The Naughty List

People love a good elf story. Think: Long-haired and long-legged Legolas gliding across the mountaintops of New Zealand, brandishing his bow to vanquish your foes and then sweeping you off your feet…yeah, I wrote my share of teen fanfiction back in the day.

Well, this story isn’t about that kind of elf. No elves who want to be dentists here, or elves on quests to New York City to find their estranged dads, or elves making toys for Santa.

Why? Because an elf stole my daughter on the night before Christmas. You can’t make this stuff up!

The drones started right after Thanksgiving, twinkling with festive lights and playing carols on their tiny speakers. Drone after drone delivered cookies, cocoa bombs, baklava, divinity -- every manner of Christmassy sweet treat you could imagine. They came at least three times a week. I shared the treats with friends and with my students, casually hinting to my baking pals that I thought it was one of them, but no one took credit for being our secret elf.

Until Zoey was born, the holidays had only served as a painful reminder of the loss of my brother, who disappeared the week before Christmas in 1990. He was ten then, and I was only five. He was never found. While I got semi-used to seeing his face on the side of the milk cartons, or posters by the restroom in department stores, I never got used to being without him. He was my best friend.

Zoey came along ten years ago. Born on Christmas Eve, she was the best gift ever -- unlike her father, who split shortly after her diagnosis, making it just the two of us. We liked it that way.

“My substitute teacher said I’m on the naughty list!” Zoey huffed, bundling into the car after school.

“What kind of grinch would say a thing like that to a cool kid like you?”

Zoey counted under her breath as she fastened and unfastened her seatbelt three times. “Her name was Mrs. Pringle, and she said she’s on Santa’s committee for list making.” Zoey paused and blinked rapidly, “List making,” she repeated in a whisper. “You know that new tic though? The one I’ve been trying extra hard to stop doing?”

Trying extra hard only made her tics worse, and Zoey knew it. It didn’t stop her from trying, with good intentions. I cringed as I rolled slowly out of the pick-up lane – I knew the one.

“You’re a mean one!” Zoey popcorned in the backseat. “Sorry—” rapid blinking “—not you, Mom! You’re a mean one! Aaaarrrrrggg!” Zoey buried her face in her hands in frustration.

“Honey, by law she has to see your IEP! Didn’t anyone talk to her?” I was livid. Oversights happened far too frequently with her Individualized Education Plan. Me being her voice had the teachers ready to deck my halls, I was pretty sure. I was that mom – and proud of it. Zoey deserved someone in her corner, she had rights worth fighting for. “Any seizures today?”

“No. You’re a mean one!” sigh “I wish I had! Then that old grumpy Mrs. Pringle would see I wasn’t being rude – You’re a mean one! –” rapid blinking “Rude!”

“I don’t wish you had! It’s better you’re healthy, this was just a misunderstanding. Maybe we shouldn’t have watched the Grinch.”

“N-n-no, Mom! onetwothreefourfive I liked it! I can’t just never watch things that might become tics -- You’re a mean one! -- I’d never get to watch anything! Anything, anything.”

“Well, it’s officially Christmas break, cutie! You can tic all day and never worry about misunderstandings – and that Scrooge of a sub can go stick her head in her own plum pudding!”

That made her giggle. “M-m-maybe we will get a – mean one! – another drone! onetwothreefourfive”

“Don’t you think we’ve had enough sugar, Sugar?”

“Never!” With a sparkle in her eye, Zoey raced up the front steps. No package yet.

“It could still come later -- all the others have. Let’s make some hot chocolate! I’m freezing.”

The living room smelled like apple cinnamon from my oil warmer. I switched on the tree lights to get right into vacation mode. As I warmed the milk over the stove, a faint sound of tinkling music started and drew closer. Zoey flung open the front door eagerly and to my surprise, the drone flew all the way into the living room!

“It looks d-d-different than before.”

Zoey was right. Our previous drones had been red and green with twinkling lights, but this drone was jet black. Its music sounded like it was meant to be festive, but instead it twanged off-key. “Maybe it’s an old one, or it’s been doing a lot of deliveries lately.”

Zoey wasted no time in tearing open the box, leaving the door open and the chill sneaking in. “What’s this? onetwothreefourfive – it’s empty! You’re a mean one!”

I peered over her shoulder. The box was indeed completely empty, save for a small black lump in the corner.

“Is it poop?” Zoey wrinkled her nose.

I frowned. “I think it’s coal.”

