250 Words Christmas Special: Storeman Norman the Gnome (2)

Now everyone knows that elves make toys for Santa to deliver at the North Pole but few know about the gnomes who look after the stores, employed because this role requires a taller kind of magical folk.  The gnome who runs the store is a particularly tall and well organised Storeman called Norman and this is the story of how he saved this year’s Christmas.

It all happened because of Global Warming (or Climate Change I think the fashionable phrase is nowadays).  The North Pole snows were melting and the resulting ice cold water started to enter the Great Store of Presents (neatly ordered by Norman into the order of delivery from New Zealand to Alaska) at an alarming rate. 

Nothing was stacked on the floor, of course, due to this possibility and because of the wetness spread by various folk coming into the store from outside, however the water was rising darned fast and was soon approaching the bottom shelf!

Quick as a flash, Norman grabbed a pickaxe and began to hammer at the floor through the rising water and was soon encouraging (well, ordering) his workers to join him.  Onward he led them and together the store gnomes dug a trench all the way to the sea, down which drained the floodwaters.  After this they then helped out all of the North Pole folk by linking other flooded buildings to their drainage trench. 

And thus Christmas was saved from “Climate Change” by a clever Storeman Gnome called Norman.

250 Words Christmas Special: Storeman Norman the Gnome (1)

Norman is a the gnome who lives at the North Pole.  He looks after the Great Store of Presents which slowly fills each year as the elves make presents for every child in the world and then empties quickly on Christmas Eve as Santa prepares for his annual run. 

Norman used to be quite a miserable soul, though.  He and his team of gnomes weren’t known about outside of the Arctic.  It was understandable that Santa and the reindeers are so well known but otherwise the elves got all the glory for manufacturing the gifts while the gnomes were completely ignored.  And they did a fine job, Norman thought, sorting and organising all the gifts within the warehouse to help Santa in the delivering (a method copied by Royal Mail among other delivery organisations) and keeping them safe and dry from the elements- they deserved at least a mention from time to time.

One day, Norman was sat on a snowy mound smoking his pipe when a little polar bear walked by, saw Norman and said, “Hello there, why do you look so glum?”  And so Norman told the bear about his gnomes’ lack of fame and the bear sat thoughtfully and said, “Well, I have contacts on the internet; I think I might be able to persuade a young man to help change this situation.”

And with that the little polar bear wandered off and soon began a chain of events that would end in this and part two.