Thank you for the lovely reviews so far. Here is the next installment!

Chapter Two

Gordon was still struggling to comprehend what was in front of him. Running back into the room, he chucked on some shorts in a hurry while trying not to overbalance as he threaded his legs through.

"What is it?"

"Santa's in the pool and the reindeer are drowning." He took off, running for the doors that would lead him to the patio, leaving a bewildered Tin Tin in his wake.

By the time he'd reached the pools edge he found Santa desperately trying to encourage his other reindeers to pull backwards across the patio to draw out their companions, but they were in a panicked frenzy balking and rearing upwards. Water sloshed over the edge, barely audible over the baying of the deer. Gordon worked his way round to the other side, thanking himself for stopping to put shoes on by the door. The last thing he wanted was to be stepped on by one of these.

Santa seeing what Gordon was attempting, tried to calm his beasts anew. Gordon took a firm hold of the other reindeer harness opposite to the one that Santa was holding. "On the count of three." Gordon shouted over the wailing deer, the whites of their eyes visible even in the gloom.

"One, Two, Three!" Santa and Gordon heaved the deer back by their halters, shouting back as they did so. The deer started to stumble rearward as their companions began to kick backwards out of the pool. Gordon was worried they were going to break their legs in the panic but there was nothing else they could do. There wasn't anything to hand that would have the haulage to cope with lifting these animals out of the pool. Well - not unless they wanted to throw secrecy to the wind. Suddenly Gordon was aware of firm hands taking the halter.

"Go; I've got this." Scott threw his weight into hauling them back as John took hold of the one that had been dragged out of the pool in front with his father wrestling the adjacent one with the deftness of a farm hand of old.

Unfortunately, the lead deer had broken away from the harness and was swimming desperately at the edge of the pool. There was nowhere for him to go. Gordon quickly took stock of the situation before diving in some distance from the deer so as not to spook him further. As Gordon drew nearer, he realized how perilous this was going to be. One kick from that thing and he could end up seriously injured. The animal was spinning in a tight circle, a remarkably good swimmer to Gordon's surprise but he could see the beast tiring. The next time the animal came round Gordon made to grab the halter, but his fingers skimmed across wet fur. He groaned in frustration, treading water whilst waiting for another opportunity. He swam behind at a distance which encouraged the Deer to move towards the edge of the pool. A few moments later his fingers clasped around supple leather as drew closer to the side of its head.

Gordon pulled firmly; the Deer resisted at first but with encouragement it allowed him to lead it to the edge. Gordon hoped someone had a bright idea while he was in the pool because he hadn't given much thought as to how he was going to get the poor thing out.

"Gordon!"

Tin's shout caused him to whip his head around. Catching sight of her in the half-light he saw she had a rope and lasso. She expertly casted it into the water where it landed right next to Gordon's outstretched arm. It bobbed on the water, taunting him as he scrambled for it. A short struggle ensued before he had it looped over the deer's neck, pausing occasionally to unhook it from several antler spurs.

"Alright. Take it away!"

Tin started to pull, Jeff behind her then John and Virgil. They groaned and strained under the weight as the rope went taut.

Gordon heard someone swimming towards him. It was Scott. Gordon was on the cusp of a remark as Scott said. "Not Now. We need to make sure it positions its front legs up."

"Sure, that will be easy."

"Got… a… better… suggestion." Scott groaned while he heaved one leg up as the guys on the patio kept its head still with the rope.

"Nope." Gordon panted as he lifted the other.

"Pull!" Scott commanded. The beast's shoulders almost crossed the edge when the thing panicked and slipped back down.

"Grab it's leg!" Scott yelled. Splash! "Ergh Gordon!"

"What? It's a prey animal Scott - short of shooting it, it's not going to stay still."

"There's a twelve-bore downstairs". He growled mid pant.

"We're… not… shooting Rudloph." Gordon ground out, shoving its leg up once more pushing it forwards.

"Go, Go, Go!" Scott commanded.

After much heaving, cussing and yelling, the deer was finally on the patio. Jeff walked it away from the edge, lest it frighten itself and make a run for the pool again. He palmed it off to an exhausted looking John before rounding on the man in Red. "You sir have some explaining to do."

"I must get the sleigh together, my deer Oh my poor deer. Mrs Claus will not be pleased if they get a head cold. I must tend to them and make haste. I shall be late." Santa twisted his beard as he wrung out the extra water. He patted himself down looking for his gloves and hat seemingly unconcerned by the large volume of people that now surrounded him.

Rose placed a hand on his arm. "You look like you might be in shock. Come with me, we'll get you warmed up while the boys tend to the reindeer. Then we can sort all this out." With that she turned him towards the house escorting him towards the kitchen with Tin-Tin who was already wrapping a blanket around his shoulders.

Jeff looked flabbergasted as Scott staggered to a halt next to him, water streaming from his soaked tartan PJ bottoms.

"Here I was thinking this was my island and I was in charge. Does she always -"

"What take stock of the situation and ignore authority?" Scott gave a wry smile. "All the damn time."

Jeff grumbled something unintelligible before turning to the ones he could command. "Gordon, Scott go get yourselves cleaned up and Gordon find some clothes." Gordon tried not to blush as he realised the light blue shorts did little to hide the fact, he'd not had time to dress properly. Jeff continued to frown at no one in particular. "Virgil, John see to the deer. Brains: I want you to study that sleigh and its contents, it could be a potential security hazard. We'll reconvene in fifteen minutes in the lounge."

"Father, it won't Budge." John tried clicking with his tongue and pulling the largest of the deer away from the fern it was trying to eat. It stubbornly refused to be led stamping a hoof and ripping off some more leaves. Hard to believe the thing had been fighting for its life only moments before.

