"How's everybody doing? "Ferris asked his audience. They gave him a loud thumbs-up. "Good," he told them, "Who wants to have some more?"

The loud applause from them was exactly what he was expecting, but he still played surprised and said, "Wow, you really like a good party! Okay then, here's the next one!" He snapped his fingers for the Kickers to begin and launched right into the next song, "Oh why, I just died in your arms tonight, must have been something you said, I just died in your arms tonight........"

It was at that moment that General Blum's men finished breaking down the doors into the gym. The next thing Ferris or anyone knew, the dance was being invaded by dozen of military men with guns blazing. "Tell me this is one of your gimmicks that you happened to not tell me about, Ferris," Cameron gulped as bullets whizzed by dangerous close to where they were standing.

"I wish I could say yes, Cameron, but unfortunately this time I can't," for once in his life, Ferris was genuinely worried. He watched with great dread as several of his fellow students were hit by the bullets, and the beautifully crafted Christmas decorations were shattered and destroyed. Before he could come up with any plans at all, Douglas flew out of nowhere and snatched up the microphone in his claws. The hawk flew back to the door and handed it to his master. "Ladies and gentlemen," General Blum announced coldly to the student body, "Your regularly scheduled program will not be aired tonight. Henceforth, you will be listening to a new program....ours."

"Which means," Rooney strode in and took the mike from him, "That each and every one of you will sit down and shut up for the rest of the night. Especially you, Ferris," he said, jerking his finger at his hated nemesis, "Get off that stage now!"

Ferris reluctantly complied. Rooney immediately walked cockily over to his rival. "So Ferris, how does it feel now?" he gloated, "I've got the last laugh, and you're not coming out of this gym in one piece. Le Zum so fete--the game is up, and you're mine!!"

Ferris forced a brave face. Rooney turned his wrath toward Cameron. "And as for you Frye, I don't take well to being lied to," he said roughly, and then, without warning, whacked Cameron hard across the forehead with his rifle handle. "That's what you deserve!" the principal snarled, "and you'd better pray that's as brutal as I get with you!"

"Congratulations Ferris, now you've turned the man psychotic!!" Cameron shouted at his friend as he tried to hold back the bleeding from his forehead, "Any more brilliant ideas!?"

"Give me some time, I need to think this over a bit," Ferris said weakly. All he could think of was how bleak it admittedly looked, even for him. "You might as well forget it, Ferris, there's no way out," Morris Frye strolled over. Even in his Santa suit, Cameron recognized his father immediately. "Not you!" he pleaded, "Anyone but you!"

"Someone was a bad boy in ratting Daddy out, and what happened in South Bend long ago will look like child's play compared to what we do here," Morris leaned in close to his son, "And I'll personally finish what I should have finished back in April."

"Uh, I'd rather have Mr. Rooney do it, if that's OK, Dad, "Cameron told him. His father merely snarled and strolled off. Cameron was aghast. "My father's the South Bend Shovel Slayer," he said blankly, "How come I didn't get it earlier?"

"Beats me, but he's certainly the type to take out a whole block with a snow shovel," Ferris commented, having seen Mr. Frye's unbearable fits of rage in person many times.

Harry took hold of the mike next. "This ain't just a hostage situation, it's a stick-up too!" he told the crowds, "We'll be coming around; jewelry, cash, securities, anything of value, put it in the bags!"

He nodded to Sam and Lenny, and the three of them split up through the crowds, weapons in hand. In the back, Buck wasn't going to stand by idly and let everyone get away with it. "Colonel Blum, you can't do this!" he shouted, rising to his feet.

"I'm not a colonel, damn it, I'm a full general!" Blum yelled spinning toward him, "Who the hell are you anyway?"

"Oh you know me very well," Buck snorted, "I've seen a load of what you've done firsthand, especially in that village you torched."

"I've torched loads of villages," General Blum advanced toward him, squinting through the semi-darkness at his former trooper. "Well, Private Russell, it's been a long time since I've seen you," he said dryly, surprised, "How did the tribunal treat you?"

"Much better than they'll treat you when they storm in here," Buck said defiantly, "I've heard the FBI's got you on the Top Ten list after you blew up our bases on Wake Island, and if you think taking hostages here just because Ed's upset he was outted with Miss Melanomahead.....doh, I mean M-M-Miss Wart, Miss, Miss, Miss, Zit, Miss.....well, point is, they'll come in here with everything they've got!"

"We'll be more than ready for the best they've got, Private Russell," the general said confidently, "We've got artillery in the halls, and we're not afraid to kill the hostages." he punctuated this point by firing into a crowd of students to his left. Multiple screams told everyone that he'd hit his mark. "Aren't we, men?" he asked his command loudly.

"Of course not, sir," the troops all shouted back. Buck could see that Sherman, whom he recognized from earlier in the day, was far less confident in his resolve. "Yeah, and I'm not afraid to do this!" while the general was facing his men, Buck seized the pistol out of his hand. Blum's arms immediately went up. "Okay boys, down go your weapons now, or your boss gets it!" he ordered the soldiers.

