Top Elf

by Caleb Huett

  “What if someone loses the challenge?” Buzz interrupted. “What if one group starts moving, so the landscape moves with them, and someone stays here? Eventually it’ll have to bump them to the edge of the dome, right?”

  “I’m not doing that.” Klaus immediately made sure there was no question. “No way.”

  “Well, luckily I wasn’t asking you to, jerk.” Buzz looked at me as the snow thinned. “I can’t do it, Ollie. I can’t be Santa.”

  “What?” I yelled. “You won two challenges—you can’t give up!”

  “Actually, I totally can?”

  “I thought you wanted to be Santa.”

  “Nah.” Buzz sat down on the ground but raised his hand up to give me a fist bump. “You gotta win, Ollie. You or Celia would be great. I mean it.”

  My eyes filled with tears while I fist-bumped him. “I’ll never forget you, Buzz!”

  “I’m not dying, Ollie. You’ll see me in, like, fifteen minutes, tops.”

  Buzz’s surfboard flew out of the volcano and he snatched it from the air. He ripped the fin off it. “Check it out. Snowboard.”

  I took it from him. Celia and I got on it. Buzz untied his sled-shoes and handed them to Ramp.

  “Wait, where’s Klaus?” I looked down the side of the volcano and saw him speeding away on skis.

  “Go!” Buzz said. “Don’t let him get too far ahead!”

  We kicked off and zoomed down the mountain. Before long, we weren’t even on a mountain anymore; we were in the middle of a snowy forest where all the trees were on fire. A few seconds later and we were in a messed-up version of the savanna, where several confused lions were interacting with polar bears standing on an iceberg.

  A bunch of mountain goats jumped around a boat sinking in the ocean, and then a rain forest grew in the middle of a city. We passed a moose standing on top of a moving river with a flaming skull for a head that stared straight at me and said, “BUY LOW, SELL HIGH.”

  Kurt would have liked that, I thought. And also: This computer is getting very confused.

  A loud horn blared for several long seconds while we navigated a beach covered in giraffes with only two legs.

  “I bet that’s Buzz losing.” Celia looked up at the sky. “And it should get their attention.”

  She was right. The sun and moon stopped bashing into each other and rotated their faces toward us.

  “Oh!” Snowmiser called down. “It looks like Buzz Brownie is out!”

  “Really? I figured it would have been the tiny one.”

  “Hey!” I said, because I was the tiny one.

  Heatmiser zoomed in to look closely at the landscape, and I had to shield my eyes from his rays. “Oh, yeesh. That’s weird.” A dolphin with two hairy human legs chirped happily as it ran in the sand.

  Snowmiser turned up his nose. “If you had let me preprogram the challenge, like I wanted to do—”

  “OH, WOULD YOU LOOK AT THE TIME,” Heatmiser interrupted. “IT’S BEEN EIGHTY MINUTES. ALSO KNOWN AS: QUIT COMPLAINING O’CLOCK.”

  “Your point, while immature, is correct. Buzz Brownie is eliminated. The challenge is over. I need to get away from you.” The moon flew away and blinked out of existence.

  The sun grew bright red with anger. “Oh, no. You’re not getting away from me that easy.” The sun flew off after the moon, probably to make some toasters malfunction somewhere.

  Around us, the simulation flickered, sputtered, and then disappeared. We fell a few inches onto the real ground and were back in the surprisingly small dome, dimly lit this time.

  Buzz waved to us from against the other wall. “The door’s over here, guys.”

  “Good job, everybody!” I said.

  Celia and I high-fived. Ramp nodded. Klaus ignored us and walked straight past Buzz and out the door.

  “I’m sorry,” I said to Buzz when we made it to him.

  He bonked me on the top of my head. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “We made it!” Celia led us out into the real sunlight and immediately fell to the ground. I collapsed next to her.

  Ramp was already snoring, and he didn’t even lie down.

  Celia laughed. “He’s got the right idea.”

  I couldn’t keep in a little cheer. “We’re in the top four!”

  She gave me a thumbs-up. “Let’s celebrate! After a short nap.”

  “Maybe a long nap.”

  “Honestly, celebrating sounds like a lot of work.”

  “A very long nap.”

