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By Root 256 0

arrived at the ball looking like a million bucks, my mom and aunts looked like they had swallowed moat water. The prince asked the little half sister if she was the kind of girl who wanted to see his tower and, well, the shoe fit. Mom was not a bit happy about getting the short end of the slipper for a husband. To make matters worse, Mom’s happily-ever-after story was having her eyes pecked out by ravens. She married Pop out of necessity, so she wouldn’t run into the furniture. At the altar, Mom said, “I gotta marry somebody, so it might as well be a half-pint jerk weed.” Mom resented Pop’s crush on Snow and drummed on the old man’s brow on the subject like an Apache on the warpath. She was none too pleased to be the runner-up to another “perfect” princess. Mom never let Pop forget how lucky he was to have her. Mom reminded the old man that she was only about three corns away from donning a glass slipper. If she would have had a little lanolin or a crowbar, she would be sitting on the throne.

“You’d be wiping my behind,” Mom would screech from her stool in the corner. “You’d be no more than a lackey, a serf, a little fool with bells on your hat. You’d have to make me laugh or die.”

“I wipe your behind now,” Dad would thunder back. “I wait on you hand and foot, treat you like a queen, and you couldn’t hold a candle to Snow White.”

“I’m blind, you ignorant, pathetic little peckerwood!” Mom fumed through fake tears, trying to muscle up a little sympathy. “You owe me. Girls like your precious princess are heartless harpies who send their little animal friends out to prey on innocent people like me. They’re vindictive little tarts is what they are. And don’t kid yourself, stretch. Snow would have laughed you out of the bedchamber. You can’t cross the moat with a sapling! Ha ha ha!”

Now you can see why I had to leave home.

Truth is, there aren’t that many places in the world for elves to go. Despite what you may have read, Middle Earth is really for outlaws. Middle Earth elves and dwarfs are desperadoes who are looking for a hole to hide in and maybe score a quick treasure. They sit around and brew hooch from roots, scheming and plotting on how to survive another day. You really don’t want to be in Middle Earth after dark, not if you want to keep your magic dust—or your throat.

Now if you are a sick little jasper, you can be an Old Country Elf. These are your basic leprechauns, dwarfs, gnomes, gremlins, pixies and hobs—mischievous, twisted little pucks with a knack for jerking around weak-minded humans too dumb to come out of the rain. Old Country Elves can make a living, but you’re always on the job and working around werewolves, ogres and a long line of moor-inspired nightmares, so life is no picnic. Plus the food doesn’t get much better than haggis, and there just isn’t enough mead to wash that taste out of your mouth.

Munchkins are elves, but they’ll try and tell you different. Munchkins are elf elitists, and if their Lollipop Guild puts the kibosh on your application, they’ll pretend they never knew you. Personally, I never understood the attraction of being a Munchkin. They make their life sound all yippy skippy and ding-dong the witch is dead, but they don’t tell you the Flying Monkeys are still around. I hear those ape-vultures drop out of the sky like the Angel of Death and sweep up a Munchkin in a blink. It’s Flying Monkey takeout and I hear the leftovers look like the butcher’s floor. If that’s the good life, they can have it.

Some elves go rogue and strike out for your world, the human world. They try to pass themselves off as “little people,” but some elfin birthmarks (the pointy ears and chins, the curled toes), usually give them away. The elves that happen to make do in your neighborhood are usually starring in freak shows and small-time circuses, and you don’t need me to tell you how tough a carny’s life is. It’s hard work, dangerous. And there’s no dental insurance.

The only other path for an elf to pursue is the North Pole, the show. It is the best, too, and it was the only path I had in mind.

I arrived