The Christmas Commercial

Jim edged around the protest, hoping his thin mac would hide the uniform.

“There’s a scag!”

Jim scrambled for the main front door, dodging a placard aimed at his head, which condemned the support of The Best Toy Company for Arctic oil. Those protesters were in a mean mood. Usually these middle class, white protestors wouldn’t hit a black worker. Especially not with the news cameras all pointed at the scene. He had used that to his advantage before now. His chief opened the door to the black marble and glass building a crack to let him slide inside.

“Thanks, Mike.”

“Glad you could make it in, man; most folks ran the other way from the cranks. I need you to take over in the studio. Sam was guarding the making of the new Christmas Commercial – he chickened out, called in sick.”

“Sure, where do I go?”

Jim followed the directions. Thick carpet silenced the usual clumping of his security guard boots. This part of the building was usually off limits – more senior security guards got the choice roles. Mike must be way down on staff to send Jim to a prime job.

Jim knocked on the studio door and poked his head in. A man with a clipboard looked up.

“Yes?”

“Mr Boson sent me to guard the set?”

Clipboard man perked up. “Come right in. Good clean uniform, polished shoes – you’re perfect.” He checked his board. “Right – someone on the set is in league with the cranks outside but we’re not sure who, so you’re gonna have to keep an eye on the lot of us. Got that?”

“So that’s why the protestors took a swipe at me – the security uniform; they needed to keep us all out. I can do that Mr …” Jim peered at clipboard man’s security badge. “… Mr Drayman.”

Jim took in the set. It was a standard sitting room with the long leather settee and big flat-screen, home-cinema TV. The sort of family who could afford the toys The Best Toy Company made.

Paper garlands hung from the ceiling; all focused on the fireplace, carefully cleared of logs, and a tree tastefully decorated.

“Is there a script I can see,” Jim asked. “Maybe there’s a part that a protestor would take advantage of.”

Mr Drayman raised his eyebrows. “I see Mike has sent us his best man. Here’s the script. We start the main take in an hour.”

Jim searched the entire set – for what he hadn’t a clue – but he checked under the sofa cushions and ran a hand down the back of the seat. He examined every spine on the real spruce tree. There were no presents underneath.

Around him the technicians worked in pairs, and then their work was checked by another pair – no one wanted this Commercial to be sabotaged.

Except for the protestors outside.

Satisfied that nothing dangerous had been planted just yet, Jim settled into a corner and read the script.

A family had fallen on hard times and couldn’t buy the kids presents for Christmas. The father had lost his job and the house was to be repossessed the day after Christmas. Piling it on a bit thick, weren’t they? In the night, The Glitzie Pixie™ and The Teen Boy Racer™ dropped toys off. While the children are unwrapping the toys, the telephone rings and the father learns he has a new job – all because the kids behaved well and said they didn’t mind cancelling Christmas because at least they would have their family.

Jim snorted and looked at the set. If he’d owned half that stuff he could have sold it to get presents for his kids and the new winter coats they needed. That way they wouldn’t be teased at school, but the top toys this year were out of Jim’s pay grade. If only magic really happened, cos his kids behaved perfectly.

But he had got this job. If he kept the set disaster free, then he might get a pay rise and that would mean new school shoes for Sofia and Jackson.

The actors walked onto the set. Jim sprang to his feet and took a position where he could watch everything, but was out of the way of the camera.

They were a mixed bunch, but all of them brimmed over with enthusiasm for The Best Toy Company. Not that he’d expected the culprit to be clearly labelled, but maybe management was over-reacting to the threat. Anyway, who’d do something bad with a security guard looming over the set?

Jim bounced on his toes and scowled at them all. The director shifted in his seat at the grimace so Jim fixed him with a beady glare.

Mr Drayman hustled to the director’s side and got him calmed down. No one suggest that Jim cool it. Inside he was chortling – it was good not to be subservient for once.

They started to shoot the scene. The kids went off to bed; the parents praised their wonderful children. The father turned down the heating – an obviously impoverished thing to do with the snow falling outside the window.

Jim turned off his heating as soon as the kids had gone to bed. Both he and his wife went to bed early to keep warm – but this was a fantasy of being poor not the reality.

Light flickered outside the window and the front door opened – which everyone had seen the father lock. The Glitzie Pixie™ and The Teen Boy Racer™ entered the room.

“Oh we can’t have this – good children without any toys!” The Glitzie Pixie™ said. She waved her wand. “I think the girl will enjoy The Glitzie Pixie™ coach drawn by zebras for her Glitzie Pixie™ doll.”

Everyone froze and a stagehand dressed in black snuck in and placed the toy under the tree. Jim assumed that the CGI department would add Glitz and Pizzazz later.

