Someone's been a Naughty Boy

Toby was always getting into trouble. 

It was never his fault, of course. There was always someone, or something, that meant he just had to act out. Never his own actions. Like a puppet held up by strings. 

***

“Toby! How many times have I told you to keep your hands to yourself!”

Toby looked up at his teacher sheepishly. “I’m sorry Miss, but Andy was pulling my hair. I was only trying to get him off me.” 

“No I never!” Andy rushed towards the pair, face flushed. “I didn’t touch him- Toby took my nice pen and when I tried to get it back he-” 

“That’s enough, Andy.” Their teacher looked down her long, hunched nose at the boys and huffed. “Don’t do it again,” before turning back to her desk. 

Toby nodded, turned to Andy, and stuck out his tongue. 

Andy cried.

***

“Toby- get down here this instant! What have you done to the dining table? It’s covered in pen.” 

Toby trudged down the staircase, biting his lip and watching his mother through his long eyelashes. He came to a pause at the door, and stared as his mother furiously scrubbed black marker pen from the shiny wooden surface. He stood there, watching, waiting for something to happen. 

“Toby, why would you do this?” his mom asked, defeated. “You know how much I love this table.” 

Toby shrugged. “I tried to show you my artwork earlier when you came home from work, but you were too busy. I thought you could look at it when you had your dinner.” He blinked up at her, his face shining with innocent curiosity. 

His mom paused her cleaning, sighed, and whispered, “I’m sorry. We’ll look over it together later, shall we? We’ll have some time together later, just the two of us.” She looked at him and ruffled his hair. “Just- don’t do it again.” 

Toby nodded excitedly and rushed back upstairs. In his bedroom he hastily pulled out a wad of paper and some colouring pencils. 

His schoolbag sat on the bed, untouched since walking in from school hours ago. As he scribbled, dragging the pencils over the page so hard they started to break, he smirked. 

They hadn’t done art at school for weeks. 

***

“Young man, hand over whatever it was that you’ve just put in your pocket. Now.” 

Toby stopped in his tracks and turned around slowly. The tall, dark haired shopkeeper was towering over him, one hand resting on hip and the other extended, held out to Toby as if to accept something from him. He had a scraggly whitish beard and was rather rotund. He looked almost comical to the boy. 

Toby looked up at him, confused. “I’m sorry, sir, I’m not sure what you mean.” 

The man stared at him, unblinking, and pointed to Toby’s hand. It was stuffed into the front pocket of his hoodie, and there was clearly something else hidden inside with it. 

“I’ll ask you one more time. Hand over whatever you’ve stolen, and we can leave it at that.” 

Toby brushed his thumb against the smooth surface of the box in his pocket, contemplating. Then, he removed both hands and held them in the air. “I’m really sorry, but I think you’ve got the wrong kid. I’m just waiting for my parents to pick me up.” 

The shopkeeper stalled for a moment. “Wait, you’ve been waiting for them since school ended? That was three hours ago.” 

Toby nodded and turned away, stifling a laugh. “Yeah, they’re just both so busy with work that they sometimes forget to pick me up. I think they’re on the way. I thought I’d wait in here, as it’s much safer than being outside.” 

The shopkeeper nodded, and looked out of the small window at the front of the corner store. “Yeah, that heat out there is no joke.” Then, as if jerked out of a daydream, he turned back to Toby, frown back on his face. “I’ve seen you in here before, haven’t I? And,” he stopped, gesturing to a grey car parked outside, “Isn’t that your dad?” 

Toby felt his heart hammer in his chest. Palms sweating, he pretended to check. “Oh, yeah, that’s him! Thanks.” Toby headed for the door, his hand moving inside his pocket again to hold his stolen merchandise. 

The shopkeeper appeared before him so fast, Toby almost tripped over his own feet to stop from rushing into the man. The stolen object slid from his pocket and onto the floor. 

Before Toby could pick it up, the old man swooped in and snatched it from the ground, holding it aloft far above Toby’s short stature. 

“That’s mine! I brought it in with me, you can’t take my things.” Toby started jumping and swinging his arms up, trying to reach it. 

“I said if you handed it over, there wouldn’t be any trouble. You keep lying. There are consequences for that.” The man had a strange sparkle in his eye as he spoke, which stopped Toby trying to take it back. He waved through the window at someone, and when Toby saw his dad walking inside, he wanted to crawl under the shelves and hide forever. 

