Santa Fred

Chapter 2

(Some of this will eventually work its way into the new chapter of Frog Baby 2, but till then, enjoy this!)

Friday morning, Fred had to be in at 10:00 for a final briefing before he officially began his Santa gig at 11.


"What's to brief?" Pietro said. He poured himself a gigantic bowl of cereal. "Ask the kids what they want, say 'Ho ho ho', give 'em a candy cane. Sounds like the easiest job in the world to me."


"Then why'd the last Santa quit?" Toad asked. He was feeding Tad some Cheerios, the one food he liked that wouldn't stick to the walls if he threw it.


"Sahda!" said Tad.


"You'll come see me, won't you, Tad?" Fred put his Santa hat on and beamed at the baby, who looked puzzled.

"Ahgoo F'ed," gurgled Tad.

"Ooh, he's so smart," said Toad.

"You have to call me Santa when I have this on," said Fred. "I'm in disguise."


Tad didn't know what that meant. "No F'ed?"

"Uh--"

"Well, kind of," Toad said. "He's pretending he's Santa."


Tad understood pretend. "Sada F'ed."

Magneto wasn't pleased . . . until he learned how much Fred would be making for his few hours of Santa duty. "$15 an hour?"

"Well . . . they charge for the costume, and take out taxes and stuff, so it's not that much, really."


Magneto shook his head. "Who knew there was so much money in impersonating the spirit of Christmas?"

"Lots of people, yo," said Toad.

"I still don't know if it's such a good idea . . ."

"Ahgoo Sada," Tad said.

Pietro picked Tad up and whirled around the room with him. "Are you gonna stay with us and light the candles for Hannukah?"

"Hey! He ain't Jewish, yo!" Toad said.

"How do you know? You don't even know who his mom is!"

"Sada F'ed," Tad repeated.

Mystique looked at Tad. "It doesn't matter what he is. We're having Christmas anyway."

Before another argument could erupt, there was a shout from upstairs.

"Mystique! Wanda's in the bathroom and she won't come out!"

Mystique rolled her eyes. Oh, God, I really don't need this right now.

She went up and pounded on the door. "Wanda! What's going on in there?"

Suddenly, she heard Wanda throwing up. "Oh, no," she muttered under her breath.

She threw the door open. What she found was Wanda looking like she had three seconds to live.

"Let's get you back to bed," Mystique said, picking the girl up.

Wanda could barely stand. Pietro looked at her and asked, "She catch something at school?"

"She hasn't been to school yet." And by the way she was retching, it didn't look like she was going to make it to school either.

"Maybe somebody else got something at school and gave it to her," said Toad.

"But nobody else has been sick!"

"How do you know? You could have had it and not even known it, cause you healed before you got any symptoms." Pietro's rapid

metabolism was the next best thing to a healing factor. But Toad was right, he still would have been contagious.

And knowing their history with diseases, Mystique decided the thing to do would be to take Wanda to the hospital.

"Help me carry her to the car," she suddenly instructed Toad and Lance.

Wanda realized what was happening and fought back with all her remaining strength. "No! No! I won't go back there! You can't leave me again!"

"Ahdee Baba?" said Tad.

Mystique held the girl in her arms. "Ssh. Ssh, no one's leaving you anywhere. I just want to get you checked out. I promise I'll be right there with you the whole time."

"Ahdee?" Tad didn't understand what was going on.

"Auntie Wanda's sick, Tad," Toad explained. "She's going to the doctor."

"Ahgoo-ahgoos?"

"No, I don't think you should give her huggle-wuggles. You might get what she's got."

Tad looked at Wanda. "Lubboo."

"What did he say?"

"I think he was trying to say 'Love you'," Todd said.

Wanda's eyes misted over . . . or maybe that was from the flu. "Love you, Tad."

"Boy, she must be sick," Pietro said. "That's the first time she's ever said she loved anybody."

Tad gave Pietro a look. He did his Mystique impression well, for a not-quite-one-year-old.

"What?" Pietro grumbled.

"Ahgoo P'etro . . ." chided Tad.

"What?"

"Ooh bee nas," Tad scolded.

"What did he say?" Pietro wasn't that good at translating Baby to English.

"I think he said 'Be nice'," said Fred.

Pietro glared at him. "Don't you have to go, Santa?"

"No faht." said Tad.

"Sorry, Tad," Pietro said. Then he wondered why he was apologizing to a baby.

With that, Fred left. Wanda and Mystique were already gone.

"Ahdee Babah," Tad said sadly.

"Aw, don't worry, Tad," Toad said. "Auntie Wanda'll be back soon. She'll be fine."

Wanda was thinking about Tad all the way to the hospital. She'd sworn, just yesterday, that she would never have kids, but maybe it wouldn't be so bad, if they turned out like Tad.

As long as her evil father didn't get his hands on him, that is.

All the Santa recruits were lined up, ready for the big pep talk.

