Red Elf

Red Elf


Jesmond Dene was a cheeky, loveable little Elf. He wore old dirty black trainers and had a little goaty beard and big brown eyes.

This delightful little Elf adored his present that his three best friends, Stew, Dumpling and Snorey had bought him last Christmas. They had all clubbed together and bought him a long black and white scarf. He really needed it on a cold day like today.

It was late November and the wind was howling. It was bitterly cold and as he was climbing his steps up from his house to the road; his fingers felt the cold nipping at them. He struggled to close the gate because he had a stack of CD’s in one hand, precariously balanced. The CD’s were a surprise for his friend Stew who lived at the bottom of the hill by the Castle.

Jesmonds’ nickname was JD, because his friends thought it sounded better than Jesmond and they had started calling it him at school years ago and it had stuck.

JD always liked to keep the gate shut and then if anyone had visited while he was out and left it open by mistake; he knew that he’d had a visitor. But which visitor was nearly always a mystery but he had a routine and today was no different from any other, so the gate had to be closed before he left on his short journey.

As he closed the latch the wind blew and tugged at his scarf. He tried to prevent it from flapping but both his hands were occupied and in the blink of an eye as he twisted round to try and prevent his scarf from blowing away, the wind whistled past him and took his scarf off his shoulders.

He took three paces and then saw it glide through the air and nestle itself on his next door neighbours hedge. One of his friends’ lived there, Snorey. He had been christened Snorey as he snored right from day one as a tiny baby Elf.

In fear of dropping his stack of CD’s, JD made a hasty decision to go back into the house and leave them there and collect his scarf from the hedge. He wasn’t long before he was scrambling up his small front garden, past his tiny garden shed to reach his scarf. Just as his hand was about to grab it the wind whipped it up and away over the top of the hedge.

He ran out to the road and ran down past his next door neighbour’s house to see if he could see his scarf. Sure enough it was there in a tree on the other side of the main road on the edge of the wood. He crossed the road and ran into the wood, catching sight of it being lifted once more by the wind that blew fiercer than before. He was running among the trees keeping a watchful eye on his faithful neck warmer when I voiced startled him.

His friend Dumpling had been taking a walk in the woods when he caught sight of JD running like a demented rabbit through the trees.

Dumpling called out “What’s wrong JD?”


JD almost fell over a small stone but luckily dodged it. He looked around and saw Dumpling waving frantically at him.

“Sorry can’t stop” he shouted, panting “Look!” and pointed to the tree his scarf was now merrily flapping in.

“Hang on I’ll help” bellowed Dumpling over the noise of the very blustery wind.

He came bounding over and joined in the chase.

The scarf was whipped along from tree to tree just pausing briefly in each one as it snagged on little branches and twigs.

As they reached the Castle Moat the scarf was blown over the moat above their heads and it nestled this time on the top of a tower. The tower had a flag pole that flew a flag flying everyday of the year. The poor scarf was battling with the flag and looked as though it was stuck forever.

Both JD and Dumpling leant against a small wall and gasped for breath.

“I’m totally unfit” gasped JD
“Tell me about it” squeaked Dumpling
“ We are getting old you know” JD managed to say in between gasping for air.
“Shall we dare ask at the Castle if we can get your scarf back?” inquired Dumpling
“Well I’m not leaving it up there come on” squawked JD.

Just as they were speaking the wind blew one almighty gust and the scarf left its resting place once more and floated off towards the narrow rickety bridge. The bridge was only wide enough for one vehicle on it at a time and as the wheels went over it a repetitive sound was heard “rickety bridge, rickety bridge, rickety bridge”.

This bridge scared a lot of people as it had very narrow sides.

Both Elves set off running once more and headed towards the bridge. They ran down the hill and round the left hand bend and had the bridge in sight just as his scarf fell onto the railings on the bridge.

They both ran as fast as they could, Dumpling sprinted a little faster than JD and then he caught his toe on a tree root and felt himself flying through the air in slow motion and landed with a thud on the muddy path. Then he heard a distant cry and a second later JD landed on Dumplings’ head.

They both got up and Dumpling was so angry with JD.

“What did you do that for you Dosey…?”

“What?” screamed JD “What did I do? It was you, you dosey Elf. You fell over”.

“I never did you tripped me up” wailed Dumpling rubbing his very sore head with a very muddy hand.

“I did what?” cried JD “You are joking right?” He too was rubbing his head as he had grazed it on a small stone as he landed. “You tripped over that tree root there” JD pointed to the offending root that sat happily along the ground.

“Never did” sobbed Dumpling.

The wind blew harder and harder at this moment and the scarf took off once more over the stream and towards the houses.

“Oh no!” cried JD “We almost had it too and now it’s blown away again”

“Don’t blame me” shouted Dumpling “It was your fault for tripping me up”

“Oh not that again, come on, get up” said JD as he helped his friend to his feet.

They both started running again but this time Dumpling stayed well behind JD just in case he tried to trip him up again.

As they reached the little houses on the other side of the rickety bridge they saw to their astonishment that the scarf was now laid in the front garden of Stew’s house.

“Quick” gasped JD as he jumped over the small wall to his friend’s garden.

The door flew open and a voice bellowed.

“Get off my lawn you…..” and Stew stopped shouting as he saw it was JD racing past him. He watched as JD threw himself on top of his scarf to prevent it from being taken by the wind again. He got dreadfully muddy.

The gate creaked as Dumpling opened it slowly totally out of breath.

“What on earth have you two being doing?” he asked in astonishment looking from one friend to another as the pair of them stood in front of him on his doorstep.

