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In eleven days, FANS robbed near a dozen more houses
Leaving crumbs much too small for a dozen more mouses
And on the twelfth day, the twenty-fourth of December,
Passing skaters in the Plaza, enjoying the weather,
Dr. Rough sent his minions on the ultimate scheme:
Rob FAO Schwarz and blow up the big tree!



Even Dr. Rough was in a festive mood on Christmas Eve. He sang under his breath as he and his merry minions marched up 49th Street. “On the twelfth day of Christmas, my minions stole for me…”

“Twelve cookies waiting,”
sang Joey, patting his belly appreciatively through the green tunic that was stretched so taut across its girth, the seams threatened to split.

“Eleven carols playing,” chimed in Abs, whose eyebrows had been scorched clear off (though, to his relief, the death ray spectacles were not yet fully operational).

“Ten pies-a-baking,” added Justin Jeffre, just happy to have a part at last – and pie, of course.

“Nine gifts-a-stacking,” crooned his buddy Jeff, carrying a bulging package in his hands.

“Eight light-up reindeer,” followed Jacob, his dreadlocks dancing on his shoulders beneath the elf hat perched jauntily on his head.

“Seven blow-up snow globes,” articulated Erik, adjusting the crotch of his flaming red tights.

“Six plastic Santas,” belted Dan, too boring to warrant further description.

“Five holly wreaths,” trilled Trevor, tripping over the curly toe of his shoes.

“Four j-jingle bells,” squeaked Donnie, shaking in his own elf boots.

“Three stockings,” intoned Brad, satisfied with his three notes.

“Two mistletoe,” descended Devin, bowing towards his master.

“And a trimmed family Christmas tree!” finished Dr. Rough grandly, outstretching his arms toward the colossal Rockefeller Christmas tree that towered before them. “Isn’t it exquisite?” he asked his minions. “It will be even more beautiful when it’s burning. In a few hours, all this will be nothing but a smoldering pile of ashes. While the world weeps, we’ll be roasting red and green marshmallows over its charred remains.”

“Ooh, can we make Christmas s’mores?!” asked Joey eagerly, the bells on his shoes jingling as he jumped up and down. His eyes were round, and so was his belly, which shook as he bounced like a bowl full of jelly.

“Silence!” snapped Dr. Rough. “Let us not get ahead of ourselves. First, we must plant the bomb.”

“How are we going to do that with all these people around?” asked Jeff, looking around. Rockefeller Plaza was packed with tourists, posing for pictures in front of the tree. Below, even more people skated in circles around the ice rink. And the city sidewalks, busy sidewalks, were packed with last-minute shoppers, dressed in holiday style.

Much as it irked him to do so, Dr. Rough had to admit, the minion had a point. “We’ll have to create a diversion,” he decided. “Then Donnie will be free to sneak under the tree undetected.”

“M-m-me?!” squeaked Donnie. “But Master, why does it always have to be me?”

“Trust me, I would much rather Drums do it. But as he is overseeing the other half of our mission, I’ve decided to give you the honor. I know you won’t let Dr. Rough down, now, will you?”

Donnie quivered. “N-no, Dr. Rough, of course not. But, if I m-might make a s-suggestion, maybe you yourself should do it, Master. You’d have an easier time getting under the tree because you’re sh-”

“Shh!” hissed Abs, who had seen what happened to minions who insinuated that their master or the world he sought to dominate was small in any way.

Donnie seemed to realize his mistake and quickly tried to cover it up. “Shape!” he blurted. “In shape! ‘Because you’re in shape’ is what I meant to say – s-sorry, Master.”

Dr. Rough puffed out his chest. “Yes, it’s true that my body is a wonderland. But my brain is even more wondrous. I shall oversee the diversion, while you climb into that tree.”

Donnie sighed miserably and nodded. “Yes, Master.”

“Timmons!” Dr. Rough barked. “The package!”

Jeff handed Donnie a large box, wrapped up like a Christmas present. Beneath the big red bow, the bomb was ticking away. As Donnie reached out to take hold of his throbbing package, Jeff asked, “How will we create a diversion?”

“Leave that to me and MJ.” Dr. Rough reached inside his fur-lined Santa suit and pulled out his minion penguin, who was wearing a striped scarf. He scouted out the plaza, then pointed in the direction of a Salvation Army bell-ringer on a nearby street corner. He whispered something in MJ’s ear and set the penguin down on the ground.

