Tinsel Terrors: A Rom Com Short Story Read online



  Tinsel Terrors

  A Short Story

  By Mazy Morris

  copyright 2013 by Mazy Morris

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Tinsel Terrors: A Short Story©2013 Mazy Morris

  Jenny Jorgenson—or Miss Jenny as she was known to her Kindergarten students—was regretting trying to get creative with the Christmas program. Usually, the teachers just gave each student a couple of jingle bells to shake, picked out five or six songs involving nonsectarian reindeer and snowmen and considered the performance a success if no one threw up on the principal or fell off the stage.

  Last year had been a fiasco. Three kids wet their pants before they even got into the gym. One kid had given another kid a black eye, and two little girls got a fit of giggles which infected the entire back half of the choir. To crown the evening’s success, halfway through the third song somebody—the culprit was never positively identified—managed to pull the cardboard scenery down on the entire cast—all 114 of them.

  Chaos ensued. Half the kids were hysterical, and the other half took full advantage of the situation to do all the things they’d been instructed not to. There was kicking and shoving and trampling. The concept of “inside voices” was completely forgotten.

  This year—she couldn’t imagine why—Miss Jenny had once again been elected by the rest of the Kindergarten teachers to plan the Christmas Program. She didn’t know why she’d agreed to do it. Actually, she did. Mr. Sanderson—who taught next door and had the most beautiful green eyes she’d ever seen—had been smiling at her. He was eating a cookie at the time. Everyone had been waiting for her to say yes. She’d be about to say no, but then Mr. Sanderson had licked a cookie crumb off the corner of his mouth and she’d said, yes, of course, she’d be happy to.

  She’d gotten creative this year and written a cute little script about an elf who develops a deadly fear of tinsel and has trouble fulfilling his elfly duties. Of course, Elmer Elf—it would have been unthinkable to name him anything else—learns valuable lessons about friendship and facing his fears. The grand finale was supposed to culminate with the entire cast waving tinsel streamers. Gently and in semi-unison, of course.

  In the peace and privacy of her own home—a fire in the fire-place and Christmas carols playing—tinsel had sounded like a great idea. Now she wasn’t so sure. She’d seen what some of those munchkins could do with a plain old jingle bell.

  The play looked good on paper. It sounded even better when the custodian—who always played Santa by virtue of his deep voice, jolly laugh and considerable girth—had read it aloud over the public address system after school. He was a perfect narrator.

  What wasn’t working out so well was the army of elves themselves. It was the last practice and no one was where they were supposed to be or doing what they were supposed to be doing.

  “Don’t worry about it,” a voice said from somewhere over the top of Jenny’s head. She was leaning down to tie a shoe. It was her sixteenth shoe that day.

  She looked up into the beautiful green eyes of the oh-so-adorable Mr. Sanderson. Yes, he was single. But that didn’t do her a bit of good. He wasn’t interested. He’d made that quite clear.

  Jenny finished tying the shoe. She marched to her position at the front of the stage and raised her whistle to her lips.