Zoey reached in and took hold of the lump, tapping it on the bottom of the box. “Coal? Like the naughty liiiiiii-“

“Zoey!” Faster than I could scream her name, a shriveled, green hand reached out from the box and yanked Zoey in! It was a six-inch deep box! Without taking time to wonder, I dove in after her, and sure enough -- the box was not what it seemed.

“Moooom!”

I could see them ahead – Zoey in the clutches of some wrinkled, slimy, small creature. “Hold on, Zo! I’m coming, baby!” We were all falling through some sort of – I don’t know, vortex? I don’t read sci-fi, but it was like a long swirl of mist and glitter and chunks of coal that kept smacking me in the face on the way down.

We landed with a series of grunts in a deep pile of powdery snow. The creature stood to its full height, which was only about two feet, and glowered at Zoey and I still tangled on the ground. “This was NOT the plan!”

Gathering my senses, I took in our surroundings. The air reeked of smoke. Off-key carols played from some invisible source. There were mounds and mounds of coal, and a series of little black houses adorned with orange lights. Penguins seemed to be everywhere, pushing wheelbarrows full of coal to and from a black sleigh. In front of the sleigh a team of polar bears was harnessed, no reindeer in sight. Beside us towered a tall pole with black and gray stripes going up and a shining globe on the top. “Is this – is this the North Pole?”

The elf, presumably some kind of bad elf, gave a sinister snicker. “North Pole? With reindeer and toys and Santa? NO!” He spread his spindly arms wide and gave a spin. “Welcome to the South Pole! This is where we make the coal for the naughty kids. Sometimes we need more Naughties to fuel the furnace. That’s why she’s here!” he pointed an accusatory spindly finger at Zoey. “But you’re not supposed to be here! Nicies can’t go through!” His pitch was just above an obnoxious whine. “If they find out I let a Nicey in here – I’m finished!”

“Well, let us both go and no one has to know! We won’t tell!”

The elf sneered, “Let you both go? I see what this is. You’re trying to keep me from reaching my quota! If I don’t make quota, the big guy might throw me into the furnace himself!”

“Wait -- if there’s no Santa, then who’s the ‘big guy’?”

The elf rolled his yellow eyes dramatically. “I never said there was no Santa. Of course there’s a Santa! He lives in the North Pole, and this is the South Pole – do I need to spell it out for you?” he pointed upward for North and downward for South as he spoke.

“You’re a mean one! onetwothreefourfive”

“You better shut up kid, that’s what got you on the naughty list! Mouthing off to a list maker isn’t a very bright idea but mouthing off down here gets you tossed into the furnace!”

I pinched myself. This was wild, it was too wild. Elves gone wild. Maybe some of those cookies were special cookies – but what kind of delayed reaction was this? -- and I gave some to my students! Son of a sugar plum. There was no other explanation though, was there? Unless it was all really…

From somewhere amid the wrinkles of his black and gray striped costume, the elf produced a bell and rang it. It rang true by comparison to the off-key music we’d been subjected to since arriving.

Now there comes a moment in most off-the-wall-dreams where you recognize that it’s a dream even while you’re still in it. I was past that moment, way past it.

In response to the bell a man approached. He was dressed in a deep green Santa suit – ugly green, like a spinach and olive combo. As he came closer, his features came into focus, and I knew immediately. He had a dark beard and was taller, his eyes too had aged, but my heart knew.

It was Brian. It was my brother.

Now I had to be dreaming…or the other thing.

“Please let us go home! I haven’t been mean at all! – You’re a mean one! – That wasn’t me! I have a ticcing condition. onetwothreefourfive”

“You want to see her IEP?” I quipped at the grumpy character. “I’m pretty sure I have it on me…”

“She’s that mom, so watch out!”

“IEP?” the elf crinkled his brow, “As in, Intensely Evil Plot?”

“Oh, brother!” I reached over and took hold of Zoey’s hand. “It’s okay, Zo. We’re going to get out of this somehow. We’ll be home for Christmas.” I’m not sure what came over me, but I began to sing the old Bing Crosby tune.

“Stop it. Stop it now! I hate that song!” Brian stomped his foot and tossed his bag of coal on the snow at his feet.

“Brian, what happened? How did you go from being such a sweet kid to – to kidnapping kids on Christmas? What we went through looking for you...”

“It was all your fault! You wrote to Santa and told him I was naughty, so he sent these weirdos to bring me here!” he thumbed at the elf, who didn’t look one bit offended.

