This one is short and sweet, like a dwarf working in the mines of Candy Mountain. Enjoy!
Prof Twinings ignored the police line around his house. People crowded the pavement for a glimpse of his home. He hoped it hadn’t escaped. Again.
The twins were delighted, as usual, that he might be in trouble. “You’ve done it this time,” crowed DeborA. DeborB clapped her hands.
No one else could see or hear them. They were useful if was playing poker, but too exhausting otherwise. Twining edged his way out of the crowd to Collins Avenue, where there was another path home. Or rather, to the towering Inferno where he had until recently lived.
His suits were in there.
Twining was the world’s leading demonologist. It was thanks to his hard work that the world had improved so drastically over the past 40 years. Seeing as he had the Devil trapped in a special room in the basement, and everything.
But something had gone wrong.
He crept through the hedge near the rear of his property, slipped through the side door where there were no flames, and opened the basement with a key which mortal eyes could not see. The devil was surrounded by flames. A fork with a charred lump of something lay on the floor in front of him. He didn’t look triumphant. Awkward, rather. “I just wanted to toast the marshmallows for Christmas,” he said.
Happy Christmas!