by Matt Haig
Later, flying back, they saw Aunt Carlotta walking to Kristiinankaupunki. As they flew over her head, she looked up, and Nikolas thought that it would help her a great deal in her life if she could believe in magic. So he shouted at her from a great height.
‘Aunt Carlotta! It’s me! Flying on a reindeer! I’m all right but I won’t be coming home again!’
And Aunt Carlotta looked up, just in time to see Nikolas waving at her in the sky on the back of a reindeer. And to see something brown, streaking fast towards her.
You see, while Nikolas wanted Aunt Carlotta to believe in magic, Blitzen – well, Blitzen had another idea. And he was bang on target too. The reindeer dung landed squarely on her head, and covered her best town clothes.
‘You rotten beasts!’ she screamed at the sky, clawing the stinking dark stuff off her face.
But by then, Blitzen and Nikolas had disappeared back into the clouds.
How Father Christmas Spent the Next Ten Years
1. Eating gingerbread
Having spent his first eleven years knowing only mushroom soup he spent the next ten years eating the kind of food elves eat. Not only gingerbread but cloudberry jam, blueberry buns, bilberry pie, sweet plum soup, chocolate, jelly, sweets. All the major elf food groups. There was always food to eat, at any time of day.
2. Growing
He had grown very tall, double the height of the tallest of all elves, Father Vodol.
3. Talking to reindeer
He began to realise that reindeer have their own language. It wasn’t a language using their mouths, but it was a language. And he liked nothing more than to go out and talk to them. They talked about the weather a lot, had seventeen thousand, five hundred and sixty-three words for moss (but only one for grass), believed antlers explained the universe, loved flying, and thought humans were just elves that had gone wrong. Prancer was the most talkative, and always told jokes, Donner was always full of compliments, Cupid spoke of love, Vixen was incredibly gloomy and liked asking deep questions (‘If a tree falls in a forest, and no one sees it, does it really fall?’), Comet made no sense whatsoever, and Blitzen was always pretty quiet, but Nikolas liked his company best of all.
4. Working on his image
Obviously Nikolas needed special clothes, as there wasn’t an elf outfit in existence that he could fit into. So Mother Breer made his belts (black leather with a fancy silver buckle) and an elf called Shoehorn (yes, really!) made his boots and the village tailor Father Loopin made his clothes, which were the brightest red.
5. Wearing a hat
His father’s hat, to be precise. Clean and fresh and alive with colour again.
6. Being jolly
Every day, not only did he wear his red and white outfit, complete with shiny black belt and boots, but he was determined to be as jolly as could be, because the easiest way to make other people happy was to be happy yourself, or at least to act as if you were. That was how his mother had done it. And even his father too, once upon a time.
7. Writing
He wrote the three bestselling books of the decade in Elfhelm, selling over twenty-seven copies each. How to Be Jolly: The Father Christmas Guide to Happiness, Sleighcraft for Dummies and The Reindeer Whisperer.
8. Working
He worked hard as leader of the Elf Council. He opened nurseries and play parks. Attended every boring meeting. He brokered a peace deal with the trolls. And turned Elfhelm into a happy place of toys and speckle-dancing once more.
9. Remembering
He often thought of his father. He also thought of the human world he had left behind, and felt sad that his fellow humans couldn’t share the wonders of Elfhelm. He began to think, gradually, over the years, about whether to take some of the goodness here – some of the magic – and spread it around the human world.
10. Making friends
Nikolas had never had friends before. Now he had seven thousand, nine hundred and eighty-three friends. They were mainly elves, but that was okay, because elves were the best kind of friends to have.
Naughty and Nice
Yes. Nikolas made lots of fantastic friends among the elves, and was something of a role model for Little Kip and Little Noosh (who now weren’t so little, and were called just Kip and Noosh).
‘Why do you think some humans are naughty?’ Kip asked him, one day, while Nikolas took him and Noosh out for a sleighcraft lesson. They were all together on the sleigh, which now had a comfy seat made by Father Topo. Kip was handsome, for an elf, with raven-black hair and a dimple in his chin, while Noosh still had a happy wildness to her. She always reminded Nikolas of a warm fire made into an elf.
