Get a Hold of Your Elf! Read online

  For Jeff and Amy

  —N. K.

  WELCOME TO CLASS 4A.

  We have a warning for you:

  BEWARE OF THE MAP.

  Our classroom probably looks a lot like yours. We have chairs, desks, a whiteboard, and artwork on the walls. And of course we have our teacher, Ms. Frogbottom.

  Actually, our teacher is the reason why things sometimes get strange around here. Because Ms. Frogbottom is kind of different.

  For starters, she carries around a backpack. It looks like any other pack, but somehow strange things always seem to be popping out of it. You don’t have to worry about most of the stuff our teacher carries. But if she reaches into her pack and pulls out her giant map, beware. That map is magic. It has the power to lift us right out of our classroom and drop us in some faraway place. And somehow it’s always the exact same time as when we left. No matter where we go, we wind up meeting frightening creatures none of us ever believed were real—and getting into all sorts of trouble.

  You don’t have to be too scared, though. Things always seem to turn out okay for us in the end. Or at least they have so far.…

  Your new pals,

  Aiden, Emma, Oliver, Olivia, Sofia, and Tony

  MS. FROGBOTTOM’S FIELD TRIP DO’S AND DON’TS

  Do stay together.

  Don’t take photos. You can’t experience the big world through a tiny camera hole.

  Don’t bring home souvenirs. We want to leave the places we visit exactly as we found them.

  Don’t use the word “weird.” The people, places, and food we experience are just different from what you are used to.

  Do have fun!

  1

  “I DON’T KNOW WHY WE’RE having recess outside,” Tony complains as our class stands together on the playground. “It’s so cold, my eyeballs are gonna freeze.”

  “That can’t happen,” Sofia assures him. “The warm blood circulating through your body keeps your eyes from freezing over.”

  Tony blinks twice, like he’s trying to make sure she’s right. He shouldn’t bother. Sofia’s the class brain. She has a photographic memory, which means she can remember everything she’s ever read.

  But Tony’s right too. It’s really cold out here. Especially since we’re just standing around.

  “We’d feel warmer if we moved,” I say. “Let’s play tag. Oliver, you be it.”

  “Who made you king, Aiden?” Emma demands.

  “What are you talking about?” I ask her.

  “No one said we wanted to play tag,” Emma begins.

  “You run a lot in tag,” I explain. “Running warms you up.”

  “He’s right,” Sofia says. “When your muscles move, they generate body heat.”

  Emma shrugs. “Fine, we’ll play tag. But why does Aiden get to say who’s it?”

  “Do you want to be it?” Oliver asks her.

  “No,” Emma answers. “I’m just saying it’s not up to Aiden.”

  “What if I want to be it?” Oliver demands.

  “Do you?” I ask him.

  Oliver nods, covers his eyes, and starts counting backward. “Ten, nine, eight…”

  We scatter.

  “… four, three, two, one,” Oliver continues. “Ready or not, here I come!”

  Oliver takes off, trying to tag one of us. I figure he’ll go straight for Sofia. She’s the slowest—mostly because she’s always carrying her tablet around, taking care not to drop it.

  Instead Oliver takes off in my direction.

  Bad move, Oliver. I may be the shortest kid in Class 4A, but I’m also the fastest.

  I dart up the hill. I can hear Oliver running behind me, but I don’t dare turn, because that will slow me down.

  I’m really moving now. Fast. Faster—

  “Aiden! Watch out!” I hear Olivia shout. “That icicle over your head looks like it’s gonna fall. It’s really sharp.”

  I stop short and look at the oak branches. “I don’t see any icicles,” I tell Olivia.

  “Tag!” Oliver says as he sneaks up and tags me. “You’re it!”

  “That’s not fair!” I glare angrily at Olivia. “You cheated to help your brother.”

  “I could’ve sworn I saw an icicle up there.” Olivia starts giggling, which lets me know she’s lying.

  “That tag doesn’t count,” I insist. “We have to start over.”

  “Says who?” Oliver argues.

  “Says me,” I reply.

  “Aiden is acting like the boss.” Emma comes running up the hill. “Again.”

