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📖 Pip and the Case of the Missing Cookies: a Santa story
5 min read
The week before Christmas is cookie week at the North Pole.
Mrs. Claus bakes every single day. Sugar cookies shaped like stars and mittens. Gingerbread people with frosting buttons. Chocolate chip cookies so big you need two hands. She lines them up on cooling racks along the kitchen counter, and the whole workshop smells like butter and cinnamon.
The cookies are for the elves' holiday party, and some are for Santa, who says there is nothing in the world better than a warm cookie and a cold glass of milk.
But this year, the cookies kept disappearing.
Something fishy
On Monday, Mrs. Claus set out three dozen cookies to cool. When she came back, there were thirty-two.
On Tuesday, there were twenty-nine.
On Wednesday, there were only twenty-five, plus a big trail of crumbs heading straight for the back door.
Mrs. Claus put her hands on her hips. "Pip," she called, "I think we need a detective."
Pip dropped the toy robot he'd been painting. "A detective? I'm on it!"
The detective kit
Pip got ready fast. He borrowed a magnifying glass from the science kit shelf. He grabbed a notepad and a pencil. He found a trench coat in the lost-and-found that dragged on the ground behind him, and a flashlight, just in case.
Then he went to the kitchen and got to work.
He shone the flashlight on the counter. Crumbs. He wrote it down. Clue #1: crumbs. Chocolate chip.
He looked at the floor. Someone had walked through a spill of flour, leaving tracks all the way to the door. The tracks were round, with a split down the middle.
Clue #2: weird round footprints.
And stuck on the door handle was one long, brownish hair.
Clue #3: brown hair. Long. Kind of scratchy.
Pip held it up to the magnifying glass and narrowed his eyes like a real detective.
Questioning the suspects
First stop: the candy cane makers.
"Have any of you been taking Mrs. Claus's cookies?" Pip asked.
"No way," said the head candy maker, who had sticky red stripes on both hands. "We only eat candy canes. Peppermint all day."
Pip crossed them off his list.
Next, Pip knocked on the door of Santa's study. Santa was in his armchair, reading a book about birdhouses.
Pip studied him through the magnifying glass. There were crumbs in Santa's beard. A lot of crumbs.
"Santa," said Pip in his most serious voice, "where were you Wednesday afternoon?"
Santa's cheeks turned a little pink. "Well, Mrs. Claus gave me a cookie," he admitted. "Okay, two cookies. But Pip, take a look at my boots."
Pip looked. Santa's boots were big and black with flat soles. They definitely didn't make round tracks with a split down the middle.
And Santa's hair was snowy white, not brown.
"You're cleared," said Pip. "Enjoy your book."
Crunch, crunch, crunch
Pip sat down on the workshop steps to think. Round tracks with a split. Long scratchy brown hair. Someone who could reach a kitchen counter.
He was still thinking when he heard a sound coming from the reindeer barn.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
Pip tiptoed across the snow, his trench coat swishing behind him, and peeked through a crack in the barn door.
All eight reindeer were standing in a circle. In the middle was a plate with four cookies on it. And one reindeer had a frosting star stuck right on the tip of her nose.
"Hooves!" cried Pip, bursting in. "Round tracks with a split down the middle! It was YOU!"
The confession
The youngest reindeer, Bramble, stepped forward. She licked the frosting off her nose and looked at the floor.
"We're really sorry, Pip," she said. "It's just... every Christmas Eve, kids leave out milk and cookies for Santa. And they're SO nice. They make little plates and write little notes."
"Sometimes they leave carrots for us," said one of the bigger reindeer. "We like carrots. Carrots are great."
"But we always wondered what the cookies tasted like," said Bramble. "And then we tried one. And then we couldn't stop."
Pip tried his best to look stern. He really did. But then he started giggling, and he giggled so hard he tripped over his own trench coat.
Cookies for everyone
Pip brought the reindeer to the kitchen, and they all said sorry to Mrs. Claus. She looked at them for a long moment. Then she smiled.
"Well," she said, "I suppose everyone should get a treat at Christmas."
So that afternoon, Pip and Mrs. Claus invented a brand-new recipe: crunchy oat cookies made with apple and shredded carrot, just right for reindeer. Bramble said they were the best cookies in the whole world. The other reindeer couldn't answer, because their mouths were full.
Pip opened his notepad and wrote one last line.
Case closed. Cookies for everybody.
So this Christmas Eve, when you set out milk and cookies for Santa, and maybe a carrot or two for the reindeer, remember Pip's case. The reindeer will be very thankful for those carrots. But they might just be eyeing the cookies, too.
The end.
Talk about the story
- What clue helped Pip crack the case?
- What does your family leave out for Santa and the reindeer?
- If you could invent a cookie for reindeer, what would you put in it?