Hard Times Up North | Teen Ink

Hard Times Up North

January 6, 2011
By madelinew1 BRONZE, Madison, New Jersey
madelinew1 BRONZE, Madison, New Jersey
2 articles 0 photos 2 comments

Favorite Quote:
Opportunities multiply as they are seized.<br /> -Sun Tzu


I am an elf. Specifically a North Pole elf, but an elf nonetheless. As a toy maker in Santa’s workshop, I spend most of my day slaving around making little children toys they probably don’t deserve. No one follows the rules down south, and it seems everyone is lying and cheating; does that mean they should get presents? I don’t think so. Maybe it’s because the kids found out the truth about the list that Santa “checks twice”. I’ll tell you a secret: there is no “naughty” or “nice” list. It’s just something they made up to get kids to be nicer to their parents. And by “they”, I mean the Head Elves and Mr. Clause, who run the North Pole. Their dictatorship has been going on longer than I can remember, and my 104th birthday is next month. Everyone may think it’s all snowflakes and sugarplums up here, but really, we live a hard life. I have to get up at five in the morning every day, and by six o’clock, I’m in the factory, starting my fourteen-hour shift. My lunch break is only a half an hour, and when Advent season comes around it gets cut to fifteen minutes. Even our living conditions are terrible: everyone has to live in housing buildings on factory grounds, and we are required to wear ridiculous uniforms everyday. It’s simply humiliating. What’s worse is that we only get paid seven candy canes a day, which is barely enough to feed a family of four. No elf should be subjected to this kind of degradation!


The author's comments:
For a school assignment, my class needed to write a short story beginning with the phrase "I am --"

Enjoy!

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