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The line for Santa is miles long and doesn’t seem to be moving. At the front, it appears there isn’t enough help to keep everything running smoothly. Suddenly you are tapped on the shoulder and turn around to find a woman dressed as an elf looking at you with panic in her eyes. “There you are! Where have you been? Why aren’t you dressed? Hurry up! We need more hands up there!” It appears she has mistaken you for one of the missing elves. Do you go along with it? Set her straight?
Christmas planning wasn't exactly a strong suit of the Yates family. It was right before Christmas Eve and there were, apparently, things that Toby's parents simply had to have prior to the actual holiday. And Toby went with them. Crowds never bothered him, he loved making them, sometimes, and did not mind a press of people. But still. The mall, right before Christmas? Might have been going a bit too far.
And he spent his evenings jumping through trees and running up walls. Go figure.
What ever the case, he'd almost immediately given them the slip--phones let people reconvene later quite easily, and Toby had just sent his mom a text that he'd met up with some friends and would be "taking the bus later" (in the form of green froggy boots) to get back home. With that explanation, his parents wouldn't wait up, which was good, give him another opportunity to run and jump like he was in a video game.
He stopped to watch the crowd swarming around the Mall Santa, smiling in amusement at how rabid some parents with small children get about things. Looked like things weren't very orderly, since it seemed like the crowd only got bigger.
His mind wandered into thinking about the weird trend of 'ugly sweaters' being cool...but was interrupted by a woman nearby saying, "There you are! Where have you been? Why aren’t you dressed? Hurry up! We need more hands up there!" He turned to see the unfortunate who was being spoken to, and jumped in surprise when he realized this woman was looking right at him.
"Uhm...what?" he asked in surprise. "You serious?"
"Of course I'm serious!" she replied testily. "Do you see this crowd? I can't have the elves feigning sickness and then sitting back and watching the show!" She gestured for Toby to follow and added, "Now, come on already!"
Now, Toby is not one to be at a loss for words at any point, but he made the decision to shrug and follow her. This might be interesting...although he had to wonder who it was she thought he was. Toby felt like he had a rather...distinctive look, on the whole. At the very least, not too many people had the very obvious green patch in their hair.
The harried woman--he figured she was the manager for the Mall Santa operation or something--snaked around through the crowd, and lead him to a cloth structure set up behind where Santa sat. The din of the crowd dropped off considerably once they were inside, which was nice. He looked around. There were elf costumes, and cameras, and backdrops, and a general mess besides.
"Okay, Dan, go put your costume on, and we'll put you back out there...maybe we'll get stuff moving again."
Toby blinked at her, giving her a blank stare just long enough to give her pause, then he said, "I'd love to help, lady, but my name's Toby. I don't know a Dan. So if you want me to do stuff, you'd better tell me what to do--and don't pay Dan for what I do."
She stared for a few moments, then laughed. "Oh, wow. I'm sorry...Toby, was it? You look a lot like him...though, I guess now that I think about it, you're obviously not. But you'll help? Great! Here, these are the costumes..." She led him over to the small selection of outfits. Very soon, he was dressed in an incredibly garish outfit of primarily red and green, with white here and there. Red & white stripes on his arms, a green left leg, a red right leg, jingle bells in random places to ensure he wasn't in the least bit stealthy, and a big pointy hat with a few more.
As silly as he looked, Toby wasn't bothered...it's actually rather fun to wear outfits like this, with the tights and the arm warmers and generally stuff that nobody really wears.
"Ah, good, it all fits!" said the manager, who had introduced herself as Rita. "Now then, I'm going to put you on crowd control near Santa. Try to get the parents to stay in the line, it's marked on the floor...and here, give the kids who are behaving some candy from this basket," a basket full of random candy canes was shoved into his arms...and with that, he was rather quickly led out into the pandemonium.
And pandemonium it truly was. Screechy parents, crying babies, naggy little children everywhere. No wonder that 'Dan' guy feigned sickness and ran off, Toby thought. This could drive anybody nuts.
But it was a challenge. And he would rise to it. Crowd control? Just a matter of putting on a show and getting people to pay attention to him instead of being catty to the other adults around. (And it was, he quickly realized, mostly the adults that needed controlling. The kids were there, of course, and keeping them happy mollified most of the parents...but some of those grown ups, well. Not very grown-up in behavior!)
He put on his brightest, happiest smile, and spoke in only cheery tones, especially when talking down to people probably twice his age. "Now, Ma'am," he said to one particularly obnoxious lady, "Santa would love to see little Becky, but I'm afraid he can only do that if you're cooperating. And shouting at his elves and other children is, unfortunately not cooperating, so, it may just not be possible."
That, of course, prompted even louder shouting, which he continued to grin at. After facing monsters and crazy soul-stealers, an angry soccer mom just didn't seem, you know, all that intimidating. Funny thing about that, is that when shouting doesn't work, the person has to either escalate or deflate. And most people end up deflating. That there was mall security nearby, and Toby's smile never once wavered probably helped with that.
It was still a horrific, chaotic mess, but at the end of it all, Toby did feel like he helped things, and he had fun with it. (Getting paid is also a plus, of course!)
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