House Friends "Wheeeee!" Amber slid down the banana and landed in the middle of the bunch of grapes at the bottom. She scrambled out of the brown ceramic fruit bowl with the help of her hosts as her husband Alfred came sliding down after her. "Thanks for inviting us, Vi. It’s not very often we’re inside a human house." "Well, of course, since you’re forest elves. But being a house elf has its advantages, too." "Like having doughnut balls whenever you want them," laughed Alfred, reaching into the box for another piece. "Do you really get these all the time?" "Most of the time, yes. Our humans are very fond of sweets, so they almost always have stuff like this around." Amber and Alfred were a spending an evening with their friends Violet and Malachite, who lived in a human house in the middle of town. Violet, Malachite and their little girl Lynette had been out to Alfred and Amber’s place in the forest a couple of times the previous month, so now it was their turn to play host. "Where’s Lynn tonight?" asked Amber. "She’s out with her troop. They’ve been visiting the wolves all this week, practicing the languag e and learning about pack life." Alfred laughed. "Looks like we’ve traded places. We’re in town and she’s in the woods!" They played in the fruit bowl for awhile, then had a tour of the house, see-sawing back and forth on the human-sized rocking chair, skating over the waxed table tops and exploring the grand piano. Amber and Alfred had such fun jumping around on the keys they woke the younger boy of the house who came to investigate, and all four elves dived for cover until he left the room. "That reminds me, our human kids got new bikes a few weeks ago!" said Malachite. "Come on, let’s go out to the garage and I’ll introduce you." "Both of them?" asked Alfred. "Yes, the six-year-old had a birthday coming up and his twelve-year-old brother had been working for a couple of years to save up for a new one. He wanted a really nice one, so he took a job delivering papers to other humans’ homes a year ago and he worked at odd jobs for the neighbors and his parents before that. He’d already earned most of the money, so the parents decided to throw in the rest and get both bikes at once. They’re real nice bikes, too." "That’s one thing I do miss out in the forest," said Amber. "We don’t get to meet that many bicycles and I do like bikes so much. Most of them are so sweet." "Don’t you get a lot of riders out that way?" asked Violet. "Our section of the forest belongs to a human university. It’s used for research, so it’s closed to the general public. There are some hiking rails near the fenced-off area. A lot of humans bike up there to use them so the bike stands are usually full, but we don’t get up there that often." "Sometimes in the summer we’ll go up there for a picnic," added Alfred. "The same humans tend to be there, so we’ve made some good friends among their bicycles. But like Amber said, we don’t get to see them very often." Bicycles were on excellent terms with elves. Elves liked them better than cars, which tended to be overbearing and smelled bad besides. "Blue is little Tommy’s bike and Red belongs to his big brother," said Malachite as they four elves went through the passage that led to the garage. "Is that what you call them, Red and Blue?" asked Amber. "We house elves usually just call bikes by their color, unless there are more than one of the same color in the same house. But that doesn’t happen very often." They came out into the garage and looked around. The tool bench was in disorder and several rakes and hoes that normally hung on the wall had been knocked to the floor. On the ground in the far corner lay a small blue bicycle, looking very distressed, several tools on top of it. The elves ran over. "Blue! What happened?" "Violet, Malachite! I tried to get to you but I got knocked down and couldn’t get up again!" "The se are our friends, Amber and Alfred. They’re forest elves in for a visit. What happened here? Where’s Red?" demanded Violet. "Red was stolen! Some men broke the door open a little while ago and took him. Then they came after me, but they heard a noise and they ran away with Red. I’m scared! I don’t know where he is! You’ve got to get him back!" "Did you see who it was?" asked Malachite. "No, it was too dark. They had flashlights, but I couldn’t see them. There was more than one of them, though. They said they were going to sell us, but then they took Red and left me here all alone!" "Look! The garage lock is broken. They must have jimmied it somehow," said Violet. "Well, we’ve got to do something! We’ve got to get Red back. Poor Nathan will be heartbroken if he finds his bike missing, especially after he worked so hard to get him," said Malachite. "So they were from around here?" asked Violet. "I don’t know. I didn’t know their voices." "We’ll help you look," said Amber. "You don’t h ave to, Amber, I mean you’re guests..." "Don’t be silly. Of course we’ll help you," said Alfred. "You’ve got to hurry!" put in Blue. "They’re going to take him some place where I’ll never see him again!" "We’ll call the other house elves. They’ll help