A large yellow truck hauling what was left of the pecan trees bumped along the street, sending loose pecans skipping in every direction. They spilled across what remained of the old orchard, stopping at the edge of a single row of newly built white stucco townhouses topped with red clay tile roofs.
In one of the townhouses, the first one from the north, a teenage boy lay stretched out on tan pile carpet in front of a 25-inch console television. A cat lay curled up beside him in a patch of sunlight cast through the large picture window.
“Peter,” the boy’s mother called from the kitchen, “come in here, please.”
“What is it, Mom?”
“Please come in here. I don’t want to shout.”
Peter rolled onto his back and stared up at the whirling ceiling fan, his arms spread wide. He gave the cat’s belly a little tickle and she rolled onto her back, stretched herself long, then relaxed again into a ball.
“I can hear you from here, Mom!”
“Peter.”
With a groan, he pushed himself up and slouched into the kitchen, his fingertips grazing the floor.
“What?”
His mother sighed. “You know what? Get your sister, too. I’d like to speak with both of you.”
“Lake!” Peter shouted. “Get down here! Mom wants you!”
“Peter! No yelling. Go upstairs and get your sister.”
Lake, four years older than Peter, was home from university for the Christmas holidays with her boyfriend, Wilder. Peter knew that Wilder smoked, which meant he’d probably find both of them on the balcony outside Lake’s bedroom. He swung open the front door and leaned out, one hand gripping the handle, the other braced against the frame.
Standing on his toes, he stretched himself upward, lengthening his spine as far as it would go.
“Lake!” he shouted. “Mom wants us downstairs! And no shouting!”
“Peter, you creep, how long have you been down there listening to us?”
“Smooth, little dude,” Wilder added.
“I wasn’t listening!”
“Whatever.”
Lake stormed back inside her room. Wilder lingered, finishing an exaggerated drag of his cigarette before flicking it toward Peter and disappearing behind the balcony’s sliding glass door.
###
Peter and Lake, with Wilder trailing behind, met their mother at the foot of the stairs.
“I can’t do this myself,” she said, waving her car keys and purse at them. “You two were supposed to be helping. You said you’d put up the Christmas decorations, and you haven’t done any of it.”
“Sorry, Mom,” said Lake.
And Peter, you left the front door unlocked again.”
“Sorry, Mom.”
“I’m going shopping,” she continued. “I’ll be back in four hours. If you’re not at least trying to bring a little Christmas spirit into this house by then, I’m canceling. No presents, Peter. And for you two,” she added, pointing at Lake and Wilder, “no borrowing my car and no New Year’s party. Nothing.”
“You don’t have to be so extreme about it,” Wilder said.
She glared at him.
Then she turned and went through the door to the garage. A moment later, the car started, and she was gone.
###
Dash, a Level-11 elf, punched a code into a hidden keypad set into the rock face. The door slid open, and he stepped into the bunker.
Inside, Blitz—also Level-11—sat before a bank of monitors.
“What’s wrong?” Dash asked.
“I’m following up on a report,” Blitz said.
“Of what?”
Blitz gestured toward the screens. “Squirrels.”
Dash squinted. “I don’t see any.”
“Neither do I.”
“Then why are we watching?”
Blitz tapped the display, pulling up a set of coordinates. The map zoomed in, resolving into a patchwork of green broken by a pale grid. “Because there was a mass evacuation near here.”
“Evacuation?”
“Complete. All at once.”
Another door opened. Dance entered, glancing at the screens. “Did someone say squirrels?”
“We don’t see any,” Dash said.
“Which is a problem,” Blitz added.
Dance considered this. “If it’s true,” she said, “this could be enough.”
Dash nodded in agreement.
Blitz smiled, just slightly. “Level-12.”
“We should pack provisions,” Dance said, “Scooby snacks. How long could we be?”
“Long enough,” Blitz said, “to make it count.”
###
Lake winced. “Mom is pretty pissed. We’ve got to do something.”
“Let’s just go play pool,” Wilder said, dropping his bum to the floor and crossing his legs.
“We could dress up like elves,” Peter said, “She’ll like that.”
Lake looked at him. “Where are we going to get elf outfits? It’s Christmas Eve. Nothing’s open.”
“I know a place,” said Peter. “A thrift store that has a lot of weird stuff.”
“A thrift store?” said Lake. She looked skeptical. “Well,” she said, “it’s worth a try.”
She nudged Wilder with her foot. “Get your keys.”
Wilder didn’t move. “No gas.”
“What do you mean, no gas?”
“I draft,” he said. “Haven’t paid for gas in years.”
“We don’t need to drive,” said Peter. “It’s close. I bike there all the time.”