"Give him here son." Jeff gruffly took the halter and with a tap to the rump and firm pull on the halter, had him moving off with the other one attached behind following dutifully. Virgil's then spilled out behind Jeff's.

"Let's take them to the storage yard around the back, they'll be safe there for now." Jeff called over his shoulder.

They walked them around to the rear of the villa where Jeff un-buckled their harnesses before hobbling them to the railings by their halters and lead ropes. Virgil did the same with his before turning to see his father running his hands over the reindeer's hocks and making quite shushing sounds as he patted its side with his other hand.

"Virgil. Grab some bandages and salve, a few of these deer have scrapes we ought to attend to. I'm no vet but we could make them a bit more comfortable till we can get them out of here."

"Yes father."

Gordon wandered back into the lounge twenty minutes later. He was exhausted and a tad bitter about the fact that he'd likely be extracting reindeer hair from the pool filter for the next decade. He was however, curious to know more about their visitor. He couldn't really be Santa, but the reindeer and sleigh did give a little gravitas to the situation. Fake Santa's didn't have flying Deer. Still, as he took his place in front of his father's desk he felt a certain amount of glee when he considered how his rational thinking father would tackle this one.

He tried not to grin like a Cheshire cat as his father began. Jeff pushed his black framed glasses up his nose. Jeff surveyed all his boys, most in their nightclothes as the early hours began to approach. He was satisfied to see that Gordon and Scott were now at least dry and warm in their gowns. "So somehow some charlatan has seemly landed on our island, most likely crashed."

"So, are we saying Santa was airborne?" Gordon maintained a straight face, but it was killing him. This whole situation was absurd. His kind of absurd.

Almost as if reading his mind Jeff replied "No Gordon, unless this is one of your more elaborate shenanigans we're just dealing with a madman or a do gooder whose fallen out of a cargo plane. I'm more interested in identifying if he is a security breach.

"Surely, you're not suggesting he's a spy father?" Virgil looked bemused.

"I'm not suggesting, its highly improbable but due diligence wouldn't go amiss." Jeff opened up the comms on his desk. "Rose, could you meet us in the lounge please."

"On my way."

Jeff opened up another line, turning towards Alan's portrait. "Calling Thunderbird Five." There was a distinct pause as Jeff tried to hail Alan several times. It was known among the family that he was a heavy sleeper and the hardest to rouse in the event of an emergency, Jeff was more irritated than concerned.

"Thunderbird five receiving you. Gee it's the middle of the night. What goes down there?" Alan rubbed his eye with the heel of his hand, his maroon collar of his robe just visible.

"Alan, long story short someone has crash landed on the island, can you check the satellite logs to confirm time of impact and see if you can retrace the aircraft's trajectory from the radar data?"

"Sure thing, give me five minutes and I'll dial back in."

Rose crossed the lounge coming to a stop at Scott's side. "I've spoken to him at length."

"Well, is he a security risk?" Jeff pressed.

"No, not that I can determine. He's either the real deal or genuinely believes he is Father Christmas. He has no ID on him and swears his name is Nicklaus. He is adamant he lives at the north pole; his wife is Mrs Claus and his sole purpose in life is to bring goodwill and festive cheer, delivering presents to children across the world. He has nine reindeer, one being a runt named Rudolph that he hand-reared himself. He was on his way to deliver presents to Australia when he hit what he thinks was turbulence, spooking the deer who then fell out of the sky and subsequently landed in the pool."

"Alright Gordon, you've had your fun now. I suggest you wrap this up."

Gordon's mouth gaped open as he stared at his father. "Honestly I would love to take credit for this because its incredible but seriously it wasn't me."

His brothers all looked at him dubiously. Even Rose raised an eyebrow at him. He held his palms upwards. "It wasn't me!"

"Mr Tracy, Gordon wouldn't be able to keep this secret he would have been laughing to himself for weeks trying to keep it a secret and he definitely would have told me." Tin Tin glanced at Gordon with a smile.

"Hmm you're right Tin Tin. He wouldn't be able to contain himself."

Jeff was just about to hail Alan when the eyes in his portrait flashed. "Go ahead Alan, what do we know?"

"Well, I double checked, and triple checked there were no flight diversions, military activity or private craft in the vicinity of the island tonight which means, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but did Santa really crash land on the island?"

"How do you know it was Santa?"

"Because I'm in charge of the Santa tracker this year since we've taken over from Norad and his charted flight path crossed Tracy Island at exactly two fifteen AM."

Jeff looked ready to blow a fuse. "You mean our secret base is charted on the internet for all to see?"

"No dad" John chimed in. It's only visible to five, I couldn't miss us out".

Jeff massaged his brow. "Brains, what about this sleigh?"

"Well ah Mr Tracy, so far as I can tell, it er really does fly. There are hidden err trim jets and ah VTO jets in the underside of the sleigh. They were er broken on ah…. ah impact but there were also err transparent platforms and canopy that err that is to say err would have given the illusion of flight in a sleigh."

"Right; well whoever he really is, our priority is to get him off this island and fast before we receive an emergency call. Brains and Virgil, I want you to take a look at that sleigh and see if you can get it airborne. Scott and I will tend to the deer to see if we can get them fit for travel. John and Alan, I want you to run facial recognition to see if we can identify this man. Rose see if you can build a profile on him from the info he's supplied and if there is anyone we can contact for him. Gordon and Tin Tin you're to stay with him and ensure he doesn't see more than he needs to. Are we clear?"

"Yes Sir" they choused in unison.

"Good now get to it."