CHAPTER 18 - THE ELF DANCE
They were all escorted by the elves into a large building. As they entered, they looked around at what appeared to be a grand hall. Ahead of them was a single elf sitting on a large chair.
“Let me guess…” Joel said to the other two, “This is the King of the Elves?”
Little Bozling just looked at Joel, disgusted with what he just said.
“Everyone knows there is no King of the Elves,” Michaedeer said to the confused Joel, “They only have a prime minister!”
“…Of course…” Joel said, shaking his head. They reached the large chair. A small elf looked back at them.
One thing that Joel had noticed, the elves were all slightly bigger than Little Bozling… he did appear to be the smallest, but it still didn’t seem to be a fair reason to banish him.
“What are you doing here?” the Elf Prime Minister said to Little Bozling. He looked about the same age as Little Bozling, but had brown hair. The strangest thing was that unlike the other elves, this one was wearing a suit.
“I… just… was escorting my friends…” Little Bozling mumbled back.
All the elves surrounding them started to laugh; the Prime Minister did so too. “You… friends! HAHAHA!” he said. Little Bozling was getting quite upset.
“Stop it!” Joel said, pushing forwards.
“And who is this?” the Elf Prime Minister asked.
“My name is Joel, I seek Santa Blessed…” before he had a chance to finish his sentence, the Elf Prime Minister lead out a loud bellow.
“HA! How wonderful! Joel! A strong, powerful name. My name is Joelfrakeus… I am the Prime Minister here… I like you Joel, you may pass!”
“Thank you,” said Joel. All three of them began to walk off.
“WAIT!” Joelfrakeus then called out. They all stopped and turned slowly. “I didn’t say he could go…” he said, pointing at Little Bozling, “He is to be punished for returning!”
“What did he do?” Michaedeer shouted at him. The Prime Minister fell back into his chair at that remark. No one had shouted at him like that for a long time.
“How dare you talk back to me like that!? He is banished for many reasons!” Joelfrakeus shouted back at her.
“Like what?” Michaedeer replied instantly, unafraid of him.
“…he… is too small! He plays violent video games! And he can’t dance!”
Joel looked up. Can’t dance? What kind of weird place was this?
“I don’t play those kinds of games anymore!” Little Bozling said, “I’ve had too much real adventure now to sit in front of a TV again…”
“And being small is not a proper reason!” Michaedeer joined in.
The Elf Prime Minister sat there for a while, pondering.
“He could do the dance!” Joel said suddenly. Everyone looked at him.
The Prime Minister sat forwards slowly, “This is no mere dance from your world… human… this an elf dance… our mating call… if he cannot do it, he does not deserve to be an elf! He cannot live here!”
Joel looked down at Little Bozling. The small elf just shook his head. Joel winked though.
“He’ll do it… just give me an hour…” Joel said.
Joelfrakeus then pondered some more. Then finally, “FINE! If Little Bozling successfully dances, he is allowed back into the Land of Elves and may pass to wherever he wishes!”
Joel smiled, “Thank you, sir…” The three of them then turned and walked off. As soon as they got into one of the side rooms, Little Bozling started to cry.
“I can’t do that Joel!” Little Bozling muttered, “I’ve never been able to do the elf dance!”
“Surely it’s not that hard!” Joel quickly said back to him.
Michaedeer then walked forwards, “No… Little Bozling is right… it is a dance too groovy to be performed by any human, it takes great skill…”
Little Bozling started to cry even harder, “I’ll never get back to the Land of Elves…”
“I’ll teach you…” Joel said.
“You dance?” Michaedeer asked, a little shocked.
It turns out that Joel was actually a terrific dancer. In his time back in Boarding School when he was in his room alone, he rented a whole set of teach yourself ballet tapes. He used to practice for hours. It was actually that film Billy Elliot that had inspired him. He hadn’t shown anyone till now. Another one of his deep, dark secrets.
So, eventually convincing them by doing a 60 second version of the Nutcracker Ballet, he began to train Little Bozling. The small elf was truly awful at dancing.
“Left foot forward!” Joel said, performing this action.
Little Bozling put his right hand onto the floor in front of him. “Like this?”
Joel tried to contain his rage. He constantly had to walk over and put Little Bozling into position. He was quite useless. They slowly but surely began to do it though. Michaedeer told them the moves to do, as she had become quite obsessed with the dance of the elves one time and looked it up on WikiBlessed.