The minions all watched the penguin waddle off across the street. “What is he going to do, Dr. Rough?” they wanted to know. “Steal the donation kettle?”

“You’ll see. Come – to the ice rink!” commanded Dr. Rough, leading the way. “While MJ distracts that wretched volunteer, we shall attract the attention of everyone else in the plaza by starting the world’s longest ice skating chain.”

“But Dr. Rough-” Always the voice of dissention, Abs couldn’t help but frown. “-beg pardon, sir, but do you even know how to ice skate?”

His minion’s assumption made Dr. Rough’s blood boil, but he knew he couldn’t gun Abs down in the middle of Rockefeller Plaza. A pubic execution would only attract the wrong sort of attention. No, he had to play it cool, so he simply scoffed, ignoring the heat creeping up his neck. “Of course,” he said, waving the minion’s concern away as if he hadn’t a care. “How difficult can it be?”

Meanwhile, MJ was moonwalking his way towards the man in the Santa hat who stood on the sidewalk, resolutely ringing his red bell. “Hey!” the man shouted, as something small skidded straight into the stand that held his donation kettle, knocking it over. As the red kettle crashed to the ground, its top came off, and coins rolled every which way down the sidewalk and into the street. The bell-ringer looked down in dismay and blinked in bewilderment at the strange sight that awaited him: a red-eyed penguin in a striped scarf. “Why, you’re a penguin!” he cried.

MJ honked in reply.

“Well, what is a penguin doin’ here?” the man wondered aloud.

MJ brought one of his flippers up to his brow, pantomiming searching for something.

“You’re lookin’ for a stick?”

MJ shook his head.

“A branch?” the man guessed. “A log? A pole?”

The penguin honked, nodding.

“The North Pole? No… the South Pole!”

MJ honked and nodded again.

“Well, little fella… that’s on the other end of the Earth. You’re just about as lost as you can get,” the bell-ringer said. “You better come with me. You need someone to take care of you.”

MJ leapt into the man’s arms and used his beak to plant a penguin kiss upon his cheek.

“Now, now, cut that out!” laughed the bell-ringer. “Come on, eh… Topper! I’ll call you Topper! Okay?”

MJ honked twice, which meant, “Fuck you,” though the man took it to mean “Okay.”

He laughed. “Come on,” he said, scooping the coins back into his kettle. “This way, little fella.”

The man started to lead MJ down the street, but they both stopped in their tracks when they heard voice boom, “WHO NEARS MY MOUNTAIN?!” They turned in terror toward the alley they had just passed, where a bum wearing a Burger King crown over his long, stringy hair was perched atop a heap of trash. “Go back!” he bellowed, his long beard quivering, “or you are… DOOOOOOOOMED!”

The bell-ringer smiled. “Merry Christmas to you, too, sir. Here-” He bent down and picked up a stray dollar bill that had blown away from the spilled contents of his kettle. “God bless you,” he said, handing it to the homeless man. “Come on, Topper.”

But MJ squawked and waddled off in the opposite direction.

“Topper, come back!” called the bell-ringer, the coins clinking in his kettle as he chased after the penguin. The chase led him all the way back to the ice rink in the center of Rockefeller Plaza, where a small man in a Santa suit stood shakily upon a pair of skates. MJ moonwalked circles around him, at home on the ice. “Oh,” said the bell-ringer sadly, as he started to make sense of the scene in front of him. “I see… this is your real owner, huh, Topper?”

MJ honked.

“Many thanks for bringing back my beloved minion – er, I mean, penguin,” said Dr. Rough, his weak ankles wobbling as he struggled to stay standing on the rented skates. He found that he had grossly overestimated his ability to ice skate, though he wasn’t yet ready to admit it. Dr. Rough, admit defeat? Never! “Come, MJ,” he called, and the penguin glided smoothly to a stop at his feet. He reached down and took hold of one end of the scarf he had knitted for his flightless friend last Christmas, when his ice lair was still intact. “You shall lead the world’s longest skating chain.”

MJ obediently moonwalked across the ice, pulling his master along with him, but Dr. Rough promptly lost his balance and face-planted flat upon the ice. “WHY DID NO ONE BREAK MY FALL?!” he ranted, glaring up at his human minions, who were exchanging guilty glances.

“You’ve never skated before, have you?” the bell-ringer observed, as “Santa Rough” struggled to his feet.

The FANS leader felt his face redden. “I’m from Florida!” he snapped. “I’ve never had a reason to! Who knew it would be so difficult to learn to skate?!”

