“Quick, quick,” Trixie the Boss Elf said to me. “Take the key and go to the shed and get a wheelbarrow full of batteries.”
Sounds simple, huh? It should have been. Even I couldn’t bungle that one up. Or so Trixie thought, anyway.
Except that the Snow Clearing Elves had been called into the workshop to help pack the last toys, so there were big piles of snow all over the path. I bet you’ve never tried to push a wheelbarrow through mountains of snow. One tiny wheel that has a mind of its own about which direction it wants to go in. I kept tripping and falling and yanking on that silly wheelbarrow. So, I did what all good elves would do. A little magic. I sat in the wheelbarrow and asked it to fly. But it was cold, and my teeth were chattering, which explains why the wheelbarrow didn’t move but instead, as I sat there, I felt my bottom getting hotter and hotter.
I’d asked the wheelbarrow to fry instead of fly! Oh, dear me!
I jumped out of that frypan; I mean wheelbarrow, so fast that I fell face down in the snow. I stumbled to my feet, picked up the wheelbarrow handles and dragged it behind me to the battery shed. But when I got there, I couldn’t find the key! My hands searched to the bottom of my pockets, my hands turned my pockets inside out, my hands yanked on my hair in despair!
Ouch—that hurt.
I must have lost the key when I jumped out of the wheelbarrow.
The snow was coming thick and fast as I stumbled back to the spot where I’d tumbled into the snow. I sunk to my knees and did a reverse snow angel in the ground searching for the key. What would happen if the toys had no batteries? Oh dear! That would spoil Christmas. All those children not being able to use their new toys. My heart was breaking!
I couldn’t find the key!
As I sat up in the snow, I saw my wheelbarrow where I had left it, tipped up against the shed door. It was kind of glowing.
Glowing red hot—it was still frying. As I scrambled to my feet it exploded—Kaboom!
I flung myself to the ground as the handles flew past my head.
Now I was totally covered in snow and sinking deeper. Which was just as well because the next thing that happened was the shed door caught on fire, and then the wall and then the other wall, and then the other wall…
I knew what was coming and shut my eyes tight.
But you can’t shut your ears. Especially big pointy elf ears. They hear everything.
KABOOM KABOOM KABOOM
All the batteries exploded. Every single one. It was a huge fire. I sunk lower and lower in the snow. Everyone came to see. Even Santa. In his socks.
And that’s when I found it. The key!
I thought it was probably best not to tell Trixie my good news. She was hopping mad. I thought SHE might explode when she yanked me up out of the snow by my ears. Double ouch!
“What will we do now, Bumble?” she yelled.
“Are you all right, Bumble?” Santa asked.
I love Santa. He never gets mad at me. And I got my name Bumble for lots of very good reasons.
“I’m good, I’m good Santa,” I said and held up the key. “I found the key for the battery shed.”
He smiled at me. “That you have. Well done.”
“What will we do without batteries, Santa?” Trixie growled, her hands on her hips.
“I’ll send a message to the battery supplier and see if he can do an emergency drop. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to warm my toes. You know, maybe I’ll do that by this enormous bonfire Bumble’s made. Does anyone have any marshmallows?”
Trixie harrumphed and stalked back to the workshop. Which is pretty difficult to do in knee deep snow.
Santa sat d
own beside me and I told him my wheelbarrow story. Like all my bumbling stories, he found it very funny.
“What would we do without you, Bumble?” he said. “But I better go and sort out those batteries right away.”
I snuck back into the workshop but I could see Trixie was in a bad mood so I hid behind the dollhouses. I borrowed a crown and every time she walked passed I stood very still. Just like a giant elf prince doll. I was certain she never guessed it was me.
The day wore on. It was getting closer to take off time.
Finally the batteries arrived!
“Could somebody tell Prince Bumble the batteries have arrived? With only thirty minutes to spare,” Trixie yelled—loud.
Oh dear. Now what? There wasn’t enough time to put batteries in all the toys! The poor children. Santa might cancel Christmas. And it was all my fault. I would be banished from Santa’s workshop forever, for sure.
“Are we ready?” Santa said, coming into the room. He looked all red and white and Santerry. Which I was grateful for. The previous year I’d lost his Santa suit and he’d had to do his deliveries in his tuxedo. Smart looking, but very, very cold, he’d said.
“We would have been ready if the batteries had got here earlier,” Trixie said. There was steam coming out of her ears. Actual steam. I’ve seen that before—it’s never a good sign. I put on another crown and moved behind the cake and juice table. As I did, I slipped on some spilled juice and knocked over the table.
Crash Crash CRASH—Splish Splash.
Oh dear, oh dear. OH DEAR.
Now everyone was looking at me.
“Nice crowns you’re wearing,” Santa said. “But you’d be better off with a woolly hat in the sleigh.”
“The sleigh?” I asked as little sparkle started to jump in my tummy.
“Of course,” Santa said. “I’ll need some help to put the batteries in the toys as we go. You and Trixie should be able to keep up, don’t you think?”
I looked at Trixie. She looked at me. And we both smiled! We were going in the sleigh!
With Santa!
It was the most magical night ever.
Apart from the batteries I put in the toys upside down so none of them worked even when I shook them. Trixie got a bit cross when I shook one too hard and it fell out of the sleigh into a tall snow-covered tree. Santa just laughed and said, “I wonder what people will think of a toy puppy dog stuck up a tree?” Then he stopped the sleigh and showed me how to do the batteries the right way around, and we all had a jolly good night delivering the toys to all the girls and boys everywhere in the world.
It truly was the most wonderful Christmas ever. And worth being on hot cocoa duty for the rest of my life.
Oh dear, I think I put salt instead of sugar in Trixie’s cocoa…
