by Matt Haig
The tears on Nikolas’s face froze as he flew through the cold air. It was the saddest birthday, the saddest Christmas ever. He clung to Blitzen’s back, feeling his warmth, only occasionally looking behind him to make sure the sleigh and the cage were still there.
With his ear to the reindeer’s fur, he could hear the blood pumping around Blitzen’s body. It seemed to replace the sound of galloping.
He’d been crying since his father jumped off the sleigh. Had he died as he had fallen? Or had Anders and Toivo and all the others reached him first? Either way, he feared the result was the same. He would never see his father again. He felt it, a howling emptiness, inside his heart.
Slowly the sky became light.
‘I’m sorry,’ said a small voice behind him. ‘It’s all my fault.’
Nikolas had hardly heard Little Kip say a word (except ‘oh no’) until now.
‘Don’t be sorry!’ Nikolas shouted back, wiping a tear from his eye. ‘None of this is your fault!’
A little time went by.
‘Thank you for saving me,’ came that same small voice.
‘Listen, I know you think my father was a bad human. And it was a bad thing he did. But there was good too. He was just weak. We had no money . . . Humans are complicated.’
‘Elves too,’ said Little Kip.
Nikolas stared into the whiteness of the snow clouds all around him. Even climbing through small chimneys or flying through the air was easier than believing in life. Yet, as Blitzen galloped on, Nikolas knew that he had to carry on and return Little Kip to his home. He just had to.
‘You are a friend,’ said Little Kip.
They flew over the mountain, and this time Nikolas could see Elfhelm straight away – the Street of Seven Curves, the tower, the village hall, the Wooded Hills, and the lake.
By the time Blitzen landed right in the centre of the Reindeer Field, a crowd had already gathered. Nikolas wasn’t scared because nothing in the world could scare him now. He had lost his father. What terror could the world offer that was worse than that? Even when, after climbing off the reindeer, he saw the crowd part to make way for Father Vodol, who was marching towards them, he still didn’t feel fear. Just emptiness.
‘So, the son of Joel the Woodcutter has returned,’ said Father Vodol.
Nikolas nodded towards the wooden cage.
‘What is going on?’
‘I’ve brought Little Kip back to Elfhelm,’ announced Nikolas, loud enough for everyone to hear.
‘It’s true, Father Vodol,’ said a smiling, white-whiskered elf walking towards them. It was Father Topo, closely followed by Little Noosh. ‘Nikolas has saved Little Kip! It’s the news we’ve all been waiting for.’
’Yes,’ said Father Vodol, offering Nikolas a reluctant smile. ‘Yes, I suppose it is. But now the human must go back to the tower.’
The crowd roared in disagreement.
‘But it’s Christmas Day!’
‘Let him be!’
Father Topo shook his head. ‘No. Not this time.’
‘Enough of this goodwill! Father Topo, no more words out of you. The human must return to the tower. That is it. Final.’
The crowd of elves grew angrier, and a couple of them threw some extra-hard pieces of gingerbread at Father Vodol’s head.
Father Topo looked stern for the first time in his life. ‘You will have an uprising on your hands. The human boy is a hero.’
And the elves started chanting: ‘Hero! Hero! Hero!’
‘You ungrateful elves!’ shouted Father Vodol at the top of his voice, which was very, very loud. ‘Don’t you realise all I’ve done for you? How safe I’ve helped you become, by ending goodwill and joy?’
‘I quite liked goodwill, come to think of it,’ said one elf.
‘And joy wasn’t so bad either,’ said another.
‘And I miss spickle dancing.’
‘Me too!’
‘And proper pay! Three chocolate coins isn’t enough to live on.’
‘And being nice to non-elves.’
And on and on it went, the list of complaints, and Father Vodol, as the democratically elected leader of Elfhelm, realised he had no choice. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Before we decide what to do with the human boy let us first take Little Kip home.’
And an almighty roar rose up through the crowd and many began spickle dancing, illegally. Nikolas looked around and cried again, but this time his tears had a little bit of happiness in them. The kind of happiness that can only be felt by being around the joy and goodwill of elves.
