The North Pole Challenge (Flea's Five Christmases, #1) (29 page)

             
Rome frowned and the two glanced again at the tree. Flea spotted only a few tiny openings left and an elf was climbing the ladder toward one of them. The elf held his Christmas ball in one hand and a big candy cane in the other, as he tried to climb so quickly that he lost his grip and fell. Flea expected the crowd to be worried for the elf’s safety but everyone just laughed as he hit the ground and kicked up a cloud of snow. A few other cider-fueled elves dragged their dazed friend to his feet and back toward the ladder. The crowd cheered on the elf during his second attempt to climb.

             
“Come on, you need to get back to building in school,” Flea said as he and Rome forced their way through the crowd. “Hopefully, Minko will be done by the time we get back and you’ll only have another order or two left.”

             
Just as they emerged from the crowd, they spotted Artimus and his friends walking toward them from the direction of the school. Flea knew this was the worst possible time for the bullies to harass them so he prepared himself to quickly crush them in a snowball fight if it came to that. Oddly, Artimus simply laughed as he walked by without incident, which left Flea more worried than if there
had
been a fight.

             
“What was
that
about?” Flea asked Rome accusingly.

             
“I don’t know,” Rome said, though she noticed the look of doubt on Flea’s face. “Seriously, I
don’t
know.”

             
Flea wasn’t sure if he believed her but that didn’t matter as they hurried to the production room at the end of the school’s hallway. The moment they walked into the room, Flea knew something was wrong. Minko wasn’t standing at his workstation, nor was he carrying a gift to the conveyor belt. It wasn’t until Flea heard a loud
grunting
noise from the direction of the conveyor that he noticed the large wrapped gift stuck near the belt’s exit chute. But the wrapping job on that large gift was terrible, obviously not done by the wrapping machine.             

             
Plus it looks like there’s a foot sticking out of it,
Flea thought.
Wait, that
is
a foot!

             
“Minko!” Flea yelled and the grunting became louder again as the ‘gift’ began to wiggle.

             
Flea and Rome ran across the room just as the ‘gift’ was about to be pulled into the chute. Although Flea had no idea of the dangers of the tunnel system, he didn’t hesitate to dive into the chute. He grabbed hold of his friend just before the conveyor belt dipped down sharply. Rome in turn grabbed onto Flea’s feet and proved that big strength could come from a tiny elf by pulling the two boys back into the light. Minko’s entire body was wrapped so tightly in Christmas paper that it took both Rome and Flea to drag him off the conveyor belt. They tried to stand him up on his feet but he was so wobbly that he immediately tipped over and crashed to the floor. Minko continued to grunt angrily as Flea and Rome tore away the numerous layers of wrapping paper from his body. It took several minutes to get his head free, where Flea discovered that his friend’s mouth had been gagged with tape. As he removed the tape, Flea saw Minko’s eyes narrow at the sight of Rome. His angry grunting became lower-pitched and animal-like. Even though Rome helped remove the paper from his legs, Minko kicked wildly until she backed off.

             
“I don’t want
her
touching me,” Minko said once his mouth was free.

             
With the top two layers of wrapping paper finally yanked off, Minko used his angry energy to rip most of his body free.

             
“This is all
your
fault!” Minko yelled at her. “She helped set me up, I just
know
it.”

             
“I had
nothing
to do with this,” she argued back.

             
But before the two continued fighting, the three students heard the worst noise they could possibly imagine. Flea’s heart instantly deflated.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Smashed Hopes

The toy factory whistle blew for almost a minute straight. During that time, Flea, Minko and Rome stood completely still. When the noise ended, they heard a distant cheer from the elf crowd. Minko was the first to react, as he angrily ripped at the remaining paper that still bound his legs.

             
“Is there
any
possible way to get an extension after the whistle blows?” Flea asked quietly.

             
“No, no exceptions,” Rome said.

             
“Big surprise that
you’d
say that,” Minko said.

             
Although they’d
all
known that the whistle could blow at any moment, Rome seemed to be the elf most in shock. When she responded to Minko’s angry accusation, she didn’t snap back like usual. In fact, her words sounded just as hopeless as Flea’s had.

             
“You know the rules, Minko. Once the last builder hangs his ornament, the whistle blows, the conveyor belts stop and the season is over,” she said.

             
Flea glanced toward their conveyor belt, which had indeed come to a quiet stop.

             
“Since the belts stopped, I guess your little plan to get rid of me would’ve failed anyway,” Minko said, his disappointment turning into an even greater sense of anger that he aimed at Rome. “If Flea hadn’t saved me, I would’ve ended up stuck somewhere in the tunnels instead of the back of Santa’s sleigh.”

             
“Don’t be a fool, Minko, I helped pull you off the conveyor belt, too,” Rome said.

             
“What happened in here?” Flea asked.

             
“What do you think? Artimus and his two pals rushed in here and attacked me. They wrapped me up and put me on the conveyor belt. It’s a good thing I’m not small or else I wouldn’t have been able to stop from being pulled into the chute,” Minko told Flea before he turned back to Rome. “But I guess you didn’t think about that when you were helping your friends plan their attack.”

