The Council of Elders

He blinked alarmingly, behind the bulging glass.

Apparently satisfied that he now had the room’s only other occupant’s undivided attention he straightened, buffing his sparrow-sized chest out with great formality. In his right hand a quill was poised expectantly over a battered wooden clipboard on which a half-rolled parchment had been carefully pinned with four shiny new thumbtacks.

‘Mr. Copper Beech?’ His voice was high and precise, the clipped tone of someone who is already assuming you are being deliberately difficult. He peered over his glasses for a moment, eyes shrinking to something more normal.

Stephen was relatively sure it was an elf. Well, as sure as he could be having never met one before. Obviously, being a healthy twelve year-old he had seen numerous cartoons on the subject and one of his favourite books, ‘Mythical Folk and Fantasy Creatures’ had a remarkably good drawing.

However, they had depicted tall, elegant creatures dressed in magnificent armour, each striking heroic poses holding beautiful swords or deviously carved bows.

The one now standing in his bedroom looked an awful lot less impressive, in fact he looked rather like a lawyer from one of the black and white movies his mother liked to sit through on Sunday afternoons.

The elf was dressed in a charcoal grey jacket fastened tight across his narrow chest by a neat row of simple black buttons, its two long tails falling almost to the floor behind him. The wide collar of his white shirt sprung out from his scrawny neck, framing his prominent Adam’s apple, which bobbed up and down without an apparent pattern, making his large floppy bowtie bobble with a life of its own.

He reminded Stephen of an ostrich he had seen at the zoo, knees under the tight white trousers wider than his long, bony legs. Ending with a pair of immaculate batten leather shoes, the brass buckles catching the light falling from the half-open doorway.

‘Eh…. Sorry?’ Stephen said, elbowing himself up, blinking the sleep from his eyes.

He glanced sideways at his bedside clock, where a small row of blue numbers happily announced that it was 3.02 a.m.

The elf’s mouth shrunk down on itself, lips pursing until Stephen had the alarming thought that they might completely disappear leaving the elf mouthless. He gave Stephen a long, piercing stare over his frames before glancing down at the clipboard that held a seemingly endless row of tiny letters with a small box next to each.

Stephen could just make out that most of the lines, if not all, seemed to have a neat black tick in their box. He leant forward to see the parchment more closely.

All except one.