“Sprite, I told you not to be late!” Hazel scolded Sprite. “School was over ten minutes ago.”
“Sorry,” Sprite said. “I seem to always get lost in the palace.”
Hazel began to quickly walk away.
“That’s why I should lead the way,” she said. “Let’s go to the elf workshop The first thing we need to do is talk to Stinky.”
“That’s what I was going to say,” Sprite said, but it wasn’t exactly true. He hadn’t quite thought of what to do yet, but he was sure he would have thought of it sooner or later.
Hazel didn’t have wings, but she seemed to fly along the ground as she and Sprite headed for the elf workshop. Sprite had to flap his wings twice as fast to keep up with her.
Royal Pixie Tricker School was held in a wing of the queen’s castle. The elves lived in a small village two hills and one stream away from the castle grounds. Sprite had always heard that elves, especially the toy-making elves, liked sticking together. He didn’t usually see them outside of their village.
Finally they came to the elf village. A circle of cottages marked the boundaries of the village. The elf workshop was a large, round building in the center of the circle. Sprite thought the workshop looked especially large. Even a small elf was twice as tall as Sprite.
The workshop door was open, so Sprite and Hazel went inside. Sprite had never seen so many elves in one place. Large, wood tables filled the room. At each table were ten elves, hard at work making toys. A red-haired elf painted spots on a toy ladybug. An elf wearing glasses was tinkering with a toy robot. Sprite fluttered around, trying to see it all.
“Hey, watch where you’re going!” a grumpy voice scolded.
Sprite had backed up into an elf busy stuffing a teddy bear. The elf had a snow white beard and narrow blue eyes.
“S-sorry, sir,” Sprite said.
“That’s Fixit to you,” the elf said. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
Sprite flew closer to the teddy bear the elf was making.
“That’s a very nice toy, Fixit,” he said.
Fixit frowned. “What does it matter?” he grumbled. “The child who gets it will probably tear out the stuffing anyway.”
Down below, Hazel tapped on Fixit’s leg.
“We’re looking for Stinky the elf,” she said. “We’re here on important business. From Royal Pixie Tricker School.”
Fixit squinted at Hazel. Then he shook his head. “I see the palace is sending out the very best to deal with our problem,” he said, in a voice that said he did not think that Sprite and Hazel were the best at all.
“You want Stinky? Just follow the smell,” Fixit said. Then he turned back to the table.
Sprite and Hazel looked at each other. Then Sprite sniffed the air. He hadn’t noticed it before, but there was a definite odor in the workshop. It smelled a bit like old socks.
They followed the smell until it got stronger. Soon the smell grew so strong it made their eyes wet with tears.
That’s how they found Stinky. The round-faced elf sat at a table by himself, painting a toy mouse. Hair the color of a buttercup stuck out from under his pointy green cap.
He would have looked just like a regular elf except that he was surrounded by cheese. Blocks of shiny yellow cheese were stacked up behind him. Balls of pale white cheese were piled in a pyramid in front of him. Rows of smelly cheese slices covered the table.
Hazel hopped up on Stinky’s work table.
“My name is Hazel, from Royal Pixie Tricker School,” she said. “I’ve been sent here to solve a problem.”
“We’ve been sent here,” Sprite said, flying up next to her.
Stinky sighed and put down his paintbrush. “Not my cheese again!” he moaned. “I don’t see why it makes everyone so upset.”
“Well,” Sprite said carefully, “it does give off a strong smell.”
“It smells terrible!” Hazel said. “The other elves have all complained. Can’t you just stop? Please?”
“Now, don’t be silly,” Stinky said. “I doesn’t smell that bad. Besides, I’ve been discovering wonderful things about cheese!”
The elf held up the paint cup he had been using. “See this? It’s paint--made of cheese! It looks great, and it’s delicious, too.”
Then Stinky pushed aside a stack of cheese behind him. He pulled out something that looked like a toy train--a very gooey toy train.
“See? I can even make toys out of cheese,” Stinky said proudly. “First you play with it, then you eat it.” Smiling, he took a bite out of the train’s caboose.
“Couldn’t you make toys out of something less smelly?” Hazel asked. “Like apples? Or potatoes, maybe?”
“Why would I want to do that?” Stinky asked. “Cheese is perfect! My mother fed me cheese when I was just a baby elf. I can’t imagine changing now.”
Stinky picked up his paintbrush and went back to work on the mouse.
“What do we do now?” Sprite whispered in Hazel’s ear.
Hazel pinched her nose shut. “For starters, I think we should get away from Stinky!” she said.
They left the workshop. Outside, they each took a breath of fresh air.
“Stinky was nice,” Sprite said. “But I understand why the other elves might not be too happy with him.”
“I’m sure there must be some food Stinky would like better than cheese,” Hazel said.
Something sparked in Sprite’s mind. “Granny Sprite works in the kitchens in the queen’s castle,” he said. “She knows everything about food. Maybe she can help us.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Hazel admitted. “Should we go see her now?”
Sprite sighed, thinking of the long trip back. “I suppose so,” he said. Then he brightened. He reached into the small pouch attached to his belt and pulled out a handful of sparkly dust.
“We can use pixie dust,” he said. All the Royal Pixie Trickers learned how to use it. A sprinkle of dust could transport you anywhere in the Otherworld--in an instant.
Hazel frowned, but only because she wished she had thought of it first.
“Do you know how to use it?” she asked. “I was at the top of my class when we studied pixie dust travel.”
“I’ve used it lots of times,” Sprite said, but that wasn’t exactly true. He had used it once in class, and had transported himself into a puddle of mud. It took him two weeks to get his ears completely clean.
Anyway, it was all about concentrating. And he could do that.
He hoped so, anyway.
Sprite tossed the pixie dust into the air. It glittered as it fell over him and Hazel.
“To the Queen’s kitchens!” he cried.
