Mr. Claus

Chapter 3

     Elmore woke up laying on his bed. He didn't know how he got there, but he was glad he could be home. The next thing he noticed was that he was only wearing sleep shorts and he had no blankets. There were bandages wrapped around all of his burns and a bottle of burn ointment on his side table. He wondered if Mr. Claus had done it, but that would have been insane. Mr Claus never walked through town, which was the only way to get to his house. He assumed someone had to have picked him up from the bathroom.

He found the loosest sweatpants he owned and a thin sweatshirt, to not touch the burns, and headed to the workshop to see what was going on. Every time his clothes touched the bandages he tensed, but the pain was manageable. His neck and shoulder were a different story. Every time he moved slightly, burning pain shot throughout his body.

The workshop looked the same as it did every other day. Mr. Cranberry was talking to Felix at his station, and Ms. Green was looking through a book. Other elves were scattered around working tirelessly. He walked over to Mr. Cranberry and thanked him for everything he did yesterday. Then he asked where he'd be able to find Mr. Claus to thank him, and he was told he'd be in his office until noon. The last time he'd been to Mr. Claus' office was when he was asking for formal permission to take Dasher to White Lake. He walked through the wide hallways for a few minutes, trying to remember where exactly the office was. He knocked on the large wood door, and heard a faint 'come in'.

The smell of smoky sandalwood and amber hit his nose, and he took in the view of the office. The office was surrounded by dark oak panelling and warm cream walls. There were gorgeous leather chairs around a small circular table to his right, and a large wooden desk sat in the middle of the room. There was an open door off to the side of the room, which is where Mr. Claus must have been. Elmore walked to the desk and sat down in one of the small chairs facing it. He wasn't sure how to act, so he sat quietly and waited for Mr. Claus to come out of the side room. He came relatively quickly, and sat down at the large desk in front of him.

"What can I do for you?" He asked. He was wearing black dress pants and a light red button up with the sleeves rolled up. His rings glimmered in the warm light of the chandelier hanging on the ceiling.

"I just wanted to thank you for yesterday." Elmore said.

"It's no problem, how are your burns?" Mr. Claus asked.

"Most of them aren't too bad, I was wondering something though. Who took me home last night?"

"I'm glad. After we bandaged you up a boy named Felix came to get you to take you home. Did he not tell you?"

"No he didn't, he probably had things to do." Elmore said.

"That's a possibility. What would you like to do about yesterday's incident?" What does that mean?

"I'm not sure what you mean sir?"

"The boy who burned you broke direct rules and caused significant harm in doing so. I chose not to make any decisions without consulting you beforehand." Mr. Claus said.

"That was an accident, I really don't think he had any wrong intentions, and besides, he tried to apologise." Elmore didn't blame him for anything.

"I don't think he had any intentions behind it either, but rules need to be enforced or other young elves will think the rules are suggestions. I'm not suggesting something severe, just something disciplinary to get the message across. Besides, the boy himself would probably choose to be punished before going back to work." Elmore thought that made sense.

"Do you think that he could take over my dish duty for a little while? Would that be enough?" he asked.

"Your dish duty? That would be fine, but why do you have dish duty?" He looked confused. Elmore was also confused.