  I hope it’ll be enough, I thought. I have a feeling this wasn’t even the hard part.

  The main entrance to Claus Castle is through two doors that are at least three times as tall as a human adult and probably eight times as wide. Pushing the very heavy wood requires a whole team of elves all working together, and even then they’re fighting against years of the doors being mostly immobile. There are a lot of side entrances, including one right next to the main doors. There really isn’t any need to use the doors except for the ceremony, to make Claus Castle look impressive and regal.

  So I felt very uncomfortable not helping.

  “Are you sure I can’t—”

  “No! Nnngggggghhhhhhaaaaauuuuughhhhh!!!! No, sir! This is our job! We got it! Hnnnnnnggghhhhhhraaaaarrrrrghhh!!!!!!!” An elf near the center of the right door pushed even harder than he had before, maybe to prove to us that everything was okay. His eyes looked like they were going to pop out of his head.

  The doors had opened less than an inch.

  “The other door is right over there,” Celia pointed out, “so it’s really no trouble at all.”

  “Wouldn’t—graarunnnnkkkkk—dream of it, Miss Pixie! This is an official meeting between Santa Claus and his successor!”

  “He’s right.” Klaus looked up from his cell phone and waved his hand toward the team of elves. “Let them have their fun. It’s tradition. Makes them feel special.”

  Ramp ran his fingers through his beard. “What makes this meeting so official? Why are we here?”

  Celia sat down in the snow. “I guess because we’re the finalists. One of the four of us is definitely Santa.”

  Klaus huffed. “How lucky for the North Pole. An old man, a crybaby, a mad scientist—”

  “And a spoiled brat,” Ramp finished. Boom. “And who’re you calling an old man? I’m sixteen and three-quarters!”

  “I’m not a crybaby!” I said, tears welling up in my eyes.

  “And the only person I’m mad at is you.” Celia glared at Klaus. “So watch it.”

  The door had only opened two inches now. I decided to go help.

  “You don’t have to—graagh! GRAAAAGH!—do that, Mr. Gnome!” The elf man looked like if you turned a stick bug into a person, but he never stopped smiling pleasantly, even when he was yelling under the strain.

  “It’s really okay. They’re about to start fighting, and I didn’t—oh geez, this is heavy. Harrrrrrghhhhh!!—I didn’t really want to be part of the fight, you know?”

  The stick man nodded, which made his hat slide off his sweaty head and plop into the snow. “I hope you don’t mind me saying so, Mr. Gnome, but I think—kkkkkkkk—you’d make a wonderful Santa.”

  “You think so?”

  “I do. Santa should be someone truly kind. And it’s high time an elf is in charge.”

  “Maybe. But Celia’s smarter and good at making plans. And Klaus is a natural leader who has trained for this his whole life. And Ramp … well, Ramp’s not going to win, right?”

  “Even so. You’ve got my support.”

  I felt all warm and fuzzy. Even when Celia and I had been throwing parties and doing charity work before the merry-thon, no one had been so direct and kind. Even people who liked me seemed to believe Santa was making a mistake changing the tradition. Having someone who worked in the castle say I would be wonderful meant a lot. I felt ready to take on the world.

  Celia walked up and pushed on the other door. “Klaus is in—who made this so heavy?
oh my gosh—a bad mood. Like always.”

  “He’s probably nervous—I don’t know but they should be fired from ever making any doors again—about seeing Santa. I wonder if they’ve talked at all since the conference room.”

  “I don’t think so. This is good enough.” She meant the door, and I looked at the crack we had made, which was now an opening a couple feet wide. The team of elves collapsed to the ground, and I took deep breaths to try to calm my heartbeat.

  Klaus immediately breezed past us and through the opening, practically dropping his coat on the floor before he’d even made it through the doors. Ramp slowly hobbled after him, and I followed Celia in after giving the stick man a hug.

  The entrance to Claus Castle has got to be the most beautiful thing at the North Pole, and there are a lot of really beautiful things at the North Pole. Coming in through the double doors put us right in the center of two lush red-carpeted staircases mirroring each other in gentle curves up to the second floor. Below the balcony at the top, a hallway stretched for what felt like forever, a gorgeous red carpet down the center.

