Santa's Gift Count: Zero!

Bernard and Holly Elf stood in the middle of a large, empty room. The Wrapping Room was supposed to be filled with presents, ready to be stuffed into Santa's sack, and put onto his sleigh. Right now, though, the only thing that the room was full of was Bernard and Holly Elf, and there was a lot more room than Elf!

"I don't understand what could have happened," said Holly. "They were here, ready to be wrapped, when I left on Friday. Now, they're gone! What could have happened to them?"

Just then, Adamup Elf, the chief counting Elf of the North Pole, walked into the room, and right up to Holly and Bernard. "Hi, Holly!" said the Elf. "I'm here for my weekly count of the presents." He looked around the room. Then he wrote something on his pad. "As of today, Tuesday the 13th, the official count of the presents is: Zero! I'll send this number in my report to Bernard Elf. Have a nice day!"

He then turned to Bernard. "Hi Bernard!" he said. "I'm here to give you the official count of presents..."

"It's zero," said Bernard.

If Adamup heard him, it didn't stop him. "As of today..."

"I can see that it's zero," said Bernard.

"Tuesday the 13th..."

"I was here before you got here."

"The official count..."

"I can count to zero by myself," said Bernard

Adamup stamped his foot in frustration. "Bernard!" he said. "I have one job, and that's to count the presents, and report that count to you!"

"I'm sorry, Adamup," said Bernard. "Go ahead. Give me the official count."

"Thank you," said the counting Elf. "The official count is..." he paused. "Look what you made me do!" he said. "I've forgotten! Now I'll have to count them again."

Bernard sighed. "Adamup, we need to find out why all the presents are missing. Can you tell us anything that could help us?"

Adamup scratched his head and thought a bit. "I do remember seeing Waldo and Teema leaving the Wrapping Room this weekend. Teema was carrying ninety-eight rolls of wrapping tape, and Waldo was carrying seventy-five rolls of invisible tape--the kind you use to wrap presents.

"Well, that explains why there's no wrapping paper, but not why there's no presents," said Holly.

"It also tells us Waldo's involved," said Bernard. "And when Waldo's involved, just about anything could happen.

What happened to the presents? What are Waldo and Teema doing with the wrapping paper and tape? Will anything else disappear? If it does, you'll read about it tomorrow in The North Pole Times!

...unless, of course, we disappear too! Oh, dear!