The Air Traffic Controller and Santa

The old man in the fur-trimmed red jacket startled from looking at the tablet computer in his lap. After a brief burst of static the radio on the bench beside him had said, "X-ray, Mike, Alpha, Zero, Five, do you have a problem?" As he located and picked up the source of this question, the question was repeated.

Laying the tablet aside, the white-bearded fellow unplugged the hands-free kit from his smart-phone and inserted the jack into the radio. "Yes, I have a problem, thank you for asking. Do you know where Applegate Drive is?"

"Sorry, Sir, but that was not the kind of problem I was thinking you might have. I've been following you for the last few minutes and you have been flying erratically and your transponder seems to have been intermittent."

"Is it?" said the man into the microphone in a voice that suggested that he was highly stressed under a thin veneer of jolly. "It should be operating perfectly; I only had it installed a month or so back. Someone told me that you need a transponder if you're going to make international flights. I don't want to break the law, especially given my responsibilities. By the way, who are you?"

"Erm, my name is David. I'm with air traffic control. May I ask your name, Sir? So that we can see if we can sort out your difficulties in as friendly manner as possible."

"You may call me 'Nick', that's what they used to call me." He ran his hand through is curly white beard. "That's before they started calling by the many other names they've given me. Nick is fine. We don't have to be formal, do we, David?"

"Ok, Nick, the problem I've got is that you are flying in a restricted airspace and you seem to be flying in a pattern that I have never seen anyone fly in before and I keep losing track of your exact position, because I can't always see your transponder signal. If you're in trouble, I need to advise you on your best course of action and if you're not I need you to leave this airspace so you don't pose a threat to other air traffic."

"I don't want to endanger anyone, where am I flying that I should not be flying?"

"The times I've seen you, you've been in the take-off and landing corridor for Heathrow Airport. To be there you need to have an approved flight plan or a genuine emergency."

"Sorry, David, I've been flying for the last several hundred years, but realised that I ought to update things a few months ago, so I'm not quite up to speed the all the rules and regulations. But that would explain why I was nearly run down, by one of those big air behemoths; it had 'Qantas' painted on the side."

"That'd be 'QA752' about ten minutes ago. They reported you, but given their description I thought it was a pre-Christmas joke. So I suggested they not report it."

"I guess I can't really report them either as I was in the wrong bit of sky at the time."

"Let's put it this way, Nick, unless you want a ton of paperwork on you doormat early in the New Year, you should treat it as a no harm incident, and get on with your life."

"Thank you, David, so where can I fly round here, because I still can't find Applegate Drive; I'm fairly certain it's got be near here somewhere."

"Well, if you head a few miles north or south or a couple of hundred feet down, you should be out of the flight path. Now I've got to stop talking to you for a few minutes while I get two of the last flights tonight off the ground, then I'll get back to you, see if I can help with any other questions, OUT!"

The old man picked up the reins of his aircraft and with a tutting noise turned it to the north. From a safe distance he watched four aeroplanes leave the brightly lit area, that his mapping app on his tablet told him was Heathrow and another two touchdown.

"X-ray, Mike, Alpha, Zero, Five, Are you still there Nick; I can't see you on the radar."

"Yes, David, I'm still here."

"Ok, Nick, how can I help? You were looking for an address, right?"

"Yes, the address I have is Flat 72, The Mansion, Applegate Drive."

"I thought you'd said Applegate Drive, so I googled it and there's one in Glasgow, now you've mentioned the rest of the address, I know where it is. By the way, how are you navigating?"

"My missus gave me a tablet last Christmas and it's got this world map app on it, isn't that enough?"

"I think you'll have two problems with that; firstly, you'll need to get the updates for it, roads and housing keep being built and changed about. And secondly, I guess you've been having blank periods, when it won't tell you where you are; that's because it doesn't cope if you move too fast."

"Oh, well that's good to know, I thought it was breaking down, or whatever these computer things do when they stop working properly."

"Take it from me, Nick, computers never started working properly, not since Grace Hopper found the first computer bug, and that was more than half a century ago. So, why are you interested in that particular address? I thought you were supposed to deliver to everyone."

"I used to, but these days there's a kind of franchising system with parents in place. They buy and deliver the presents pretending they are from me and I find ways throughout the year to give them a bit of luck here and there to make sure the presents are paid for. One slight downside is that a lot of children that to not deserve the presents get presents that are attributed to me, but what parents do with their own money is up to them."

"Ok, so, why are you out at all? That sounds like an opportunity to retire."

"That's because some parents of deserving children cannot be trusted with the good fortune, so direct delivery is required to meet my obligations. Some are substance mis-users, but most are just parents that have fallen on hard times and small amounts of good fortune are used to keep them going at the time it occurs."

The old man seated on his bench seat said, "I think we have strayed from the point. I still need to find the address, or I'll be even later for the several thousand other personal deliveries I've still got to make tonight."

