The North Pole Challenge (Flea's Five Christmases, #1) (13 page)

             
“That’s enough, I can’t take any more of this,” Vork said as he shook his head. “Let’s get this over with already.”

             
The old elf approached Rome’s work station in the back corner of the room. Rome’s problem was immediately clear to Flea: she was way too slow. In ten minutes, she had only completed two sides of the toy chest. To be fair, Flea had to admit that they looked perfectly done. Vork, however, was in no mood to point out the positives.

             
“If you concentrated on your building skills as much as your clothes and hair, you might’ve actually been able to finish on time,” Vork said. “You’re an elf,
not
a runway model. Your main concern shouldn’t be trying to look perfect; it should be trying to complete projects in a shorter amount of time without worrying about messing up your outfit or your nails – and the nails I mean are those at the end of your fingers. I’ve seen piles of snow rise quicker than you work and I
don’t
mean during a snowstorm.”

             
Rome looked to be on the verge of tears following the tongue-lashing and Flea actually felt bad for her, despite her attitude problem. True to her form, Rome’s face hardened when she noticed Flea and Minko staring at her. She shot them both an angry look, as though they’d been responsible for Vork’s criticism. The teacher turned away from her and headed toward the two boys on the other side of the room. Flea’s breath came in quicker rasps and he broke into a cold sweat imagining what Vork would say to him. But the teacher first stopped in front of Minko’s desk, over which the holographic time read 9:58. Minko might have finished before the time limit ended, but Flea could hardly believe that a North Pole elf had built the… product in front of him.

             
“Where is your toy chest?” Vork asked.

             
Minko was clearly confused and looked to Flea for an answer, but Flea could only shrug his shoulders.

             
“Umm, it’s right here,” Minko said tentatively.

             
Vork looked at Minko’s table but ignored the box-like object on it. The teacher walked all around the table, making a show of not seeing the ‘toy chest’, which he asked for several more times. It eventually dawned on Minko exactly what Vork was trying to tell him about his work. Minko’s face turned bright red and Rome snickered from across the room. Vork’s cruelty simultaneously worried and angered Flea, though he could fully understand why the teacher was so perplexed when he looked at Minko’s work. With the exception of having four sides, a top and a bottom, Minko’s project looked
nothing
like the holographic image of the toy chest. Anything that
could
have been messed up
was
messed up. Flea could see that Minko’s toy chest was tilting severely to the front, the result of four sides of totally different size. Dozens of nails stuck out at random angles, none of the intricate details in the woodwork had even been attempted and the paint job was a complete mess, as though Minko had simply closed his eyes and thrown the entire contents of a paint can over the chest without the use of a brush.

             
Flea liked the friendly elf but not even Minko’s personality could persuade Flea to find a single positive aspect of his work. Vork started to give him several different critiques but he stopped each time, shaking his head with disturbed amazement. Vork was clearly at a loss for words.

             
“You have a long way to go, Minko,” Vork said. “A
long
way.”

             
Minko nodded his head and tried to force a smile. “Well, it wasn’t
that
bad considering it was the first thing I’ve built in… a
lot
of years.”

             
Rome burst into laughter. She stared at Minko’s monstrosity and cackled loudly.

             
“Not
that
bad?” she asked between fits of laughter. “Please tell me you aren’t that delusional. I doubt you could put a feather inside that thing without it falling apart.”

             
Minko looked to the teacher for support but Vork simply smiled.

             
“I think she’s being a bit generous with that assessment,” Vork said. “I figure a stiff breeze would send it to pieces.”

             
Flea might have smiled if Minko didn’t look so upset. The pudgy elf turned away from Vork and focused his embarrassed anger on Rome, who still laughed at Vork’s insult toward Minko.

             
“At least I was able to
finish
in time,” Minko said to her. “Maybe you could’ve made an entire toy chest if he’d given us another hour or two.”

             
This immediately wiped the smile from Rome’s face, which skewed in anger again. “Well if I really wanted, I could have made at least
five
chests as terrible as yours, though I’d have to concentrate to be
that
bad.”

             
“Okay, okay, that’s enough,” Vork said, finally interceding before Minko and Rome broke into an all-out war. “You’re both equally terrible in your own ways. Now please shut up so I can evaluate our last entry.”

Vork approached Flea’s table and for the first time, the other students noticed his toy chest.

              “Oh, no,” Minko whispered to himself.

             
“Are you trying to make us look bad, new guy?” Rome asked.

             
She clearly wasn’t happy, but that made Flea feel better knowing that his level of quality threatened her. Flea didn’t exactly feel good about making Minko look bad but the bigger elf wasn’t as jealous as Rome.

