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“Until next year.”
That’s what the old fat man had said with his left hand raised in goodbye, as his large back grew smaller and smaller in the distance until all Brie could see was a tiny spot of red between the tall white houses.
She remembered it well and she had waited a whole year for his return.
She remembered her knees shaking, as she hid behind Fé's legs and the loud, ominous Ho-Ho-Ho that made the hair on the back of her neck rise.
She remembered her sister smiling at the rat-faced man, inviting him in, and even ratting Brie out when he asked if there were any good children in the household.
She remembered her friends teasing her about being afraid of Santa Claus who had visited them all. Bratty Bri had even sat on his lap and recited a naughty poem much to her parents' horror and everyone else's amusement.
Brie hated when Bratty Bri did something more awesome than her. So this year, she was determined to be courageous and do something no one had done before.
She was going to reveal Santa Claus's civilian identity.
It was going to be easy because she had spent all her free time coming up with a plan on how to do that, starting with being an Exceptionally Good Girl to ensure he would show up.
From what Brie had learned from the other preschoolers, Mr. Santa Claws paid yearly visits to all good children. He hadn’t visited Brie until she was five, therefore her first and primary course of action was to be better. For that, she helped Marinette with her designs by picking out pretty colors (strawberry pink and sunset orange) and Félix with cooking by washing the rice and peeling some vegetables (mainly carrots). She listened to her teacher, though not always—if Bratty Bri was allowed some misdemeanors, then so was she.
She did her research at the library, too, when Félix took her along. She read every book she could find about the strange hero who dressed mostly in red and white and who worked only one night a year. In Brie’s opinion, it was terribly unfair, because Ladybug and Chat Noir got a day off only once in a blue moon and seldom at Christmas.
Once December rolled around and her friends started talking about the letters they’d send Santa, Brie decided to write one, too. She sneaked a piece of paper from the stack on Félix’s writing desk and stole a pencil from Marinette’s box of art supplies, then sat down at the kitchen table with her favorite squishy toy as her reliable partner-in-crime.
“Whatcha doing?” Marinette asked as she passed by on her way to raid the fridge before dinner.
“Writing.”
“Whatcha writing?” Marinette popped a cherry tomato in her mouth and offered one to Brie. The little girl wrinkled her nose.
“A letter.”
“Who are you writing a letter to?” Félix joined them.
“Santa Claws.” Brie’s hand moved from the squiggly letters to the corner of the page where she drew a snowflake. “This way, he will not forget to visit me this year.”
Marinette and Félix exchanged a worried look. Christmas was a holiday they normally didn’t partake in. With both their families fallen apart and with their hero duties more needed than ever, Christmas had become a seasonal background to their otherwise busy life.
It had not seemed so important when Brie was younger. When it was unlikely she would remember the fuss anyway.
Marinette slipped into her superhero mode.
“Santa Claus? Are you sending him your wishlist?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Oooohh, what are you writing to Santa? A wishlist?” She circled the table until she stood right behind Brie who covered her letter, feeling oddly embarrassed. “Don’t worry. I won’t look if you don’t want me to.”
“I’m telling him we have the bestest cookies and that I’ve been a good girl so he should come and visit me soon.”
“You want Santa Claus to pay you a visit?” Félix hummed. “You know, he’s a very busy man this time of the year…”
“And I’ve been a very good girl!” Brie’s voice rose. She turned to her sister for support. “Haven’t I?”
“Yes, you have,” agreed Marinette, ruffling her hair gently. There was a note of soft resignation in her voice. “If you ask him nicely, I'm sure he'll come.”
~°~
Mullo didn't usually mind being Brie's accidentally appointed guardian, since it came with the perk of being outside the Box. The only times when she questioned her poor luck was late at night when the little girl's tiny fingers curled around her neck and gripped her so tightly any ordinary mouse would have suffocated.
What her tiny holder didn't know was that Mullo was not an ordinary mouse. Mullo was not a mouse at all. She was a kwami who could give her holders superpowers as long as they were wearing her miraculous, which was around Brie's neck at all times, and they said the magic words, which Brie didn't know.
Staying put was torture for Mullo, so as soon as Brie turned her back—or in this case, fell asleep so deeply she was oblivious to Mullo's wiggling—she escaped to nibble on cheese Ladybug left out for her and to relax after a long day of hard work and hard play.
Mullo knew better than anyone how much of a good girl Brie really was. Her love for Mullo was evidence enough—she never left her beloved mouse behind.
Mullo loved the kitten and their game of cat and mouse so much that every morning, she returned to her place beside Brie without a complaint even on "laundry days" when Ladybug offered to switch her out for another kwami.