A Boy Called Christmas
Little Kip’s parents were called Moodon and Loka. They were just humble workers, but with specialisms, so were wearing the blue tunics. Moodon was a gingerbread baker and Loka was a toymaker, specialising in spinning tops, who had fallen on hard times recently, as elves had lost interest in playing. They lived in a cabin on the edge of the village, made of wood, but with gingerbread chairs and tables and cupboards, not far from the Wooded Hills.
Anyway, that’s not important. What is important is that Nikolas had never seen anyone look as happy as Moodon and Loka when he brought Little Kip to their doorstep.
‘Amazing! It’s a miracle!’ said Loka, bursting into tears. ‘Thank you so much. This is the best Christmas present ever!’
‘It is Nikolas you should be thanking,’ said Father Topo, pushing the boy forward.
‘Oh thank you, thank you, thank you, Nikolas.’ Loka hugged Nikolas’s knees tightly, nearly causing him to fall over. ‘How can I ever repay you? I will give you some toys! I have lots that I have been making – spinning tops, especially. Wait there.’
‘And I’ll bake you the best gingerbread!’ said Moodon, who had ginger hair and a ginger beard. He almost looked like he was made of gingerbread.
Father Vodol couldn’t help but frown at the sight of a human being thanked. ‘Well, he is an escaped convict, so he should really be going back to the tower.’
Huge tears began to cloud Little Kip’s sky-blue eyes.
Nikolas remembered the cold dark tiny furnace room he had been locked inside, and realised – right then – that however bleak life might be without his father, it would be even bleaker spent locked up in a tower.
‘As you have seen, that would be a very unpopular decision,’ said Father Topo firmly.
‘I know it’s not my place as I am not on the council but I think this particular human is a hero for rescuing my son. A real Christmas hero!’ said Loka.
And even Mother Ri-Ri agreed that Nikolas shouldn’t go back to the tower. ‘I think we need to rewrite some of the elf laws,’ she suggested.
Father Vodol was not happy. He grumbled. He paced around. A nearby clog detached itself from the clog rack and fell off and clunked on to the floor. Everyone stared at the clog. They knew that it was because Father Vodol was in a bad mood.
‘Father Vodol!’ said Mother Ri-Ri, appalled.
‘I’m sorry. But he is a human. We know what humans can do. We can’t soften our position on humans because of one child.’
Father Topo clicked his tongue thoughtfully. ‘You do realise, this human will help you sell lots of newspapers . . .’
Father Vodol paused. Nikolas could see he was struggling because he knew this to be true. Eventually, in the quietest voice imaginable, a word crept out of the side of Father Vodol’s mouth. ‘Maybe.’
Father Topo placed a hand on Nikolas’s shoulder. Or tried to. It was too much of a stretch, so he patted his arm instead. ‘So he can get a pardon?’
There was a very long pause. It was a pause far longer than these two sentences, but eventually the pause came to an end.
Father Vodol nodded the smallest nod that has ever been nodded by elf or human. ‘Yes.’
‘Hooray!’ said everyone who wasn’t Father Vodol.
‘I think we should throw a Christmas party to celebrate,’ said Mother Ri-Ri.
Father Vodol tutted. ‘We had a Christmas party two days
ago.’
‘That was a terrible party,’ spluttered Mother Ri-Ri. ‘Come on. He deserves one!’
‘I would be very honoured,’ said Nikolas. ‘But I think tonight me and Blitzen would just like to rest.’
Loka arrived back in the room holding seven spinning tops, a snow globe, a cuddly bear and an art set. The spinning tops in particular looked beautiful. All of them were brightly coloured – reds and greens, mainly, all hand-painted. They were the loveliest toys Nikolas had ever seen. It was too much to carry. Two of the tops fell and spun on the floor.
Father Topo took a biscuit from his pocket and nibbled it thoughtfully. ‘Isn’t it wonderful? Just the simple act of giving presents.’
‘Not really,’ said Father Vodol.
‘Honestly,’ said Nikolas, as Loka tried to pick up the toys from the floor, ‘just one spinning top will be fine!’
