Top Elf by Caleb Huett

Author:Caleb Huett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2017-10-19T04:00:00+00:00

The challenges were all held in the Reindeer Games Stadium and Spa Resort. All in our Big Red Suits, the ten of us gathered on the field. Ahead of us were two straight lines of big, featureless gray boxes with chimneys of different sizes and shapes poking out of the tops.

Rudolph was waiting for us when we arrived. Since Celia and I had been first in the sleigh race, he made us team captains.

“I’ll take Buzz,” Celia started.

“Uh, Kurt,” I said.

“Gadzooks.”

“Ramp.”

“Frank.”

“Klaus.”

“Andrea.”

“That leaves me!” The boy in the beige sweater walked cheerfully over to my team. “What a good group.”

Klaus rolled his eyes. Kurt rolled his eyes and made a goofy face to make fun of him. Klaus started rolling his eyes again, and Kurt mimicked him again, this time rolling his whole body at the same time as his eyes. Klaus almost rolled his eyes at that, but caught himself and just grumbled.

Rudolph shone his nose as bright as it would go, getting our attention.

“Each of you wannabes will pick one of the chimneys,” Rudolph explained in his robotic drone. “Each chimney has a different challenge, and at the end of the chimney is a room with a tree. Press the button under the tree, and a buzzer will sound, signaling your next teammate to drop down theirs. One of the members of the losing team will be randomly chosen and eliminated from the competition. Understood?”

“Randomly?” Celia scrunched up her face at Rudolph, which was very brave because he was terrifying. “Are you serious? That’s not fair!”

He swiveled his dark eyes at her. “Are you questioning my challenge, Pixie?”

Celia huffed but didn’t say anything else. We all split up and picked our chimneys. Celia and I both chose the last box in our line, with a simple redbrick chimney on the top. The rest of our teammates took their places along the line.

The start buzzer sounded. Buzz and Kurt jumped down their black metal cylinders. There was a loud clanging as they went down, and a huge cloud of soot flew out. A few more seconds of clanging, and then a steady stream of smoke started coming out of the top.

Fire??? I thought. Are they being set on fire?!

Buzz’s box lit up, and the buzzer sounded, sending Gadzooks down her chimney. Ramp was still waiting on Kurt, and I started to get worried as the smoke churned out of the top. Buzz shimmied out of his chimney and fell on top of the gray box, gasping for breath and covered in soot.

Kurt’s buzzer sounded. Phew. Ramp jumped down into his chimney: a wide, clear one. There was a loud splash, and his chimney sealed closed at the top. The entire gray box turned over sideways—like I saw had already happened on Celia’s side—and the clear chimney filled up with water.

Can Ramp even swim? I thought. Apparently, he could swim even better than Gadzooks; their two boxes lit up and buzzed within seconds of each other. Frank and the boy with the beige sweater were next.

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