  “Butt out, Emma,” I tell her. “This isn’t your business.”

  “Sure it is,” she says. “We’re all playing this game.”

  “We’re not playing anything,” Sofia points out as she and Tony walk over. “We’re just arguing.”

  She’s right. But that’s not my fault.

  “See what you did?” I ask Olivia. “You got us all mad at each other.”

  “I did not,” Olivia says. “I just said I thought I saw an icicle.”

  “You didn’t say you thought,” I remind her.

  “I’m still freezing.” Tony wraps his arms around his chest. “Let’s ask Ms. Frogbottom if we can go inside.”

  “I’m with Tony,” Sofia says.

  “Me too,” Emma adds.

  Oliver and Olivia both nod.

  So much for playing tag.

  “Hey, Tony,” Olivia says as we walk toward our teacher. “Do you want to learn how to speak another language?”

  FROGBOTTOM FACT

  Icicles form when snow or ice melts into small water drips, which are then refrozen by air temperatures that are below freezing (32 degrees Fahrenheit).

  “Sure!” Tony replies. “What language?”

  “It’s called… um… Slobbotini,” Olivia tells him.

  Funny. I’ve never heard of that language.

  Apparently neither has Sofia, because she says, “There’s no such thing as Slob—”

  “Repeat after me,” Olivia tells Tony, talking really loudly to drown out Sofia. “Awa.”

  “Awa,” Tony repeats.

  “Tasee,” Olivia continues.

  “Tasee,” Tony says after her.

  “Leegoo,” Olivia continues.

  “Leegoo,” Tony echoes.

  “Siam,” Olivia finishes.

  “Siam,” Tony says.

  “Great!” Olivia cheers. “Now put it all together.”

  “Awa tasee leegoo siam,” Tony says.

  Olivia starts laughing. “You certainly are.”

  “Why? What does it mean?” Tony asks.

  “You just said, ‘Oh, what a silly goose I am,’ ” Emma tells Tony.

  Tony turns beet red. “That’s not funny.”

  “Sure it is.” Olivia laughs so hard that she snorts.

  “Ignore her,” Oliver tells Tony. “She got a box of practical jokes from our aunt Maddie. That joke must be in the book that came with it.”

  “Are you ready to go inside?” Ms. Frogbottom asks from behind her giant scarf.

  “Definitely,” Emma tells her. “It’s really cold out here.”

  “Okay.” Ms. Frogbottom bends down to pick up her backpack. “Then let’s—AAAAAHHHHH! MOUSE!”

  Ms. Frogbottom jumps up in the air in fright.

  Whoa. I’ve never seen our teacher scared before—which is saying something, considering the creepy characters our class has met up with on our field trips.

  For instance, there was this mummy we met in Egypt who tried to trap us in his tomb of doom.

  And there was a sea monster that whipped up a storm at Loch Ness in Scotland.

  And don’t even get me started about the time we met the Transylvanian vampi
re who was out for blood.

  Strangely enough, after all that, it turns out that the one thing that scares Ms. Frogbottom is a mouse!

  “Are you talking about this?” Olivia picks the mouse up by the tail and dangles it in the air.

  We all jump back.

  Only, the mouse doesn’t wiggle like you’d think it would. Because it isn’t a real mouse. It’s a stuffed toy.

  “I can’t believe you thought it was an actual mouse,” Olivia says, giggling.

  Olivia’s got guts. It’s one thing for her to play practical jokes on us. It’s another for her to play them on our teacher.

  “Olivia’s in trouble,” Tony whispers. “Ms. Frogbottom’s gonna tell her they have to have a talk.”

  I know exactly what kind of “talk” Tony is referring to. I’ve had a few with Ms. Frogbottom. She sits you down and tells you how disappointed she is in you. It’s awful.

  I would feel bad for Olivia right now—if she hadn’t been such a jerk to me while we were playing tag.

  But Ms. Frogbottom doesn’t tell Olivia that they’ll be having a talk. Instead she smiles.

  Huh?

