The North Pole Challenge (Flea's Five Christmases, #1) (19 page)

             
“Please, Rome, it really doesn’t look
that
bad on me, does it?” Flea asked.

             
“Yes, as a matter of fact it does,” she said without hesitation. She remained silent for nearly a minute, waiting for Vork to say something else. But the teacher already mentioned that he was in no rush for anything. Rome eventually conceded defeat in the war of silence. “Fine, I’ll wear it when you need me to.”

             
“Good, right now will do,” Vork said.

             
“Seriously?” she asked incredulously.

             
The teacher nodded and Rome sighed before snatching the box off her table and storming out of the classroom. She returned moments later wearing the ridiculous outfit and an expression of utter misery.

             
“The
entire
outfit, please,” Vork said.

             
Rome made the same annoyed grunt/shriek noise again. She reached into the box and pulled out the oversized Christmas hat, which she placed carefully over her perfect hair. Minko made no attempt to subdue his laughter. Flea smiled at her in an attempt to convey his thanks for her doing this. Rome, however, couldn’t tell the difference between the reactions from both boys.

             
“If either of you ever mention this to the other elves, I’ll
personally
shove you in a box bound for Antarctica,” she warned.

             
Vork waited for Rome to return to her table before addressing her.

             
“In order for you to succeed, you’ll have to focus on being an
elf,
not a fashion model,” the teacher said. “And believe me, nothing could be further from a fashion model than
that
outfit.”

             
Vork returned to the front table and picked up the next wrapped gift. He headed toward the two boys but beyond Minko’s table. He dropped the box in front of Flea, causing a loud metallic
clang
. Flea opened the box and discovered a single metal glove inside, which looked like it was from a medieval suit of armor.

             
“What do I do with this?” Flea asked as he studied the metal glove.

             
“Obviously, you wear it,” Vork said. “On your
right
hand.”

             
Despite the glove being so big and heavy, its opening was surprisingly small as he  squeezed his hand through. The glove was barely on his hand for a few seconds before Vork grabbed a hammer off his desk.

             
“Catch!” the teacher said as he hurled the hammer in Flea’s direction.

Flea instinctively tried to catch the hammer with his right hand. He was barely able to lift the heavy metal glove in time to stop the hammer from hitting him. It ricocheted off the glove and smashed into his foot, causing Flea to yelp in pain.

              “In order to maximize efficiency while building,
real
elves are taught to use both hands equally,” Vork explained. “Your left hand has a
lot
of catching up to do with the right.”

             
“Yes, sir,” Flea said.

             
Vork finally gave the largest of the presents to Minko, who excitedly ripped off the wrapping paper and spilled the contents onto his table. While Minko might have been satisfied with either of the first two presents Vork handed out, he was clearly confused and underwhelmed by what he received.

             
“A bunch of nails and a piece of wood?” he asked.

             
“That’s right, but it’s not just
any
piece of wood,” Vork explained. “You’re not looking at it closely enough.”

             
Minko picked up the wood and examined it more in depth, though he discovered only a simple difference.

             
“Okay, it’s a piece of wood with a bunch of little circles drawn on it,” Minko said.

             
“Now you’re getting somewhere,” Vork said. “Flip it over and look on the other side.”

             
Minko did as he was told but still wasn’t impressed.

             
“More circles,” he said.

             
“Those circles are drawn in
exactly
the same spots on both sides of that wood,” Vork explained. “You’ve never learned the basic fundamentals of building. I guess that instinct didn’t come quite so naturally to
you.
The most important thing you must learn first is to nail straight. In order to successfully hammer a nail straight through that board, it must go through the circle on one side and come out its corresponding circle on the other side. Once you can complete that entire board in less than thirty seconds, then you can move on to more difficult tasks.”

             
“Only thirty
seconds
?” Minko asked. “But there are too many circles drawn on this thing.”

             
“There are sixty circles – two per second – so you better get practicing.”

             
Minko glanced at Flea and shrugged his shoulders, apparently willing to give this a shot. He picked up his hammer and placed a nail over the first circle, perfectly driving it through the circle on the other side of the wood. Minko smiled as the nail turned green with success and he quickly moved on to the next one, not spending nearly as much time lining it up. From the next table over, Flea could tell that his friend hadn’t placed the nail straight enough even as he swung the hammer down. As soon as the nail went crooked, they all heard a loud
buzz
followed immediately by Minko’s yelp. He dropped the hammer as all of his hair now stuck straight up. As if being shocked wasn’t bad enough, the one green nail he’d already successfully hammered returned to its usual silver color and fell out of the wood, its circle quickly filling back in.

             
“What the – ”

             
“I forgot to mention that any mistakes will be promptly punished,” Vork said with a smile. “I hope that will provide you the proper motivation to improve.”

             
Minko tried a few more nails before he messed up another one. A buzz, a yelp and a new hair-do later, it was Rome’s turn to laugh at Minko’s misfortune.