             
Rome sighed, as anger was finally starting to overtake her shock.

             
“
I
didn’t set you up, Minko. Artimus
isn’t
my friend anymore, I gave up those friends for the two of you.”

             
“Maybe at first, but once you realized we were going to fail, you rushed back to Artimus to find out what you had to do to squirm your way back into the group,” Minko said.

             
Instead of simply getting an attitude, Rome became furious in a way that Flea had never seen from her. Her usually porcelain-skin turned bright red, tears streamed down her face and her hands shook.

             
“You
know
that’s not true, not after everything I’ve done for you guys,” Rome said. “You two are my only
real
friends, at least before you started believing lies about me.”

             
“You expect us to buy that? And don’t act like you’ve done a
single
thing for me and Flea. Everything you’ve done was for your own good, like
always
,” Minko said. “Who knows? Maybe you never even
wanted
us to succeed. Maybe you were sabotaging us all along to make sure we never finished our orders.”

             
“That’s ridiculous! How could I be sabotaging us when
I
did more work than
you
?” Rome yelled back.

             
“The only thing I can’t figure out,” Minko started, ignoring her question, “is why you’d want to stay a
gift wrapper
forever?”

             
Rome looked like she’d been punched in the gut. But instead of fighting back with Minko, she turned her anger on Flea, who’d been a bystander up to this point.

             
“You
promised
not to tell him!” she yelled at Flea.

             
“I didn’t say anything to him.”

             
“Flea didn’t
have
to tell me,” Minko said. “Do you really think that everyone would know only about the
pathetic
card elf and not the
pathetic
gift wrapper, too? I know how much something like that hurts and I was too nice to throw it in your face. And in return, you stab me and Flea in the back.”

             
“Flea, you don’t really believe any of this, do you?” she asked.

             
“I don’t know
what
to think anymore,” Flea said.

             
Rome shook her head as tears continued to flow from her eyes. Flea thought she looked genuinely upset but it was hard to trust her since she’d obviously been keeping secrets from them recently.

             
“It’s just that Minko and I
did
see you talking to Artimus the last time you went to check on the tree,” Flea said, finally admitting what they’d seen. “You didn’t tell us about it and you lied about what took you so long.”

             
“Artimus tried apologizing to me. None of his friends were around so he figured he didn’t have to be mean to me,” Rome explained without hesitation. “But I didn’t accept because of everything he’s put us through. The only reason I kept it a secret from you guys was because I didn’t want to distract you from your orders.”

             
“Yeah, sounds
real
convenient if you ask me,” Minko said.

             
Rome seemed resigned to the fact that
nothing
she could say would convince Minko. Instead, she turned to Flea for any sign that he believed her. Flea wanted to trust Rome but he had even more condemning information about her than even Minko knew about.

             
“I’m sorry, Rome, but it seems strange to me that you were just outside talking to the rest of your ‘friends’ as Minko was in here being attacked by Artimus,” Flea said.

             
“Ha!” Minko said. “So you went out there to tell your friends to come and get us.”

             
“How many times do I have to say this? I went
out there
to find Niko and ask how much work
we
have left,” Rome said, growing more frustrated by the moment. “I did that
for us
.”

             
Minko continued to shake his head.

             
“It’s a lucky thing that you went after her, Flea. I’m sure she planned for her friends to come after
both
of us,” Minko said.

             
Rome finally reached her emotional breaking point. She unleashed all of her frustrations by shoving Minko as hard as she could. Minko’s ankles were still bound together with wrapping paper so he stumbled to the floor. He grunted in pain, but the last of the paper ripped free from his body. Flea quickly jumped between the two but Minko remained sitting on the ground, angrily staring up at her. Flea was shocked that Rome had resorted to such violence. He looked at her with disappointment.

             
“Did you honestly have anything to do with setting him up?” Flea asked her sadly. “Did you even go to talk to Niko?”

             
“What else do you want me to say? I
didn’t do anything!
” Rome yelled. “But maybe I
shouldn’t
have given up my friends for
you two!
”

             
Minko jumped to his feet but did not approach Rome. In fact, he rushed in the opposite direction, heading toward their workstations at the back of the large production center.

             
“You’re a
liar
and a
traitor
and because of that, we all failed,” Minko said. “You never deserved your second chance to become a real elf.”

             
Minko walked right past his own table and stopped in front of Rome’s, where he picked up her red Christmas ball.

             
“Hey, don’t touch my – ”

             
Minko spiked the ornament on the floor. A bright red light ignited around him and was followed by a piercingly loud
screech
, which sounded like the angry wail of a thousand sad children. Once the awful sound and bright light disappeared, Flea stared in disbelief at his friend, shocked by Minko’s harshness. For a moment, even Minko looked like he felt awful.

             
“What does it matter? None of us need our ornaments anyway,” Minko said.

             
Quiet tears continued to stream down Rome’s cheeks. The sight of her smashed Christmas ball had taken away the last of her fighting spirit.

             
“I don’t have
any
friends left,” she said.

             
Rome turned and bolted from the room. Minko took several steps toward the door but stopped next to Flea. The two stared at the open door, as if Rome was going to come back at any second.