***

“This is the third time you’ve been caught stealing, Tobe. If you keep this up, you’ll be lucky not to end up in jail.” 

Toby’s dad held the steering wheel with white knuckles, his eyes on a fixed point in front of him. Toby sensed he wanted to shout, but was restraining himself while they were trapped in the vehicle, as it would do neither of them any good for the drive home. 

Slumping back in his seat, Tody huffed. “It was just a pack of Pokemon cards. It’s not a big deal. I don’t know why that fatty had to get involved anyway.” 

The car suddenly slammed to a stop. Someone honked at them several times from behind before whizzing past, making an obscene gesture at his dad. Toby laughed. 

“It’s not just about the cards. Don’t insult people, Toby, and don’t ever think of taking something that isn’t yours again.” He ran his calloused hand over his thinning hair. “I thought we raised you better than this.” 

“Well, if you’d just bought me the cards when I asked earlier, I wouldn’t have had to take them. Really, you caused all this.” 

Dad turned to him angrily. “Why should we reward behaviour like this? Why do you think you deserve nice things when this is what you do- this is how you treat people?” Staring back out of the window, his dad muttered, “At this rate, you won’t be getting anything for Christmas at all.” 

Toby shot up in his seat. “That’s months away! That’s not fair!”

Dad shrugged, started the engine, and pulled away from the curb. “Well, you know what they say… Santa’s always watching.” 

Toby rolled his eyes. He was far too old to believe in that nonsense. 

***

After a long, serious conversation with his parents, Toby reluctantly went up to his bedroom. He was aghast when he realised they weren’t lying about punishing him - his television and iPad were gone, along with all of his comic books. 

“You’ll get them back when you’ve earned them. Read a book, or play a game. These are rewards, not necessities.” How he’d screamed and screamed at them from behind his bedroom door after that. 

The first night was difficult, for everyone. Toby refused to go to bed, arguing that he didn't have his iPad and therefore wouldn't be able to sleep. His mom, after listening to him rant and rave for over an hour, almost relented. It was just as dad was coming out of the shower that she was reaching for it, and he swiftly intervened.

"We've given him so many chances before. He needs this to learn, to change. Imagine what kind of adult he'll grow to become if we don't do something now? He's only eight years old, for christ's sake."

So Toby went to bed with no iPad, no screen, and no-one listening to his demands. It was an odd sensation for Toby, being ignored like this. Usually he could just bat his pretty eyes at his mom and she'd cave, or he'd make up an excuse with dad and he'd give in just to get Toby to leave him alone for a while. It wasn't perfect by any means, but it worked. Oh, it worked wonders.

The real surprise came the next morning, when Toby stomped downstairs for breakfast. Where there would usually be a bacon sandwich waiting for him at the table, Toby instead found a small doll dressed in red, with a matching hat above it's cheeky smiling face.

Toby stared at it, confused. "Mum, why is the Elf out? It's July."

His mum popped her face around the doorway, hair tied up in a messy bun and an apron wrapped loosely about her waist. "Hmm? What Elf?"

Toby pointed to the table, but immediately dropped his hand in shock. It wasn't there. The table was empty.

"What..." Toby muttered, looking under the table and on each chair to find where the dreaded thing had gone. When the Elf first appeared several years ago, it was a special treat every morning to hunt for it with his parents and discover the mess it had gotten into.

For some unexplainable reason, seeing it's glassy grin staring at him in the middle of summer made Toby feel cold all over.

"What were you saying, Tobe?" Mum walked into the room as he stood up, confused. "Have you finished your breakfast already?" She nodded to an empty plate sat on the table. A few stray crumbs remained.

"What? No, I haven't had a bite yet. I was looking for that doll, where'd it go?" Toby pulled back the curtains, tossed the cushions from the chair, and even upturned his schoolbag, but no Elf appeared.

"What are you doing? You've got to tidy that all up before you go to school, young man. And I can see the plate on the table - I'm not your maid, put it away."

What? Thought Toby, following his mum to the kitchen. "I haven't had breakfast yet, where is it?"

Hand on her hip, his mum turned with a scowl on her face. "You've got to stop this lying. I put it on the table, like always, and now it's gone. Dad's already at work, so who do you think took it? Fairies?" She rolled her eyes, and Toby bit back the response on the tip of his tongue. "Get your stuff together and wait by the car. I'll be five minutes."