They were somewhere over Norway. Even though it was the middle of the day it was always safe to fly over Norway, as there were still only eight people living there.
Noosh was holding the reins, staring ahead, as Blitzen and Donner and all the other reindeer powered through the air.
‘Most humans are just a mixture of good things and some bad things,’ said Nikolas.
‘Like reindeer,’ said Noosh.
‘I suppose so.’
‘But with reindeer it’s easy,’ said Kip, pulling out a sheet of crumpled paper from his pocket. He handed it to Nikolas. Kip had drawn a line down the middle and on one side put ‘Naughty’ and on the other ‘Nice’.
‘Poor Vixen,’ said Nikolas, seeing she was the only reindeer in the naughty list.
‘Well, she bit Prancer the other day.’
‘Did she?’
‘But Prancer was on the list last week. Then I told him I’d give him a biscuit if he was good.’
Nikolas thought about this for a little while, but the thought soon melted away, like snow in the sun.
Noosh angled the sleigh, carefully, to avoid an approaching rain cloud. She was the best sleigh rider in Elfhelm now, no doubt about it.
‘Why don’t you give them some magic? The humans, I mean,’ said Noosh.
‘Ho ho, Noosh! It’s not as easy as that. Come on, we’d better get back to Elfhelm. Your grandfather will be waiting for you, your parents too, Kip. And these reindeer will be getting hungry.’
‘I’m twenty-two next week,’ Nikolas told Father Topo, a few minutes after they had landed. They were feeding the reindeer while Noosh and Kip practised their spickle dance moves. Father Topo looked at Nikolas. He had quite a way to look now too, because Nikolas was now over six feet tall. He was taller than his father had been. Yes, Nikolas was a tall, strong, smiling, handsome human, who – despite the smile – always wore a slight frown. As though he was permanently confused about something, a mystery he hadn’t quite solved.
‘Yes. I know,’ said Father Topo, as a breeze tickled his white whiskers.
‘Do you think that will be the age I find out who I’m meant to be?’
‘Maybe. But you’ll know when you find yourself, because then you will stop ageing.’
Nikolas knew this. He knew that anyone with elf magic inside them never grew older than the age where they were truly happy with themselves.
‘It took you ninety-nine years, didn’t it?’
Father Topo sighed. ‘Yes, but that’s quite unusual.’ He gave Vixen a biscuit. ‘There you go, you grumpy thing.’
‘But . . .’
‘Don’t think about it. Look at Blitzen. Look at his antlers. They haven’t changed in two years. He has found his perfect age without even thinking about it.’
Nikolas looked back towards the Main Path that led towards the Street of Seven Curves. He looked at the giant clog hanging outside the clogmakers, and the little spinning top painted onto the sign outside the toymakers. He saw Minmin at her newspaper stall selling the Daily Snow. Every elf had a purpose. Then he turned back to the field, the reindeer and the oval lake – less like a mirror today as the water rippled in the breeze.
‘I need to do something. Something big. Something good. There’s no point being leader of the elves unless I lead them somewhere.’
‘Well,�
� said Father Topo, softly, ‘whatever you decide to do, you know all of us will be behind you. Everyone loves you. Everyone is the happiest they have been since Mother Ivy’s rule a long time ago. Even Father Vodol quite likes you these days . . .’
Nikolas laughed out loud. ‘I can’t quite believe that.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Father Topo. ‘The goodness has won in him. And the goodness is spreading far and wide, beyond the village. Have you heard that the pixies don’t grow hewlip any more? And there have been no burglaries since Mother Breer had her belts stolen . . . The tower has been empty for a year now and the trolls don’t bother us any more, though I think that’s because they know you live here, and the story got out. Father Christmas – Troll Killer, ha ha!’
Nikolas nodded and guiltily remembered that day in the tower.
‘You’ll find something. And it will be something good. They look up to you. We all do. And not just because you’re twice as tall as us!’
