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| Illustration by Declan Gatenby |
Without a doubt, the whole catastrophe was Jack Frost’s
fault. The brownies were doing a
perfectly fine job of cleaning up after the family’s night of Christmas
decoration. They were picking the tinsel
out of the carpet, collecting the cookie crumbs, and setting the misplaced
ornament hooks back in the storage boxes when Jack tapped on the window pane.
“Hey, friends!” he said in an exaggerated whisper. The brownies stopped their chores and peered
up at him anxiously. The rules were
clear on humans interrupting their work, but they weren’t certain if the rules
applied to other fairies. If humans
interrupted their work, they had to leave the home and never return.
“Shhh!” said Big Tomkin as he dumped crumbs into his
cookie sack. “You’ll wake up the little ones and they’ll see us!” The other brownies nodded, relieved that Big
Tomkin had taken control of the situation.
None of the brownies wanted to leave the Jenkins home, so his treatment
of Jack as one of their own was met with nods and smiles.
“Okay. I just
thought you might want to know that there’s a big problem only someone on this
side of the window can see,” Jack teased.
Big Tomkin turned a concerned face to the window. He knew
that sometimes he and the other brownies missed things because it was hard for
them to see everything in the
room. He also knew from the humans that
Jack Frost was sometimes silly and annoying. However, he couldn’t recall any
fellow fairies complaining about him, and humans did not have a good sense of
humor.
“What problem?” he finally asked, deciding that he did
have a duty to at least consider that there was a task that the brownies had
not noticed.
Jack motioned Big Tomkin over to the window.
“Look at the tree from this side,” he called to the
brownie. Big Tomkin shimmied up the end
table and slid onto the windowsill behind the tree.
“What’s wrong?” He asked after a moment of staring.
“Well, friend, the problem is that most people see the
tree from this side, but all the nicest ornaments are on the other side.” Jack
Frost pointed to the damaged and unattractive ornaments that hung on the window
side of the tree.
“Not my job,” Big Tomkin huffed. Jack frowned at him.
“Not your problem? Aren’t you supposed to make the house
look nice?” Jack said in a shocked tone.
“No. We’re supposed to make the house clean.” Big Tomkin only had a brief
moment to be proud of himself for outwitting Jack. Jack gave him a sad look and
softly cleared his throat.
“Hmm. Isn’t the reason you make the house clean because
you are making it look nice?” Jack urged. It was no secret that while brownies
understood the difference between clean and dirty, they were not necessarily
known for their wonderful fashion sense.
After all, they were still wearing the shabby knitted hats that went out
of style not long after humans began watching television.
With Big Tomkin still staring at the tree, Jack smiled
and said, “I’ll help you. Just move
things where I say, and you’ll save your humans the embarrassment of having the
whole neighborhood see their messy, messy ornaments.” With a bold air of
confidence, Jack patiently guided the rearrangement of the ornaments. The brownies huffed and groaned as they moved
the heaviest of the ugly ornaments to the side of the tree facing the room.
Jack carefully directed them to bring only a few of the lighter, pretty
ornaments to the window side of the tree.
“There!” he exclaimed. “See how much nicer it is with
just a few of the lovely ornaments on this side, and all the other ornaments on
the other side? The Jenkins family will love you for this, I guarantee it.”
Jack giggled as the horizon began to grow rosy with coming sunrise. “Whoops! I
have work to finish,” he called as he left the brownies to gaze at the results
of the night’s labor.
Big Tomkin and the other brownies were still admiring their
work when the morning alarm sounded to wake up the humans. They were out of time and unprepared when the
tree, weighted in the front from the shifted ornaments, suddenly fell forward
with a loud crash.
Big Tomkin had a moment of paralyzed horror before he
fixed the problem the best he could. Just as the light came on in the Jenkins’
bedroom, he pointed to the other brownies and hissed, “Go get the cat and shove
it in the tree!”
