Casper Gets His Wish

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Book: Casper Gets His Wish Read Online Free PDF
Author: R. Cooper
But they were mostly video game collectibles on the shelves, expensive artwork on the walls. Everything else was work waiting to be done or furniture that had come with the office.
     
    Dmitri stopped at a painting. “I like this one. But it’s so sad, Casper.” It was, and it was all the more unusual because it was by an elf artist. Nothing was less productive to elves than art for art’s sake and not as a present.
     
    “According to the artist, it was a thing of the moment, a giving way to raw emotion,” Casper admitted, then felt like an idiot. But Hollyberry nodded, as though he understood the sentiment. Casper swallowed to hold in more words, foolish, hopeful words that he knew better than to say.
     
    Dmitri had no problem speaking. “It’s one thing I loved about humans, how sometimes productivity is the last thing on their minds. Work is fun, but how they seek out other pleasures instead… Well.”
     
    “You…You don’t find in that other elves?” Was he looking for it? Casper couldn’t breathe right, couldn’t see well enough. He sat up, not certain he was hearing that hint of possible flirtation, but wishing, wishing, he did.
     
    Hollyberry went on. “It’s a quality I’ve always admired, giving way to emotion. Watching it explode right in front of you.”
     
    Casper had to be imagining the gentle teasing, the intimations of something deeper. He didn’t have an imagination, even a Southern elf should know that. Maybe it was another joke. If so it was a cruel one.
     
    He cleared his throat, so hot he was grateful he wasn’t being observed. “Hollyberry, there’s no need to—”
     
    “Dmitri.”
     
    “Hollyberry.” Casper could barely hear himself, but Dmitri, Hollyberry, glanced at him.
     
    “If I turned everything in on time until the end of the year, you’d still call me that, wouldn’t you?”
     
    “Why does it matter?” Casper scowled at him, at the piece of logic that he felt like he was missing when Dmitri was the one who was failing to grasp the obvious.
     
    Dmitri turned away again, touched a figurine on one shelf. “This was a good game. I designed it with the humans, you know.”
     
    Casper had known that, as a matter of fact. Not that he’d confess to it.
     
    “We all know you’re the best, Hollyberry. There’s no need to show off,” he snarked instead, with admirable calm.
     
    But he had to scowl again at the strange look that got him. There wasn’t any hint of sparkle in Dmitri’s eyes. Not even the faintest twinkle. It made Casper turn to his painting, the sad painting that Dmitri wasn’t supposed to have admired.
     
    Instead of smiling to know he’d been right about that flirting, Casper frowned and poked the binder in front of him. “Now, I have work to do and—”
     
    “Okay, okay, Casper.” The other elf sighed. “I won’t show off. I’ll leave you to your work, okay? There’s nothing more to life than work, after all. A productive elf is a happy elf.”
     
    “What?” Casper asked, completely confused at the sigh, at those words.
     
    Hollyberry turned for a moment to glance at him. “See you in a month, huh?” he offered, pleasantly enough, if somehow… off. His tone was too polite, too boring, for him, but as Casper realized that, Dmitri was gone, closing the door behind him. 
     
    –
     
    But Casper didn’t see him again. At least, not at the end of the month.
     
    Yes, four weeks had gone by, with perpetual autumn twilight beginning to settle in outside, but there was no sign of Dmitri, or even his assistant. It was the last day of the month. Casper could have been home already; instead he was waiting on paperwork that hadn’t shown up. After everything , after Dmitri had all but promised it would from now on, it hadn’t shown up.
     
    The thought was like a loose thread in his suit, and Casper pulled on it all through the day as he sat, and stewed, in his big office with its pretty view.
     
    He should never have expected
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