The Elf Service, Episode 5

Maddie Sharp descends into the depths of the sorting office to find the Elf Service

All over the city children post letters to Santa Claus and they go undelivered and unanswered. Until Irving Jefferson founds the Elf Service, that is. The Elf Service is the story of charity, journalism and mayhem, the extraordinary story of an extraordinary young man, his extraordinary plan to make Christmas happen for the children of his city and all the extraordinary ways in which that plan goes extraordinarily wrong.

“Krimble,” said Walter Burns, “What do you know?”

“Absolute pill,” said Madeleine Sharp, “The kind of pill that’s worse than the illness. Big round thing that’s impossible to swallow. No one likes him and no one seems to be able to do anything about him.  He doesn’t indulge in the usual City Hall backstabbing and consequently climbs ever upwards over the bodies of the slain. The man rises inexorably like a soap bubble made of steel.”

“He’s a nuisance, is what he is,” said Burns, “A pest. Telling me how to run my paper. Irving Jefferson?”

“What is this, the general knowledge round?” said Maddie, taking a seat.

“Wait till you find out what the big prize is,” said Burns, “What do you know about this Elf Service business?”

“A nine day wonder. Twenty four days at the most,” said Maddie, “It’ll all be forgotten by Boxing Day. I don’t know what Jefferson’s angle is, but he must have one; he’s too good at the ballyhoo to be doing this out of the goodness of his heart. Thinness of his wallet would be my bet, though I wouldn’t rule out vanity. Never rule out vanity as a motive for a young man.”

“Or a young woman,” said Burns.

“Or an old man,” said Maddie.

“You don’t know how right you are,” said Burns, “Good at publicity, is he?”

“Everyone’s talking about him,” said Maddie, “Even us, apparently.”

“Good at getting the story out, is he?” said Burns.

“In all the papers,” said Maddie.

“Except ours!” Burns thumped his desk and all his pens and paper clips did a little jump, “Why hasn’t he got his story in the Argus?”

“We covered it before everyone else,” said Maddie, “I covered it before anyone else. I sat through those tedious meetings with that pill Krimble and I got you the story. I’ve covered it, it's done.”

“What’s the date today?” said Burns, and then, without waiting for an answer, “It’s the fifth. You know how I know that? Because I am the editor of the biggest paper in this city and it is my job to know these big, important, up to the minute facts like what day it is.

“The editor. The one who gets to decide what is news and what isn’t. In fact, the news doesn’t know it's news until I say it is. Until I’ve put it on the front page, it's not news yet.

“First Krimble tells me how to run my paper, now my own reporter. Reporter!” said Burns with a snort of scorn and he banged his desk again, “You call yourself a reporter and then have the nerve to sit there and wonder out loud what this Jefferson’s angle is! The fifth! Four days since you covered this story and you’re still wondering! Call yourself a reporter! If you’re wondering, you should know! You should weasel and pry and do some damn journalism! Four days of the Elf Service and where’s my story?”

“You only had to ask,” said Maddie, who was not in the least bit perturbed by Burns’ tirade. She had evidently sat through this performance often enough before, “I’d like to have a little look at this Jefferson character.”

“A little look?” Burns was still fuming, “Oh don’t let me upset your delicate little social schedule. If you do have time to have a little look, please let me know. A little look! Get me a story!”

“I know you like playing this irascible editor schtick,” said Maddie, getting up, “But you overdo it. It’s dangerous in a man your age, you’re going to pull something. You’ll give yourself an aneurysm with your showing off.”

She stopped in the doorway.

“Vanity,” she said, and she was gone.

The way to find Irving Jefferson, Maddie discovered, was to follow the urchins. She stood at the rear of the central post office, watching them. It was like a nest of ants had wandered across a picnic. In and out of the loading bay scurried a steady stream of ragged children, dodging round the postal workers and the mail vans.

And around her, as she followed their path, through the bay into the warehouse beyond, where mailbags were stacked high against the walls, between conveyor belts and rattling lifts where the bags came up from the basement below, down a set of echoing concrete stairs and into a maze of wall after wall of pigeon holes.

Down here the children quickly disappeared from sight among the twists and turns of the shelves, but she could hear them, the quick, rattling scamper of the newsies among the regular clack-clacking of the postal workers as they went from hole to hole, sorting the mail.

She followed the scampering to the far end of the basement and there she found, finally, the Elf Service.

Both the space and the Service had grown since Jefferson had first arrived. The shelves had been pushed apart and more desks had been moved in. Well, not quite desks, as such. On the left a kitchen table, much stained and burned at the edges where people had left cigarettes hanging, on the right simply some planks laid across two trestles and covered with a festive paper tablecloth.

And in between the tables and the pigeon holes were squashed more people. Not just all of the off duty Newsies rushing back and forth, but now also a large consignment of surprisingly well-dressed ladies, most of them still in their notable hats, all of them currently gathered around the battered desk in the centre of the space.

And in front of them, with his back to Maddie, stood Irving Jefferson. Or rather: paced. Gesticulated. Posed. Maddie had evidently arrived in the middle of a speech.