"I don't think so," Champlin had sneaked up behind Buck, and took the chance to seize Maizy by the collar. Maltin came from the other direction and grabbed Miles. Both men held their combat knives to the childrens' throats. "I take it these are yours, so YOU put your gun down or they pay for it!" Champlin snarled.

Buck sighed in resignation. "You know, I've always hated you, Chuckie," he growled at Champlin as he tossed down the gun, "I'm surprised you don't just come out and say you love your boss here in a certain way, since your such a twosome in the first case."

"Don't refer to us that way!" Champlin slugged him hard in the chest. Buck doubled over in pain. "That'll come back to you," he said in a high voice.

"I don't think so," General Blum said, pushing him back to the floor. Buck grimaced hard as he turned to the family. "Well, I think we're going to be here a looooong time," he admitted.

"Pass me another hot dog....or should I say cold dog," Neal muttered to Eddie. Not only had Ellen's attempts to repair the heater failed, but the plumbing had broke simultaneously under high pressure, so now real icicles were forming on the ceiling and walls. Huddled under numerous blankets, he tried as best he could to enjoy the Japanese language version of It's a Wonderful Life that was for some bizarre reason playing on the Shermer area's independent UHF station (Channel 8).

"Taste good, don't they? "Eddie asked him, apparently either oblivious or unconcerned with the fact that the "dogs" were frozen solid from the subzero temperatures now permeating the Griswold house. He took an improbable bite out of the rock-solid one he was holding.

"Decent, but I'm used to them being, well, softer," Neal told him. He lit a match from the packet on the table next to his chair, hoping to defrost it, but the flame froze solid the moment it was struck. Shaking his head, he put both aside.

"Neal, I just got off the phone with Susan," Ellen called in form the kitchen, "She and the rest of the family are about a half hour out of town."

"Great," Neal smiled, "This is what I've been waiting for since I left New York three....."

His attention was diverted to the TV as the station's special report screen abruptly cut into the movie. "Good evening everyone, this is Eric Karol in the WSMR newsroom," the anchor told the public, "We're covering a breaking story in Shermer, where a group of renegade former army soldiers have taken the Christmas Eve dance at Shermer High hostage. The call went out about twenty minutes ago from someone trapped inside the building alerted authorities that this man, former General David A. Blum, had raided the school. Blum, who is suspected of numerous terrorist acts around the world and more recently the theft of classified missile codes from Washington, has yet to establish contact with the authorities now set up outside the building, but hostage negotiators are currently trying to get through to him. Denise DiNunzio is on the scene at the....."

"DEL!!! SPARKY!!!!" Neal screamed in horror to his associates, who'd fallen asleep (Del had done so with his latest cigarette in his mouth, but with everything frozen solid, this didn't present as big a danger as it normally would). Both men woke up with a start. "No Mr. Shirley, I haven't been fooling with the food additive machinery!" Clark yelled as he woke up.

"Uh oh," Del groaned as he saw the caption on the screen, "Don't tell me that's them!"

"It's very much them, Del," Neal said blankly as he rose to his feet, "We've got to get to the high school as soon as possible."

"Don't you want dessert?" Eddie asked him as they grabbed their coats.

"Maybe later," Del told him. The three of them barreled toward Del's heavily damaged car. Just before they got in, another car passing by braked to an abrupt halt. Sidney popped out of the back. "Del!" he called to his son, "Are you OK!?"

"Dad?" Del was just as surprised to see his father as Sidney had been to see him yesterday, "What are you doing here?"

"Saw those bums going after you yesterday; had to make sure they didn't hurt you," Sidney said.

'We're fine, Mr. Griffith, but some other people are in dire straits right about now," Clark told him.

"Good, you can take him with you, Clark," Cindy stuck her head out the window, "I don't think I could take another minute of him. You haven't happened to have seen my brother-in-law, have you? I need to give him a piece of my mind."

"Nope, haven't seen Buck all week," Clark told him, "Seen pretty much everyone else in the country but him."

Down the street, Kevin's nice calm evening of watching Yogi's First Christmas was interrupted by the same news broadcast that had reached the Griswolds. As the news flashed across his screen, accompanied by mug shots of the Wet Bandits, he gasped in horror. "Now what are they doing!?" he asked out loud.

"This is bad," Danny agreed, "It's just too bad we can't do anything about it."

A strange look crossed Kevin's face. Skylar, who had come to at least basic terms with the permanent loss of his natural parents, noticed. "You can't be serious, Kevin!" he protested, "If we were to try it, it would be suicide! These guys have heavy weapons, heavy manpower.....!"

"And they have those guys, who'd throw a huge wrench into their efforts," Kevin finished for him, "We won't be able to do it alone, though."

"What do you mean we? "Kayla inquired, "We're just kids--and orphans. What do we have that could help?"

"A lot more than you'd think," Kevin told her, "Come with me and you'll find out. Are you all in?"

The three orphans looked at each other, the shrugged and nodded. "I still think it's suicide, but I guess it's worth a shot; after all, no one's going to notice if anything happened to a couple of orphans whom no one cares for."