“I don’t bike,” said Wilder.
“It’s just over that hill,” Peter said, pointing out the window.
Wilder squinted. “That’s not a hill.”
“It’s almost a hill,” Peter said.
Wilder stood, resigned. “It’s not even close to being a hill, but okay. We’ll walk.”
###
The elves arrived near the north end of the row of townhouses.
Dance made little chewy-whistling noises. “I’m not picking up any squirrel activity.”
Blitz stepped forward, subtly herding the others behind him. “Remember—this has to go by the book.”
Dash strayed. Standing in front of the door to the first townhouse from the north, he whisper-shouted, “Hey, guys. Come look at this.”
Dance pranced over.
“Savages!”
“What is it?” Blitz said.
At the doorstep lay a squirrel’s body—head missing, cleanly severed.
“This isn’t in the book,” Blitz warned. “We’d better…”
“Hey,” Dash said, interrupting him, hand already on the knob. “The door’s unlocked.”
He swung it open.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,“ said Blitz.
“Come on,” Dance said. “This could mean Level-13 for us.”
“There is no Level-13,” Blitz said. “This could mean Level-1.”
###
The thrift store smelled like dust and old perfume.
Peter emerged from the racks first, his arms loaded. He dropped everything to the floor and picked out a pair of red shoes that glittered under the fluorescent lights. They were at least four sizes too big for him, so he stuffed them with some crumpled paper until they sort of fit, the toes bending upward as if permanently surprised. He added green polyester pants that swished when he walked and a felt hat that drooped over one eye.
Lake went more couture. She found a long Hawaiian shirt printed with palm trees and sunsets and cinched it at the waist with a length of gold ribbon. Underneath, she layered sweaters—two, then three—until her shoulders rounded out, her silhouette soft and uneven. She caught her reflection and grinned.
Wilder took longer. When he finally appeared, he was wearing red suspenders stretched over a pillow-stuffed shirt, striped socks pulled up unevenly, and a plastic wreath slung around his neck. He adjusted it, scowled, then shrugged.
They looked each other over.
“Good enough?” said Peter.
Lake and Wilder nodded.
“Good enough,” they agreed.
On the way home, Peter tried to jog and nearly tripped over his toes. Lake grabbed his arm, steadying him. Wilder laughed despite himself.
“I think we might actually pull this off,” he said.
###
Peter fumbled with the knob of the front door, almost tripping, once again, over his toes. Polyester rustled. Something unsnapped. Wilder trailed behind them, wreath askew.
Inside the living room, the three elves froze.
“Code enforcement,” Blitz whispered. “Why are they that shape?”
Dash leaned closer to the window. “Uniform variance?”
Dance squinted. “That gold ribbon is fabulous.”
Peter nearly tripped yet again on the doorstep. He caught himself on the frame, one shoe crunching loudly.
“Is that paper I hear?” Dash puzzled.
The door swung open, and the boys stepped aside to let Lake enter first.
“By the book,” Blitz hissed. “By the—”
But Dance couldn’t control herself. She just screamed.
“People Can!”
“Brake, Dance!” cried Blitz, but it was too late.
Dance’s mouth appeared to open wider than her own head. She charged at Lake, shooting up and over her body in a perfect arc, like a swan dive out of a cannon. With a single slurp, Lake was gone, and Dance bounced back onto her feet.
Peter lunged forward. “HEY! You ate my sister!” He swung blindly. “Heimlich!”
Dance recoiled. “That’s not—ow—that’s not how—”
Dash grabbed Peter’s shoulders. “Sorry, kid… People Can.”
With another slurp, Peter was contained.
Wilder stood alone in the doorway.
“Okay,” he said. “That’s not cool.”
Blitz studied him with open disgust and exhaled through his nose.
Wilder raised an eyebrow. “People Can?”
“People Can,” Blitz said.
Slurp.
###
Inside the elf, once he stopped trying to move—and failing—things became clearer to Peter. The interior wasn’t dark, exactly. It glowed faintly, the light pulsing with Dash’s breathing. The walls pressed close, firm but elastic, holding him in place like a seatbelt.
“So,” Peter said “what happens now?”
Dash shifted his body and let out a small, involuntary giggle.
Blitz turned slightly, listening. “What do you mean, what happens now?”
“Well,” Peter said, feeling around until his fingers brushed something warm and humming, “I mean what are you going to do now?”
“We observe,” said Blitz. “That’s standard operating procedure.”
Lake’s voice, coming from somewhere deep inside Dance, broke in, muffled but steady. “You’re here because of the squirrels, right?”
Blitz stiffened. “How do you know that?”