  “We have a practical joker,” Ms. Frogbottom says. “How fun. I’m sure Olivia would like to learn all about some champion jokesters. I know just the place where she can do that.”

  Our teacher reaches into her backpack and pulls out a giant map. My friends and I look at one another nervously. We know what that map means.

  We’re going on a field trip. Right now. That map is our field trip transportation.

  I know that sounds crazy, but it’s the truth. Ms. Frogbottom’s map is magic. All she has to do is touch a country, and… POW! The next thing we know, we’re there.

  “I wonder where we’re going today?” Sofia asks.

  “I hope it’s someplace warm,” Emma suggests. “Maybe with a beach.”

  “I don’t care where we go,” Tony declares. “As long as there are no monsters there.”

  I have a feeling Tony’s not going to be happy. There are always creepy creatures lurking around on Ms. Frogbottom’s field trips.

  Our teacher points to a tiny island near the top of the map, right in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

  “Here we go!” I shout as a white light flashes all around us. My body feels weightless, and I think my feet have just left the ground.

  It’s like I’m flying in space. And then…

  2

  I FEEL LIKE I’VE LANDED on the moon.

  I’m not kidding. When I was in second grade, I did a report about the moon, and the pictures I saw looked like this. The ground is rocky and dusty, and my boots leave deep prints—like the astronauts’ boots left on the surface of the moon. There’s a deep crater not far from where we’re standing that looks a lot like the craters on the moon.

  But I don’t think we’re on the moon. We couldn’t breathe if we were, because there’s no atmosphere up there. So I’m sure we’re somewhere on Earth.

  FROGBOTTOM FACT

  Iceland’s landscape is so similar to that of the moon that Apollo astronauts actually trained for their moon mission in Iceland.

  Ms. Frogbottom puts the Magic Map back into her pack and pulls out a strange hat. It’s made of metal and has horns sticking out the sides.

  “Now I feel like I fit in,” our teacher says as she puts on the hat.

  I can’t imagine why wearing a hat with horns would make her fit in anywhere.

  “Are those volcanoes?” Tony asks, pointing to some large mountains in the distance. They’re wide at the bottom and narrow at the top.

  Ms. Frogbottom nods. “This whole island is formed from the lava of erupting volcanoes.”

  “I thought volcanoes were only in Hawaii,” I say.

  “We’re definitely not in Hawaii,” Emma says as she pulls her hat down lower to cover her ears.

  “No kidding.” Sometimes I think Emma just says stuff to get on my nerves.

  “There are volcanoes all over the world,” Ms. Frogbottom tells me.

  “Wherever we are, it’s icy cold,” Tony says, rubbing his mittens together. “We could use a nice, warm fire.”

  “Exactly right, Tony!” Ms. Frogbottom says excitedly. “We’re in the land of fire and ice.”

  I think Ms. Frogbottom’s brain may be frozen—although Sofia would probably tell me that that’s impossible. “You can’t have fire and ice in one place,” I tell our teacher. “The fire would melt the ice.”

  “That’s true,” Ms. Frogbottom admits. “But this country is known for its areas of both fire and ice.”

  “The fire is the fiery lava that pours out of the volcanoes, right?” Emma asks.

  Our teacher nods.

  “And the ice is because it’s so cold here?” Oliver wonders.

  “Not exactly,” Sofia says as she studies an article on her tablet. “That part of the nickname comes from the glaciers. There are more than two hundred and fifty of them here.”

  “Where’s here?” I ask her.

  “Iceland.” Sofia sounds like she thinks I should have known that already. Which I might have, if I carried a tablet around with me wherever I went, like she does.

  “This country was discovered more than one thousand years ago by explorers from the Viking age,” Sofia adds, smiling at Ms. Frogbottom. “That’s why you’re wearing a Viking helmet.”

  “Exactly!” Ms. Frogbottom cheers. “What a field trip this will be! We’re going to see volcanoes, waterfalls, and lava tunnels. We may even take an outdoor bath in the geothermal springs.…”

  Tony’s eyes open wide. “An outdoor bath?” he asks nervously. “In this cold? In front of everyone?”