Loka shook her head, causing her long plaits to sway from side to side, as even more spinning tops dropped to the floor. ‘No. You need more than one spinning top. Spinning tops are very important. They relax you. They take your mind off things. I just need to find something to put all your presents in.’ She looked around. Little Kip pointed at his father’s stockings.
‘Good idea!’ agreed Loka. ‘Moodon, take off your stockings.’
‘What?’
‘They’re the perfect size for all these spinning tops. Go on. Take them off. You’ve plenty of others.’
So Moodon took off his woollen stockings, in front of everyone. Nikolas was surprised that elf legs were quite hairy. Well, Moodon’s were.
Once they were off, Loka placed all the toys inside. ‘See! The perfect size. Perhaps we should always use stockings to carry toys. There you go! Merry Christmas!’
And though stockings full of toys didn’t make everything better, Nikolas felt a little happier knowing he had made someone else happier. And then he said goodbye to Little Kip and headed out with Father Topo into the cool night, where Blitzen waited outside, staring at him with loving eyes that sparkled like the snow.
The Big Decision
Blitzen settled back in the Reindeer Field with Donner and Dasher and Vixen and all the others, and over the next few weeks Nikolas observed that the reindeer seemed to like Blitzen’s naughty sense of humour. They were always laughing at him. Well, it was impossible to tell if the reindeer were really laughing, as reindeer laughter is very hard to detect, but their eyes shone brighter whenever he was around.
And Nikolas stayed in Father Topo’s cabin. He stayed there for many weeks. He ate the delicious gingerbread that Moodon made and enjoyed playing cards (each one hand-painted by Loka) with Little Noosh. Little Noosh, like all elves, was amazing at card games but occasionally she would let him win. He mixed well, and made friends with elves, and was never snobby, regardless of the colour of their tunic.
The sadness inside him was strong, though. He tried to remember the good side of his father. It had always been there, underneath, like the bright red beneath the dirt on his hat. Nikolas washed the hat and wore it and he was determined for that good side to live on inside himself, and for him never to lose it.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Nikolas, after a month in Elfhelm. ‘It’s time for me to go back to the human world.’
‘Well,’ Father Topo would say, ‘if that is what you want to do, then you should do it.’
And one day he even got Blitzen to fly him to Kristiinankaupunki. As he flew, he occasionally looked for his father, the way he had looked for him before. But of course there was now no father to be found. They landed on the church roof, and Nikolas climbed down the tower. He spent the day among the humans. He stared in the window of the toyshop, at the elf dolls that looked far too square and simple to be elves. He saw the cuddly doll of King Frederick. He saw a boy walking out with the wooden reindeer. He remembered that craving inside him, when he used to gaze in with his dad, to have the toys that other children had. Now all he did was crave to be by his father’s side.
The plan had been to go back to the cottage, but there was no way. Why choose to live with a nasty aunt when you could live in a place of joy and magic? Why live in a place so full of reminders of a past that can’t be brought back? So he made the decision. He was going to live with the elves for ever.
But as Nikolas kept banging his head on the roof beams at Father Topo’s cabin, it was decided that he should have a home of his own. So the elves built him a pinewood house, with some gingerbread and candy cane furniture. The only thing Nikolas had been certain to ask the architects for was a view of the Reindeer Field. So they built the house right on the edge of the snow-covered grass, meaning that from all the south-facing windows he could see Blitzen at any time.
Sometimes, when Blitzen was in a good mood, he would fly circuits around Nikolas’s house, galloping fast through the air past all the upstairs windows. Occasionally, some of the other reindeer joined in – Prancer and Comet, usually, and sometimes Dasher, though never Donner, as she was far too sensible. Nikolas felt lucky. He thought of Aunt Carlotta and sleeping out in the cold. There were many worse ways to live as an eleven-year-old boy, than surrounded by magic and elves and reindeer.
When he was twelve, Nikolas was elected to the Elf Council after being nominated for election by Father Topo. Even Father Vodol supported this idea, as he knew that it would make another good front page for the Daily Snow. Particularly because Nikolas was the youngest person, or elf, ever to be honoured in this way.