“Difficult?” The bell-ringer chuckled. “Why, look here. Learning to ice skate is as easy as… taking your first step!”

Out of nowhere, a band of street musicians struck up a snazzy tune, and the bell-ringer began to sing. “Put one foot in front of the other… and soon, you’ll be skating ‘round the ri-i-ink! Put one foot in front of the other… and soon, you’ll be skating all in sync!”

“Hell yeah!” said Joey, taking Dr. Rough’s free hand. “C’mon, guys!”

The other minions joined hands, forming a chain, as Dr. Rough took one tentative step and then another across the ice.

“You never will get where you’re goin’… if you never get up on your feet,” sang the Salvation Army volunteer. “Come on, there’s a good tail wind blowin’! A fast-skating man is hard to beat!”

“Just ask Apollo Ono!” added a man in a pink, sequined elf costume as he sashayed by, his frosted hair blowing in the breeze.

Dr. Rough knew he hadn’t dressed any of his minions in pink, but he was concentrating too hard on keeping his balance to give the man a second thought. Encouraged, he let his skates slide a little more smoothly across the ice, as all around him, skaters scurried to join the growing chain, singing along to the words of a song they somehow all seemed to know. “Put one foot in front of the other,” they chorused, cheering him on, “and soon, you’ll be skating ‘round the ri-i-ink! Put one foot in front of the other… and soon, we’ll be skating all in sync!”

“Yes we will!” sang the flamboyant elf, slipping one of his pink angora mittens into the hand of the last link in what was quickly becoming a long chain of skaters. MJ towed them around and around the rink. Snakelike, they zigzagged across the ice, forming figure eights and singing all the while. In the midst of such a festive scene, surely no one would notice the lone elf creeping under the Christmas tree to leave a present the city wouldn’t soon forget. Dr. Rough smirked to himself, feeling sure his plan had succeeded.


Ninety feet tall, in the center of Rockefeller,
Rigged to explode in a blast quite stellar!
"Despair to the world!" he was wickedly humming.
"This catastrophe should keep Christmas from coming!”



“That was some diversion, Dr. Rough!” Jeff commended him, once the minions had broken the chain. “Did you know that was going to happen when you sent MJ over to that Salvation Army guy?”

“Never underestimate Dr. Rough’s foresight, Timmons,” said Dr. Rough ambiguously, secretly delighting in his stroke of luck. Donnie was back, the deed was done, and soon, very soon, the city’s Christmas spirit would by incinerated right along with their tree.


“When the tree goes up in flames, I know just what they'll do!
Their mouths will hang open for a minute or two,
Then all the New Yorkers in the City will cry, BOO-HOO!
That's a noise," grinned Dr. Rough, "That I simply must hear!"
So he paused. And Dr. Rough put a hand to his ear.



“Listen, my minions,” he said. “Can you hear it ticking?”

“Hear what, the bomb?” asked Joey. “There’s no way we’ll be able to hear it from here.”

“Not the bomb.” Dr. Rough’s eyes gleamed with wickedness. “That’s the heart of Christmas, slowly dying. Its beats are numbered, my minions. When the tree explodes, it won’t just take out the city’s Christmas spirit. The whole country’s morale will drop, as they mourn for New York, the same way they did after September eleventh. Nothing will be the same. No one will feel like celebrating, and they certainly won’t be shopping. Santa’s stock of sweatshop goods will go to waste. We’ve done it, minions. We have successfully hijacked Christmas.”

Dr. Rough’s own heart raced with anticipation, as the frosty air was filled with his minion’s cheers. And then, he heard another, more ominous noise.


And he did hear a sound echoing through the skyscrapers.
It started out soft and began to taper...
But then it was back! This wail was not crying!
He couldn't be merry, for it was a police siren!



“It’s the cops! Run!” hissed Dr. Rough, and the minions scattered. Dr. Rough himself took cover in an alley ruled by a territorial bum who kept insisting that he was “DOOMED!” Crouching on the cold ground behind a trash can, he watched as a squad car skidded to a stop in the middle of the street, blocking the intersection. With a sinking feeling, Dr. Rough realized there were two people in the back seat.


He stared as the NYPD car raced by.
The sight inside made Dr. Rough pop his eyes!
Then he shook; what he saw was a shocking surprise!
The minions from the toy store were handcuffed inside!



