1. Un-be-lieve-a-ble!

      There was a girl called Maggie. She had been looking at her windowsill for quite a while. Her eyes were as large as cucumber slices, though normally they were average-sized – about like roasted almonds. On Maggie's windowsill were a whole lineup of shoes, and she would have happily begun playing with them again, but something was wrong.

      Someone had moved the shoes around, making a pyramid-shaped tower of them. But Maggie had no idea who that someone could be, for she had no brothers or sisters. There were just her mother and father, but they certainly wouldn’t have been playing with her shoes. They didn’t have time for such things.

      What made Maggie most amazed was the shoe at the top of the pyramid. It was a shiny, black, highheeled dance shoe. One of her favorites. Of all the shoes in the tower, it was the most suspicious, because into it had been placed a note written on brown paper. It had been rolled up and tied with a piece of red thread. Certainly the work of dainty, skilled fingers. It couldn’t be Dad, thought Maggie, his fingers were too thick to manage anything so fine.

      The letter had been stuck longways into the shoe right where Maggie's little toe would go. And since it clearly must be written just for her, on that spring morning in the month of March, that same little girl put two fingers into the shoe. Cautiously, as if fearing that the shoe tower would collapse, she removed the scroll from the shoe. Undoubtedly this was a very special moment! As special as getting a big piece of earwax out of her ear, or digging a long, dried-up booger out of her nose. But the letter was much prettier than earwax or a booger. The paper was made of a marvelously thin material, and the thread was so soft that it felt like it had been crafted by fairies.

      She looked over her shoulder to be sure the door was shut and untied the thread. And the scroll opened!

      “Hi Maggie! I wuanted two say I’m very sorry that I havin’t ben very gud. Please don’t be madd at me eny mor. Santa Yugo was alredee upset with me a buntch of tyms. He sed I was a lazee worker and I gots two do beddr. He sed I have to mayk it all beddr by bringing you a grayt big present. Please rite two me and tel me wut I shud bring you. It can be wutever you want, but Yugo said it haz to fitt in your room. I reely want to be your elf and I promiss I’ll be gud now.

      Your elf, Erik.”

      Maggie was in second grade, so she could already read quite well. But since the content of the letter was so unexpected, she had to read it several times to be sure she understood what the elf was saying.

      “I can wish for whatever I want!” whispered Maggie to herself, as if saying it out loud would help her understand it. “Just as long as it can fit in my room?!”

      The girl flopped down into her easy chair and gazed out the window, looking far past the clouds. Her thoughts took flight over the lakes and forests of Estonia. Over the Gulf of Finland to the French fries and meatballs at the IKEA store. Over Sweden and Norway and back around through Denmark, where they stopped for a moment at Legoland. Then they took off again like a rocket, up past the airplanes, diving into the darkness of space and landing on the moon. She did two laps around it, then looked back at the waiting Earth. Her thoughts zipped back down into the Pacific Ocean and dove into a pod of dolphins, then rode on the back of a blue whale. She took a ride on a pirate ship in the Caribbean where she and Johnny Depp drank lemonade from bottomless cups, then she stretched out on the world’s softest pillows. She imagined opening her eyes again and seeing herself in the mirror wearing Elsa’s icy gown and patting Olaf on the head…

      There was so much. So much to wish and long for.

      Maggie's mother sometimes had girlfriends over and when they were talking excitedly about something they would say, “Unbelievable!” Maggie thought they said it too frequently and about too many things, but she figured now would be just the right time for that word.

      “Unbelievable!”

      “Un-be-lieve-a-ble!”

      “Gracious, it’s so amazing!”

      Maggie actually knew already exactly what she wished for. It was, of course, the thing she had never gotten, though she had been asking her parents for it for several birthdays and Christmases. But the girl’s pleas had always ended with her parents’ reply that she had allergies and it simply wasn’t possible.

      “I want a pet. A pet that I’m not allergic to!”

      As Maggie said it, she didn’t know if it was possible. But since she was dealing with Santa’s own elf, who else could fulfill a wish if he couldn’t?

      “It doesn’t matter if it’s a cat or a dog or a guinea pig! Any kind of animal as long as it doesn’t make me itch or sneeze!”

      Without any further thought, Maggie sat down and wrote her wish to Erik the Elf. She folded the letter, put it back into the shoe, and walked out of the room. Because Maggie, of course, was not a silly girl. She knew that elves only come when nobody else is in the room.

      Yes, even when spring has come and most other elves would be resting from the busy season and sunbathing on the beach.