Then, as Father Vodol had stepped down as elf leader, to return to his media work, there was another election. For the leadership of Elfhelm.
Nikolas won the election by seven thousand, nine hundred and eighty-three votes, with only one elf voting against the idea.
So Nikolas was called Father Nikolas, which struck Nikolas as funny, as he was only twelve and clearly not a father, but that was the custom in Elfhelm. Mother Vodol, Father Vodol’s much cheerier younger sister, suggested that he should have an elf name, as Nikolas sounded a bit too like neekalis, a very disgusting troll cheese.
‘Yes,’ agreed Mother Ri-Ri. ‘I don’t want to be reminded of mouldy cheese every time I say your name!’
‘Oh y-y-yes,’ said Mother Breer, the nervous beltmaker who had recently been appointed as a council member, following a sympathy vote in her favour after she had been burgled by a gang of pixies. ‘That is t-t-t-t-true. “Neekalis” is a very bad word. It is n-n-nearly as bad as “stinky m-m-m-m-mudfungle”. Or “impossible”. We must think of s-s-something else.’
At which point Father Topo interrupted: ‘How about we ask Nikolas?’
There was only one name that came to mind.
‘Christmas,’ said Nikolas.
‘What about Christmas?’ grumbled Father Vodol. ‘It is seven months away.’
‘No, I mean, why don’t you call me Christmas? Father Christmas.’
All the elves sitting in the council room nodded.
‘Why that name?’ asked Father Topo, toying with a biscuit.
‘My mum and dad used to call me it. When I was a little boy. Because I was born on Christmas Day. It was a nickname.’
‘Father Christmas?’ said Father Vodol, suspiciously. ‘It doesn’t sound very memorable.’
‘I like it,’ said Father Topo. He munched on his biscuit, getting crumbs in his moustache. ‘I mean, you brought Little Kip back on Christmas Day, didn’t you? It fits. Father Christmas.’
‘Christmas is a time of giving,’ said Mother Ri-Ri. ‘And you yourself were a gift. A human gift.’
Nikolas felt memories come flooding back. A tear rolled down his cheek.
Father Christmas.
He remembered those early Christmases when his parents had both been alive, and they had gone to sing carols in the town square at Kristiinankaupunki. He remembered the joy of that later Christmas, when his father had shown him the sleigh he had been building and hiding in the forest. Even the turnip-doll had been special at the time.
&nbs
p; He smiled, wiping away that happy tear, and sounded the name over in his mind. ‘I think Father Christmas is perfect!’
‘Hooray,’ said Father Topo, swallowing the last of his biscuit. ‘This calls for gingerbread!’
A Last Visit to Aunt Carlotta
The first thing Father Christmas did was to undo all the things Father Vodol had done.
‘Elves should be free to wear whatever tunic they like,’ he said.
‘No green tunics and blue tunics and all that. Oh, and they can sit at whichever table they choose. And spickle dancing should be encouraged. And singing can be joyful again, and food be enjoyed . . .’
And the elves of the Elf Council all agreed.
‘And there should be joy and goodwill . . .’
‘Joy and goodwill!’ said Mother Ri-Ri. ‘Really? That is a bit controversial.’
‘Yes. Maybe it is. But elves used to be happy, and they can be happy again.’
And then came a cry of ‘Joy and goodwill!’ And everyone was saying it. Well, not everyone. Not solemn-faced Father Vodol for instance. But even he managed to offer a small smile.
Yes, there was no mistaking it. The human boy had brought happiness back to Elfhelm. And happiness was here to stay.
That evening, Nikolas climbed onto Blitzen’s back and went on one last voyage. He wanted to see the house he had left behind. So they flew in a straight line, fast and quick, back to the cottage where he had grown up. They landed next to the well which his mother had fallen into, and he sat on a tree stump that had been chopped by his father. He walked back to the cottage, which still smelt faintly of rotten turnip, and saw Aunt Carlotta wasn’t there. He sat inside, and breathed it all in, knowing it would probably be the last time he would come here.