Nikolas and Blitzen found this very funny.
‘Ho ho ho!’ he said, as he gave the reindeer a carrot. Then he thought of something. ‘Hmmm, where can I get a telescope?’
Father Christmas Seeks the Truth
The next day, Nikolas headed into the Wooded Hills with a present. Whenever he saw anyone he hadn’t seen for a while he took a present. There was nothing that made him feel better than the simple act of giving. And today the present he was holding was a telescope that had been made by Picklewick, the elf who had once shouted at him when he was up on the roof. He still felt bad about that, no matter how many times Nikolas told him not to.
Anyway, Father Topo had been right. There were no hewlip plants growing on the hills any more. There were still some rough patches of earth that hadn’t been replanted, but elsewhere there were just cloudberries and plum trees.
He walked until he reached a yellow cottage with a thatched roof. It was very, very small. He knocked on the door, and waited. Soon a little long-haired, angel-faced pixie appeared.
‘Hello, Truth Pixie,’ he said.
The creature smiled a wide pixie smile.
‘Hello, Nikolas,’ she said. ‘Or should I call you Father Christmas? Or should I say . . . Santa Claus?’
‘Santa Claus?’ said Nikolas. ‘What does that mean?’
The pixie giggled. ‘Oh, it’s just a name the pixies have for you. The literal translation is “Strange Man with a Big Belly”.’
‘Charming!’ He held out the telescope. ‘This is for you. I thought you might like it, especially as you have such good views around here.’
Nikolas felt a tingle of joy as he watched the Truth Pixie’s eyes light up.
‘A magic viewing stick! How did you know I wanted one?’
‘Oh, just a guess.’
The pixie put her eye to the telescope and looked over at Elfhelm. ‘Wow! Wow! Everything is the same but bigger!’ And then she turned it around and made everything look smaller. ‘Ha! Look at you! Little Father Christmas the pixie!’
‘Ho ho ho!’
‘Anyway, come in! Come in.’
Nikolas squeezed inside the tiny home, into a yellow room full of pretty pixie plates hanging on the walls. He sat on a little wooden stool, and had to keep his head bent low. The room was warm, and smelt nice. Sugar and cinnamon with maybe a faint tang of cheese.
The pixie smiled.
‘What are you smiling about?’
‘I think I’m still a bit in love with you. After you saved my life that time.’ Her face was reddening. She didn’t want to say this, but when you’re a Truth Pixie you can’t help it. ‘I mean, I know it couldn’t work out between us. A pixie and a human. You’re far too tall and your strange rounded ears would give me nightmares.’ She sighed, stared down at the yellow tiled floor. ‘I really wish I hadn’t said that.’
‘That’s okay. I’m sure there are plenty of nice pixies out there.’
‘No. No. Pixies are surprisingly dull. But the truth is, I like being on my own.’
Nikolas nodded. ‘Me too.’
There was a bit of an awkward silence. Not quite a silence, as there was a little scrabbling, munching sound – a sound Nikolas recognised but couldn’t work out from where.
‘I read about you in the Daily Snow all the time. You seem to be quite the celebrity.’
‘Um, yes.’ Nikolas looked through the tiny window, at one of the nicest views of Elfhelm, with the giant mountain in the distance. He looked over at the disused tower. Then he saw a frail old mouse, nibbling on a stinky chunk of troll cheese. That was the sound he had heard.
It couldn’t be. But yes, it was. It was Miika.
‘Miika. Miika! Is that really you?’
Miika turned his head and looked at Nikolas for a moment.
‘Miika, it’s you. How wonderful.’
‘Actually, his name is Glump,’ said the Truth Pixie. ‘I found him waiting in my house, after I was released from the tower. He always likes the food I give him. Especially the troll cheese.’
‘It’s a bit better than turnip, eh?’ Nikolas asked the mouse, softly.
‘Cheese,’ said Miika. ‘Cheese is real. I have cheese.’