  A whole separate team of elves took our coats. I ran in past everyone and spun around. Portraits of various sizes hung everywhere with different Santas and their families. Directly above the entrance doors, bigger than all of them, was a portrait of the original Kris Kringle playing with what could have been the very first model train. He wasn’t in his traditional suit for this portrait, either; he looked more like Kris Kringle the inventor. He had goggles on his forehead like Celia did when she was busy at work. He was wearing overalls with all sorts of tools sticking out of the pockets, but he wasn’t using any of them. He was just grinning from ear to ear and pointing at the toy train spewing steam out of its smokestack.

  “This portrait wasn’t painted by anyone, you know.” Santa appeared on the balcony up above us, smiled, and waved. As he descended the stairs, he continued, “Kris Kringle invented a machine that drew your portrait exactly like it saw you. He didn’t know it then, but he was inventing an early version of something the rest of the world wouldn’t have for hundreds of years: a camera.

  “Kris Kringle was an inventor, a leader, and a lover of toys. Most important, though, he was kind to everyone. He loved the world and everything in it. Santa needs all of these qualities.”

  “He wasn’t that great,” Ramp snapped. “I mean, we don’t really know. All we have are stories. Stories that are too good to be true.”

  Santa laughed. “Maybe so. But his legacy, at least, speaks for itself.”

  “Yeah, because he threw out everything that didn’t work.” Ramp looked really angry, and I had no idea why. I remembered what Andrea had said, and glanced between him and the portrait. They did look alike.

  “Wait a second.” Celia didn’t notice what was going on with Ramp because she was still staring at the portrait. “If this was made when Kris Kringle was alive … that can’t just be the first model train. That must be the first train. Period.”

  Santa’s grin got even wider, and he clapped both hands down on Celia’s shoulders. I tried not to feel sad seeing Klaus bristle with jealousy.

  “That’s exactly right. But he believed in letting the rest of the world discover things for themselves when they were ready. A belief we share even today.”

  “Can we get on with this?” Klaus spoke just a little too loud, and his voice echoed through the castle’s halls. “Everybody already knows this stuff. Why are we even here?”

  Santa looked down at the ground for a moment, his smile gone. “Of course. Follow me.” The heels of his dress shoes clicked on the ground as he headed back to the banister, where he grabbed a small reindeer statue at the bottom of the rail and twisted it. The left staircase rumbled and folded up, revealing another set of stairs going underground. I looked at Celia, but she seemed just as lost as I was.

  “No.” Klaus charged forward at his dad, a bundle of furious energy. “This isn’t theirs. This isn’t for them.” He spat the word, and glared back at us. “You’ve never even let me in there before.”

  “Klaus, please. I know what I’m doing.”

  “I’m out of here.” He turned and headed down the center hallway, probably to his room. “I’ll go in there when I’m Santa, and not one second before. I refuse to be a part of this.”

  Santa followed him for a few steps. “Klaus, if you would just—”

  “I don’t want to hear it.”

  A door slammed, and Santa winced. We all held our breath while Santa rubbed his tired eyes.

  “I’m sorry about that, you three. Let’s continue.” He flipped a switch inside the new stairwell, and electric lights built to look like torches lit up and flickered all the way down. It was a long way.

  “Down here is where we keep Kris Kringle’s legacy safe.” Santa led us to the bottom of the stairs, a dead end. In front of the wall was a little snow globe of the North Pole, displayed on a pedestal. Santa wrapped his fingers around the globe, and it glowed with a blue light that moved up and down, scanning his hand.

  “This only recognizes someone who has been sworn in as Santa,” he said, then winked. “So don’t get any funny ideas about coming down here by yourself.”

  The blue light died, and jingle bells chimed. The stone wall rumbled and lifted, revealing a clean white corridor with indentations along the walls, each holding a different invention.

  “There’s the train!” Celia pointed, already running ahead of us down the hall. “And the first Big Red Suit! And his original notes on reindeer genetics! Kris Kringle did this science and wrote it down, Ollie!”

  “Whoa!!” I said. I wasn’t as excited as she was, but I knew that was the response she wanted to hear. There’s nothing better than when your friends get excited about things they love. Ramp, however, was standing at the entrance wringing his hands. His face was sweaty and twisted into an uncomfortable expression.