Jim’s daughter would love to receive that toy.

“Now what should I give the boy?” The Glitzie Pixie™ said. “Perhaps a Jolly Jape Joke Set or the new Talking Tablet for video games?”

“You’re just soppy,” The Teen Boy Racer™ said. “The boy will want a Teen Boy Racer™ road bike not your fairy stuff.”

The Glitzie Pixie™ pouted but waved her wand. Again everyone froze as the figure in black brought in the second toy.

When the stagehand left, The Teen Boy Racer™ unfroze and trotted over to the toys. He added a few more parcels and some sweets. Then he ran a hand over the bike.

Thumps off-set suggested the children waking up. The Glitzie Pixie™ and The Teen Boy Racer™ skipped and trotted their way to the door.

Jim raced onto the set and grabbed The Teen Boy Racer™. To his surprise it was a woman in the costume.

“What’s this?” The director jumped to his feet and slammed the script on the floor.

“This person tampered with the toys,” Jim said.

He was sure of what he had seen. A technician ran onto the scene and ripped off the wrapping paper. He examined the bike as the children tumbled onto the set with the parents.

“Security is right,” the technician said. “This would have collapsed the minute the boy sat on it.”

“It would have proved your toys are no good. We’ve got to drive the corporations out of Christmas.” The woman in his arms struggled.

The mother examined the coach. “There’s something coating the zebras on the Glitzie Pixie™ Coach.”

The technician took a swab. “I’ll bet this is designed to make the Girl very ill.”

“Oh no!” The boy wailed. “Christmas has been ruined!”

The girl burst into tears.

The Glitzie Pixie ™ waved her wand and more toys were brought in. “No! Because this man spotted the problems caused by the false Teen Boy Racer™, he has saved Christmas before you were hurt.”

The father patted Jim on the back. “You Saved Christmas.”

Almost as if it was all in the script – but not the one that Jim had seen.

“You’ve destroyed the true meaning of Christmas, making a sham out of the spirit of giving,” the Glitzie Pixie™ said.

The woman playing the Teen Boy Racer™ sagged in his arms. Jim saw her blinking back angry tears.

“This is better than we even planned. Is it all in the can?” Mr Drayman posed dramatically. “Security – there’s a police van at the front door. Take her away.”

Jim was glad she walked out, but boy did she walk slow.

“You could stop the commercial,” the woman said. “I’m sure it’s not in your contract to act in commercials.”

He didn’t bother to answer; if he complained he’d lose his job.

“What are you doing selling your soul working for The Best Toy Company™? You seem like a decent man,” the woman said.

“Look Lady,” Jim said. “The pay here means my kids get turkey not budgerigar for Christmas dinner.”

He had the woman at the studio door when a technician ran onto the set. “We found a bug that is broadcasting this recording session live over the entire country. Just taking it out now.”

Jim opened the studio door one-handed and frog-marched the woman down the carpeted corridors to the front door.

“Well done,” Mike said as they entered the lobby. “Thank you, miss. You can go back to dressing room now.”

“What?” Jim’s hand clenched on the woman’s arm.

“They caught the real saboteur earlier and this actress stood in their place for the commercial,” Mike said.

“It really was a set-up, with me as the stooge?”

“You wouldn’t want the child actors to really be hurt would you?”

“Uh … No, of course not.” Jim released the woman and brushed her arm. “Sorry, I wouldn’t have gripped so hard if I’d known. Why didn’t you say something outside the film studio?”

“I was told that they want some clips from the interior security cameras for the press,” the actress said.

Jim gritted his teeth. Even his chief was in the set-up. He opened his mouth to resign.

“And,” Mike said. “Upstairs told me they want to give the two unbroken presents – that coach and the bike – to your kids.”

Jim slammed his mouth shut. Maybe there was magic.

The stagehand brought the toys down; they’d even added a Glitzie Pixie™ doll to the package. It was more than he could have dreamed of for his good kids. He stammered out his thanks to Mike.

“No worries,” Mike said. “You did good. Now take the rest of the day off. Get those hidden before the little ones get home.”

Jim tied the toys into an easy-to-carry bundle and cautiously opened the door. Police had arrived and the protesters slunk away, except for one die hard on the other side of the road.

“Boo!” she shouted as the police closed in on her. “It’s worth it, is it? Can’t you get a job with a decent company, one that doesn’t destroy the Arctic to make their toys? What will your children think of you helping to destroy their world?”

Jim clenched his hands around the bundle. Maybe she was right, maybe the Best Toy Company was bad folks to work for, but he was just one man. And right now, his kids were going to think he was a hero. Anyway, these toys didn’t feel like they were destroying the world; they just felt like the toys his kids would love.