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"They're not even cars!" Tanner said, in a quite reasonable, mature and grown up tone of voice, if he did say so himself. "Come on, guys. This is a joke, right?"
"I think we should tell him it's a joke now, and then laugh as he finds out it wasn't," Rutledge told Adam, because underneath all that teddy bear cuddliness, Rutledge had a bit of a mean streak.
Adam scowled. "Screw that. And miss out on getting to watch him walk around with that miserable expression for three whole days? It's no joke, my friend. It's no joke."
"But," Tanner said. "Reindeer? I'm just saying."
"It'll be fun," Adam said. For me, his expression added. Watching your suffering.
It would not be fun. Tanner knew that much.
On the other hand, if there was going to be a race, obviously, he was going to have to win it, reindeer or not. Racing a sled with reindeer probably wasn't exactly going to be like racing a car, but, well, horsepower, reindeerpower - it all boiled down to the same two basic elements.
Speed versus control.
And anyway, it wasn't as if any of them had ever done this before, was it?
"A couple of times, actually," Rutledge said. "That's where we got the idea."
"You ... regularly drive reindeer powered sleds?" The mind boggled. Of course, he was talking to the guy who proudly owned a hybrid here.
If you discounted the whole debate about how 'green' it was to actively use animals by way of propulsion, you probably couldn't get much more environmental friendly than a Santa sled.
"For the kids, you know," Rutledge said. "I put on a costume and go 'Yo-ho-ho!' a lot. It's fun."
The mental images summoned by that last sentence were ... deceptive, Tanner decided. Rutledge, the friendly neighborhood Santa. Right.
"So you've never actually raced one of these things." How were you supposed to make reindeer go faster, anyway? It wasn't as if a sled would have any sort of transmission.
"Absolutely not," Rutledge said, looking shocked. "I mean, what kind of example would that set for the kids? Santa does not race. Santa drives responsibly and animal friendly, and he stops for a yellow traffic light."
"That's not responsible driving," Tanner said. "That's irresponsible driving."
To say nothing of probably bending the truth a whole helluva lot, if his guts weren't mistaken.
"Of course, we went and practised first," Adam said. "I mean, hel-lo. We want to win this."
"You could have invited me," Tanner didn't say, because yeah. Hel-lo. "So how'd it go?" he asked instead. If Adam possessed any kind of weakness (which, to be fair, he did, and more than one, too) it was that he liked to tell a good story. Or at least a story he thought was good.
"Great," Adam said. Translation: Rutledge had been better at it than him.
Unfortunately, Rutledge beating Adam did not equal Adam wanting to see Tanner beat Rutledge. It did equal Adam wanting to see Adam beat Rutledge, though, so Tanner figured he might have something to work with here. Not a lot, but something.
"Yeah?" he said.
"Absolutely."
"Top speed at - what? Ten, twenty miles an hour?" Zero suspension, of course. Bumpy.
"Thereabouts."
By all means, let's not get hung up on a ten mph difference. "You want Rutledge to win this?"
"[beep] no," Adam said.
It seemed to Tanner that a sled was pretty much a sled. It wasn't as if the rich and famous would go shopping for a supersled to impress the neighbors with, and if there were any sledding competitions anywhere (and there probably were), its participants did not seem to spend more than a couple of hundred on their equipment. (And that was a couple of hundred bucks, yes, not grands.)
Clearly, the key to winning this would be the reindeer.
Clearly, it was time to turn to his secret weapon, the one thing that enabled him to out-trivia Rutledge and out-talk Adam, even when drunk.
Wikipedia.
Five minutes and one tempting link to something called 'Reindeer games' later, Tanner was acquainted with, among other facts, the reindeer's Latin name, the way to spot female reindeer by the size of their antlers (there wasn't one) and the general areas where they might be found in the wild.
He'd also decided that if he ever found himself in Finland, he might acquire a can of reindeer meatballs in a local supermarket, and that if he found himself in Japan, he would have absolutely no reason to buy powder made out of reindeer's antlers, given that he was doing just fine in that area.