David apologised for keeping Nick talking and described how to find the flats that had been built in the last year from somewhere that was on Nick's tablet. Then David settled in for what he hoped would be a light night with very few scheduled arrivals.

"David, are you still there?" came the old man's voice. "I found the address, but I couldn't get in. No chimneys, non-opening windows and a security system I couldn't get my head round. It's a disaster."

"That you, Nick?"

"Yes. What am I to do?"

"What would you normally do?"

"Well normally I'd leave it on the doorstep, but I can't get to the flat's doorstep and if I leave it outside there is no guarantee that it will be found by the right person at the right time, if at all."

"May I make a suggestion? I know you don't know me well, but if you delivery the presents to my house, I can make sure that they get to the proper person in the morning. I only life a couple of streets from there; that's how I knew where you wanted. It should be no trouble to get it there in the morning."

David heard noises that seemed to indicate that his proposal was being taken seriously. "Are you sure? It's quite a responsibility taking on such a delivery."

"Of course, I wouldn't have offered otherwise."

"Thank you, and good luck."

There was moment when X-ray, Mike, Alpha, Zero, Five disappeared from the radar screen in front of David, then he followed it heading west until it vanished at the edge of his screen.

----------

David had a mercifully routine night and headed home.

Almost before he had shut the front door on the cold light of the recently dawned sun, his daughter came rushing down the stairs.

"Daddy, Daddy, Daddy," she screamed joyfully. "Father Christmas came in the night and brought me some nice things."

David looked to the top of the stairs where his wife stood smiling.

It seemed like his daughter was going into an exhaustive list of things he and his wife had put together to make a Father Christmas package, but she had glanced in anticipation at the tree in the living room and seen something unexpected. "What's that?" she asked.

David followed the line of his daughter's gaze and saw there was a plain carrier-bag of white plastic to which was attached a hand-written note.

When he got close enough that he could read the note, it said, "David, please deliver to Gale at Flat 72, The Mansion, Applegate Drive, Love Nick."

It took a little longer for his daughter to read the note, because she had only recently started in school. She looked at her father and asked, "Who are Gale and Nick and why was this left here for you to deliver?"

From the corner of his eye David saw that if his daughter not asked, his wife would have. "Tessa, Darling," he said addressing his daughter, "Nick is an old name for Father Christmas, he started out as Saint Nicholas, which became Santa Claus. I happened to have had a word with him last night. He seemed upset that he couldn't make a delivery so I offered to take it over this morning for him. I guess that Gale is the girl I need to deliver it to. They're only in the flats a few streets over. Why don't I do it now, before I have my sleep before lunch?"

His wife seemed sceptical of the story, but Tessa said, "Can I come too?"

"Of course you can, I'll wait while you get some outdoor clothes on; you can't go in your PJs."

While his daughter rushed back upstairs with a whoop, his wife asked, "What's the real story?"

"I don't expect you to believe that I told Tessa the truth, but you can consider it a Christmas good deed, that is costing us no more than the time it takes me to deliver a bag of presents to flats. You can come too, if you like." He kissed her still sceptical lips.

"Alright," she said grudgingly, "but don't take all morning, because you'll need your nap, before lunch, because my parents are coming."

David and Tessa walked the long way round to the flats on Applegate Drive, because the short way would have been muddy. When they got to the flats it took him a little while to work out how to use the entry-phone system to call Flat 72.

"Hello, who is it?" was the response.

"Can you let me in, please? I have a delivery for Gale."

"So, who are you and what do-gooding organisation are you from?"

"My name is David and I've got my daughter Tessa with me, and not with any organisation. Father Christmas asked me to deliver a package for Gale, because he couldn't find his own way in."

In the background David heard a younger voice say, "See, Santa did not forget me, he just couldn't get in."

The mother said, "Ok, come on up, we're on the third floor! But any funny business and I have a neighbour who would be happy to throw you out."

The door buzzed and David entered and held the door so that Tessa who was carrying the bag could get in too. They found it surprisingly easy to find the flat and he knocked on the front door.

There was a scream and a hurrying patter of feet before the door was flung open by girl the same age as Tessa. Her excitement suddenly wore off. "You don't look like Santa."

"I'm sorry," said David, "But he couldn't get in so he asked me to deliver the stuff, because he needed to get on and make the rest of his deliveries."

Tessa held out the bag with the note still attached. "Why haven't I seen you at school?" she asked.

The mother can up behind Gale. "Because she will be starting at a new school when term begins; we only just got moved here and I can't afford the busses for her to go to the school she went to before." She sounded like she felt that this was an injustice. "I don't think she's looking forward to it either."

"At least, Tessa here will be a face she has seen before," David commented.

Gale and her mother said 'thank you,' and the David and his daughter returned home.

-------

When the new term started, Gale was glad to see Tessa and they soon became friends. Over the next year their mothers also became friends and Gale's mother got a job where David's wife worked.

The next Christmas Eve David worked the same shift, but the only thing out of the ordinary was a transit of a marker for X-ray, Mike, Alpha, Zero, Five across his screen heading west.