In the qui­et vil­lage of Canaan, To­ba­go, where goats had a sense of di­rec­tion some­times bet­ter than some peo­ple, and news trav­elled faster than a blue band maxi, three of the most mis­er­able boys ever to walk bare­foot had made a de­ci­sion: this year, San­ta Claus was not get­ting away.

Their names alone were enough to make them sound like re­tired An­gli­can el­ders.

There was Agnes boy, Hezeki­ah, thin like broom­stick, al­ways squint­ing as though life owed him mon­ey.

Then Miss Thomas boy, Cleophilius, who talked plen­ty but nev­er said any­thing use­ful, he had a pat­tern of bo­bos (eczemas) on both feet.

Fi­nal­ly, Mr Jack grand­son, Adol­phus, whose grand­moth­er swore he was “bright,” al­though most peo­ple say it is be­cause of the size of his head.

No­body in Caanan ever un­der­stood why To­bag­o­ni­ans gave young boys these old, long-time names.

Names that sound­ed more like they come from some colo­nial past or a vil­lage church pro­gramme.

Def­i­nite­ly not be­long­ing to these wot­less boys from Caanan, who was al­ways chas­ing a ball or pelt­ing the neigh­bour’s man­goes. But there they were, ten to twelve years old, names heavy like re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, hearts light like fool­ish­ness.

These three boys were mis­er­able by na­ture. Not be­cause they had hard lives, no, but be­cause Christ­mas had a way of rub­bing salt in their souls.

Every year, chil­dren in the vil­lage woke up talk­ing about San­ta, chim­neys, sleigh bells, and rein­deer.

Mean­while, Caanan had no chim­neys, no snow, and the on­ly thing fly­ing at night was bat and mos­qui­to and some swear that they did see Soucouyant.

But this year… this year they had a plan.

The plan was born one evening when they over­heard their grand­par­ents lim­ing by the back step.

“Radar down by the air­port see­ing every­thing in the sky,” Mr Mack­ie said con­fi­dent­ly, sip­ping his black cof­fee in a bat­tered enam­el cup with the flakes miss­ing.

“Heh! Every­thing!” an­oth­er replied. “Plane, he­li­copter, even pel­i­can.”

That was all the boys need­ed to hear.

If radar could see every­thing, then sure­ly it could see San­ta.

By the next af­ter­noon, they as­sem­bled their equip­ment, a mas­ter­piece of vil­lage en­gi­neer­ing.

First, an old Lasko fan guard, rust­ed but still proud. Then an um­brel­la that had long giv­en up hope, on­ly the naked spokes re­main­ing like ribs.

Add one bent iron clothes hang­er, two emp­ty paint tin cov­ers, and some string that had un­known ori­gins but strong faith.

Cleophilius an­nounced, “Is a con­trac­tion.”

Hezeki­ah cor­rect­ed him, “Is con­trap­tion.”

Adol­phus just nod­ded, be­cause he wasn’t sure of ei­ther word.

They con­vinced them­selves this de­vice could “hook up” to the US radar down by the air­port. How? They didn’t know.

But con­fi­dence filled the gaps where knowl­edge re­fused to go.

That night, af­ter every­body was sleep­ing and the vil­lage dogs fin­ished ar­gu­ing with one an­oth­er and the oc­ca­sion­al stag­ger­ing drunk man mak­ing his way home, the boys slipped out.

No torch­light. Torch­light was for cow­ards.

On­ly moon­light, fear, and fool­ish am­bi­tion.

The walk down to­wards the air­port felt longer than usu­al.

Every bush looked sus­pi­cious. Every rus­tle was ei­ther jumbie or spranger.

Their hearts beat­ing like shango drums, they kept re­mind­ing each oth­er, “Is for sci­ence.”

They reached a spot near the man­groves, where the air was thick like Ms Agnes soup and the mos­qui­toes seemed like they had PhD in blood ex­trac­tion.

There, they care­ful­ly “hooked up” their con­trap­tion, mean­ing they leaned it against a fence and whis­pered in­struc­tions to it.

The US radar spin­ning silent­ly with a sil­hou­ette shad­ow in the dis­tance.

Adol­phus banged the paint tins soft­ly.

Cleophilius ad­just­ed the um­brel­la spokes like a sci­en­tist.

Hezeki­ah stood back and de­clared: “Al­right. Radar ac­tive.”

No­body ques­tioned how he knew.

Then, like trained sol­diers, or at least boys who watched plen­ty movies, they re­treat­ed in­to the man­groves to ob­serve.

Im­me­di­ate­ly, the mos­qui­toes de­clared war.

The kerosene they brought in the Chub­by bot­tle wasn’t work­ing.

By five min­utes in, they were slap­ping them­selves like mad­men.

By ten min­utes, they were ques­tion­ing life choic­es.

By 20 min­utes, Cleophilius sug­gest­ed San­ta prob­a­bly us­ing stealth mode.

Still, in true mil­i­tary fash­ion, ad­ven­ture in their DNA, they wait­ed it out.

Mid­night passed.

No bells. No hooves. No fat man in red.

On­ly mos­qui­to, sweat, and re­gret.

By dawn, they were bro­ken.

Their eyes swollen. Skin dot­ted with bites. Stom­achs growl­ing loud­er than the sea.

Hezeki­ah fi­nal­ly said, “Ste­ups. Is non­sense.”

They packed up the con­trap­tion, now look­ing more fool­ish than ever and trudged back up to Caanan, de­feat­ed men in small bod­ies.

The fa­mous radar that every­body was talk­ing about, hadn’t picked up San­ta.

Ei­ther the ex­per­i­ment didn’t work… or San­ta was smarter than the tech­nol­o­gy and slipped past the US radar like a true pro­fes­sion­al.

As the sun rose, and fowl cock laughed at them open­ly, the boys made a pact.

“This year we miss him,” Adol­phus said solemn­ly.

“But next year,” Cleophilius added, eyes full of dan­ger­ous hope, “we up­grad­ing.”

Hezeki­ah nod­ded.

“Next year, we catch­ing San­ta for re­al. We ent us­ing no radar this time!”

Some­where in the sky, San­ta prob­a­bly chuck­led, fly­ing low, radar-proof, and very aware that in Caanan, To­ba­go, three mis­er­able boys with old-time names were al­ready plan­ning his down­fall.

Ho! Ho! Ho! See you next year To­ba­go...

(Ded­i­cat­ed to all the hard work­ing Coastal Sur­veil­lance Radar Op­er­a­tors, past and present. Mer­ry Christ­mas!)