The Unwanted Gift

On Elsa’s eleventh birthday, her grandmother gave her a mirror. The mirror was longer and wider than Elsa, and it had fancy black ironwork around its edges. It looked very heavy and very old.

Elsa hated it. She wanted a doll. Or a new dress. Or a horse. Maybe a dragon. Certainly not a stupid mirror.

“Elsa, thank your grandmother,” her father said, reproach in his voice.

“Thank you, Grandma,” Elsa said, not meaning it at all. Elsa’s grandmother was shrewd enough to know a phony thanks when she heard it, and she looked downcast.

“She’ll appreciate it when she’s a little older,” Elsa’s mother said.

And indeed, Elsa would.

Elsa’s parents put the mirror in her bedroom. They were planning to hang it up but they didn’t have any hooks or wire, and so they left it leaning against a wall. Every time Elsa looked at it, she saw the reflection of her surly, disappointed face as she stared at her unwanted gift. That made her dislike the mirror all the more.

One afternoon her parents went out to buy hooks and wire. Elsa was home alone when she heard someone banging at the front door hard enough to make the walls quake.

She knew she wasn’t supposed to open the door while her parents were out. But who in the world would pound on the door like that? She tiptoed to the front window and pulled aside the white lace curtain to peek.

And instantly, her stomach went cold. Two Grundledarks were standing outside, banging on the door with hairy fists.

Nobody knew quite what Grundledarks were, and there was much disagreement on the subject. Grundledarks walked around on two legs and spoke like human beings, but they were huge and furry and stank like beasts.

But there was one thing everyone did know about Grundledarks: They ate little children. And that made them monsters.

And one of those monsters spotted Elsa peeping around the curtain at them.

“There’s one in there! I seen it!” one of the Grundledarks crowed to the other. “And it looks rosy and delicious!”

Elsa dropped the curtain and dashed around the house, looking for a hiding place. Behind the couch? No — surely they’d find her there. Under the kitchen table? No, that wouldn’t work either. Her mother had taken the tablecloth for washing and without that to hide under, Elsa might as well sit out in plain sight and wait to be devoured.

The Grundledarks knocked the front door down with a tremendous crash that shook the house. Elsa shrieked and ran for her bedroom. She slammed the door shut, knowing full well that the Grundledarks would make short work of it but needing the extra seconds to think.

Under the bed? No — that’s where she shoved all her toys every time her parents made her clean her room, and now there was no place for her.

In the closet? No. She had too many clothes in there; she’d never be able to squeeze in.

The mirror. The mirror still leaned against the wall. Was there room enough for Elsa behind it? There simply had to be.

The Grundledarks smashed against her bedroom door. “No use hiding in there! Come out, come out, little tidbit,” they called. And the door splintered as the creatures knocked it down.

Elsa huddled behind the mirror, wrapping her arms around herself so as to be as small and still as possible. Grundledarks smelled worse than a pack of stray dogs rolling in a heap of garbage on a hot, humid summer afternoon, and Elsa tried not to retch lest they hear her.

“Where’d it go, Snuffle?” one Grundledark said.

“How would I know, Blurt? I was breaking the door down.”

Elsa heard their heavy footsteps as they trudged around her room. But then the steps stopped.

“Whoa. Look there. There’s already two of us workin’ this house!” One of them let out a bull-like snort of air.

“Look at the way they’re just staring at us. What’re you looking at, ugly?”

“You think they ate up our little tidbit all by themselves, Blurt?”

“I think they did, Snuffle. I think we should teach ’em some manners. It’s impolite not to share.”

Elsa heard their heavy steps coming towards the mirror and dearly wished she’d gone to the shop with her parents that day. But then one of the monsters shrieked.

“They’re comin’ right at us, Snuffle! An’ they look like they mean business! Run for it!”

And the Grundledarks tore out of the room and out of the house. For Grundledarks were big, hairy, smelly, and liked to eat children.

They were also very, very stupid.

Elsa, who was not stupid, waited until the house stopped shaking before coming out from behind her mirror. Her beautiful, wonderful, amazing mirror.

*****

Elsa’s parents came home later that day and found the pile of jagged planks where their front door used to be. They instantly feared the worst.

“Elsa?” they called out, terror in their voices. They walked further into the house and were met by the intoxicating smell of chocolate.

“I’m in here!” Elsa called from the kitchen.

Her parents ran to the kitchen and found Elsa white with flour and sugar and smeared with cocoa powder. Elsa fiddled with the oven as they watched.

“Elsa? What is this?” her mother asked.

“I’m making Grandma a cake. She likes chocolate best, right?”

“Yes, she does,” said Elsa’s father. “But why? Whatever brought this on?”

Elsa turned to her parents. “I never really said thank you to her for that mirror,” she said, looking down and sounding ashamed of herself. “And it’s the best present I’ve ever gotten.”

Once Elsa told her parents what had happened that day, they took the hooks and wire back to the shop. The mirror remained propped against the wall in case the Grundledarks ever came back.

Years later, Elsa handed the mirror down to her own child, telling him the story of the Grundledarks. And that child handed the mirror down to his child in turn.

Once Elsa’s descendants finally had the sense to move to a town where there were no Grundledarks, they started hanging the mirror up in their dining rooms, always making sure to place the mirror in the brightest and most prominent spot on the wall.

And if the mirror could talk, it would express relief that today it reflects happy families gathering together, and no more monsters.