Brie and Mullo were a package deal. So when the mouse heard voices rising in the other room, she listened in intending to help the little girl to the best of her abilities—after all, if she had learned anything in the dusty library, it was that at Christmas, miracles could happen and that Brie would probably not bat an eye if Mullo just happened to talk back one day.
“What are we going to do?” Ladybug paced around the kitchen, stopping after seven steps. “Brie wants a Santa. Where are we going to get one?”
“What about the guy who dropped by last year?” Félix sounded calm, but in the same way that stillness precedes storms. “The akuma victim?”
“The one who felt so bad about being unable to visit his grandchildren?”
“Yeah. That. Him.”
“He died in August.”
“Oh.” Félix sighed. “Don't the Fishers hire an actor for the occasion? Maybe the guy wouldn't mind spending two minutes with our little lady?”
“Not this year.” A chair creaked, as it was dragged across the floor. “He's making a name for himself as Stoneheart's leading lady in London.”
“Huh.”
“And Sarcelles are going out of town, so I need to find someone else to watch Brie while we wrap things up at the bakery.”
“Maybe we should just tell her.” There was the distinct sound of a heavy lowball glass clunking against the wood. “She’s old enough and she’s got Mullo.”
“Would you like to explain to her why Santa won't come for a visit?”
“Fair point.”
“Let's ask around. Maybe we can make it work.”
“Why does she even care about that?”
“Who knows?” She smooched him. “But she cares and that's what matters.”
~°~
On the morning of the 24th, Brie was ready for anything, but not for her squeaky toy to roll from her pillow and float in the air, not obeying the rules of gravity Félix had explained to her on a boring summer day.
Brie screamed her lungs out, hands reached out to capture Mullo. Her cupped palms created a cage with poorly spaced bars through which the mouse's head popped out like a mole in desperate need of whacking.
“You're not supposed to move!” Brie whispered loudly, staring into the big eyes that blinked back at her. “Not before Fé and Nette are gone!”
She forced Mullo's head down with her thumbs, then spun around, hiding the mouse just as her bedroom door opened a crack. Félix's sleepy head appeared to check on the ruckus. Seeing the girl was alright, his shoulders sagged with relief. He yawned.
“What's going on, Brie?”
“Nothing!”
“Then why are you screaming?”
“Because today! I'm going to defeat Santa Claws!”
Félix nodded, as though it explained everything.
“We'd appreciate it if you did it a little more quietly.”
“Okay!”
Brie waited for Félix to leave before releasing Mullo from her prison. The mouse floated, eyes sparkling and teeth bared, waiting for the little girl to say something.
“You really can talk!” She breathed in awe.
“ And I know all about your plan,” Mullo puffed herself up, “to find out who Santa Claus really is!”
“Are you here to stop me?”
Mullo shook her head. “No! I'm here to help you!”
Brie was pleased with that.
~°~
Mullo taught Brie all the tricks she knew, including how not to get one’s tail twisted. She used one of her hair ties to demonstrate how to skip and reminded Brie about the pink jumping rope she’d gotten for her birthday and used only on a couple of cool summer days before discarding it with a broken recorder and a pair of yellow heart-shaped sunglasses.
Mullo showed her everything from the basic jump to triple under which tripped Brie upon trying. Falling hurt but the girl got up again, ready to try again. Mullo stopped her when she failed for the ninth time and grew sad that maybe she would never be the Christmas hero to Ladybug and Chat Noir.
“You don’t actually need to know all those jumps,” Mullo revealed, doing a Wonky Elephant by crisscrossing the rope under her left leg.
“Then why are we doing this?” Brie gasped, out of breath. As much as she loved running around, jumping rope for three hours was exhausting .
“Because it’s more fun if you do!”
Brie groaned. “I hate you.”
Mullo kissed her forehead just like Félix and Marinette did when tucking her in. It softened Brie’s heart into a buttery goo. She hated it. But Mullo’s next words perked her right up.
“I can give you magic powers. But you have to be physically strong for that! Right now, I think you can hold form for about… thirty seconds!”
Brie tilted her head so cutely that Félix would have wanted to snap a photo of it, were he there.
“Is that a long time?”
Mullo shook her head. “Nope!”
“Then what's the point?”
Mullo shrugged. As old as she was, she'd concluded long ago that if there was a point, she had missed it. But Brie was small and thus needed an answer.
“To have fun!”
“High effort, small reward,” Brie quoted something she had overheard Marinette say before. She didn't really understand it but it felt fitting.
