The Elves Steal Them

The elf scampered across the vast expanse of concrete, dodging a two-person glider before shimmying up against the wall of the house. He removed his pointed hat (the one without the bell at the end) and, withdrawing a handkerchief from the pocket of his knit trousers, carefully wiped his forehead. Usually, he was closer to four feet tall, but when he shrunk himself to twelve inches, his magic could concentrate over that smaller surface area, and enable him to outrun many things. Such as the oversized Lab puppy the next yard over.

“Stupid reindeer,” he muttered, probing the back door and pushing through a plastic flap. This was the other advantage of shrinking. He fit through small spaces, such as cat doors. Squeezing through, he landed on the floor. No alarms sounded, and no lights flashed on. He snapped his fingers five times, and green lights shone softly from his fingertips, faint reflections glowing on the tile. Night burglary was his specialty before he got nailed trying to lift a prototype computer from Santa’s workshop. The head elf chewed him out, and then sent him to the main factory, on a path of honest labor.

Mrs. Claus, however, knew his criminal past. She also ran Force 7, the undercover group of elves who routinely left the North Pole and traveled the world, doing good. In this case, stealing socks. The reindeer, on the whole, were well-behaved animals. They just had a natural weakness for flowers and shrubs. Humans’ flowers and shrubs. A full fourth of Force 7 was dedicated to the task of preventing reindeer damage to shrubs. After all, the creatures were invisible to the human eye, and, as they weren’t busy most of the year, they tended to gravitate to gardens for snacks.

The elf padded through the living room, breaths slowing. It appeared the humans were asleep. He followed a humming sound toward the side of the house until he reached the utility room. Smirking, the elf closed his eyes, and wobbled as he adjusted his height to three feet. Popping the dryer open, he waited for the clothes to stop tumbling. Reindeer, over the ages, had developed a repulsion to a common item of clothing – socks. The exact cause of this repulsion was lost in history. No one was sure whether it was because they were forced to deliver so many during the Christmas season, or whether they delivered so many because Mrs. Claus and the elves pilfered loads of them every year. It was a chicken-and-egg debate.

He plunged one hand into the dryer and came out with a fistful of socks. One was white, with pale blue snowflakes dancing around the ankles. Another probably was white in a past life, until some negligent sorter dropped it into a load of reds and pinks. A yellow one with purple stars and a green knee-high joined his stash. Once he got these beauties back to the Pole, his fellow workers would unravel them and bury tiny bits of the thread in gardens around the world. The reindeer would then reject the gardens, and spare the shrubs. Just a couple more –

He gasped as he unfolded the last sock. A tiny white one with no ankle, meant to be worn with Converse and Vans. He stared at it, eyes widening. He shouldn’t. He really shouldn’t. Perhaps it was his brief experimentation with black market varieties of hallucinogenic candy canes, but he had an affinity for this kind of sock. The other ones didn’t taste right, but these…these were the crème de la crème of socks. It was why he tried to raid houses with teenagers, who were prone to wearing Vans, and therefore, these socks.

A light flicked on in the kitchen, and he froze, one hand clasping his sock collection, the other clenching around the tiny white sock. Caught? No! A shadow appeared in the doorway, and he crammed the sock into his mouth, chewing several times before swallowing. An actual person materialized, and he gulped.

The little girl stared at him, head cocked to the left. “Did you just eat my sock?”

He didn’t move, only twitching his gaze left and right. A plan of action formed in his mind. Nodding guiltily, he darted forward and touched her hand. Her eyes glazed over, and she shuffled backwards out of the utility room. He watched her move backwards up the stairs, zombie-like, and resolved to work on his spellcasting over the spring season. For now, he shrank himself to twelve inches gain, darted through the cat door, and slipped into the night, the remnants of the tiny white sock sweet on his tongue.