By: Catherine Day 

Once upon a time, there lived an elf who loved cookies. She lived at the edge of the woods in a cookie house, with walls made of Biscotti bricks, a floor of macaroons, and a sugar-wafer roof. Her favorite cookies were Oreos. She could eat an entire pack of Oreos–even the family size–in 2 hours. That may seem only mildly impressive, until you realized the elf was six inches tall. 

One day the elf was walking along the stream near her house, the grass springy beneath her feet and the stream burbling happily, when she came across a gingersnap cookie. It was lying on a quilted blanket on the ground, spicy and sweet-smelling all at once. Being that the elf was,  as you recall, six inches tall, the cookie was the size of an inner tube. She was delighted–just the other day, she’d had a hankering for a ginger snap. 

The elf sat down to eat the cookie. She licked her lips–it looked delicious. Then, there came a noise from the woods. A little brown grasshopper hopped up to the picnic blanket. 

“Hello, Miss,” the grasshopper said. “Could I have some of your cookie?” 

The elf laughed. “Fat chance,” she said. “I found this cookie, so it’s all mine. Besides, why would I share with you?”

“I’ll be your friend if you share the cookie with me,” said the grasshopper. “I could help you find the best pieces of grass, and show you how to jump really high.” 

“I don’t have any friends, and I wouldn’t share with them even if I did,” said the elf. The grasshopper hopped away in shame.

The elf finished eating the cookie (it was delicious), and continued walking down the stream. Soon, she found another quilt with another cookie on it. This one was an oatmeal raisin cookie, which the cookie elf liked even better than gingersnaps. She had just sat down at the blanket when a gray rat came out of the forest. 

“Hello, Miss,” said the rat. “Would you share some of your cookie with me?

“Hah!” said the elf. “Another little cretin just like you asked me that a few minutes ago. Do you know what I said?” 

“Yes?” the rat said. 

The elf shoved her face close to the rat’s. “No!” 

“Please?” said the rat. “I’ll be your friend. We can go foraging together, and I’ll let you pet my soft fur.”

“I only eat cookies,” said the cookie elf. “And I don’t need any friends!” She blew a raspberry at the rat, who ran back into the woods. The elf finished up her cookie. It was just as good as the first.

The elf continued walking along the stream. She came to another blanket, which held another cookie. This one was even bigger than the last two-a giant chocolate chip cookie. The elf rubbed her hands together, grinning at the thought of eating such a delicacy, when a white rabbit came out of the woods. 

“Hello, Miss,” said the rabbit. “May I have some of your cookie?” 

The elf was seriously getting annoyed at this point. So, she decided to play a little prank on the rabbit. 

“You can have some of my cookie,” the elf said, “If you can find me the biggest branch in the forest and bring it back here.” 

The rabbit, as a fellow cookie lover, agreed, and immediately set off into the dark forest to find the biggest branch. The elf knew that even if the rabbit did find the biggest branch, he could never bring it back to her, so she sat down and ate the cookie. 

The chips were melty and gooey, and the cookie was crunchy or soft in exactly the right places. It was perfect. The elf, full of three cookies, fell asleep right there on the picnic blanket. 

She woke a few minutes later to the rabbit’s shrill voice. 

“Miss! Miss, wake up, please!” he shouted. 

The elf sat up, extremely grumpy. “What is it, you jerkface? Can’t you see I’m napping here?”

“I’m sorry, Miss, but it’s urgent! You see, I found the biggest branch in the forest.” 

The elf stopped rubbing her eyes. “Really? Wow. Ok.” 

“Yes, but Miss, when I tried to bring it back here… well…” the rabbit looked over his shoulder. A deep bark sounded from the woods, shaking the trees. A flock of birds took flight from the treetops.  

The elf’s eyes widened. “Oh, crumbs.” 

The rabbit beat his foot against the grass. “Hurry, Miss!” he said, diving into the river and swimming downstream. 

The elf, being so full of cookies, couldn’t move. She had to stay put on the blanket as a giant, fluffy black dog lumbered out of the woods, woofing its anger at its favorite stick almost being stolen from it by a rabbit. The dog spotted the cookie elf, and she blanched in fear. 

It ambled up to the blanket, smelling the aromatic scent of cookies wafting off the elf’s body. Its giant pink tongue licked the elf, coating her in snelly slobber. 

“Ew,” the elf started to say, but she didn’t get the chance. The dog leaned down and swallowed her whole.

Having climbed out of the stream, the rabbit saw the whole thing from behind a tree. He continued through the forest, meeting the grasshopper and the rat, whom he told of the elf’s fate. They all agreed that if only she had split the cookies with them, she would have been able to escape from the dog. The three eventually became good friends, and shared many cookies together over the years.

As for the cookie elf, people say they can still hear her inside the dog’s stomach, complaining about the damp and the fact that it doesn’t eat enough cookies. 

 

Art by Elisa Duran