Chimney Sweep

Entry for Daily Flash Fiction contest.
Prompt: must include “banana,” “broom,” and “chimney”
Word Count: 298

“Mom, I need the broom.”

I looked up from the banana bread I had taken out of the oven to find my daughter in the kitchen doorway. As I seemed to do a lot lately, I marveled at how big she was getting. She seemed so much older than her three years.

“Why do you need the broom, sweetheart?”

“Cleaning,” she replied, her expression serious.

We had been getting the house ready all day for the Christmas season, moving things out of the way to make room for the tree and other decorations. She had taken the task very seriously, as if it was her personal duty to make sure every corner had its own little sign of holiday cheer. About halfway through our cleaning spree, she had started asking questions about Santa. They were the usual childish worries. What if we made cookies that he didn’t like? Did the reindeer get cold? How did he get in? I had tried to respond to each one to her satisfaction. I wasn’t sure I had quite succeeded when she frowned with suspicion a couple of times, but she had let me off the hook.

“It’s over there,” I said, gesturing to the table. “Just be careful with it.”

“I will.”

After watching her drag it away, I didn’t think anything more of it until I realized, a few minutes later, that everything was too quiet. Drying my hands, I walked into the living room...and gasped.

A faint cloud of ashes hovered in the air, and my daughter was holding on to the broom stick, the other end of which was stuck in the chimney.

“Jessie! What are you doing?”

Innocent eyes blinked up at me. “Sweeping the chimney. So Santa won’t get dirty.”

I couldn’t argue with the logic.