“...and this is why we must be stinting in our generosity and swift in our deliberations. We must take this jolly responsibility seriously and be serious about spreading jollity. For we must bear up, in our hands, not just the happiness of the children and the charity of our city, but also our own probity in the face of the bureaucrats and detractors and the gentlemen - and ladies - of the press.”

He turned as he said this last phrase and beamed at Maddie, evidently very pleased with his own timing.

“You realise,” said Maddie, “That I realise that your ragamuffins will have told you I was coming. I hope that speech wasn’t entirely for my benefit.”

“Not at all, Miss Sharp,” said Jefferson, entirely unperturbed, “Merely invigorating the volunteers.” He turned back to face the ladies, “This is why we must have our tedious, serious system, dear ladies and why we must stick to it. The future and reputation of the Elf Service - and consequently the Christmases of every child in this city - depend upon it. Now, let’s answer some letters! Let’s fulfil those dreams!”

The ladies all clapped dutifully and rustled back to their tables in a flurry of paper and hat decorations. Jefferson turned and advanced on Maddie.

“Irving Jefferson of the Elf Service, I believe,” said Maddie.

“And what do you believe about him,” said Jefferson, shaking her hand.

“Talking about yourself in the third person already?” said Maddie.

“You’re right. Disgusting habit,” said Jefferson, “I’ve just got so used to reading about myself. Or some version of myself. There are three of them, as far as I can make out. I’m either a con man who will quite squander the charity of the city, or I'm an exciting innovator who’s going to make the city’s Christmas. Or I’m a deluded sap who’s just going to make a mess of everything. Which of them would you like to talk to?”

“I was going to wait and see,” said Maddie, “Which of them started talking.”

“The press is not endearing itself to me,” said Jefferson.

“It doesn’t have to,” said Maddie, “But you have to endear yourself to it. You need it. You need publicity. You need benefactors to answer your letters, you need letters for them to answer, you need volunteers.”

Maddie gestured at the ladies working away at the tables as newsies scurried around them. Jefferson looked at them and sighed.

“The volunteers,” he said, thoughtfully, “Are the problem in a nutshell.”

“The problem?” said Maddie.

“Why has this city,” said Jefferson, turning back to her, “Never solved this problem before? It is full of charities, yet none of them have managed it. Before now.

“Because it’s too small. Because it’s too easy. One month a year, one child a letter, one present a child. All those charities are too big, too bureaucratic, too stultified. They’re all paperwork and staff. We need to be nimble, inventive. We cannot have too much organisation. Hence: volunteers.

“On the other hand, these splendid ladies are entrusting me and the Service with their time, efforts and goodwill. It ill behoves me to squander it. I must take them and their work seriously. I must take the Service seriously. Moreover there are plenty of people, like Councillor Krimble - do you know him? Frightening little man, like a tiny, grumpy moon - who already think I am not serious  - or worse, up to no good. So we must have some organisation.”

“The problem,” said Maddie, “To which you are about to tell me the solution.”

“I think so,” said Jefferson, evidently very pleased with himself (but when, wondered Maddie, wasn’t he?), “Economy where we can, organisation where we must. And so we come back to our volunteers, a remarkably effective - and very elegant - economy. You see them at these tables here. On the left Mrs Fulmine and Miss Donner, and Mrs and Miss Reynarde. On the right Mrs Rudolph, Miss Saltadora and Mrs Melt. And through their hands we can trace the efficient expediting of a letter to Santa Claus through the hands of the Elf Service.

“The Post Office drops off the letters here. Mrs Fulmine and Miss Donner open them, check them, categorise them. Then mother and daughter Reynarde transcribe them, noting the details of the sender, their request, any relevant details. Then across the room they go to Mrs Ruldoph’s table. There they are paired with an appropriate benefactor and off they go again, the work of the Service done.

“We do not answer the letters, we do not buy the presents, we merely bring the needy together with the blessed and it is our citizens themselves who bring a little Christmas to the poor children of our city. That is our service, and the rest is theirs.”

“Is this the efficient bit or the organised bit?” said Maddie.

“The organisation,” said Jefferson, gesturing at his battered desk in the middle of the room, “Lies here, in the centre of the process. The heart, in fact, the soul, the controlling intelligence.”

“This would be you, I take it,” said Maddie.

“The Krimble’s of this world are right about one thing,” said Jefferson, “This city is as full of the mean-spirited as it is full of the generous. And they should know, for they are some of them.”

“People take advantage of someone giving out free presents,” said Maddie, “In this city? You don’t say? Who would have thought it?”

“Of course,” said Jefferson, brought back down to earth by her sarcasm, “Much as I would like to believe in our fellow citizens, it’s hardly surprising, I know, and were we to just hand on the letters and encourages gifts for frauds and chancers, we’d be excoriated. So this is where we have to be a little organised, I’m afraid, and a little hard headed. Every letter must be researched and verified.”

“So you’re actually being all three,” said Maddie, “Innovator, conniver and dreamer all rolled into one.”

“Conceive like an inventor, scheme like a charlatan, dream like a fool,” said Jefferson, happily.

“And you do that all yourself?” said Maddie.

“Oh no,” said Jefferson, “What do you think all the newsies are for?”