As Nikolas looked at the mouse he thought back to his childhood over ten years and a whole country away. He thought of his father and his mother and Aunt Carlotta. It was strange. Seeing someone – even a mouse – who had shared the same room as him opened the door to a hundred memories. But Miika didn’t seem emotional and kept nibbling his cheese.
‘I don’t understand,’ said the Truth Pixie.
Nikolas was about to tell her that Miika was actually an old friend, but watching the rodent munching happily on the cheese he decided to keep this information to himself. Miika was clearly contented in his woodland home. ‘It doesn’t matter . . . I hear you pixies aren’t being violent any more.’
‘Oh,’ said the Truth Pixie. ‘We still love the idea of exploding heads. But you know what? After it happens you feel very empty inside. And anyway, I’ve invented this . . .’
She went over to a drawer and pulled something out. It was a bright red kind of tube made out of thick paper.
‘Hold that end and pull,’ she said, holding the other end.
They pulled and there was a mighty BANG!
Miika dropped the cheese then picked it up again in his tiny claws.
The Truth Pixie squealed with delight. ‘Don’t you just love it?’
‘Wow. I wasn’t expecting that.’
‘I’m calling them “crackers”. You can put little presents inside. And less to clear up than with an exploding troll head. Anyway, why are you here?’
‘I came to see you because I need to talk to someone who can be honest with me. I can talk to elves, but they’re so busy being kind that they’re not always so good at being truthful. But you are.’
The tiny creature nodded. ‘Truth is what I do.’
Nikolas hesitated. He felt slightly embarrassed. He was so big and tall, compared to a mouse and a pixie, yet the mouse and the pixie knew exactly who and what they were. They had found their place in the world. ‘The thing is . . . I am human, sort of, but I have magical abilities too. I am Nikolas. But I am now also Father Christmas. I am very in-between. But it’s difficult. I am told that I just need to work out what I want to do. The elves say I do good. But what good do I do?’
‘You set up Goodwill day, in honour of Mother Ivy. You’ve allowed spickle dancing. You’ve given all the elves more chocolate money. You opened the new elf nursery. And the play park. And the clog museum. And turned the prison back into the Welcome Tower. Your books are still doing well. Not that I really like that elf-help nonsense. You passed your sleighcraft exam. You teach young elves how to fly sleighs.’
‘Everyone passes their sleighcraft exam. And yes, I do a bit of teaching, but I don’t know if that’s my destiny.’
The Truth Pixie tried to think. ‘You saved Little Kip.’
‘Ten years ago.’
‘Yes, perhaps you
are living on past glories, just a little bit,’ said the Truth Pixie, solemnly. ‘But the elves do admire you.’
‘I know they respect me. But they shouldn’t. They need a purpose. A true purpose. I haven’t given them that.’
The Truth Pixie thought about this, and waited for the truth to come. This took a moment or two. Three moments, in fact. Then she had it.
‘Sometimes,’ she said, as her eyes shone wide and bright, ‘people look up to people not for who they have been, but for what they could become. For what they know they could be. They see in you something special.’
Miika had finished his cheese now, and scuttled over to the end of the little table. He jumped onto Nikolas’s lap.
‘Oh, he likes you,’ said the Truth Pixie. ‘That’s rare. He’s normally quite picky. Look, he’s looking up to you. Just like the elves do.’
‘I do like you,’ said Miika, in his quiet mouse language, ‘even though you are not a dairy product.’
‘Everyone looks up to you.’
As the Truth Pixie spoke, Nikolas felt something stir inside him. That warm, sweet feeling. The feeling of magic and hope and kindness that was the very best feeling in the world. It told him, once again, what he had known now for ten years. Nothing was impossible. But even better than that, he now had a sense that he was in Elfhelm for a reason. He might never be able to be a true elf. But he was here now, and like everything in life there was a purpose at work.
‘You have the power to do good, and you know it.’
He did know he had the power to do good, and he would find a way to do it. A way to unite the Nikolas side of himself and the Father Christmas side. He would unite the human bits with the magical bits, and maybe one day he could change not just Elfhelm but the lives of humans too.