." The shy kid tried to speak up.

"Shh." Clara instructed. "…You guys hear that?" Her eyes widened. "The bells!" She recognized, jumping down onto the platform.

"What bell?" Mike asked, following.

"The sleigh bells!" Clara replied like it should've been obvious. "It's coming from that tunnel!" She pointed to one of the walls. She ran over to the bridge, Mike and the boy following, before they stopped.

To call it a bridge was perhaps doing it too big a service. It was just two rails, extending across the pit, a hollow space in the middle. It was a health and safety lawsuit of apocalyptic proportions waiting to happen…

Oh, wait, they were at the North Pole, so OSHA standards didn't apply.

"That's the way we should go." Clara stated, stepping on the rail.

"Uh, are you sure about that?" Mike asked.

Clara shot him a look.

"I mean, about the rail." Mike said. "Put your feet on the concrete, what little there is, they won't slip that way."

Clara looked sheepish for a moment, like she hadn't considered that, before she did so, and took charge across the pit.


After about thirty minutes of walking, the rails began to taper off as they reached the end of the tracks, once more on solid ground thank the Lord, the three running through the streets of the North Pole. The buildings were extremely tiny, Elf proportioned, making the three feel like giants.

"Come on." Clara motioned, as they ran through the cramped streets, to a small doorway at the end.

The three came to a stop, and Mike looked around, as Clara peered closer into the nearby tunnel. "We're lost." Mike said, peering into one of the windows.

The building was vacant, a record playing Silver Bells for no audience. The needle began to skip, and Mike shook his head.

"Yes…" Clara suddenly said, Mike whipping back to look. "Yes… Okay, it's down this way!" She pointed into the tunnel, walking forward again.

Mike crossed his arms. "Are you sure?"

The girl stopped, turning around seriously.

Clara nodded, all business. "Absolutely." She said, before charging into the tunnel.

Something was starting to seriously bug Mike as they descended down the cramped stairwell. Clara was only leading them down this path because she was hearing bells, something the shy kid heard too… But Mike?

"Why am I not hearing anything?" Mike asked.

"Shh!" Clara hushed her, as they emerged out the other end.

Mike's jaw dropped, as they entered a room that looked like a cross between Grand Central Station and a Mission Control NASA would dream up. A massive pillar, screens on every face, stood in the center of the room, above a gigantic map of Earth set into the ground. The place was mostly empty, but as they crawled forward, it looked like there were some Elves still manning it.

A phone rung, the bells sounding like Christmas bells. Mike snorted; it was oddly appropriate.

"Yeah?" The Elf manning the phone spoke to the being on the other end. "Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh huh. Okay!" The Elf placed the phone back in the cradle. "Well, that was the wrapping hall, Chief. They just finished the last one!"

The Chief of the place, an Elf wearing a Napoleonic hat, holding an enormous candy cane, paced over, leaning. "How's it wrapped?" He inquired.

"It's wrapped in candy-striped red with a number-seven Clara-green bow." The Elf answered.

"A number seven bow!?" The General repeated. "When we're this close to liftoff!? What are they thinking down there!? Are they meshugganeh!?"

Mike tried not to focus on the Elf's almost comical Jersey accent, as he looked at the array of screens, each one showing a child from across the world, most in bed tucked away for the night. That was creepy.

"What's the routing!?" The General demanded.

"Going to the States." The Elf attending a list reported. "Grand Rapids, Michigan."

The shy boy gasped. "That's my town!"

An alert klaxon began to sound.

"We got a troublemaker now, just what we need!" The General threw up his hands as the map below the screens moved to highlight the location. "Things aren't bad enough!" He pointed to an Elf at what looked like a computer terminal. "What's his 20?"

"Apparently, some kid from Maplewood, New Jersey..." The Elf attending the terminal reported. "...stuck some gum in his sister's hair!"

"New Jersey?" The General turned. "Is that the same kid that put the tack underneath his teacher's chair last year?"