A picture of some actual, living and breathing reindeer wearing a harness had looked promising, but in the end, the entry was woefully, pitifully void of such information as: 'how do I control a four reindeer power engine?' or even: 'how can I make a reindeer go faster?'.
"The shattering sound you're hearing is the sound of one of my most treasured illusions hitting the floor and bursting into a thousand pieces," Tanner told Adam, who had conveniently appeared out of thin air with some flimsy excuse about wanting to discuss something or another to do with the show.
"Yeah," Adam said. "I thought it sounded familiar. Are you drunk? No, wait, let me refrain that: how drunk are you?"
"It's called caribou," Tanner said. "They used to put actual reindeer blood in it, but they don't anymore." Actually, it was just ... some thing or another (vagueness: so maybe he was a little bit drunk?) only since Tanner wasn't intending to share anything except his pain, he didn't see how Adam'd ever be able to call him on it.
"Sounds gross. Better than grain alcohol?"
"Everything is better than grain alcohol," Tanner said.
"This is true."
So.
With Wikipedia being a total loss, things were looking grim.
"Good morning, guys."
On the other hand, when all else failed, there was always plan B. Or rather: plan T, with T standing, obviously, for Tanner. And possibly Tenacity.
"What's with the happy look?" Adam asked.
"I figured out how I'm going to win this ridiculous race you guys came up with for Chrismas," Tanner said. He could have tried not to look smug, but really, it would have been a wasted effort.
"No, you didn't," Rutledge said, but he sounded rather too sure of himself, so clearly, that wasn't what he was feeling.
"I'll bite," Adam said. "How?"
"You'll see," Tanner said. By which he basically meant: 'you'll see me fail miserably if this is going to be as bad as I think it is, but in the unlikely case I manage to pull this off - and let's face it, I'm actually rather good at doing that, I am now entitled to act extra smug after my undeserved and completely coincidental victory'.
"I don't think he's got anything," Rutledge said. "Just look at his face."
"Nice try, though," Adam said.
"It's a double bluff to give you a false sense of security," Tanner tried.
Christmas morning arrived cold, white and grey - which was to say the sky looked grey, but the ground looked white. As in: snow-covered. As in: good terrain for sledding, possibly.
Christmas morning also arrived several days early, since Rutledge was going to celebrate the holidays with his family, and since the History Channel was still waffling about whether or not Top Gear's Christmas Special should be broadcast on the only appropriate date for a Christmas Special (hint: it wasn't the first Thursday after Christmas).
"Okay," Tanner said. He wondered if he should worry about getting carsick in a sled. Another one of those little things they didn't tell you on Wikipedia.
"A'ight," Adam said. For a man about to be defeated by a cuddly Santa, he looked rather relaxed.
"It was a joke," Rutledge said.
... Well, that made sense. More sense than anything Tanner'd heard and read so far this week.
"Obviously," Adam said. "And you fell for it pretty hard."
"Just playing along."
Rutledge snorted. Adam grinned. They both looked entirely too smug, as if there had actually been a sledding race, and they'd won it both, by crossing the finish line simultaneously a good five seconds before he did.
"You didn't 'just play along', Tanner. You were seriously researching reindeer. On Wikipedia!" Adam said, being a heartless traitor who didn't respect the confidences of close friends under the influence of just a tiny bit too much alcohol mixed with disillusionment.
"Wikipedia's a fun site," Rutledge said. "Lots of useful information for school projects."
"There's three sleds with our names on them standing outside," Tanner said.
"No, there aren't." Adam sounded only half-convinced. "There aren't, are there?"
"The reindeer were a bit tricky to find, I admit."
"No. No, no, no. I don't believe it."
Victory, Tanner thought, was going to taste very sweet, indeed.
(And it probably did. For someone who managed not to flip over their sled.)
(The snow was very cold. Really, very cold. It would feel awful, having that snow slide down your back because a vengeful friend shoved it down your jacket after you bragged about your affinity with reindeer and Santa costumes too much.)