  “Are you okay?” I whispered.

  “I’m fine!” he practically growled. “Let’s keep moving.”

  “I understand how you feel,” Santa said. “I was nervous, too, my first time here. It’s a lot to take in. We have his notes for every invention we know of—except one.”

  “If we have these notes, why haven’t we used them?” Celia asked. “I thought we couldn’t replicate anything.”

  “We can’t.” Santa kept walking down the hall, and we followed. “Everything we have is missing something. Something crucial. Like he went through the cookbook and tore a whole page out of every recipe.”

  “But still, with this as a springboard—”

  “Trust me, we’ve tried. For hundreds of years. None of our scientists can replicate anything.”

  I said, “Until Bertrand.”

  Santa gave me a confused look, which I didn’t expect. “What do you mean?”

  Celia looked at me, wide-eyed. He hasn’t told them? How do they not know?

  “Uh, nevermind. I just mean, I bet Bertrand could.”

  “Oh. Could be! Smart kid. He hasn’t been talking to us lately. Losing the race got him pretty down.”

  Yikes. “Have you … uh, seen his sleigh?”

  “He won’t show us. Why?”

  Double yikes! “No reason. Never mind.”

  We reached the end of the walkway—this time with a microphone in front of it.

  Santa cleared his throat and said, “Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas!”

  Jingle bells chimed. A robotic voice said, “SANTA RECOGNIZED. WELCOME, MATTHEW CLAUS.”

  “Kris Kringle actually built all this, too. Originally it was his private workshop.” The wall rumbled and slid up again, revealing a simple circular room with various half-finished projects scattered around it. “Now it’s mine. And one day, it will be one of yours.”

  Santa gestured to the center of the room, where the Quantum Kringle floated, suspended in midair by some kind of energy coming from the ceiling and the floor. He gently plucked it from the air and held it out to us. “Would you li
ke to touch it?”

  Celia and I stared at the swirling galaxy of snow. We reached out together and rested our hands on it. It felt warm and alive. It vibrated like it was humming.

  Ramp’s hands were clenched into the fabric of his shirt, tugging at it too hard. He looked like he was having trouble keeping it together.

  “It’s okay.” Santa gently nudged it toward him. “You’re not going to hurt it.”

  Ramp reached one shaky hand out and touched it. Immediately, his body calmed down. Ramp stared deeply into it and I watched the swirling galaxy reflected in his eyes.

  “It’s beautiful,” he said.

  Santa pulled it away from us and put it back in its place, but Ramp kept his eyes on it.

  “The Quantum Kringle is what makes Santa Santa. This is what makes Christmas possible. Without it, Santa couldn’t get all around the world. We couldn’t keep inspiring all those kids to make wishes, so we’d have no power. All the elves and humans at the North Pole would have to go back to living with everyone else. We wouldn’t be able to do the good we do without this one thing. And it’s also the only thing for which Kris Kringle left no notes. Not a single hint on how to make another one.”

  Santa adjusted his tie and tugged at his suit jacket. “I wanted to remind you what you’re competing for. This job comes with beauty, but also centuries of responsibility and power you need to be gentle with. Imagine what havoc the Quantum Kringle could cause if it was used as a weapon! Faster-than-light travel is dangerous. Do you understand?”

  Celia and I nodded. Ramp just stared.

  “Good. Let’s go.” Santa led us back out of the little workshop, and the wall with the microphone closed behind us. He led us down the hallway and the wall with the hand scanner closed behind us. He led us up the stairs and twisted the reindeer statue, closing the stairs. No one would even know there was a hallway if they weren’t looking for it.

  Celia and I let out a deep breath we had both been holding. Ramp stared at the statue.

  Santa continued, “Your next challenge is to prove you can use it. Santa has to travel around the world, so you have to know the world. All of it. Every continent, every country, every street, every chimney. You have to be able to navigate even if every computer fails. And you have to think on your feet. To that end, we’re going to have a quiz competition. So study up.” He gave us each a hug. “And if any of you decides this is too much for you, now is the time to back out. I want the winner to come with me on my delivery route this year, so we’ll hold the final round on the morning of Christmas Eve. You have until then to decide.”