Joel wished he had more than an hour, but he didn’t. He had finally got Little Bozling to a stage where he could memorise most of the moves. The only worry Joel still had was linking them all together. The small elf often had to stop and think. It looked awful.
Suddenly the door swung open, a small elf with dark hair was stood there. “The Elf Prime Minister, Joelfrakeus wishes for you to perform the dance now…”
They had no choice; they had run out of time. They all began to walk out the room.
“Will I be doing this dance alone?” Little Bozling asked.
“Heavens no!” the other elf replied, as he led them back to the main hall, “You never perform the elf dance alone!”
“So he’ll have a partner?” Joel said.
The elf looked at him with a very patronising look in his eyes; it made Joel feel a bit like an idiot… what did they expect… he’d never seen an elf dance before! “He will be performing along with four other elves! Including Joelfrakeus himself, he loves to dance and wishes to join in…”
They reached the great hall. Sure enough, four elves stood in the middle of the hall, a crowd gathering around them. In the middle was the Elf Prime Minister himself, but he had got changed out of his suit into dancing gear. They all looked at him, waiting.
“Are you ready Little Bozling?” Joelfrakeus asked.
Little Bozling nodded stepping forwards. “Good luck…” Michaedeer whispered.
Joel squeezed his tiny shoulder, “I believe in you!” They watched as their friend walked into the middle, and they themselves stood within the crowd. It wasn’t hard to get a good view. Both Joel and Michaedeer stood much higher than everyone else.
“Play the track!” Joelfrakeus shouted. Horrible dance music started up. All the elves started to do the robot dance. Joel was worried, that wasn’t what they had practiced. To his horror, Little Bozling fell over. He landed hard on his front. All the elves round the room started to laugh at him, pointing. He was trying to hold the tears back.
“EXILE!” Joelfrakeus shouted immediately.
The surprise suddenly was Michaedeer stepping forwards. “That wasn’t a fair trial! You didn’t play the official elf dance music! You cheated!”
An awkward silence filled the room. A tumble weed rolled past. Joel wondered where all these tumble weeds were coming from. Never mind about that now though, more important things were going on.
“Fine…” the Elf Prime Minister said as Little Bozling stood up, “Play the real track!”
Little Bozling looked at Michaedeer, she smiled at him. He smiled back. She had saved him, he had another chance.
The music started to play, it filled the room.
“OH GREAT!” shouted Joel, just what he needed… a Christmas tune.
Little Bozling had a huge grin across his face though. He loved Christmas music, and he couldn’t help but grin when looking at his new friends. They really dropped everything to help him.
The dance started. It was unlike anything Joel had ever seen. Some of the dance got so extreme that no one knows what it was really like. There was arm swinging. Their legs bounced around with glee. Pelvic thrusts filled the air. It was amazing. The best bit though… Little Bozling was doing it! His boost had done something, he felt alive and all new, and it was no trouble. It came to him naturally.
Joel watched through squinted eyes. The music was atrocious. It got worse when everyone, including Michaedeer started to sing-a-long.
After the long dancing ritual, Joel thought it must have started about 7 minutes… they all jumped into the air, and landed on their knees. Little Bozling had done it, nailed every part of the dance. The crowd went wild, cheering and applauding.
Little Bozling turned to Joelfrakeus. He was relieved to see a huge smile over the Elf Prime Ministers face.
“Well?” Joel asked.
Joelfrakeus walked forwards, he put his hand on Little Bozling’s shoulder. “Welcome back to the Land of Elves.”
The crowd again went wild. Little Bozling felt amazing. He had done it. And it was all thanks to his new friends.
“You may all pass, Santa Blessed is just ahead to the North. You are all welcome here whenever you choose…” Joelfrakeus told them all, “But please, before you go… please take something from our Wine Cavern as a congratulatory gift.”
Oh no. Wine. An entire cavern of wine. This was not what Joel and Little Bozling wanted to hear. It was too late though. Michaedeer was running to where the Elf Prime Minister was pointing.
“MICHAEDEER!” Joel cried out, running after her.
This was not going to end well.
(Picture coming when STUPIDLY SLOW internet allows me to put it up...)
TUNE BACK IN TOMORROW FOR CHAPTER 19 - THE WINE CAVERN
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