“Come on! Let's keep practicing!”
Begrudgingly, Brie obliged.
~°~
Santa Claus made its visit in the middle of the night. No one minded because everyone was already awake, woken by snowy explosions that required the immediate attention of the city’s resident superheroes. Only one of them showed: the other remained behind to watch after a frightened little girl whose first instinct was to arm herself with a fire iron.
It had belonged in the kitchen, but when the adults had made the decision to replace their wood-burning stove with a more energy-efficient one, it had moved with utmost secrecy to Brie’s bedroom in case she ever had to fight off the possible monsters under her bed. (To her big disappointment, she discovered that only dust bunnies lived there.)
“What are you going to do with it?” Marinette teased lightheartedly, wrapping a patchwork quilt around her shoulders to ward off the anxiety that came with not knowing the fate of her companion in life. She trusted him to come back alive but she still worried when he had to go alone.
“I don’t know,” Brie announced confidently. Marinette tore her eyes away from the window to look at her. “But I’ll figure it out!”
“Want me to show you how to wield it?” The older girl offered. “Fé and I once fought with a famous pirate!”
“Really?”
“Uhuh,” Marinette sat down in front of Brie. “I accidentally cut Fé with my sword because it was my first time using it.”
“Was he mad?”
“Not at all. He did try to tell me how to bandage him while I was already doing it.”
Brie giggled.
“But only because he likes things done his way.” Marinette smiled fondly, then, as she roused from the memory, booped Brie on the nose. “Like you.”
The little girl grimaced. “What happened then? Did you win the fight?”
“Chat Noir came to our rescue!”
“Was Ladybug there, too?”
“No, she wasn’t. Though there was another hero helping him. I can’t remember her name though.”
That seemed to satisfy Brie who relinquished her fire iron to Marinette with a tired yawn. She was exhausted from training earlier but she was not going to miss an opportunity to learn Important Skills from her sister.
Marinette stood up, too.
“Are you sure you want to do this? You’re looking wobbly.”
“Teach me!”
“Alright-alright.” Marinette flicked her wrist a couple of times before picking up the poker and positioning herself. “So you want to be relaxed, easy on your feet, bounce a little…”
Brie copied her sister without a fire iron.
“Great! Now, you want to hold your sword confidently,” She tightened her grip on the handle, “like this.”
She lowered the poker and relaxed, then offered the makeshift sword to Brie who took it gingerly. She heaved it up, hand shaking as the poker proved to be too heavy for her.
At that moment, the girls heard the door unlocking and feet dragging across the floor. Brie froze in fear, relaxing only when Marinette placed a hand on her shoulder, alert in a calm, ready to protect her sister at any cost sort of way.
She was about to push Brie back when the man appeared in the doorway. He was lanky, though he had a belly under his red and white coat. It didn’t fit him very well. A white beard hid his face, which Marinette recognized instantly, and if she hadn’t, the awkwardly mechanical HO-HO-HO? that followed was a sure giveaway.
“Hello, Santa Claws ,” Marinette teased, noticing Félix had forgotten to detransform before dressing up for their entertainment.
Brie straightened herself and pointed the fire iron at Santa Claus.
“YOU!”
“Me?” Santa pointed at himself.
“Yes, you!” Brie’s hand shook. “You have been very naughty!!”
“I—wha?”
“Mullo, let’s GET SQUEAKY!”
The magic worked its way through Brie like a summer breeze running through her hair and clothes first, gaining strength like a tropical storm until she was completely enveloped in it. It was as warm as her bed and equally cozy, taking her thoughts momentarily to mornings they all could sleep in.
Then the light disappeared and left her behind. A little dazed, it took Brie a moment to regain her senses and realize the super cute hero costume Mullo had promised her was strangely reminiscent of her favorite pair of pajamas.
Santa Claws backed away, begging Marinette with his eyes to help him out. He bumped into their old sofa and jumped on it, grabbing a wooden cane from behind it to parry Brie’s attack.
“Oh, so we’re playing pirates?” He asked playfully, remaining on the defensive, as the little girl used her super bounciness to get on the sofa, too. She wobbled on the cushions a little.
“I guess?” she shrugged, her original motive forgotten as soon as he blocked another incoming hit. Santa Claws laughed.
Marinette stepped aside and got out her phone to snap a couple of photos to keep as souvenirs of the two having the time of their life, the only witness to a moment meant to be kept secret. But it could exist for a little while longer.
Marinette looked at Brie and Félix fondly.
There they stood, swords crossed, on an old boat that was actually a worn-out sofa, out of breath and smiling, as though tomorrow would never come.