Though he didn’t want to believe what he was seeing, his eyes didn’t lie. He recognized the two men as his very own minions, the same ones he had sent to rob F.A.O. Schwarz. “Damn you, Danny and Jon!” he screamed, shaking his fist at the sky.

Just then, a familiar voice came through the communicator in his ear.


"Dr. Rough, come in!" my voice crackled in his ear.
"Jon and Danny been caught; we gotsta flee here!"
Every minion in FANS, the tall and the small,
Were running, without any stolen toys at all!



“What’s your location, Drums?”

“Yo, I’m in the sleigh, headin’ towards Rockefeller Center. If y’all can get to the top of 30 Rock, I’ll pick your asses up there. You best hurry, though, yo.”

“Or you will be… DOOOOOOOMED!” echoed the bum.

“Shut up!” snapped Dr. Rough. “No, not you, Drums.” He sighed heavily. “Half my plan has been foiled. But it’s not a total failure. There’s still the tree…” He was talking more to himself now than either Drums or the bum. He rose from his hiding place and paced back and forth across the alley, wringing his hands.

“You don’t understand, Dr. Rough. They on to you, dawg! Somehow, they done figured out our plan! They know ‘bout da tree!”

And sure enough, even as Drums spoke, the streets were suddenly swarming with police cars and fire trucks. Even the bomb squad was on the scene, surrounding the Rockefeller Christmas tree in their protective gear. Dr. Rough knew then that he had to bail. Drums was right. He had failed.


He HADN'T stopped Christmas from coming! IT CAME!
Somehow or other, it came just the same!
And Dr. Rough, with his dainty feet cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling: "How could it be so?"



“How?” he asked, stunned. “How did they find out?”

“The question ain’t how,” said Drums. “You should be axin’ who? I’ma give ya three guesses, but ya only be needin’ one.”

And then Dr. Rough knew. He didn’t understand, but he knew it just the same.


"It be HimTak again, yo," I said in his ear.
"That Carter and his posse, they found out, and they here!
They onto us - caught the New Kids in the sto-
Set up booby traps and then called the po-po!"



“CURSE YOU, 00CARTER!!!” roared Dr. Rough, his voice reverberating so loudly off the nearby buildings that the rest of his minions heard him even without their communicators.

They rendezvoused on the roof of the GE Building at 30 Rockefeller, where Drums was waiting with the sleigh. Dr. Rough slumped into his seat, his Santa hat hanging limply over his rapidly twitching eye. “We’ll get ‘em next time, Dr. Rough,” said Drums, placing a consoling silver hand upon his shoulder, but Dr. Rough merely shook it off.

“Yesss…” Drums was right. He had been disappointed yet again, but the despair wouldn’t last forever. His mind already beginning to work on his next diabolical scheme. “Next time… next time…”

“That’s right, Dr. Rough,” Abs agreed sportingly. Then, in a high, operatic falsetto that pierced Dr. Rough’s eardrums and sent rage coursing through his veins, he began to sing. “There’s always… tomorrow... for dreams to come true. Believe in your dreams, come what may. There’s always… tomorrow; there’s so much to do… and so little time in a day.”

The other minions came in softly underneath him, harmonizing with a chorus of “oohs” and “ahhs,” as Abs lilted, “We all… pretend… the rainbow has an end… and you’ll be there, my friend… somedaaaaay! There’s always… tomorrow… for dreams to come true. Tomorrow is not far away…”

“Pity it’s not,” said Dr. Rough, his voice a deathly hiss. It was taking every ounce of his self-control not to shoot Abs right then and there. “Because tomorrow, I will be perfecting my death-ray spectacles, and my dreams will come true when I finally succeed in vaporizing you. Merry Christmas, Abs.

“Merry Christmas,” added Joey gleefully, glad to be off the hook.

“Merry Christmas,” Drums echoed, and together, they sang, “And happy ho-ol-i-days!”


And what happened then? Well, in FANS, we say
That Dr. Rough's rage grew three sizes that day!



“But not his height,” coughs Nick, interrupting the poem.

Drums slams down his book in anger. “Yo, Carter, dat’s whack! You know dat ain't right! Don't you be dissing Master, or we gonna fight! Now where the hell was I in dis rap anyway!” He looks down at the book in his lap. “Oh yeah… “ Clearing his throat, he continues to read.


As we fled to the rooftop and got on our sleigh,
Dr. Rough looked out the window, and then he done say,
"I'LL GET YOU, NICK CARTER! I'LL GET YOU SOMEDAY!"



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