             
“You saw her talking to her friends.
We
saw her talking to Artimus,” Minko said quietly. “That couldn’t have been a coincidence, right?”

             
“I don’t know what to believe anymore,” Flea said. “If she really doesn’t want to be friends with us, then why would she keep lying?”

             
“Hmm,” Minko said, as they kept waiting for Rome to return. “I guess I didn’t think about that.”

             
“So what happens now?” Flea asked.

             
Flea and Minko heard the distant sound of the singing elves, a stark reminder that they would not be having such fun any time soon.

             
“The party will get a bit crazier since everyone is so excited to be finished. Santa will stay in his cabin for about another hour or two so he can make his final flight plans. Then, the reindeer are brought out of the stables and the sleigh is unveiled,” Minko said. “I wonder what the big sleigh change will be this year. What do you think?”

             
“I don’t really care about that right now,” Flea said bluntly. “Can we stay focused?”

             
“Oh, sorry. Once the reindeer are hooked to the sleigh, Santa says a few words to the crowd and then he and his chosen helper elf take off to make the deliveries,” Minko explained. “The party continues while they’re gone and all the elves have fun until Santa gets back at 12:01 and Christmas ends. After that, time goes back to normal across the world and everyone at the North Pole sleeps for a
long
time.”

             
“How long will it take for Santa to deliver the presents?” Flea asked.

             
“Maybe about a month.”

             
“What do you think is going to happen to me?”

             
When the two looked at the door again, they weren’t waiting for only Rome to arrive this time.

             
“Now we hope to avoid seeing Niko or Vork…or Santa,” Minko said. “They haven’t shown up
yet,
so maybe they’re reconsidering kicking you out.”

             
“Or maybe they’re just waiting until Santa takes off to expel me,” Flea said somberly.

             
While Flea was upset at the thought of leaving the North Pole forever, his friend appeared even more distraught. Still, Minko tried to force a smile.

             
“There’s no sense of waiting around
here
,” Minko said. “May as well try to enjoy the party and the spectacle of Santa’s takeoff. At least you’ll have fun during the long party.”

             
Flea took one final glance at the room – where he’d spent so much time and almost gained his builder-elf status– before he and Minko left the production center. The thought of spending another month at the North Pole made him feel a
little
better but his mind wasn’t focused on his own misfortunes at the moment. Instead, Flea couldn’t stop thinking about Rome, about the disappointed expression on her face as she rushed away. Flea was suddenly unsure about her guilt, though there
was
one thing he was sure about: if getting Rome to graduate elf school had been the only way to ‘save her’, then he had failed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The Invisible Barrier

The Christmas tree in the village center glowed so brightly that Flea had to cover his eyes until they adjusted to the light. With the snow falling even heavier, the North Pole looked more brilliant and alive than ever, causing a great feeling of hopelessness in the pit of Flea’s stomach.

He knew that he would never be a part of this amazing society.

             
“Something doesn’t feel right,” he said.

             
“I know,” Minko agreed. “
We
should be out there having a good time with everyone else.
We
should be celebrating the end of the building season. It’s really not fair that you are being punished even though you
didn’t fail.”

             
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Flea said as he continued to scan the crowd. “It’s something
else
.”

             
The tall ladders had been removed from the tree, which was probably a good thing since the crowd had grown even rowdier. There was still plenty of singing and dancing going on but the wild cider-drinkers were more out of control, as they ran amongst the crowd, throwing huge armfuls of snow up in the air. Many of the others finally had enough of the crazy elves and started to pelt them with snowballs. Soon, snow was flying everywhere, though it appeared to be good-spirited as the singing grew louder.

             
“It always ends up in a snowball fight,
always
,” Minko said with a smile. “Do you want to join in? It might be fun.”

             
Flea had to admit that some fun might be just what the doctor ordered, but he couldn’t shake the ominous feeling that gnawed at his mind. Before he could answer Minko, a familiar face emerged from the crowd and ran in their direction.

             
“Minko and Funny Flea!” Wrench called out. His bright red hair was still spiked but there was a snowy white splotch on the side of his head where he’d been hit with a snowball.

             
“Where’s Grinder?” Minko asked. “Making last minute repairs on the big sleigh change?”

             
The mechanic looked offended.

             
“Do you really think I’d let him work on the sleigh by himself?” Wrench asked. “I love my brother but I would
never
leave him alone with it. You should have heard some of his
boring
suggestions for the change we should have made. Let’s face it,
I’m
the brains in our operation.”

             
“Can you give me any hint about what you did?” Minko asked.

             
“Let’s just say that this year’s change might be the biggest and best ever. You sure picked a good year to come to the North Pole, Funny Flea,” Wrench said. “But don’t worry, it’s not much longer until Santa comes out of his cabin.”

             
“Good, we’re really excited to see what you did,” Minko said.

             
Wrench suddenly glanced around.

             
“Where’s your girlfriend?” he asked Minko. “Is she excited, too?”

             
“Rome is
not
my girlfriend,” Minko said firmly.

             
For a moment, Wrench looked confused until something dawned on him. He smiled and slowly nodded his head.