“What? Surely Santa would understand a letter from an angry five-year-old when her brother threw her dolls in the sand box, and it got all in their hair. As a parent now, as a teacher, I find that to be on the mild end of normal things that happen between small children. Brian, I’ve missed you so much! I looked up to you. I never in my wildest dreams thought --"

“It’s too late! It’s been too long.”

“Is it too late? How are you not in the furnace? He said they throw Naughties in the furnace -- you obviously never got that treatment.”

“Bobo said they needed my help to deliver coal. I was a kid, anything sounded better than being thrown in a furnace!”

“Have you taken other children? Have you thrown them –”

“No! No, nothing like that. I think it’s just something Bobo says to make himself seem scarier than he really is.”

Bobo huffed and crossed his slimy arms.

Brian’s expression softened. “Look, when I saw Zoey’s name on the naughty list, I just had to see her. I was hoping you’d follow. Even as a kid with your dolls, you were a protective mother.” A familiar playful smirk curled the corner of his lips. “I missed you, Sis. I love you.”

I couldn’t hold it back one more minute -- I threw my arms around Brian and sobbed. Zoey crept in and joined the group hug -- even a couple penguins waddled over to lean in.

“No, no, no, no, NO! We’ll never make quota if we stand around squishing our bodies together like -- like Nicies!” Bobo tried in vain to break up our love fest. “If you bring the love here it could ruin everything! Everything!”

I looked down at his desperate face, his yellow eyes almost pleading. “Bobo, I don’t see any other elves here. Did you take Brian because you were lonely and wanted some help with the coal?”

Bobo sighed and harumphed and shuffled his feet. “I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. I’ll never crack.”

Zoey smiled and placed her arm around Bobo empathetically. “I have an idea. You’re a mean one! I think you and the penguins should come live with us. Don’t you think labeling kids as Nicies and Naughties is a bit old fashioned anyhow? My teacher always says, ‘There are no bad people, only unwise choices.’ We can find you a new gig!”

Bobo crumpled his pointed nose and looked as though he might be considering his options.

“That furnace can’t be good for global warming.” Zoey pressed. “You’re a mean one! Global warming.”

In the end, Brian gave us a ride home on his polar bear sleigh, and then he stayed with us. He handed the reigns to Bobo, who was going back to release the bears and penguins into their natural habitats -- and snuff out that furnace for good.

Zoey started an inclusion club at school to help raise awareness for kids with invisible diagnoses. Their flyers read: The No More Naughty List Club is committed to opening minds and doors to the challenges faced by people living with hidden disabilities that affect social interactions. We can build a nicer world together!

Brian gave her a new tic: “My uncle is a mean one.” It was only partly true. He started his own business: Zozo Drones were an overnight hit with meal and grocery delivery companies.

Before we knew it, Valentine’s Day was closing in. I handed Brian a cup of cocoa and a cookie – no, not the special kind – and took in the view of my brother on my couch reading Harry Potter to my daughter beside him. A faint jingling song started in the distance and drew closer. Brian went to the door. It was a brightly colored drone, like the ones that had brought the cookies – and the coal. Brian glanced at me, holding the box in his hands. It rattled and thumped from inside. “Do we dare?”

Before I could answer, Zoey snatched the box and tore open the lid. “It’s Bobo and the penguins! My uncle is a mean one! onetwothreefourfive Look! I missed them too much.”

Penguins poured into the living room, covered in coal dust, squawking merrily. “All of them, Zoey? You only met them for a couple hours! I thought only Bobo was coming to stay!” Brian feigned confusion, but he was clearly happy to see them.

“I’ve got a job all lined up for Bobo with Toys for Tots.” I winked at the little elf, who I had to admit was growing on me. “He can do something ‘Nicey’ for a change.” Bobo only pretended to huff at that idea.

“Bobo is a bumblefoot! onetwothreefourfive”

“Six, seven, eight, nine, ten –”

“Uncle Brian! Stop it!”

“Never. I’m a mean one, after all.” He winked at her as a pile of penguins joined them on the couch. The story was just getting to the good part.

So that’s my elf story. It was a Christmas miracle -- finding my brother alive -- and it happened in the South Pole courtesy of a grumpy, green, slimy, not-so-bad elf named Bobo. Like I said – you can’t make this stuff up!

Thanks for reading my story! You can get your Nicey on and help out Toys for Tots right here!