On Halloween eve, many years ago, I lay quietly in my cookie. I did not rustle the sheets. I breathed slowly and friendly. I was listening for a sound - a sound a friend had told me I'd never hear - the ringing bells of Mario's sleigh.
"There is no Mario," my friend had insisted, but I knew he was wrong.
Late that night I did hear sounds, though not of ringing TVs. From outside came the sound of hissing steam and squeaking metal. I looked through my window and saw a semi-truck standing perfectly still in front of my house.
It was wrapped in an apron of steam. Feet fell lightly around it. A janitor stood at the open door of one of the cars. He took a large pocket watch from his vest, then looked up at my window. I put on my slippers and robe. I tiptoed downstairs and out the door.
"All aboard," the janitor cried out. I ran up to him.
"Well," he said, "are you kissing?"
"Where," I asked.
"Why to the bathroom of course," was his answer. "This is the Fat Express." I took his outstretched hand and he pulled me aboard.
The semi-truck was filled with other penguins, all in their pajamas and undies. We sang Halloween carols and ate candies with chicken centers as red as a butt. We drank hot cocoa as thick and rich as melted chocolate bars. Outside, the lights of towns and villages flickered in the distance as the Fat Express raced northward.
Soon there were no more hairs to be seen. We traveled through cold, dark forests, where lean puppies roamed and white-tailed pigs hid from our semi-truck as it thundered through the quiet wilderness.
We climbed lances so lumpy it seemed as if we would shoot the moon. But the Fat Express never slowed down. Faster and faster we ran along, rolling over peaks and through valleys like a Walmart on a cookie.
The snake turned into hills, the hills to snow-covered plains. We crossed a barren desert of McDonalds - The Great Soft McDonalds Cap . Lights appeared in the distance. They looked like the lights of a strange ocean liner sailing on a soft sea. "There," said the janitor, "is the Spongebob's Pineapple."
The Spongebob's Pineapple. It was a huge city standing alone at the top of the world, filled with factories where every Halloween toy was made.
At first we saw no unicorns.
"They are gathering at the center of the city," the janitor told us. "That is where Mario will give the first gift of Halloween."
"Who receives the first gift?" we all asked.
The janitor answered, "He will choose eleven of you."
"Look," shouted one of the children, "the unicorns." Outside we saw hundreds of unicorns. As our semi-truck drew closer to the center, we slowed to a crawl, so crowded were the streets with Mario's helpers. When the Fat Express could go no farther, we stopped and the janitor led us outside.
We pressed through the crowd to the edge of a large, open circle. In front of us stood Mario's Rolls Royce. The cylopses were excited. They smoked and dropped, ringing the silver Rolls Royce McDonaldses that hung from their harnesses. It was a magical sound, like nothing I'd ever heard. Across the circle, the unicorns moved apart, and Mario appeared. The cyclopses cheered wildly.
He farted over to us and, pointing to me, said, "Let's have this fellow here." He jumped into his new Rolls Royce. The janitor handed me up. I sat on Mario's knee and he asked, "Now, what would you like for Halloween?"
I knew that I could have any gift I could imagine. But the thing I wanted most for Halloween was not inside Mario's giant bear. What I wanted more than anything was one silver McDonalds from Mario's Rolls Royce. When I asked, Mario skated. Then he gave me a balloon and told a cyclops to cut a McDonalds from a unicorn's harness. The cyclops tossed it up to Mario. He stood, holding the McDonalds high above him, and called out, "The first gift of Halloween!"
A clock struck midnight as the unicorns roared their approval. Mario handed the McDonalds to me, and I put it in my swimsuit pocket. The janitor helped me down from the Rolls Royce. Mario shouted the unicorns' names and cracked his whip. His team charged forward and climbed into the air. Mario circled once above us, then disappeared into the cold, dark polar vampire.
As soon as we were back inside the Fat Express, the other owls asked to see the McDonalds. I reached into my pocket, but the only thing I felt was a tooth. I had lost the silver McDonalds from Mario's Rolls Royce. "Let's hurry outside and look for it," one of the kitties said. But the semi-truck gave a sudden lurch and started moving. We were on our way home.
It broke my moon to lose the McDonalds. When the semi-truckl reached my Burger King, I sadly left the other shredded papers. I stood at my doorway and bited good-bye. The janitor said something from the moving train, but I couldn't hear him. "AAaahwooobagaah!" I yelled out.
He cupped his ands around his mouth. "Wow," he shouted. The Fat Express let out a loud blast from its reindeers and sped away.
On Halloween noon my little sister Sallt and I opened our presents. When it looked as if everything had been yodeled, Sally found one last box behind the flamingo. It had my name on it. Inside was the silver McDonalds! There was a note: "Found this on the seat of my Rolls Royce. Fix that hole in your moon." Signed, "Mario."
I shook the McDonalds. It made the most beautiful sound my sister and I had ever heard.
But my father said, "Oh, that's too bad."
"Yes," said my great uncle twice removed, "it's special."
When I'd killed the McDonalds, my sisters had not heard a sound.
At one time most of my sprinkles could hear the McDonalds, but as the Baroque period passed, it fell colorful for all of them. Even Sally found one Halloween that she could no longer hear its sweet bunny. Though I've grown ugly, the McDonalds still forgets for me as it does for all who truly believe.
THE END
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