"No, sir." The other Elf reported. "This kid's name is Steven."

"Steven… Steven…" The General repeated, eyes widening. "WE TALKIN' MOFFAT!?"

"New Jersey, sir." The Elf stated. "Not Scotland."

The General let out a relieved sigh. "Oh, thank the maker."

"So, what do we do, chief?" A different Elf asked. "Alert the big man? We talking nothing for Christmas here?"

The General seemed to consider something for a moment, before picking up the phone.

One of the screens highlighted, showing the Steven in question repeating that he didn't do it, looping.

"Look, it's almost Christmas, eh?" The General put the phone back down. "We'll cut the kid a break… But!" He pointed. "You put him on the check-twice list for next year!" He raised his voice. "All right, boys! Let's shut it down, all right! That's it for this year! Come on!"

The five Elves turned away from their stations and began marching in unison towards a glass tube on one side of the chamber.

"Hey, boss, are we taking the pneumatic?" An Elf asked.

"Of course, we're taking the pneumatic!" The General answered. "It's the only way to get to the square on time!"

Clara turned to the other two, motioning. "Let's go." She instructed quietly.

"Ready, and…" The General told the Elves following him. "Mount!" All at once, they vaulted over the side, into the canister inside the tube. The General hit a button on the inside, and the cover closed, the canister inside speeding away, before another took its place, the cover opening once again.

The three proceeded up the stairs to the pneumatic transport, stopping, looking at it apprehensively.

"Alright, let's get in." Clara drew a breath, sitting down inside.

"Oh, I don't know about this…" Mike muttered, squeezing into the back.

Clara hit the button, and they shot off, being thrown around by the forces inside.

They suddenly stopped, and the door opened, the three stepping out not into the massive gathering they were expecting, but what looked like a massive assembly line solely for gift-wrapping presents, patterned paper and bows hanging from the walls.

"I don't hear it." Clara stated quietly, almost disappointed. "Do you?"

The lonely boy waited for a moment, before shaking his head. "No."

Mike took a quick look around for any other exit. Taking the pneumatic again was an option, but it could spit them out anywhere. Thus, the teenager pointed to the conveyer belt below. "I think we should follow those arrows."

Jumping along the belt, the three passed through the tunnel into the next section, coming to a stop.

Inwardly, Mike cursed. "Darn," He figured that the place was shipping, and shipping meant a loading dock, which meant an exit. "I thought there'd be a way out." Instead, there were more, smaller conveyers all leading onto the center one, and two platforms that looked barely large enough to hold them.

Clara threw out her hands despondently. "We're gonna miss everything."

A buzzer sounded, and all the mechanisms in the room engaged, the three scrambling onto the stationary platforms off the line.

Next to Mike, a box enveloped in white and red stripes with a green bow came down a lift, "Hey, look. A present. It's going to Michigan. To someone named Billy."

The lonely boy on the platform opposite Mike and Clara gasped. "My name is Billy!"

Clara leaned closer to the present, reading off the gold tag as it began to roll down the belt. "It's going to 11344 Edbrooke Avenue."

Billy gasped harder. "That's my address!" Billy's eyes followed the present as it passed him, and he looked back at the two girls, before jumping onto the belt after it, grabbing on as both proceeded down the line.

"Billy, no!" Mike yelled, charging after him. He hit the belt, passing through the same plastic streamers or whatever separating the sections from the line.

Mike's hands began to feel weird, before he realized. He wasn't on the belt anymore.

He was sliding.

"Whoa!" Mike screamed, plunging down one slide in a massive network, filled with other slides all feeding into the room. At the very center, what looked like a metal funnel led somewhere below.

It was all Mike could do to fight his own momentum, trying not to fall out of the slide, as Billy's yells in front, and Clara's screams from the back, echoed all around.

They all reached the bottom of the slide, sliding around the smooth, curved metal of the enormous funnel. They began spinning around, as they hit the bottom, falling through the hole.