Fred couldn't wait to hear it. He wasn't going to let Pietro ruin this for him. No way! This was the job of a lifetime, and—

BURP!

Fortunately, it wasn't him.

"Are you drunk?" the mall manager demanded of the fourth Santa in line.

"No, I'm not--maybe juss a little . . ."

"You're fired! Turn in your suit and get out of here!"

The mall manager surveyed the remaining troops. "Anyone else feel like disgracing the name of Santa Claus?"

"NO, SIR!"

"Right! Here are your assignments: Johnson, you'll hand out flyers by the main entrance. Doherty, you'll be inside Macy's, giving out candy canes . . ."

He read through a list of names, until finally,

"Dukes!"

"Huh?"

"Seeing as you're our only Santa who's still in school, you'll be O'Neill's afternoon relief, from 3 to 6. Think you can handle it?"

"Yes, sir!" Fred managed a decent salute.

"Dis-missed!"

The Santas scattered, leaving Fred standing there. "Uh, what do I do till three?"

But no one was left to answer him.


Pietro began his Hannukah preparations just before noon. He started with the food, since Fred wasn't around to eat it all this time.

The smell of frying potato pancakes brought Magneto out of hibernation. "What are you doing?"

"Making latkes for tonight."

"So early?"

"This way I can hide them before Blob gets home."

"Where's your sister?"

"She got sick, so Mystique took her to the hospital."

"The hospital?" Magneto looked alarmed.

"Don't worry, it's probably nothing. Hey, do you know a store around here that sells Hannukah decorations? Somebody threw out all mine from last year."

"No, I don't have a clue."

"Well, I'll find some. You want breakfast?"

"Yes." Magneto sat down at the table, rubbing at a crack in the surface. "Something without a lot of sugar."

That eliminated most of their breakfast choices--Frosted Flakes, Pop Tarts, Sugar O's . . .

There was one box of Corn Flakes way in the back. Pietro reached for them, but couldn't quite make it.

He dragged over the rickety stool, climbed up, and got the cereal box.

"Your latkes are burning," Magneto said.

"Whooooa!" Pietro turned too fast and almost fell off the stool. He tilted left, then right, trying to stay upright.

Magneto reached out with his power and turned the burner off.

"I was gonna do that," Pietro said, when he was stationary once more.

Lance staggered into the kitchen and said, "Uhgoffee?"

"What?" Magneto said.

"Coffee," Pietro translated. "He's not a morning person."

"It's practically afternoon!"

"He's not an afternoon person either."


Around two o'clock Mystique came home.

Alone.

"No Ahdee Baba?"moaned a clearly distraught Tad.

"She had to stay at the hospital," Mystique explained. "The doctors needed to give her some IV fluids. They said we can pick her up tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" Magneto wasn't too happy with that.

"What about Hannukah?" Pietro moaned. "I haven't even finished putting up my decorations yet!"

"I'm afraid we'll have to have the first night without Wanda," Mystique said.

But what about the presents? How would he give her all the gifts he'd been saving for her?

"Does this hospital have visiting hours?" Magneto asked. "I think I have an idea."

Hospital visiting hours ended at seven, so they had to move quickly.

In her hospital room,Wanda played with the remote, just to pass the time. There wasn't anything good on anyway.

She hated being sick . . . but at least here they left her alone, and she needed all the time alone she could get right now.

Little did she know, she wouldn't be alone much longer.


"What room number is it?" Pietro asked. Why did he have to carry the heavy stuff?

Magneto checked the slip of paper they'd given him at the front desk. "408. Should be right down here somwhere . . ."

They walked past it without even knowing, and had to double back.

Wanda heard the footsteps . . .

"Surprise!" Pietro said, as he came through the door carrying the bag full of presents.

Wanda was surprised all right. "What are you doing here?"

"We couldn't let you miss the first night of Hannukah, so we brought it to you," her father said.

Wanda's eyes nearly fell out of her head. "You came to see me?"

"Things are going to be a lot different from now on," Magneto told her.

Pietro started unpacking the bag. "They wouldn't let us have a fire in here, so we did the next best thing." He taped up a paper menorah with one candle lit. Wanda smiled at his ingenuity.

"And then there's this." He opened the other bag, and eight clumsily-wrapped presents tumbled into her lap.

"What's this?" Each of them had her name on it.

"Uh . . . well . . . Iboughtyoupresentseveryyeareventhough--"

"Slow down!"

"I bought you presents every year," he continued slowly, "even though I never got to see you. There's more, but I thought we'd go night by night instead of all at once."

Wanda was touched. Here she'd thought her family had forgotten about her, and all this time . . .

"Thanks." She went to hug him, but he pulled back.

"Whoa! Germs!"

"Sorry."

They were there till the end of visiting hours, and Wanda was sad to see them finally leave. She was happy to be part of a family again.

(A/N: I guess I probably won't get this finished by the end of January, but I'm working as hard as I can, and I can promise you it will definitely be finished before spring!)