us," said Violet. "Come on." The four elves went scrambling into the house. Violet and Malachite went straight to the living room and turned on the computer. "I didn’t know you could use a human computer to contact other elves. So you don’t use the dandelion seed parachutes to send messages anymore?" said Amber. "Our family wasn't hooked up to the Internet at first, but they are now. A lot of our friends’ humans have the same service, so we use it when we can. We still use the dandelions when we have to, but this is a lot quicker," replied Violet. "What’s an Internet?" "It’s kind of like a central system that can link computers together, so they can communicate with each other. There’s something called a web, too, that I’ve heard our humans talking about a few times. I’m not sure if it’s the same thing or not." A minute later the screen lit up with messages. Several of the neighborhood elves had seen three young men with a bike that looked like Red about an hour earlier. The trail led to a large, modern, two-story house about six blocks away on the edge of town. Violet, Malachite, Amber and Alfred hurried there as fast as they could. They searched all around the house. In back was a set of double doors with a large lock that looked like the entrance to a cellar. Malachite tapped on it. "Hello? Is anyone down there?" "Malachite!" Red’s muffled voice barely came through. "Is that you?" "Red! Are you all right!" "Yes, but I’m locked up and can’t move. You’ve got to get me out of here!" The elves crawled through a maze of pipes and came out into a fully furnished office, with file cabinets, chairs and a desk with a computer. In the corner next to a large closet was Red, shackled to a sturdy pole, padlocks on front and back wheels. "Viol et, Malachite, thank goodness! How did you ever find me?" said Red. "We wanted you to meet our friends Amber and Alfred here, so we went to the garage and found out what had happened. Are you sure you’re all right?" asked Violet. "Yes, but you’ve got to move quickly. Some men took me and they’re planning to sell me tomorrow. They’re part of a professional gang that steals bicycles." The elves looked at each other helplessly. Red couldn’t move with all the locks and they were too small to carry him, let alone get him up the stairs and six blocks home. Violet and Malachite knew a couple of dogs on this block, but they would be locked in for the night. Then Amber said, "The wolves." "What?" "That’s right!" Violet reached into her pocket and produced a carefully folded dandelion parachute. "The wolf pack in the forest that Lynn’s troop is visiting with. We can use these to contact them quickly. I always carry some with me just in case. They’ll come." Alfred looked uncertain. "I don’t know. In a n area inhabited by humans? They like to stay away from humans if they can." "It’s dark, though, and the forest isn’t that far away," replied Amber. Violet immediately contacted her daughter’s troop with the special parachutes that were issued to all parents of troop-age children, and they sat down by the door to wait. A short time later a group of stealthy four-legged forms made their way noiselessly toward the house. They paused close to the steps as the leader came forward and spoke. "Amber?" Amber jumped. "Alpha! We’re so glad you came." "This isn’t exactly our favorite territory. But the troop leader said it was urgent." Amber explained the situation. "There’s a wagon in the basement. If you could just get Red loaded onto that and pull him back to his house we’d be ever so grateful." Alpha sighed. "We’re helping humans? You owe us a big one for this, Amber." Amber thought. "Your mate is going to have her pups soon, isn’t she? How about if we do sentry duty at the den that day? If any humans chance to come by, we can draw them away. It’ll give you some extra security when they’re born." "Fair enough." Alpha spied an iron bar lying on the ground nearby. He picked it up and he and several other wolves used their mouths to manipulate i t to snap the lock on the basement door. The pack glided inside, leaving one outside to guard the door, and surveyed the situation. Alpha shook his head. "We’ll have to break that lock tying him to the pole somehow. It’s a lot smaller that the outside one, so--" The sentry came charging down the stairs. "Human alert! Someone’s coming!" "Hey, what’s going on here?" A young man in his early twenties had come running out of the house. He saw the open cellar door and called to the other occupants. "Bob, Jim, someone’s trying to break in! Get the dogs!" Two other men promptly came running out, leading two snarling large dogs on chain leashes. They freed the dogs at the cellar door and dogs and men rushed down the stairs. "Killer, Mars, attack! Go o n, boy! Attack!" Alpha and his pack sprang out from behind the sofa where they had hidden and jumped the dogs. Both dogs soon ran bleeding and yelping up the stairs and into the night as their owners stood dumbfounded, trying to figure out what was going on. "Wait a minute! How did these dogs get in here?" "Those aren’t dogs, dummy. They’re wolves! Let’s get out of here!" "What would wolves