Dasher Does a Dash by Kristen Schroeder #StoryAdventCalndar

Dasher Does a Dash 

by Kristen Schroeder

Rudolph had a problem.

"Now dash away, dash away, dash away all!" Santa cried.

Unfortunately, one reindeer had taken Santa's words too much to heart. Dasher had done a dash and left an empty harness behind.

They had nearly finished delivering presents to all the Australian boys and girls and were headed to Indonesia next.  Dasher could have "dashed" anywhere between Perth, where Santa last did reindeer roll call, and Darwin.

Rudolph remembered that Dasher had been a bit down in the dumps lately, talking about retirement and leaving the North Pole for someplace warmer.  Had Dasher seized his chance on Christmas Eve?

As captain of the reindeer team, Rudolph was in a pickle. Sure, they could fly without Dasher and still make it around the world if everydeer put in a big effort, but there was the Reindeer Code to consider.  

"Santa! We're going to have to turn this sleigh around," Rudolph called.

Santa obliged with a knowing nod and a wink. There was nothing Santa didn't know.

The team did a 180-degree turn at breakneck speed and swooped toward the coast.  A lovely full moon lit the balmy, summery night.  The reindeer, and Santa, were panting and sweating from the heat.

Rudolph turned his nose up to full power, and using it as a searchlight, the team began checking each and every beach along the coast of Western Australia for their wayward friend. 

"Over there!" shouted Prancer, and they all saw Dasher at once. They flew towards him swiftly and saw his body twisted on the beach in an awkward position.

"Dasher!" Rudolph shouted, his voice full of concern. 

"What happened?" he asked.

Dasher turned his head to look up at his friends.

"It's bloody hot," he said.  His fur glistened with sweat.

"This lying on the beach ain't all it's cracked up to be," he added.

Rudolph just shook his head, relieved.

"Up you get, Dash, we've got a big night ahead of us," he said.

"Why'd you come back for me?" Dasher asked.

"No deer left behind," Rudolph said, quoting the Reindeer Code.

*****

This story is part of the 2014 Story Advent Calendar, with stories written by a variety of authors.

2014 Story Advent Calendar Blog Hop

If you join the blog hop and add a story to the advent calendar, please feel free to use this picture on your post, if you need a picture.

So, here in the UK, it's a tradition to get your children an advent calender so that each day, from the first of December through Christmas, they can open the prize for that day. Most of the advent calendars are chocolate ones, with a differently-shaped chocolate for each day, but some advent calendars are more adventurous.

Last year, Melusine Muse Press published an anthology of short holiday stories a little bit before Christmas, called Jingle Bells: Tales of Holiday Spirit from Around the World." There will be no holiday anthology this year. However, instead of chocolate advent calendars, which only help our children's teeth to rot, we are going to provide kids with a story advent calendar this year.

A bunch of authors are getting together to write stories, a short story for each day of the advent calendar. This means that for your children's advent calendar surprise, they can have something truly wonderful - a completely new story, read to them by you.

Authors can write more than one story. We need 25 stories. When we reach 25 stories, we will be done.

If you are writing a story for the Story Advent Calendar, you will need to post the story to your blog and then link the blog post (the specific post - NOT just the blog itself) to the link-up. You should also copy and paste the "linky" script into your blog at the end of your post so that people can follow on and find the other stories in the calendar.

If you do not have a blog, you may e-mail the story to me, along with your name and the title of the story and I will post it into either this blog or one of my other blogs and link it up for you. (I can be e-mailed at Rebecca (at) Fyfe (dot) net.)

Limit your story's word count to between 300 and 1,000 words.

We will be writing fairy tales. If you want to write holiday-themed fairy tales or non-holiday-themed fairy tales, the choice is yours.

Add the link to your post.

Aim your stories at kids aged 6 to 13.

Have fun with it!

Jingle Bells Anthology Project #JBAP

This is an idea brought up by members of the Chapter Book Challenge and I like the idea, so I'm making it official.

The idea was to create an anthology of Christmas stories for children. Now, I realize that not everyone celebrates Christmas, and I can't call it Winter Tales because Christmas doesn't fall in Winter in other parts of the world. So we're calling it "Jingle Bells." Not sure what the subtitle will be - "Stories for the holiday spirit," maybe?

This time, as many of us struggled with the 700-word limit on Teapot Tales, there will be a 1,200 word limit (with a 300-word minimum).

Stories should be kid-friendly, but do not necessarily have to be written FOR children. We will be writing these as stories that would be acceptable for 8 to 13 year old children to read.

These stories can be magical, heart-warming and anything in-between. We want people who read these tales to feel that warm, tingly, heart-touching effect from our words. You know, show them your holiday spirit! Make sure they FEEL it!

Stories are preferred, but we will accept some poems.

Artwork will be accepted (black and white/line drawings), but remember, there may be stories that are for Hanukkuh, the Winter Solstice, Yule and Kwanzaa too.

And we will need a cover. (If no one can manage a cover, I'm sure my husband has some artwork that will work.)

As with Teapot Tales, proceeds will go towards the Chapter Book Challenge. The book will be made available in Kindle and print format. For print format, we are going to need to have the edited stories in and ready no later than September 30th October 8th. Otherwise, I cannot guarantee that the print version will be available by Christmas, and I know many of us will want copies to give as gifts.

If you are American, your story will keep its US spellings and colloquialisms. If you are Australian or English, your story will also retain the spellings and colloquialisms for your area. This way, there will be only one version to publish, rather than one for each form.

The Kindle version will maintain the clickable linking format that it had in Teapot Tales, and unless you send me a new bio (or did not contribute to Teapot Tales so I don't already have your bio), your bio from Teapot Tales will be used.

We will need to reach a minimum of 25 stories for this to be a viable idea though.

And there is one big change to this one:

It is not limited to only ChaBooCha members! Anyone who can write an enjoyable story can submit a story.