             
“I love what you’ve done to your hair,” she said.

             
Minko tried to smooth his hair flat but it shot straight back up every time, much to Rome’s enjoyment.

             
“If I only had a big, ugly red hat to cover it,” Minko shot back at her, though he quickly realized that Rome wasn’t the only one wearing such a hat. “Sorry, Flea, your hat looks really good.”

             
Vork waved Flea over to the table next to Rome’s in the corner of the room. While Minko continued working on his hammering drill, the teacher decided it was time for the two better builders to retry the toy chest challenge under their new conditions. At first, Flea had a lot of trouble working with only his left hand. Even the simple task of holding a nail steady was nearly impossible to do with the metal glove. But after only a few hours of practice, Flea was surprised by how easily he adapted. His left had improved and he built toy chest after toy chest, though nothing he completed seemed to rise to Vork’s incredibly high standards. Rome had the same trouble impressing their teacher, although Flea noticed that she was building much quicker than before.

             
A loud crack of electricity exploded from Minko’s direction and a bright flash of blue light momentarily illuminated the classroom. Minko yelled even louder than usual as the wood clattered against the floor, nails shooting across the room.

             
“He must’ve overloaded it,” Vork said. Minko stood completely still, a shocked look on his face. A tiny bit of smoke floated above his head. “I’ve never seen any elf take this long to master such a simple skill. I better make sure the wooden board isn’t about to blow up.”

             
Minko burst into a stream of excuses as the teacher approached him. Flea couldn’t help joining Rome in laughter but the two soon got back to work while Minko gathered the nails strewn about the room. Flea was only a few steps away from completing his best toy chest yet, one he was determined to impress Vork with.

             
“You really
are
as good as the other elves,” Rome said as she stole a glance toward Flea’s work. She’d stopped working just long enough to brush dust off her clothes and fix her hair.

             
“Thanks, I really appreciate that,” Flea said. “It looks like you’re getting much better, too.”

             
Rome casually shrugged her shoulders. “Too bad I’m not getting better quickly enough. You’ll graduate way before your weird friend or I will be good enough to pass. At least when Minko and I return to our horrible jobs, we can take this little bit of gained knowledge with us. Maybe we’ll even get another chance to pass this class in a few
more
centuries. Maybe.”

             
Flea knew exactly what Rome was trying to do. But he’d already planned what to do about this class, guided by red-robe’s warning that ‘only he could save her.’ Still, that didn’t mean Flea had to let Rome know about his plans, especially since she continued to prove how selfish she could be. Minko yelped again and Flea glanced over to see his friend still hammering nails into the fixed piece of wood. Minko seemed more determined than ever to get better and leave his card-writing job forever.

             
Hopefully I can save him while I’m saving her, too,
Flea thought.

             
Vork returned to the front of the class where he pushed a button at his desk. Flea’s perfectly-built toy chest – along with Rome’s project and Minko’s wooden board – fell apart in front of him, leaving him with just a stack of raw materials.

             
“While this class has been real fun, I think we all deserve a break for a while,” Vork said. The three students sighed in relief, as Minko’s hair, Rome’s sense of style and Flea’s tired left hand all needed a break. But the teacher wasn’t about to make it
that
easy for them to escape the classroom. “Class can come to an end once Minko finishes his hammering challenge in less than thirty seconds…” (This announcement caused Rome to groan loudly.) “…
and
either Flea or Rome can build a toy chest – to
my
standards – in less than three minutes.”

             
Rome clearly looked deflated at the thought of such a difficult task but Flea whispered words of support to her. “We can
do
this,
both
of us.”

             
The holographic image of the toy chest replayed at the front of the room for only a few seconds before being replaced by the timer, which blinked 3:00…

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Flea’s Reward for Helping

“Go!” Vork called out.

              He swept his hand through the timer and it started counting back from three minutes. Flea started to work with his left hand, which now moved just as smoothly and instinctively as his right. He’d even grown accustomed to working with the clunky metal glove on his other hand. Flea progressed quickly through his project and when he saw that he was halfway finished, he stole a quick glance at the holographic timer.

             
2:01…2:00…1:59…

             
Flea was amazed that so little time had passed, but when he looked over at Rome’s toy chest, he saw that she was still far behind.

             
Only I can save her,
Flea thought.
Only I can save Rome from a lifetime of humiliation about not being a proper builder elf.

             
Flea heard Minko curse a second time as another one of his thirty-second time periods past. Minko and Rome both needed his help so Flea was purposely errant when he struck the next nail, causing it to poke out of the side of his toy chest. It was the same mistake he’d made the first time he tried hammering with his left hand, so he hoped Vork wouldn’t become too suspicious of it happening again. Flea didn’t slow his working speed but by the time he removed the errant nail and covered up his ‘error’, the three minutes expired and left him well short of completion. His and Rome’s toy chests momentarily turned green before falling apart into raw materials again.