be doing in our basement, you idiot? Of course they’re dogs. They must have gotten in somehow. We just need to get something and shoo them out of here--" Malachite and Violet had been going through some of the drawers and now they jumped on the back of the chair beside the desk and using a couple of rubber bands let fly with paper clips, pens and whatever other small objects were handy. Alfred and Amber soon joined them, flinging a bunch of pebbles they had hastily picked up from outside. "What in the world is going on here? Who’s doing that?" "I’m hanged if I know. Just get them!" "Alpha! Open the closet door, quick!" cried Violet. The wolf obliged, twisting the handle down with his teeth. Violet, Malachite and Alfred scuttled across the floor toward the closet on the opposite side of the room. "Look, there goes one now! Get him!" All three men ran after the elves and straight onto some small round pebbles that Amber had scattered about. They went careening into the closet and against the wall and each other as the three elves hurried back outside. "Now, Alpha!" Alpha nipped one of the men in the pants to push him back inside, tearing his pocket and spilling the contents on the floor, and slammed the door shut. Meanwhile several of the pack had gotten behind a chair and now they pushed it up in front of the door. "Wait!" said Violet. "Get the top of the chair under the door handle like this--" She hopped on the chair and guided it as the wolves pushed and pulled it into position. "That’ll keep the door closed. I’ve seen that on some television shows that our humans watch." "That isn’t going to hold them for long," said Alpha as an explosion of shouting and banging erupted from behind the door. "We’ve got to figure out how to get Red free and get out of here fast!" "Look! There are some keys here. They must have fallen out of that guy’s pocket," said Malachite. "Hurry up! Let’s check. If we can get the locks off him, Red will be able to move on his own and we won’t need to worry about loading him into the wagon," said Violet. The elves quickly examined the keys, trying several that looked like they would fit. The lock holding Red to the pole and the two padlocks were soon off, and two of the wolves came forward to get Red up on his wheels where he could move. They gave him a push to help him past the stairs and once outside the elves hoppe d on, two on the seat and one on each handlebar. "Now, little friends, hang on, because I’m out of here!" With the wolves loping alongside and the elves hanging on for dear life, Red rushed back to his house in record time. He hurried through the garage door and fell over Blue with a bang as the elves tumbled over onto a nearby bag of grass clippings. "You’re back, oh, thank goodness you’re back! I was scared I wasn’t ever going to see you again! Are you all right?" cried Blue. Violet sat up and brushed herself off. "Except that we won’t stop spinning for a month. I’ve never gone so fast in my life!" The four elves and both bicycles thanked the wolves profusely. "Would you care to come in? Our humans are all upstairs asleep. There’s a couple of pounds of raw hamburger in the refrigerator. I know it wouldn’t be much for you guys, but it would be a nice snack," said Violet. "No, thank you. We’ve been close enough to humans tonight without going into another one of their houses. We’ve got to get back to the troop. They’re waiting for us at the den. Besides, we wouldn’t want to get you in trouble by eating your family’s food." Violet laughed. "They usually don’t even notice the little we take. They might not be too happy about this, but you deserve it after what you’ve done for them, helping to bring Red safely home. They paid a lot of money for him." "I doubt they’d see it that way. Humans usually think they’re owed everything. We’d just be a lot more comfortable on our own turf." "Thank you again!" called the elves as the pack melted into the darkness. "Gosh, look at the mess here. Maybe we should try to clean up a little," said Alfred. "No, leave it just like this. When our humans see the broken garage lock and the mess inside, they’ ll think the robbers were surprised and frightened off," replied Violet. "But there’s nothing to tie it to the robbers. Your humans won’t know where to look for the thieves." "They will if the thieves accidentally dropped something--like a card with their address on it," laughed Malachite. He reached under Blue’s seat and pulled out a business card. "I got this out of a drawer in the basement desk before the men came down. Gee, it’s too bad those guys were careless enough to drop it." He put it on the cement floor beside the bicycles. The elves sat with the bicycles for awhile, until dawn approached and the neighborhood began to stir. "Well, I guess you’ll be okay now. We’d better be heading back," said Alfred. "Thanks for everything. We’ll see you soon. Sorry this visit turned out the way it did," said Malachite. Amber and Alfred laughed. "Don’t apologize. You can always invite guests over for tea. It’s not often you can invite them over to be entertained by humans!"
Copyright © 2000 Jacquelyn Wilson |