“Because,” Lake said, “there are drawings of them in here. Like… everywhere. And because I haven’t seen a squirrel around here – a live squirrel, anyway – for a long time.”
“Yeah, they’re gone,” said Dance turning away, suddenly interested in the window. “I love squirrels.”
“They left because of the pecans,” Peter said from inside Dash.
The elves exchanged looks.
“The loose ones from the trees they’ve been carting away,” Peter clarified. “They’re everywhere. Cracked, smashed, half-rotted. If I were a squirrel, I wouldn’t touch them.”
Dash nodded slowly. “Loose resources cause instability.”
“They’re neat animals,” Lake said. “They want things sorted. Clean.”
“If this is true,” Blitz said, carefully, “then this is not a threat. It’s… a mess.”
“And people made it,” Peter said. “Which means people—uh—we can fix it.”
The room was quiet for a beat.
Dance perked up. “We can choreograph a collaboration!”
“It’s not in the book,” Blitz sighed, “but we can use all the help we can get.”
###
They released the children carefully, one at a time, onto the living room carpet.
Lake rolled onto her side, disoriented but intact.
Peter followed, gasping once before sitting up, beaming.
Wilder came last.
He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling.
“I feel like I’m still inside someone,” he said.
“You are not,” Blitz said crisply. “You have been expelled.”
“Cool,” said Wilder.
They all left him there and went outside.
###
Outside, the squirrels returned cautiously—first one, then two, then a thin line along the edge of the orchard. They stopped short of the street, noses twitching, tails rigid, taking in the chaos.
Lake stepped forward. “We’re going to fix it,” she said to them.
The squirrels stared.
Peter crouched and scooped up a handful of shattered shells. “This,” he said, letting them spill through his fingers, “this is the problem.”
Dash leaned closer. “Waste without purpose,” he said.
“Exactly,” Peter said. “But it doesn’t have to be.”
The squirrels chattered.
Dance nodded, translating with confidence she did not possess. “They say… yes.”
Blitz stepped forward and cleared his throat. “Squirrels,” he said formally, “we propose a treaty.”
That got their attention, and the chattering stopped.
###
By dusk, the work had found a rhythm.
The squirrels moved with surgical precision, gathering intact pecans and ferrying them away to neat caches beneath the eaves. The broken shells, they stacked carefully on the lawn, sorted by size.
The elves threaded those shells together, infusing the husks with a low, steady glow. As the strands went up, a dome of light began to take shape over the townhouses—warm, uneven, catching on roof tiles and palm fronds alike.
Peter steadied a ladder he absolutely should not have been on with those shoes while Dash secured the final strand, humming under his breath.
Inside, Lake ran the kitchen like a command center. Pecans were shelled, toasted, folded into filling. Blitz read the recipe aloud as if it were procedure, careful not to miss a step.
Dance hovered near the oven, transfixed by the warm red glow.
“So this,” she said softly, “is Christmas spirit?”
“It’s effort,” Lake said, sliding the pie into the oven.
The oven door closed just as the last strand of lights flickered on.
Outside, the squirrels settled in, tails flicking contentedly, the site of the old orchard coming alive again.
###
The car pulled into the driveway exactly four hours after their mother had left.
The children leapt up from the lawn, where they had been making something like sand angels—elf costumes askew, hands sticky, faces flushed and shining.
Their mother stopped halfway up the walk.
For a moment, she seemed almost speechless. “How did you…?”
The pecan lights glowed above her, the dome holding steady over the townhouses. Inside, the Christmas tree stood decorated—uneven, exuberant. Nestled among the tinsel were tiny elf ornaments, each placed with care by Blitz, Dash, and Dance. Blitz’s stood at attention, Dash’s saluting, and Dance’s mid-leap, arms outstretched in a tiny pirouette, frozen in perpetual motion. The house smelled like toasted pecans and sugar.
She looked at them.
Then she smiled.
“That’s… something,” she said.
Behind her, a truck rumbled past.
Someone shouted.
There was a thud—dull, final, mechanical.
No one inside heard it.
She looked around. “Where’s Wilder?”
###
All three elves leveled up.
The children smelled faintly of magic and pastry.
No one ever saw Wilder again.
The pie was excellent. Peter declared it his new favorite.
And for one Christmas Eve, under a dome of lights made from what had been left behind, everyone agreed the mess had been more than worth cleaning up.
###
On Christmas morning, Peter came down the stairs to find his mother in the family room, working on a crossword puzzle.
“Merry Christmas, Mom.”
“Merry Christmas, Peter,” she said, not looking up. “You look tired.”
“Yeah,” he said. “The squirrels kept me up.”
She paused, pencil hovering. “The squirrels?”
Peter smiled. “Yes, but I have an idea…”