             
“Leave him alone,” Minko snapped at her, though his voice and body language both revealed that he was deflated. “It’s not his fault that he’s a natural. Good job, Flea, that looks awesome.”

             
“Whatever,” Rome said. “I didn’t want to take this stupid class anyway. Hopefully Fly can bring an end to this class nice and quick for all of us.”

             
Flea smiled and nodded his thanks to Minko. The goofy elf had no idea how much his kind words meant to him. Hearing that he was a natural made Flea feel a sense of confidence he’d never known and he watched with pride as Vork quietly examined his work. Several minutes passed without Vork saying a single word, which only raised Flea’s self-confidence. He figured the teacher could not find a single thing to complain about.

             
Maybe I
am
good,
Flea hoped as a smile splayed across his face.

             
“You’re not as good as you think,” Vork said, thus wiping the grin from Flea’s face. Vork clapped twice and the holographic toy chest reappeared, slowly floating across the room until it superimposed itself directly over Flea’s rendition. “As you can see right away, your toy chest is several inches longer and taller than the actual model, which would make it worthy of rejection if you tried passing this off in the toy factory.”

             
“That seems awfully picky to me,” Minko added.

             
“You don’t care about specific details?” Vork asked Minko, his voice oozing with sarcasm. “Why doesn’t
that
surprise me?”

             
“It’s okay, he’s right, Minko,” Flea said, trying to accept criticism in the hope that it would make him a better builder one day. Besides, Flea had no problem dealing with his first effort only being a few inches from perfection.

             
Unfortunately, the mis-measured dimensions were only the beginning of a lengthy list of mistakes that Flea made. Although he had done significantly better than Minko and Rome, the teacher spent more time ripping apart Flea’s work detail by tiny little detail. He ended his critique with a story.

             
“Just imagine an excited little child rushing downstairs on Christmas morning and opening
that
piece of junk. I wouldn’t be surprised if he or she threw the rest of the presents straight into the fireplace out of sheer disappointment,” Vork said. “On top of the pathetic outcome of your toy chest, I also noticed numerous flaws in your building technique. First off, you were very slow.”

             
“Slow?” Rome asked, more of out shock than an attempt at solidarity with the two other failures.

             
“Yes,
slow
. Flea might’ve moved like a speeding snowball compared to the two of you but that’s not saying much
at all
,” Vork said. “A big reason for this is that you were only able to work with your right hand. And as
glowing
a job you might’ve done with that, you proved to be mistake-prone with your left.”

             
“I thought I did a pretty good job of covering up that error,” Flea admitted.

             
“Well you thought
wrong
,” Vork countered. “Any elf worth his weight in snow is ambidextrous but I’d be willing to bet that Minko here could defeat you in a race if the two of you were limited to just your left hands.”

             
Flea turned and forced a smile at Minko, who shrugged his shoulders. Flea was upset that his only talent in life wasn’t nearly as good as he’d started to think. But Minko continued to prove that he was always an optimist.

             
“I think your toy chest looks awesome,” Minko said. “And I took a glance at you while we were building and it was definitely the fastest I’ve ever seen someone work.”

             
Before Flea had a chance to thank him, Rome just
had
to add her two cents, though her main target continued to be Minko.

             
“That’s because you’ve never even stepped foot inside the toy factory to see
real
elves at work,” she said.

             
“How do you know where I’ve been?” Minko shot back.

             
“It’s pretty hard to miss someone who’s always blinking,” Rome said, pointing to Minko’s shirt. “Besides, who around the North Pole
doesn’t
know about the poor pathetic
card elf
?”

             
Minko blushed and turned away from her, the first time she’d clearly gotten under his skin.

             
“At least I
do
my own work,” Minko muttered, though Flea doubted whether Rome had heard him.

             
Vork hobbled to the front of the classroom and pushed a button on his table, revealing his own pile of supplies and tools.

             
“If you two lovebirds are done bickering, I’ll show you how this is done,” the teacher said. The old elf appeared so frail that Flea doubted he could even pick up the hammer let alone build the huge toy chest. But Flea reminded himself that Vork had no trouble using the ‘hopwell’ so it probably wasn’t wise to underestimate him. Vork reset the holographic timer and started it, cracking his knuckles several times and wasting nearly five seconds. “Watch and learn.”

             
What followed was an amazing sight that Flea would not forget as long as he lived. The feeble old elf moved so quickly and efficiently that the three students could barely see his exact actions. Vork moved like a blur as his replica of the toy chest seemed to spring up from the table. Had Flea not seen similar lightning-quick movements from Niko earlier, he would’ve been convinced that he was watching some sort of illusion or magic trick. But Vork proved to be just as adept a builder and when he finished and swept his hand through the timer, the mouths of all three students hung open in shock.

