In which we return to Skookum, and now I need a story title

Let me preface by reminding everyone that the little town of Skookum is fictional.

At least, mostly.

We've lived near Arlington WA for sixteen years now, and there are...similarities

I invented Skookum and a bunch of quirky oddballs who live there for a NaNoWriMo project back in 2010 (!!!!).  

But they--the town and the resident weirdos--refuse to stay fictional.  Periodically, something happens to me and I think, "I wonder what Lulu Rubidoux will think of this when I tell her about it."  

And that happened recently, so I sat down and wrote the whole story.  And now I'm going to share it with you.

You don't need to know anything about Skookum in order to understand this story, but if you want to know more about the eccentric neighbors who (mostly) live inside my head, I'll put some links at the bottom of the page.

OH!  And also:  this story needs a catchy title!  Put your suggestions in the comment box!

When Santa Went to Town – a Skookum story <--better title needed!!!

When Nick “Santa” Klaus goes into town on Monday afternoons, he puts on his coat, his hat, and his boots.  

He takes the truck keys from the hook by the back door and puts them in his right coat pocket.  

He unpins the shopping list from the board and puts it in his left coat pocket.  

Then, he finds his partner Anna Snow to give her a chance to add more things to the list, and she does, and he puts the list back in his left coat pocket.

On his way to the shed where he parks, Nick checks the gates to the tree field to make sure they are open so workers can get the trim trucks in and out, and he checks the gates to the livestock pasture to make sure they are closed so the kangaroos and wallabies in the exotics pens stay where they are supposed to be, even the baby wallaby that Anna named “Peanut Butter,” who sometimes fiddles with the latch when he thinks that a visitor on the other side of the fence might have dropped a bit of candy cane.

Nick carefully reverses the truck out of the shed and shuts the shed door, kicking the latch twice because it sticks open sometimes.  

Then he drives slowly out the long narrow driveway to the truck gate, opens it with the electronic gate opener that Anna got him for his birthday, drives through the gate and pushes the electronic button to close it behind him.  He watches in the rearview mirror to make sure the gate closes behind him securely, even though it always has.

When he sees that the truck gate is closed and gate sign displaying the cheery words “Klaus Christmas Trees and Kangaroo Farm” is lit up, Nick hops out of the truck and walks back to the gate to jiggle it three times, just in case it didn’t latch all the way. 

Then, satisfied that all is where it should be, Nick hops back into the truck, turns on the radio to KOOK, puts on his sunglasses, flips the truck turn signal and carefully pulls out onto the main road into Skookum.

Then one Wednesday morning, the refrigerator died.  Anna noticed it first because the yogurt was warm. 

“Nick,” she told him, “I’m sorry to tell you that after only 21 years of service, the fridge needs to be replaced.  And the yogurt does, too.”

Anna is good at buying things.  She looks up reviews in Consumer Reports, compares prices between stores online, makes phone calls and talks to shop managers to find the very best deals.  

Nick prefers to let her do that.  He doesn’t mind picking up hardware and groceries as long as there’s a list.  But appliances these days have features he doesn’t understand, like Bluetooth.  

No matter how many times Anna explains Bluetooth to him, Nick can’t help imagining toasters and ovens with blue teeth, and it makes him uneasy.

By the time Nick finished the morning feed for seventeen kangaroos, twelve wallabies, five spotted ponies, three emus, four ringtail lemurs, two peacocks and about thirty peahens, Anna had wrapped up negotiations with Tropical Appliance.

“Omar is loading up a new fridge right now,” she told him.  “He told me to take a big roast out of the freezer and put it into the fridge.  It will thaw, but it will keep everything else from getting too warm, and we can eat the roast for dinner.

“But that means,” she continued, “that we will need a few things from town to go with the roast.  Also, we need yogurt.” 

Anna wrote out a list and handed it to Nick.  He pinned the list to the board.

Then, he put on his coat and hat and boots.  

He took the truck keys from the hook and put them in his right coat pocket.  

He unpinned the list and put it in his left coat pocket.  

He looked at Anna to see if she needed to add anything else to the list, and she made a shooing motion at him, so he went out to the shed.

He checked the tree gate and the livestock gate, petting the curious kangaroos and wallabies who were not used to him driving away in the morning, and never on a Wednesday.  Peanut Butter got extra ear scratches and a little piece of candy cane from Nick’s shirt pocket when none of the other wallabies were looking.

He backed the truck out, closed and kicked the shed door.  Then he drove slowly out the driveway to the truck gate.  

When he got there, Omar was just pulling off the main road in the delivery truck. 

Nick waved and flashed the truck lights at Omar, to communicate “I will open the gate!”

Omar flashed his lights in return, so Nick pushed the button on the electronic gate opener and drove through.  On the other side, he waved to Omar again, and Omar drove through going the opposite direction.  When Nick looked in the rearview mirror at the gate with the cheery sign, Omar was jiggling the gate to make sure it was latched.  A good man, Omar.   