Stomach growling, Toby shoved his books back into the backpack and hastened to put on his trainers.

There, hanging above the shoe rack, the Elf swung from the lamp shade. Clutched tightly in his felt hands was a half-eaten bacon sandwich.

***
The journey home was almost worse than the ride to school that morning.

"Explain it to me again, because I'm still struggling to see where you punching someone is their fault." Dad drove slower this time, listening to every word out Toby's mouth.

"Well... I guess when you put it that way..."

"Oh, so you attacked another one of your friends for no reason?"

Toby huffed. "He is not my friend. I wouldn't spend time with that freak."

Dad drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. "That's another week without the iPad."

Que another screaming fit from the passenger seat.

"That's not fair!" He started stomping the footwell, banging so loudly the car again had to stop in the flow of traffic. "I didn't do anything! They started it!"

"I don't care, right now, Toby. You need to face the consequences, and that means no iPad until you start being nice to the others at school, and no tv until you can prove we can trust you. You've broken so many rules recently and we keep letting it slide, but no more."

Pulling away from the curb, Dad adds, "We're all going to be keeping a very close watch on you for now. So be on your very best behaviour, or we'll soon know about it."

Arms crossed, face like thunder, Toby sat silently in the car the entire journey home.

***
The Elf appeared again in the night. After everyone had gone to bed, Toby thought the best way to get what he wanted was to steal it back. He'd figured out that his dad had locked the iPad in the garage, but hadn't worked out where it was kept. After fishing the keys from the bowl near the front door, he slinked into the warm garage and began his search.

He searched the toolbox, the work bench, and even the extra freezer, just in case. No luck.

Next the laundry cupboard, above the washing machine. To reach it, Toby had to carefully climb onto the unfinished countertop and balance with one hand while opening the door with the other. A dizzy spell took over in the semi darkness of the early morning, so he leaned his head against the door for a moment to clear his head.

When his eyes opened, the sight almost sent him sprawling back to the cement floor.

The Elf, now wearing a tiny hardhat and high-viz vest, was standing on the countertop beside him. In it's hand was a blue mallet, and directly beneath that was the iPad Toby had been searching for.

Toby froze. He closed his eyes tight and whispered, "He's not real, he can't be here yet." A bang sounded beside him, and he slowly looked back where the Elf had been waiting.

It, and the iPad, were gone. All that was left was the mallet, and a dent in the counter where the mallet had landed.

Toby scrambled back to bed faster than ever before. He didn't emerge from his room for hours.

***

"Have you noticed how much calmer it's been here, this past week?" Toby's dad mentioned to his wife a few days later. They were both standing in the kitchen preparing dinner, one peeling and slicing potatoes while the other searched the messy pantry for herbs and spices. "I think we made the right decision taking that iPad away. Look how much more settled he is now."

It was true. Even in the week since making that difficult choice, the whole family had seen a real difference in their son. They looked over at Toby, sat on the sofa with an actual reading book in his lap. He'd been there for almost an hour, and was so engrossed in the story that he hadn't moved for a while.

"I know," added Toby's mum, handing the salt shaker to her husband. "It's been so much easier to get him to school these past few days. I think he really listened when you spoke with him in the car." She moved back into the pantry, and added, "It probably helps as well that you got the Elf to 'keep an eye' on him."

The potato slicing came to a halt, and she heard a faint, "What?" from across the room. Siddling over to the island with an armful of ingredients, she murmured, "You know, the Christmas Elf we use every year that makes him nicer in December. I saw it a few days ago in the hallway, holding one of Toby's shoes. Well done, by the way. I don't know how you managed to get in and out without him spotting you. I find it so hard to do every day, but that's usually while we're also wrapping gifts and going sledging and-"

"I thought it was you," her husband said quietly, placing the knife down, "Doing the Elf stuff. I didn't even know where we kept him for the rest of the year. I saw it on the back shelf in my car yesterday, I thought you'd put it there so he wouldn't kick off in the car again. It worked wonders, he was so quiet."

"What do you mean? I haven't touched it since Christmas last year."

"Neither have I."

The couple exchanged a worried glance, then walked out into the living room.

Toby was still sat on the sofa, with his reading book open. The Elf sat beside him, a grin fixed onto his face.

"He's always watching," whispered Toby, white as a sheet, as he turned the page.