Day One

A Crowd Hoot Story

By Thelma Mary Caroline

It wasn't really Day One.  It was really more like Day Four Hundred Ninety Seven.  At least, that was how Kyle felt.

It had taken over a year to get into the orgainzation.  Four hundred and ninety seven days ago, she had returned  home from her office job at Mole Busters to find a woman (who claimed at the time to be a neighbor) with cookies and questions at her doorstep.

She had offered her a job, one that made 5 thousands dollars a month -- to start.  The only catch was they would not tell you what the catch was for the fist six months.   Physical and mental tests took place for the half a dozen months.  They tested how fast she could run, and her problem keeping skills and how well she could keep secrets -- this was tested by whether she said anything to her friends and family during that time.

Kyle said nothing.  She almost burst, working her desk job for the landscaping company, but she never said a word.  Keeping the job a secret would be easy peasy.

Then they told her what the job was.  Hunting elves.  She almost laughed, except that they had one in front of her.

It was a tough job.  Elves didn't want to be caught.  It wasn't until much later that they would realize that it was better.  They would even admit it.

She was trained, running simulating elf hunts until she grasped the basics.  Everything else would come with expirience.

The insitituation was code named Crowd Hoot for no reason other than no one would know what it meant.  It was safer than initials.  As though someone might figure out what E C C stood for.  And even if they did, so what?

Kyle knew the history by heart.  She had to, in order to pass one of the final exams.

The Elf Counsilling Center was started almost fifty years ago by a man called Chris Shard.  He had once been a lowly city worker until he discovered that there was a secret underground group that knew of elves, and used them as slaves.  There were no laws regarding treatment of elves, as they certainly weren't protected by the constitution, so many suffered horrendously at the hands of their cruel masters.

Chris Shard had created the "Center" in a rural area, where elves lived and receieved counsilling and the positive influences that they needed to regain trust in the world.  He also created the "Elf Garden" as it was called, though it was in no one's view a garden.  It was a safe place for elves to live, free from fear of humans.

When he died, the Center was passed down to a woman called Jeri Holt, who was said to have inspired Shard's vision when she was very young.  She still ran the Center, but very few who worked there had ever seen her.

Things had changed rapidly though.  Though there were still many outlets(?) around the world were elves recieved counsilling after being removed from "unhealthy" homes, focus had changed to free elves.  There populations had boomed (no one quite knew why) and with so many forests and other "hidey holes" being cut down to build condominums, elves were fleeing even through human filled cities.

Many feared that if the elves were discovered, it would start a whole new genereation of elvin slaves.  And if the whole world was participating in the madness ... the Center wouldn't be able to do much to stop it.

Now the focus was mostly on hunting.  That would be Kyle's job.

And though it was Day One, already it was nothing new.