Bongo The Elf - A Christmas Short Story

Bongo The Elf

"Get back here, you need to give it back!" shouted Santa as he chased Bongo through the courtyard of the North Pole.

"I need to fix it, Santa! I NEED too!" pleaded Bongo as he dodges all attempts to catch him. He's ducking and diving, juking and sliding his way around Santa and all the other elves trying to stop him. You see, Bongo was not like any other elf in the North Pole. This little elf was the reason every child got the wrong gift for Christmas last year. Now he's trying to redeem himself and gone too far, stealing something very special from Santa. He took something that could mean no children get gifts this year if he doesn't get it back; no gifts at all.

Exactly 1 year ago, on a regular Christmas Eve, the elves were putting the final touches on all the gifts they had worked so hard to make. There were millions of presents, piles of them filling the workshops. They wrapped them in a bright blue paper with a snowflake pattern on and tied them with a perfect bow using yellow ribbon. As always, they looked amazing. The only thing left to do was assign the presents to the correct child. This is always the last thing they do to make sure every child gets exactly what they want; even if they change their mind the night before Christmas. All the gifts come through a big conveyor belt and the elves used their magic to assign the gift to a house, just like the many years before. This year it was Bongo's job . Bongo's magic isn't the most consistent of things though and he was very nervous; he didn't want to give the other elves more reasons to make fun of him.

Elf magic gets stronger the more confident the elf is and Bongo has never been the most confident elf. He's a bit taller than the others, 15.4cm taller to be exact, and very self-conscious of it. Being in the North Pole made him feel like a giant. It didn't help that the other elves constantly made fun of him and called him names which only made his magic abilities worse. When it came time to assign the presents, his nerves got the better of him, his magic wasn't quite up to snuff and just a tiny tiny bit off. Every single present was one house off from where it was supposed to be. Every child's friend one door over got the gift they wanted most in the world. They were moving so quickly, hundreds of presents per second, that Bongo didn't realise what had happened. Once the presents have gone past elf assignment they are loaded straight into Santa's magic sack that sits in the back of his sleigh.

As the last few gifts flew past him at rapid speed, Bongo finally noticed. It was too late. He stood and watched as Santa climbed into his sleigh, gave a great big HO HO HO and took off even faster than gifts on the machine where moving. Not knowing what to do next, he stood there pale as a polar bear; too frightened to tell anyone what had happened and the world fell into slow motion. *BANG* - Confetti and glitter rained from the sky and music played loud across the whole North Pole, the elf party had begun. They work so hard all year for one big party once Santa is out the door. Elves were singing, drinking Elfnog, having bauble flights, dancing and jumping around on candy cane pogo sticks. Bongo went to sit by the big Christmas tree in the middle of the North Pole on his own. He looked at the star at the very top, wishing he could fix his mistake. When he realised nothing could be done, he got into a small ball under the tree and cried. He was officially the only elf to have ever ruined Christmas.

No one noticed till the morning after Christmas day. The same loudspeakers used for the elf party were now blasting the human news. People from all around the world had gotten the wrong gifts and Santa was FURIOUS. He wondered how this could have happened after so many years of getting it right. Bongo was nervous. All the elves were nervous. They started to narrow down who was to blame and there was only one real option, Bongo. This was about to be the beginning of Bongo's transformation. When Santa loses faith in an elf, they lose all their magic and lose faith he did; not helping the confidence thing. On one hand, Santa didn't want to be too harsh but he also had to make an example. Something like this could never happen again. Bongo was sent to work as a cleaner and stable keep for the reindeer, after all, you don't need magic to pick up poop.