  Olivia laughs. “Tony fell for another joke. You’re kidding, right, Ms. Frogbottom?”

  Our teacher shakes her head. “The water in geothermal lakes is heated by the earth’s crust, so they’re very warm. And we’ll all be wearing bathing suits,” she adds, smiling at Tony.

  “But first we’re going to see a huge waterfall,” Ms. Frogbottom continues. “Actually, two waterfalls, with two separate drops. The falls are called the Gullfoss.”

  As we follow my teacher, my eyes tear up from the crazy winds blowing into my face. I have to wrap my scarf around my mouth and nose just to be able to breathe. My hot breath makes my scarf all moist. My nose is starting to run, right into the wool. It’s all pretty gross.

  FROGBOTTOM FACTS

  “Gullfoss” means “golden falls.” It was given that name because the water takes on a golden color in sunlight.

  The water appears golden because it is glacial water that contains a large amount of golden-brown sediment that has been carved from the earth.

  Gullfoss is part of Iceland’s Golden Circle, a 186-mile route to the three most popular attractions in Iceland. In addition to Gullfoss, the Golden Circle includes the Geysir Geothermal Area in Haukadular Valley, and Thingvellir National Park.

  In the distance I hear something that sounds like waves crashing, only a whole lot louder, and much more powerful. Unlike with waves, the crashing sound doesn’t stop, not even for a second. It gets louder and louder as we get closer, until finally we can see the falls.

  “Holy cow!” Oliver exclaims.

  “Wow!” Emma adds.

  “Remarkable!” Sofia says breathlessly.

  The water in the falls has a golden tint that shimmers as the water rushes from the tops of the falls to the ground. The drop from both falls is very steep, and the water is showering endlessly down to the ground far below.

  For what seems like a really long time, I stand there watching the water falling, feeling the wind whipping around me. Even though it’s sunny out, the air feels damp because of the spray from the falls.

  “Yikes!” I jump six feet in the air as someone—or something—taps me suddenly on the shoulder. I was staring at the falls so intently that I didn’t notice anyone sneaking up behind me. My heart is pounding as I slowly turn around to see—

  Phew. I
t’s just Ms. Frogbottom. She’s saying something to me, but I can’t hear her over the sound of the water. I turn and follow her and the rest of my class back toward the road.

  “Isn’t it amazing how powerful that water is?” Ms. Frogbottom says a few minutes later, when we’re back walking on the road and we can hear her again. “The hard rock on top of the waterfalls is made of lava and—”

  “Look at this cute little house!” Emma exclaims, interrupting our teacher.

  Ms. Frogbottom shoots Emma a look.

  Emma scrunches up her mouth and looks down. “Sorry,” she apologizes. She raises her hand.

  “Yes, Emma?” Ms. Frogbottom asks.

  “I was just noticing the tiny house by the side of the road.” Emma points to what looks like a red-and-white dollhouse in the snow.

  “That’s an elf house,” Ms. Frogbottom explains.

  Olivia giggles. “Good one, Ms. Frogbottom,” she says.

  “I’m not kidding,” Ms. Frogbottom replies. “Many people in Iceland build colorful doors and place them in front of rocks where they believe elves live.”

  “Elves like in Santa’s workshop?” Tony asks.

  “Not exactly,” Ms. Frogbottom explains. “In Iceland elves are believed to live a lot like people. They have families and regular jobs. For instance, some are believed to be fishermen and farmers.”

  Sofia is looking at her tablet again. “It says here that elves get really angry when their houses are disturbed,” she reads. “And when they get mad, they play tricks on people.”

  “I like elves already,” Olivia says with a big grin.

  Sofia shakes her head. “Their tricks aren’t for laughs. Elves use magical powers to do evil things, like break down machinery, or make people sick. Elves can cause bad weather or shut off electricity for days at a time. In Iceland, doing something to upset elves is considered very bad luck.”

  “Come on, Sofia,” I say.

  “I’m just telling you what it says in this article,” Sofia explains. “A lot of people in Iceland consider the elves’ feelings in everything they do. They don’t want to make the elves angry.”