             
“Forty seconds?” Minko asked, clearly in awe.

             
The image of the toy chest reappeared and floated over Vork’s rendition. The two matched perfectly but the old elf still shook his head slowly.

             
“I know, forty seconds is a disgrace,” Vork said, much to his students’ surprise. “I’m a lot slower than I used to be but let’s see how fast
you
three move when you’re a century or two past your 500
th
birthday.”

             
Flea was most shocked to hear of Vork’s age but Minko and Rome both nodded their heads in understanding.

             
“Okay, I’m ending class early now that I’ve evaluated each of you,” the teacher said. “Now comes the hard part for me: trying to figure out how to make all of you better.” Vork shook his head again. “I don’t know what I’ve gotten myself into,
always
attempting the impossible. You better head off to your regular job posts until I come up with a plan.”

             
Rome didn’t need to be told twice as she quickly headed for the door. Minko seemed disappointed that class was ending so soon but he also left the room, leaving Flea alone with the teacher yet again.

             
“Excuse me, sir, but I don’t
have
a regular job post,” Flea said.

             
Vork nodded his head. “Then you’d better catch up with the other two and hope that one of them will let you tag along for a while,” the teacher said.

             
Flea rushed out of the classroom, hoping to catch up with Minko or Rome before they were gone and left him alone in the North Pole grounds.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Blocked Entrance

“Don’t think you’re coming with me, little Fly, especially not dressed in that nerdy costume,” Rome said.

             
Flea caught up with the two of them just outside the school. Rome had been trying to rush away from Minko but the pudgy elf was following in her footsteps, satisfied that his mere presence was making her mad. She’d been yelling at Minko to leave her alone – to make sure none of her friends saw him near her – when Flea found them and explained that he needed to tag along with one of them until it was time for their next class. Rome’s reaction was what he’d expected but fate interceded and punished her for her meanness. She stepped in a small hole in the snowy surface and stumbled to the ground.

             
Minko immediately tried to help her up but Rome smacked his hand away.

             
“Don’t touch me, weirdo,” she snapped. Rome got to her feet and carefully wiped the snow off her clothes, spending much more time doing so than Flea would have.

             
“I was only trying to help,” Minko said. “You might want to try being nicer to us since we’ll all be spending so much time together.” Rome turned away from them but Minko saw something attached to her back that didn’t belong. He grabbed the long piece of clear tape and pulled it off her shirt. “And you might want to try to keep the tape off of yourself… unless that’s some cool new accessory to your outfit.”

             
Rome snatched the piece of tape out of Minko’s hand but her face immediately softened, which only made her look more beautiful.

             
“Thanks,” she said quietly. It was the first word Flea had heard from her that didn’t sound angry or mean. “And anyway, it’s not like we’ll be in class much longer if your friend here keeps building the way he did today. Vork will graduate him in no time and that’ll be the end of our lessons.”

             
Minko nodded his head solemnly and for a moment, he and Rome looked like two friends sharing a common pain.

             
“What do you mean?” Flea asked.

             
Minko and Rome explained that in order for the elf school to be open, three students in need of learning were required. Once one of them was past through the class – as Rome and Minko both expected Flea to be very soon – the school would be closed again with the two others returning to their menial jobs.

             
“It’s been years since the last time any new elves were here to go to school. And I don’t know about Minko, but I was starting to doubt that it would ever be opened again, that I would ever get another chance,” Rome explained. “But now that you’re zipping through the work and will probably graduate within another class or two, it seems almost like a tease that the school was reopened at all.”

             
“But I thought you didn’t even want to be there,” Flea said. “You said you didn’t care about the class.”

             
“
Of course
I want to be there,” Rome snapped. “I’m an elf. Do you know how embarrassing it is not to be able to build like everyone else?’

             
“Not exactly,” Flea admitted. “But I
do
know what it feels like not to fit in because I’m different.”

             
Flea meant to come across as understanding but Rome obviously didn’t take it that way.

             
“Well I
do
fit in regardless of how I build,” she said. An idea must’ve suddenly come to Rome, who became much sweeter when she spoke to Flea. “If you really wanted to help me… and I guess Minko, too… you could always purposely do bad in class to give us more time to improve. Maybe Vork would graduate all of us at the same time – or at least you and me.”

             
When Rome smiled and batted her eyelids, she could have suggested
anything
and it would have sounded like a good idea to Flea. Thankfully, Minko wasn’t quite as entranced by her beauty – or at least not that he let on.