7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Shimmersnap

Appearing at work was easy. Walter would leave the house, and I’d pop into my human body and go wherever I needed to be. I didn’t have to worry about him missing the figurine on the shelf. I never got sick, and Walter wouldn’t take a day off if his life depended on it, so all was well! Things were working out great. There was no way Walter was going to notice that his assistant was also his elf figurine.

But today was going to be tricky.

Today, we needed to go shopping for our holiday family. The two of us would be shopping for a mom and a dad with four children, ages ranging from eight to eight months. I was already oh so excited about the things we could get for the amazing family that deserved the most sparktaculous Christmas.

Walter, on the other hand, had been grumbling about it all morning. If I understood him correctly—it was hard to hear him when he was mumbling to himself—he was more nervous than grumpy, but still, we were going to have a great time. I was going to show him just how amazing Christmas spirit could be.

When the time came for me to show up so we could go shopping, Walter was sitting in a chair facing the mantle. If I disappeared, he would notice. So what was an elf to do?

I used what little magic I could muster in this form to make the kitchen timer go off, taking Walter’s attention from me to that.

As soon as he was up and out of the room, I popped into my human form, fully dressed and ready to shop. Since we weren’t working, I could be more casual. I wore a pair of black leggings with silver-sparkle boots and a red t-shirt with gold-glittered snowflakes. I rang the doorbell. From outside, I could hear his muttered curses.

He opened the door, and I smiled brightly. “Hi, Walter! Are you ready to go shopping?”

He looked me up and down. The sun shined down on me, making all my sparkles glow. He blinked but didn’t say a word.

He gestured toward his car in the driveway, and we made our way to it. There was a light dusting of snow on the ground, though the air was warm. By the end of the day the snow would probably be melted.

“So, where should we go?” I asked, as I sat in the passenger seat of Walter’s car.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t even look at the details about what the family needs.”

“A mom, dad, and four kids, ages eight to eight months. The eight-year-old is really into Legos these days, but also princesses. And the eight-month-old obviously doesn’t have a strong preference toward any toys, but I have a sneaking suspicion they’re going to be into noise-making things, like musical instruments.”

Walter looked at me like I’d grown two heads. “You just know all of this?”

“Yes,” I said. I probably shouldn’t have shared so much, but this was my mate. He could be trusted with my secret. Eventually. If it didn’t scare him too much. “We’ll have fun today, I promise.” I patted his knee.

Walter grimaced but nodded. “We’ll see.”

He started the car and backed out the driveway.

Once we were parked at the mall, I looped my arm through his and dragged him inside. Despite his grumpy attitude, he seemed to be having fun. He didn’t bat an eye when I started handing him purchases.

“Oh, I bet she’s really wanted this set. It’s her favorite,” I said.

Walter chuckled. “Shimmersnap, you talk like you know these people.”

“Well, you know, it pays to get to know the people we’re helping out, right?”

“But we don’t even know their names.”

“Of course.” I knew it was the policy not to give out the names of the families we were supporting, and I wasn’t supposed to know any more details than what had been provided. But I couldn’t help my elf abilities. It wasn’t like I could turn them off. I knew Crystal, Steve, Laura, AJ, Megan, and Ben and what they all wanted—even if they didn’t admit it to themselves. Crystal and Steve desperately wanted financial security for their kids, it had been a tough year since Steve had an accident at work and lost his job and the school Crystal worked at had cutbacks. I wanted to make sure they had the best Christmas we could give them.

I knew we didn’t need to buy them certain things because Santa would be providing those.

“Okay, we also need to get clothes,” I said.

Walter wrinkled his nose. “Clothes for Christmas? Just what every kid loves.”

“Well, these are just more practical things that kids need, especially if the mom and dad are struggling. Oh, and the mom and dad need a new bed set. I’m thinking purple.” Crystal had been eyeing a new one for years but had never been able to justify the purchase, not when the kids needed so many things.

“You think they’re going to want purple? Don’t tell me you’re going to try and find one with sparkles.”

I laughed. “If only! But they probably don’t want sparkles. And I already looked—they don’t really make bed sets with sparkles for adults, which is just depressing. Don’t you think?”

“I suppose if you needed one, you could take two twin sets and sew them together.”

I grasped his bicep in surprise. “Walter, that’s brilliant!”

“I was joking,” he said, but he couldn’t hide the smile that crept across his face.

The rest of our shopping trip went pretty smoothly, and we managed to get out of there under budget, which meant we had additional money to donate to the local food bank.

“How are we going to wrap all of this? Do you think maybe we can just drop it off at one of those wrapping stations in the mall?” Walter asked.

I sucked in a breath. “What? Absolutely not, Walter. We will wrap it ourselves!”

I had not thought this through. The only place we could wrap everything was at Walter’s home, and if we went there, he might notice that his elf figurine was missing. Now, I was sure the first conclusion he would jump to wouldn’t be that I was his elf figurine, but it was still a concern.

I did my best to keep his attention elsewhere.

We spread everything out on the living room floor and used his dining table as our main workstation.

“Do you know how to tie a bow, Shimmersnap?” Walter asked. “I don’t even know how to wrap a present.”

“Of course I do!” I said. “Here, I’ll show you.”

I rolled out the paper and grabbed a box, sticking in the Lego set we had bought for the eight-year-old. “You just fold these corners over here, a little bit of tape, and voila!”

“That didn’t look too difficult,” he said.

I wanted to tell him all about my adventures in the wrapping department, but I couldn’t reveal that yet. Soon I’d be able to tell him all about how I invented a new tape that had glitter on it, and it was reusable, so you could enjoy the glitter forever!

I went to work on the rest of the boxes, not paying much attention to how Walter was doing. When I looked up, I saw that I had wrapped seven presents, and he was still working on his first one. The paper was taped to his thumb, and when he tried to stick it to the side of the box, he caught the edge of the paper and let out a yelp.

“Oh no! Are you all right?” I rushed to his side, grabbing for his hand. “Are you hurt?”

“Just a paper cut,” he said and went to put his thumb in his mouth.

“No, no, don’t do that. I’ll get a band-aid.”

“You don’t need to do that,” he said. “It’s not even bleeding.”

I didn’t have one—who did? It wasn’t like we carried them around—but I could quickly blink and have one available in my hand. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a band-aid, opening the wrapper, and smoothly placing it over his cut.

“Purple sparkles,” he said, his lips twitching. “Why am I not surprised?”

I kissed his thumb. “All better now, right?”

“All better,” he said.

But Walter wasn’t looking at his thumb. His heated gaze was focused solely on me.