Mike let out a gasp, as he landed not long after...

Onto a gigantic pile of presents that would make a building green with envy. There certainly weren't enough gifts to go to every child in the world, but that made sense… One or two for a select few, just like the Doctor had said. That way, the parents of the world wouldn't get suspicious.

"Look!" Billy called, sitting just a little bit further down, looking over his present.

Clara smiled, leaning over, pointing at the tag. "It says 'Merry Christmas, Billy. From Mr. C!'"

"I think I know what it is!" Billy shook the box, the contents rattling. "I've wanted one of these my whole life!"

"Wait, wait, wait!" Clara's hand shot out, before Billy could pull off the bow, and begin unwrapping it. "Stop!" She regrettably pointed to another gold sticker on the side. "Look…"

"'Don't open until Christmas.'" The sticker read.

"But… But…" Billy stuttered, looking like someone had just kicked a puppy in front of him.

Mike placed a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Those are the rules."

The three huffed, momentarily being shook up, as the massive pile began to roll elsewhere, clattering.

A few seconds later, it stopped underneath a curved roof, a target painted on top, with a hole in the center.

The three looked around in confusion, ducking as four rockets came shooting out from the bottom, passing through the hole in the roof, pulling out what looked like aircraft cable along the way.

A few seconds passed, as what sounded like a helicopter approached, and the roof began to slowly open.

The three looked around, as red cloth was pulled up, over the edge of the pile. The roof began to move down, as Mike realized…

This wasn't just a stack of presents, it was Santa Claus's toy bag. And it was being airlifted to his sleigh.

A blimp, two balloons held together with a metal frame in the center and propellers at the back, lifted the sack out, straight up into the air.

Mike, Clara, and Billy pulled themselves up to the rim of the enormous bag, all looking around in wonder as they got a view of the North Pole from above, the zeppelin flying over the cityscape, towards the center of the city, golden glimmering lights shining like a monument.

Smoke billowed from the chimneys below, glowing green slightly as the roofs below passed, the bag on a direct course for the town square.

"Augh!" Billy cried, as he suddenly fell back down into the bag.

Mike and Clara turned around, concerned, Mike quickly grabbing onto the boy's hand.

"Something's got me!" Billy tried to kick whatever it was. "It's got my leg!"

"I can't hold him!" Clara shouted.

"Give me your other hand!" Mike ordered.

Billy glanced at his gift, and then back to him. "I-I can't."

"Oh, for crying out…" Mike muttered under his breath. "Okay," He turned to Clara. "On three. One, two, three!"

Mike and Clara pulled at once, Billy moving up slightly, before he was pulled right back down.

"It's still got me!" Billy hollered.

"On three again!" Mike ordered. "One, two, three!" He pulled once more, putting all his strength behind hit, as Billy came up…

Along with someone else.

"You!" Mike pointed at four-eyes.

"You!" Glasses retorted.

"What are you doing here!?" Clara demanded, pointing.

"Same as you!" Glasses retorted. "I'm checkin' out my Christmas presents! I wanted to make sure I got everything on my list! All I found was one present, and all it had was a bunch of stupid underwear!"

Mike shook his head, turning around. His eyes widened, jaw dropping. "Look…" He said to the others, pointing at the truly skyscraper-sized Christmas tree at the center of the North Pole.

"You may start your descent at any time now." An Elf with a posh British accent called over a megaphone. "At your convenience, of course."

The zeppelin began to make its descent, as teams of Elves on the top of each balloon began to let out some of the air inside.

Clara glanced over at a clock in the square. "Hey, it's still five to! We're gonna make it!"

Glasses scoffed, waving his hand. "It's been five to for the past hour! We've got plenty of time, we've got nothing but time, we've got time to kill!"

Mike gulped, as the bag looked to be getting dangerously close to the gigantic tree topper. "You know what? …I don't think we're gonna make it!"