"Now you're starting to think too much like an orphan," Kevin told him as they put on their coats and hustled for the door, barely having enough time to wave goodbye to Old Man Marley, "You need a little self-confidence." "The question is, how do we get there?" Kayla inquired, "None of us can drive, and I don't even where the high school is."

"Come on Dad, the car's this way, we need to get to the high school now," Del called out loudly to his father several yards away near there car. "This same way I got there last night ," Kevin said, "Come on, we're going to do something I've become quite used to over this vacation."

Only about an hour ago, the road outside Shermer High had been a calm quiet stretch. Now it was about as active as one could imagine it. Police vehicles--both local and state--army trucks, and tanks, National Guard jeeps, helicopters and other cars all choked the area within a half mile diameter of the school. Already, the networks had somehow managed to import Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, and Dan Rather live to the scene of the crisis, where they and a slew of local and national reporters were informing the nation of the great tragedy unfolding in the school. Hysterical parents were being held behind a very long police line, some threatening to break through and try to help their children somehow. Plus, small-time vendors were wheeling there wares all around, trying to find buyers. It was as much of a circus without there being clowns present.

In the middle of this chaos, Chief Radcliffe and General LaGarde's cars pulled up. "Who's in charge here!?" Mayor Oaks asked as he rushed up to the nearest person with a uniform.

"I am," said a graying man in a gray suit and coat to his left, "Special FBI agent Dale Grissom, Chicago branch."

"Mr. Grissom, what can you tell us about what's going on in there?" General LaGarde asked him.

"We've been trying to call them for the last half hour or so, but he hasn't been talking back," Grissom informed him, "From what we can reconnoiter, there's about three hundred of them in there, and they have lots of heavy weaponry. General, I'd advocate sieging them out, what do you think?"

"I agree," General LaGarde told him, "If we keep Blum in there long enough, he'll eventually crack."

"Well wait a minute, what about the kids!?" Mayor Oaks protested, "I know a good deal of the families who have their kids in there now, and I just happen to be one of them!"

"Mr. Mayor, first we need to establish the specifics of their defenses, and only after diplomacy fails can we actually make a move," Grissom told him, "That's the way the drill works, and that's the way we're going to do it."

"We've got contact, sir; it's the superintendent," one of the FBI agents told Grissom, handing him the phone.

"Don't take anything he tells you up front for it's face value," General LaGarde cautioned Grissom as he picked up the receiver.

Inside the gym, Vernon gave a thumbs-up to General Blum and whined horribly into the receiver. "Plleeeeease, somebody help us!" he begged with fake desperation that fell just short of being over the top, "They're mad, all of them! They're threatening to start shooting people left and right! You've got to do something!"

"Sir, we're doing everything we can," Grissom reassured him, "What are his demands?"

"The general wants fifty million dollars from the parents by midnight," Vernon told him, suppressing a snicker, "He wants them in unmarked bills near the cafeteria windows, and no one in any uniforms around it. If he doesn't get it, he'll massacre everyone here including me! No federal money either; directly form the parents!"

"We understand, we're going to work it all out," Grissom said, making gestures to several of the agents around him, "In the meantime, see if you can talk him into perhaps letting go of several of the hostages."

"He said that's absolutely impossible, and nothing will change his mind on it," Vernon moaned lamely, "Oh the humanity of it! To think that a...."

At this point, the general gently took the phone off him. He brutally hauled a frightened girl nearby to her feet. "Like I told Mr. Vernon here, I want the money by midnight!" he barked, "And I want the codes!"

"Those codes are property of the United States government and not yours," Grissom said, "We can't give them up to....."

There was the horrifying sound of a gunshot going off on the other end of the phone. Screams and tears coming through made Grissom shudder in shock. "You want me to do more of them while I'm at it!?" Blum demanded to him, "Get me my codes and my money as fast as you rejects can!!"

"So you see, general, we'll have your fifty million by the time we blow this school up, just like you asked," Vernon told him, unfazed by the terror Blum had just unleashed.

"You're a smart man, Mr. Vernon," Blum congratulated him, "Much more so than you look."

"You completely full of crap, Dick, you know that!? "Bender muttered from nearby. Even he was repulsed by what he'd seen.

"Yes, but it doesn't matter, Mr. Bender, because A, you're even more full of it yourself, and secondly, you'll be dead after tonight and I won't, so it won't make the slightest of differences!" Vernon shouted at him, and then kicked him in the chest for extra effect.

Outside, Del's car pulled up behind the blockade. "It's worse than I thought!" Neal groaned as he saw the extent of the troops' actions.

"And then some," Del moaned, slumping against the hood, "It's all our fault. We should have turned the codes over earlier than we did. We led them right into town!"

"I know, Neal agreed. He put his head in his hands. "I just wish there was something we could do to stop them and rectify all this!" he said out loud.

Kevin called out from under the car. There was a mischievous smile on his face. "Excuse me, Mr. Page," he told Neal, "I think there IS something we might be able to do."