In The Box

It was the thirteenth day.

Ta-Bump-Bump ! Ta-Bump-Bump ! Rick Blaine tossed the baseball over and
over against the wall. Ta-Bump-Bump !

"Hey ! That's mine !" Virgil Hilts brought the motorcycle to a
screeching halt and snatched the baseball away. From the pillion, Maria
Von Trapp shrieked in Hilts' ear and pointed behind her.

"The hills are alive !" Hilts looked back and saw wave after wave of
Nazis heading their way. He gunned the throttle and they roared off in
a spray of mud.

Blaine tightened his trenchcoat, tipped his fedora and smiled
mirthlessly. He turned to the tuxedoed secret agent sipping at his
Vodka Martini (shaken, not stirred). "Here's lookin' at you,
kid."

Not too far away, a scarlet Mini Cooper whizzed and leapt across the
landscape, its Cockney passenger yelling obscenities and waving a fist
at the pursuing Zulu warriors who hurled their spears (Thunk ! Thunk !
Thunk !) into the little car's roof and boot.

But then they ran into the Nazis&;#8230;

A man with a brolly skipped and danced along a yellow-brick road as it
suddenly began to rain. A prim, almost Victorian-dressed young woman
(looking not-too-dissimilar to the aforementioned Ms. Von Trapp, it
might be noted) snatched the brolly away from him and promptly rose
into the sky only to be struck by a bolt of lightning.

The young girl in the blue dress who was following on the road, turned
to her canine companion and sighed. "We're not in Kansas anymore."
Grommit merely rolled his plasticene eyes and resumed his
knitting.

They both watched more Nazis chasing a leather-jacketed American
aviator, Von Ryan as they called him, who was running for the back of
the train before it crossed the border, but as a couple of Victorian
girls were blocking the line ahead and waving their bloomers in the
air, this time he caught it.

The Nazis, however, well, they mingled with the other group and the
Zulus and were also joined by a septet of grinning, animated skeletons
armed with ancient swords and shields who began to hack away furiously
at them.

George Bailey ducked from his precarious position on the bridge parapet
as the crop duster zoomed overhead, zeroing in on the lone figure
sprinting along the highway far below.

Indiana Jones threw himself to the ground as the plane opened fire,
ploughing the ground with lead.

George climbed back onto his parapet, watching as monochrome Chicago
gangsters fired upon the Zulus, Nazis and skeletons. He turned to the
bickering couple next to him. "But, I'm a man !" The masculine-looking
woman pulled off "her" wig, threw it to the ground.

Rhett Butler smiled wryly. "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn
!"

George shrugged and decided to jump again. Life wasn't that wonderful
!

He was caught by a flying man in a scarlet cape who whooshed out of the
sky like a violet comet.

It was the thirteenth day. And all of the old favourites were back in
the box.

At least until next Christmas anyway&;#8230;