The Elf-5 and Santa's Secret Machine: A Mini Adventure from Before Santa Met Denby Read online

Alton looked frightened, as if he was trying to figure out how much Elfonzo had heard. “Well. Well…. You know how it is with these contraptions. Sometimes it just takes time to get them up and running right.”

  “So Santa will have no sleigh shield again this year?”

  “What does it matter? He got along without one for a thousand years."

  He looked at Alton, at the sweat dotting his upper lip, the nervous way he gripped his hands together, the way he rocked from one foot to the other. Alton, Elfonzo thought, was a very scared elf. Maybe because the sleigh shield was still down. Elfonzo remembered his early days at the Floe, how he had wanted to do something good, something important. He knew how it felt to make something that changed everything at the Pole. He knew how it felt to see the admiration in the eyes of reindeer, elves and Clauses.

  He knew what it felt like when that something broke down. He imagined his lip had that same sweat, his hands gripping his tools, his feet rocking him to and fro when one of his inventions failed.

  Elfonzo thought about Santa and all those years before Alton and the sleigh shield. Santa had done just fine way back when but these days were different — jets and tracking signals sweeping the skies. Santa needed that sleigh shield.

  What was Alton up to?

  And why was the sleigh shield

  not

  ready?

  THE END

  Excerpt from:

  Santa Dog: The Incredible Adventures of Santa and Denby

  (Book One)

  Chapter One

  Denby was cold and very hungry. In all of his two whole years, he’d never been so hungry – or so cold, even with his thick golden retriever fur. He didn’t understand why he’d been left alone in the back yard.

  His master had cleared out a bunch of stuff from the garage and the house, thrown them in the old white station wagon and driven away with the boy who had been Denby’s best pal. The man left behind furniture, appliances and memories.

  And Denby.

  After three long days of waiting for master and boy to return, Denby knew. They would not be back. Starving, he jumped the fence and began searching for food. As he loped down streets he had only walked along on a leash before, he passed sign after sign on the yellowed grass of the homes he passed. For Sale. They looked sad and empty, these houses, just like his own.

  Denby had not been beyond ten blocks of Dolores Park in San Francisco’s bustling Mission District, now, unleashed, he roamed free wherever his nose took him. He found the merchants along Castro Street happy to give him a treat. They told him how handsome he was and pet his head, but they didn’t let him stay.

  Denby kept wandering. Soon, he found himself in downtown San Francisco, an area of tall buildings, men in stiff dark suits, women in tall shoes, and very few dogs. There were no treats here, no one to stroke his fur and call him “good boy.”

  After a time, Denby noticed a large white van following him. The station wagon that master and boy left in had been white. Maybe the man driving this van knew where they’d gone. Denby stopped.

  As the driver of the van made clicking sounds with his tongue and said, “C’mere, dog,” someone else grabbed Denby from the side. This someone had big rough hands and pulled his fur tight enough to hurt. Denby yelped as the man yelled, “Got him!” The man quickly slipped a loop of plastic rope around Denby’s neck, pulled it tight and shoved him into the back of the van.

  Denby was taken to a large, smelly building where lots of dogs of all shapes and sizes huddled in cages. He learned the word “abandoned” and that he was far from the only one left behind. He learned that other animals had also been abandoned by their families – dogs, cats, even rabbits and guinea pigs. And that sometimes a new family would come and take you to a new home.

  In time, a man with a bald head and a critical eye came to the kennel. After carefully reviewing the various dogs, he focused on Denby.

  The man who fed all the dogs in their boxes pulled Denby from his cage. This new man inspected Denby’s coat, teeth and eyes, pulling his fur, pushing his lips up, tilting his head this way and that. Denby wanted to growl and maybe even bite the man, but he was trying to be a good boy, hoping this would be one of the family people that might take you to a new home. Denby very much wanted to be back with a family.

  “Yes” said the man. “This one will do.”

  After completing some paperwork, Denby left the kennel with the man. His heart soared. Was he getting a new family? In time for Christmas Eve? What would the new family be like?

  The man silently drove Denby east for more than three hours. He finally stopped not at a house but an office building. Denby was led into a blank white room filled with medical equipment.

  The man and another smaller man strapped Denby down on a flat rolling bed. He struggled to get away, but the men were too strong. Denby was a good boy. He didn’t bite. He kicked and cried and barked, but he didn’t bite. Not even when the smaller man used a long needle to inject a fluid into Denby’s side.

  Everything went black.

  …

  About the Author

  G.Z. Sutton based this work on the Denby of his youth, a dog that still holds high honors in his heart. When not writing Denby books, Garrett Sutton is an attorney, and author of a variety of business books, including Rich Dad's Advisors: Own Your Own Corporation: Why the Rich Own Companies and Everyone Else Works for Them.

  If you’d like to learn more about Denby or G.Z., you can find info at:

  https://www.denbybook.com/