Nick turned on the radio, put on his sunglasses, and flipped the turn signal before easing the truck out onto the road.

In town, everybody already knew about the fridge, so nobody was surprised to see him. 

In line at the Food 4 Less, Louise Didn’t See the Bear told him that her Gramma Jo used to turn old refrigerators into fish smokers and then rent them out to tourists who had caught fish and forgotten to bring extra ice to keep them cold. 

Halmoni Park said that those smokers were a great deal for the locals, because Gramma Jo drilled extra-big holes in the tops and then the wood would burn fast so the tourists had to buy extra wood to smoke their fish, so they would buy a hundred bucks worth of wood instead of remembering to buy five bucks worth of ice. 

Edsel Rabin said the best part was when those tourists would get bored of tending the smokers and let them go cold overnight, because the local raccoons all knew they could fit through those big holes in the top and eat the fish but then they’d get too fat and warm and sleepy to climb out again so in the mornings the tourists would open the doors of the smokers and find a whole pile of snoozing raccoons instead of their fish.  Then they’d buy a frozen fish at the Food 4 Less to show off to everybody back home. 

Everybody agreed that snookering tourists was a grand old Skookum tradition that the young folks today just didn’t understand, and Nick decided that maybe coming into town in the morning wasn’t such a bad thing.

About a half-mile from home, Nick saw a peacock perched on a pasture fence and shook his head.  Peacocks were a pain.  He wished that whatever neighbor had gotten this one had asked him so he could’ve warned them not to get it.

Still shaking his head, he turned into the driveway expecting to see the sign in front of him, blinking the friendly, familiar message.

But the sign wasn’t there. 

The gate was open.  Kangaroos and wallabies grazed beside the driveway.  Emus and ponies wandered around the tree field.  Peahens were everywhere, poking at the fences and snacking on decorative shrubs. There were no visible lemurs anywhere. A single peacock was perched on the driveway gate, surveying at the chaos proudly.

Nick drove past all the animals and parked beside the Tropical Appliance truck.  He shouted into the house that the animals were out, and Omar came running to help.  Anna pulled out her phone and called a few friends.

By two pm, they’d figured out that the remote control that operated the new fridge worked on the same frequency as the gate opener, which explained the open gate. 

They had also rounded up seventeen kangaroos, five spotted ponies, three emus, all the lemurs, more peahens than they started with, and both peacocks…but only eleven wallabies.

Little Peanut Butter was missing.

Anna’s friends all called more friends, and they made a plan.  Some would walk down to the river, others would walk up the hill.  Omar would check all the sheds and shelters on the property. Anna stayed at the house, calling neighbors. 

Nick didn’t know what to do.  Should he leave the driveway gate open so Peanut Butter could come back in?  Should he close the gate? 

With no good plan, he started up his truck, and drove slowly up the driveway, calling Peanut Butter’s name through the open truck window. 

When he got to the gate, he got out and looked at it.

Then he heard something rustling in the bushes beside the gate. 

He reached into his coat pocket and found his keys.  He reached into his other coat pocket and found the shopping list. 

Then he reached into his shirt pocket and found a candy cane.

“Peanut Butter?”  he called.

More rustling.

He unwrapped the candy cane.

More rustling.

He broke off a piece of candy cane and was just about to pop it into his mouth when he felt a gentle tug on his pant leg.

“Peanut Butter!”  cried Nick and knelt down to offer the little wallaby the chunk of candy.

 

Everybody cheered when Nick drove slowly back up the driveway to the house, flashing his lights and waving.  Little Peanut Butter sat on the passenger seat, crunching the rest of the candy cane.

Since the roast was already thawed, Nick put it into the smoker to cook—a proper smoker, he pointed out to Louise Didn’t See the Bear and Halmoni and Edsel, a smoker with small holes for the smoke, and NO blue teeth.  

Everybody stayed for dinner. 

Thursday morning, Nick got up early.  He put on his coat and hat and boots.  He put his keys in his pocket and checked the board for a shopping list. 

Then, he loaded Little Peanut Butter into the truck, and together they drove to town to visit their friends and buy more candy canes.

MORE SKOOKUM STORIES

Lulu Rubidoux's Christmas Wish - the closest thing Lulu Rubidoux will ever get to a superhero origin story.

Lucky Day Towing - I keep my eyes peeled for this tow truck, just in case it really exists

Lulu Rubidoux' Chinchilla-Fur Coat - Lulu's first foray into agriculture

Lulu Rubidoux and the Thanksgiving Turkeys - Lulu's further adventures in farming

The Skookum Community Participatory Nativity - I'm still surprised this isn't real

The Piñata Guy - one of my very first Skookum stories

The Godiva Riders - if anybody ever decides to organize an event like this, call me, I'll bring friends

The Different Drummer - another early story that went further than I expected, although I haven't kept up with the main character.  I hope he's doing well.