Write a story about an alcoholic Christmas reindeer who dislikes children and only works with Santa so that he can be mean and hurtful to the children. The story should end with the reindeer bitter and alone, still an alcoholic.

The eighth reindeer was named Brindle, and he hated the sound of children laughing.

“It’s the pitch,” he told the stable mice. “Like somebody sharpening a fork.”

The mice, who had heard this before, kept eating oats.

Brindle had not joined Santa’s team for the pension, though the pension was excellent. Nor had he joined for the flying, which made his stomach turn unless he had a drink first.

He had joined because once a year he could stand outside children’s windows and say things they would remember.

Santa never noticed. Santa was busy with chimneys, stockings, and the complicated business of being loved everywhere. The other reindeer thought Brindle merely gruff. When he volunteered to guard the sleigh, they praised his dedication.

In the pocket of his red harness, Brindle carried a silver flask and a little notebook.

The notebook contained remarks.

Your brother’s easier to love.

They only put that drawing on the refrigerator because you were watching.

Santa doesn’t remember your name. He reads it off a card.

He revised them during the long northern autumn, crossing out words until each sentence was small enough to fit through a cracked window.

Then came Christmas Eve.

At the first house, a girl in yellow pajamas crept outside while Santa was upstairs.

“Are you real?” she whispered.

“Unfortunately,” said Brindle.

She held out a carrot tied with a ribbon.

“I grew it myself.”

Brindle looked at the carrot. It was crooked and no longer than a finger.

“Well,” he said, “you didn’t do a very good job.”

The girl’s hand dropped.

He felt the familiar small warmth. Not happiness, exactly. More like getting his own way.

After she went inside, he drank.

At the next house, he told a boy that Santa preferred children who didn’t stutter. At the third, he laughed at a paper crown. At the fourth, he informed two sisters that their mother looked tired because of them.

Between houses, he drank again.

For years, this was how Brindle spent Christmas: flying through the stars, landing in the snow, finding something tender and stepping on it.

Then Santa returned early from a chimney.

A small boy stood beside the sleigh in slippers, holding a knitted scarf.

“My grandmother made it,” the boy was saying. “For whichever reindeer gets coldest.”

Brindle lowered his head.

“Did she? It looks like she made it with her eyes—”

“Brindle,” said Santa.

There was nothing loud about it.

The boy looked from one to the other.

Santa took the scarf gently. “Thank you, Daniel. This is just what we needed.”

He wrapped it around the boy’s shoulders and walked him back to the door.

Brindle unscrewed his flask. He had trouble getting the cap back on before Santa returned.

“How long?” Santa asked.

“How long what?”

But Santa was looking at the notebook that had fallen open beneath the reins.

The other reindeer stood very still.

“It’s a joke,” Brindle said.

Santa picked up the notebook. He read one page, then another.

“You won’t be coming next year.”

Brindle gave a short laugh. “Good luck replacing me.”

“We’ll manage.”

That hurt worse than an argument.

Santa offered him a room away from the stables and help with his drinking. Brindle refused both. He packed his blankets, his flask, and three bottles he had hidden beneath the feed bin.

By February, he was living in an abandoned weather station beyond the last line of fir trees.

At first, visitors came.

An elf brought groceries. Brindle accused her of spying.

An old teammate brought news. Brindle said the new formation looked ridiculous.

Santa came once, without the sleigh bells.

“You can still accept the help,” he said from the doorway.

“Can I have my place back?”

“No.”

“Then you can leave.”

After a while, everyone did.

Brindle bought his liquor from a trading post two valleys south. When the snow was deep, he dragged home a month’s supply on a child’s sled he had stolen years before. He hated the painted rabbits on its sides, but never bothered to scrape them off.

One Christmas Eve, he heard bells overhead.

He went to the window, knocking an empty bottle off the sill. Through the frost he saw the sleigh pass across the moon. The formation was different now. A younger reindeer held his old place without apparent difficulty.

Brindle lifted his flask toward the glass.

“Crooked,” he muttered. “You’re flying crooked.”

The bells faded.

He waited a moment longer, in case they circled back. Then he pulled his chair closer to the stove and poured another drink.

There was nobody there to hear what he said next, but he said it anyway.