“What’s going on?” enquired a voice from behind Stew. He glanced over his shoulder and spoke to the timid little Elf behind him.

“Snorey, just look what the wind blew into my garden”.

Snorey peered past Stew and giggled “Oh dear I think you might need a nice bath”.

“Mmmmm I think you are right” sighed JD as he looked at his old favourite dirty black trainers. “My feet are wet too” he moaned.

“Come on inside and I’ll make us all a nice pot of coffee to get you warmed up” said Stew as he turned from the door.

All three Elves followed Stew into the kitchen and took off their dirty footwear.

“I can’t believe you tripped me up so I wouldn’t get to your scarf first” moaned Dumpling.

“I never tripped you up, you fell over that tree root I keep telling you” cried JD.

“Now, now stop all that you two, coffee is ready and I’ve got a nice little treat for you both” said Stew as he walked past with a tray full of mugs.

They all three grabbed a mug of hot coffee took a seat and on the two white settees in the cosy living room. Stew had stood the tray on the small white poof in front of the beautiful fireplace with a big mirror hanging over it.

“You’ve gone very red JD” said Dumpling.

“Yeah well it’s windy outside and I’d never expected to run a marathon without training for it. I just wasn’t prepared for all that exercise” sighed JD who looked across at Dumpling who sounded very tired after the ordeal.

“Haha, I’ve got a new nickname for you” Dumpling said staring back at the red face that had brown eyes, that were slowly being made smaller by scowling.

“Oh yeah and what’s that then?” asked JD.

“I think you are the Red Elf “ smirked Dumpling.

“Ha ha very funny” replied JD as the appearance of Stew brought a halt to the conversation. He brought a bowl out of the kitchen and placed it on the now empty tray.

The wind howled past the large floor to ceiling window that flanked the back of the house.

“I just knew you’d call today so I’ve got us all a little treat” he said presenting a plate of homemade flapjacks “and in the bowl is your favourite JD. Bombay mix”.

JD grinned and thanked Stew as he stuffed a whole piece of flapjack into his mouth.

“Urrgh” exclaimed Snorey.

“What now?” as a muffled voice came from JD, trying to talk with a mouthful of flapjack.

“Your socks are wet!” Snorey pointed to JD’s soggy socks.

“I know” he said after taking a while to swallow what he had in his mouth. “My trainers leak. I ran though a few puddles on the way here” he sniffed.

“Well I’ve got a brilliant idea” said Dumpling “We’ve been trying to think of something to get you for this Christmas and all we could think of was CD’s and DVD’s and you’ve got hundreds, but now I know, what you need is a new pair of trainers”.

“But I’m not going to throw these out – I’ve had them for years” moaned JD.

“Well you can keep them for gardening in” added Snorey who was putting his second flapjack in his mouth.

JD was just taking a sip of coffee when Snorey said that. He choked a little and sprayed coffee all over the place.

“Me, gardening!” cried JD “You’ve got to be joking?”.

“I’ve seen” you said Snorey “you laid that gravel path this summer in your back garden and you humped all that gravel from the front to the back in a wheelbarrow, all on your own”.

“Yes but only because the path needed doing. It’s hardly gardening is it?” replied JD.

“And you cut those bushes down in the summer too and mowed the lawn, that’s gardening” said Snorey.

“Well if I didn’t mow the lawn it’d be a meadow now and I chopped down those bushes between my house and yours as my house was so dark. You said you didn’t mind me doing it” JD said shrugging.

“No I said it was Ok for you to cut them down because it saved me from doing it” laughed Snorey.

“Time to change the subject” interjected Dumpling “Did you like the CD’s JD did for you?”.

“What CD’s? Asked Stew.

“The ones he spent all night burning for you” Dumpling replied looking at JD who was frowning back at him.

“I’ve not given them to him yet you dosey…” JD said sternly.

He looked straight at Stew and said “Well this morning I was about to bring you the collection you’ve always wanted and had to leave them at home because my scarf took off”.

“What you’ve got me the 'Flooders'?” Stew said excitedly. “The Flooders, wow!!!”.

JD was nodding and grinning at his best mate, his eyes bright as buttons. “Yes I managed to get all 4 albums for you”.

“Oh you’re the best little Elf on this earth” squealed Stew with delight.

JD stood up and said “I’ll be back in 10 minutes. I’ll just go and get them, and then we can all listen to them while we have afternoon tea”.

He walked out of the house in his wet soggy trainers, with his scarf wrapped tightly round his neck. As he walked past the dustbins, he walked through a spider’s web.

“YUCK” He said as he brushed himself off.

He had two massive fears, one was spiders and the other was snakes. He hated both equally. As he walked down the path he brushed the cobwebs off his fleecy jacket and shuddered at the thought there might be a spider lurking on his clothes somewhere. He hated putting his own bins out to be collected as he always got caught up in cobwebs. He normally had a bath afterwards to make sure the spiders weren’t there.

His closed Stew’s gate carefully, because Dumpling had not closed it. He then caught sight of a tiny plaque in the garden that had been hidden by a droopy bush for sometime. It was green and mossy but the words “Swallows Keep” were still visible.

“I really must buy him a new name plate for his house for Christmas, I’m sure he’ll like that” thought JD as he strode off up the road towards the Castle.

As he walked back up the hill to his house the wind seemed to ease slightly. He crossed the road and walked on the opposite side to the wood. Just as he was about to turn the corner to his house a little boy ran into him.

“Watch where you are going!” shouted JD.

“It’s my scarf. The wind has blown it up into that tree, look!” He said pointing to a tree in the wood across the road.

JD sighed “Oh no here we go again”.