Afternoon of the Elves

Sara-Kate had said “put yourself in the position of the elf.” During the next week, Hillary found herself slipping into that position frequently and with remarkable ease. It did not feel odd or unnatural at all, especially with Sara-Kate hovering watchfully nearby, whispering, explaining, drawing upon an apparently endless supply of information about elves.

She knew everything that could be known about them, it seemed to Hillary, whose eyes now often followed the older girl’s unusual figure at school, along halls, into classrooms. She began to wait for her near the cafeteria at lunchtime, to sit with her if Sara-Kate was willing, though she more often passed Hillary by and went to occupy a chair away by herself.

Jane Webster and Alison Mancini watched their friend’s new attachment with alarm. They took Hillary aside and tried to warn her.

“What is wrong with you?” Jane hissed one day outside the lunchroom, where she had come across Hillary standing rather pathetically against the door frame. “Sara-Kate Connolly is not a good person. She’s out to trick you and everybody knows it. Everybody keeps telling you to watch out, to stay away from her. But do you listen? No! You’re over at her house every afternoon. You’re walking home from school with her every day. And why are you standing around here waiting? She never sits with you anyway.”

“Have you seen what Sara-Kate eats for lunch?” she asked. “She brings white mush from home and pours sugar on top. White mush! Can you believe it?” Jane’s eyes widened in horror.

“It’s only Cream of Wheat cereal,” Hillary answered. “Sara-Kate has a delicate stomach. She can’t eat hamburgers and pizza and things like that. She cooks the Cream of Wheat herself in the morning and puts it in a thermos. That way, it’s hot for lunch. She told me.”

“Do you know that Sara-Kate’s father is a criminal?” Alison asked Hillary later that day. “He’s in prison for armed robbery and will probably be there for a long time. A friend of my mother’s told her.”

But Hillary only smiled. “He’s not in prison, he’s in Sarasota, Florida. Sara-Kate said so,” she replied with such honest conviction that Alison fled to Jane in a fright.

“It’s as if Sara-Kate has put a spell on her!” she whispered to her friend. “Hillary believes everything she says. Everything!”

Spell or no spell, magic or none, Hillary was getting more attached to the Connollys’ backyard with each passing day. There was a lot of work to do around an elf village, she discovered. She could not just sit still and watch because even as she looked, a leaf roof would blow off and she’d have to run after it to bring it back. Or a line of pebbles would become crooked and need to be rearranged. The elves appreciated this kind of light repairwork. But they would not stand for too much meddling with their village, as Hillary soon discovered.

During a rainstorm, two of the tiny houses entirely collapsed. Hillary and Sara-Kate found them the next day. Hillary kneeled right down to begin putting the structures back together, but Sara-Kate jumped in front of her and grabbed her wrists.

“Don’t touch!” she yelled. “These are elf houses and only elves can build them right. People don’t know how!”

Hillary snatched her hands away angrily. “You never told me that,” she said. “How am I supposed to know things you haven’t even told me yet?”

“Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?” Sara-Kate spat back. But then, seeing Hillary’s expression, she said in a kinder voice: “It’s all right. Don’t worry. We can help the elves with little things. We can leave presents for them. They would like that.”

Who would have thought there could be so much elf food in that brambly, neglected backyard? (“I guess that’s another reason the elves came here,” Hillary said to herself.)

And there were blackberries and little pink flowers in the underbrush that Hillary’s father would have called weed flowers. There were no weed flowers left in Hillary’s backyard, and no place was muddy enough to grow mushrooms.

“You’ve got a perfect yard for elves,” Hillary said to Sara-Kate wistfully. “Nobody in the whole neighborhood has a yard even close to this.”

“Do elves eat regular flowers?” Hillary inquired. “We’ve got a whole lot of pretty ones growing in our yard.”

“That what’s poisonous to people is healthy for elves. And what people think is pretty is not at all what elves like to live near.”

“You’re getting to understand elves pretty well,” Sara-Kate allowed. Then she found two caps off the tops of acorns that, filled with water, looked exactly like the sort of cups elves would drink out of. These they left on a leaf near the village, surrounded by all the food.

“Will it be safe?” Hillary asked, standing back to admire the banquet. “Shouldn’t we cover the food with something? A dog could come along and wreck this in a minute. And it’s getting so cold and windy out here,” she added.

The afternoons had grown progressively chillier during the week. September was nearly over and there was a feeling of changing seasons in the air. On this particular afternoon, the wind had a nasty bite to it that now caused Hillary to turn up the collar of her thin jean jacket. Sara-Kate looked at her and shrugged.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I always check things before I go to bed. And then I come look in the morning before school. It takes a lot of work to keep elves, but it’s worth it.”

“What will they do in winter?” Hillary asked. “They’ll get pretty cold out here.” Her own feet felt icy suddenly, and looking down she saw that her sneakers had gotten rather muddy.

“Not elves,” Sara-Kate said proudly. “They like being outside. They have thick skins. They never go inside until they have to. Houses are too hot for elves. They can’t breathe right.”

“Then why did they bother to build all these houses?” Hillary inquired a little sharply. She could not quite believe it about the elves’ skins. Even furry animals got cold, she knew. In winter, they burrowed into caves and nests and went to sleep.

“Why don’t elves just live in trees or underground like other animals?” Hillary asked Sara-Kate. “It would be so much easier for them.”

Sara-Kate shook her head. “You can be pretty stupid sometimes,” she scoffed. “The reason they build houses is to have a village so they can live together, of course. Elves keep together. If they lived in trees or holes, they’d be all scattered out.” She squinted at Hillary. “And anyway, elves aren’t animals,” she added. “For one thing, they’re about a hundred times smarter than any animal. They’re about ten times smarter than most people and about twice as smart as a human genius.”

Sara-Kate stopped suddenly and looked around toward her house. There, some signal invisible to Hillary must have caught her eye, because she began to walk rapidly in the direction of the back door.

When Hillary stared after her in surprise, Sara-Kate flung herself around again and bellowed, “Go on! Get going!”

Hillary sighed. She glanced a last time at the elves’ banquet to see that all was in order. She shivered. The wind had stopped coming in puffs and now blew in one long, cold stream.

All of a sudden, one of the leaf roofs came detached at one side and was blown up straight by the wind. It was a deep red color and had the curious look of a hand, fingers and thumb outstretched, waving at her. It appeared so real that Hillary wondered for a second if the elves were behind it, playing a game with her.

She smiled at this thought, and had bent down to fix the leaf when another flutter caused her to straighten up quickly and look toward Sara-Kate’s house.

She saw right away what it was. A shade in one of the upstairs windows had been flicked up, and now, as she watched, a thin face rose where the shade had been and stared down at her with wide eyes. For a moment, Hillary stared back. Then she stepped away and ran for the hole in the hedge that led to her own yard.

But the face had not looked as if it belonged to a mother, any mother. It had been too white and too thin. Too frightening.