Thanks to the wonderful Susanna Leonard Hill, kidlit writers have fun holiday contests to enter throughout the year. A huge shout out to her, the other judges and all of the wonderful prize donors.
Here is my entry for this year. The stipulations for 2024’s contest were for the story to be a mystery with a max word count of 25o.
The Night Santa Went Missing
232 words
On Christmas Eve, NORAD’s radars steadily tracked Santa. BEEP, BEEP, BEEP.
Shortly before midnight, something went terribly wrong. POOF!
Santa’s blinking dot disappeared from their screens.“We’ve lost him,” Major Smith reported.
“Impossible!” shouted Colonel Brown. “We’re the North American Aerospace Defense Command. We’ve never lost Santa Claus!”
They ran diagnostics, double-checked satellites, and consulted weather reports.
Everyone panicked, imagining scores of devastated children waking up to no presents. But nothing they tried worked. Santa had simply vanished.
At midnight, Colonel Brown said miserably, “We’ll have to notify the president.”
President Shah’s voice was filled with alarm. “What a disaster. Christmas is ruined. I’ll let the real boss know.”
At the North Pole, Mrs. Claus received the news. “Ma’am, we’ve lost Santa.”
“I’m pretty sure I have the answer to this mystery,” she replied. “Give me a moment.”
She sighed and called her husband. “Okay, you win the bet. You evaded NORAD. Have all the cookies you want.”
Out rang a jolly, “Ho, ho, ho!”
“Don’t ho, ho, ho me, mister. You’ve panicked the entire world. Stop cloaking your sled. I won’t put you on that New Year’s diet.”
Moments later, a soft BEEP, BEEP, BEEP broke the silence of the control room at NORAD. When Santa’s dot reappeared on Major Smith’s screen, cheers erupted.
In the night sky, Santa slipped his cell phone back into his pocket and patted his belly.