by Matt Haig
‘We see it,’ said the Truth Pixie.
Father Vodol gave a quick nod. ‘Well, it’s actually more of a chute than a tunnel. You see there’s just too much chocolate, and the rabbits are going to need another place to store all the melted chocolate. To hide it. And this place is very, well, hidden. A hiding place inside a hiding place. So this will be the chocolate depository for now. This place here is just big enough. The chocolate will fit perfectly. We will tip the container over, towards the chute, and it won’t take long to fill. The delicious chocolate will rise up quickly and within no time at all you’ll be covered from head to toe. Then, eventually, the chocolate will harden and set. By then you will be finished. And no one will ever know. Imagine that. Your bones will be hidden in a block of chocolate until the end of time.’
‘What a way to go, eh?’ said the Easter Bunny. ‘Death by chocolate.’
Impossible Things
he Easter Bunny and Father Vodol had left us.
We were alone – waiting to hear the sound of liquid chocolate rushing towards us.
‘We are probably going to die,’ said the Truth Pixie.
‘You don’t know that,’ I said. ‘You can’t know the truth about the future.’
‘I said probably. It is statistically very, very likely. And that’s pixie mathematics. Which make a lot more sense than the elf kind.’
And then Mary, in the cage furthest from me, looked suddenly alert. ‘I just heard something!’
‘It’s probably the chocolate,’ sighed Father Christmas.
‘No, it isn’t. It’s a . . . it’s . . .’
I heard it too. A cat’s miaow.
‘Captain Soot!’ I shouted as he trotted out of one of the other tunnels.
‘Oh, that poor dear horse,’ said the Truth Pixie.
Father Christmas rattled the bars of his cage. ‘He needs to get out of here!’
‘Shoo! Shoo, Captain!’ I urged. ‘You’ve got to get out of here. I told you to stay in the house. Go back to the house. If you stay here, you’ll drown in chocolate.’
‘Shoo!’ we all kept saying. ‘Shoo! Shoo! Shoo!’
But Captain Soot wasn’t going anywhere.
‘Right. We’ve all got to find a way out of here,’ I said, with new urgency.
And then Father Christmas said that word again: ‘It’s just impossible.’
I hated hearing it. I realised now why it was a swear word. ‘No, it’s not.’
Captain Soot was outside my cage. Rubbing the side of his head against the bars. Ridiculously, he was purring. He had no idea of the danger he was in.
Father Christmas stared at me, his face glowing softly in the lantern light. ‘You were right all along, Amelia. Some things simply are impossible.’
‘It’s not impossible,’ I told Father Christmas. ‘Come on. Say it. An impossibility is just a possibility you don’t understand yet.’
‘Amelia’s right,’ said Mary. ‘Remember? We thought we would stay trapped in that workhouse for ever.’
‘Well, now you are trapped in a cage underground,’ observed the Truth Pixie unhelpfully, ‘and facing almost certain death. That is not really great progress.’ But then she remembered something. ‘Father Christmas, can you remember your first chimney? Can you remember that tiny little hole in the roof of that prison in the tower? You were ten times the size of that chimney. And you did it. You escaped. And it was the most wonderful thing I have ever seen in my life.’
Father Christmas smiled with a kind of pride. ‘I have travelled through chimneys smaller than that. I have even travelled through chimneys that aren’t even chimneys. And you don’t get much more impossible than that.’
‘Well, then,’ I said, ‘you can do it. You can get us out of here.’
‘I can do anything with hope in the air. But there is no hope in here.’
‘It’s Christmas Eve!’ I told him. ‘The whole world is hoping.’
Father Christmas closed his eyes. ‘I can’t feel it in here. We are too far under the ground. And there is obviously no hope in Elfhelm. And we are way below the Northern Lights.’
‘It has to come from us,’ I said. ‘We have to hope. If we all hope, then we might just get out of here before the chocolate floods us.’
Father Christmas considered. ‘Something impossible needs to happen. That is the quickest way to conjure hope. Belief in impossibility. And to believe in the impossible you sometimes need to see it.’
I closed my eyes. I thought of my mother. How, after she died, I had imagined nothing good or fun would ever happen in my life again. And how I had been wrong. Life hadn’t been perfect in Elfhelm. But now I realised that I’d had a lot of fun. Ice skating. Trampolining. Eating delicious berry pies. Playing elf tennis after school with Twinkle. Sure, school had been hard, but a lot of people found school difficult. And life at home with Father Christmas and Mary and Captain Soot had been a joy. And I’d never thought joy would have been possible.
‘You saved my life,’ I told him. ‘I believe in you.’
‘You saved mine too,’ said Mary, staring hard at her cage door.
The Truth Pixie was trying to find something positive to say too. ‘I pretend my pillows are your belly. And I place my head on them and think of you.’
And this made Father Christmas laugh, but when he stopped laughing we heard it. The rushing, whispery noise that could only mean one thing: the chocolate had been sent down the tunnel and was pouring towards us at terrifying speed. And we could smell it too. That wonderful – but now very scary – smell of pure delicious chocolate.
‘Here it comes,’ said the Truth Pixie.
‘Oh no,’ I think I said.
‘Miaow,’ said Captain Soot.
‘We need more hope,’ said Father Christmas.
And Mary said nothing at all. She just seemed to be concentrating very, very hard.
It happened quickly. The chocolate flooded in. Within a second it was around our ankles. And touching Captain Soot’s tummy.
‘Captain!’ I said desperately, clapping my hands. ‘Get out of here. Leave us!’
Clap! Clap! Clap!
And the chocolate kept rising and rising and rising. Captain Soot was now swimming in it as it rose over my knees, to my waist.
‘Drink it!’ suggested Father Christmas, who still couldn’t find the drimwickery inside him. Drimwickery that was badly needed. ‘Drink as much as you can.’
So we all started gobbling as much of it as we could. Everyone apart from Captain Soot, who knew just a taste of chocolate could kill him. But you can’t instantly consume a whole bank’s supply of chocolate. There was just far too much of the stuff. And it was now at my neck. And I looked at the Truth Pixie, who was doing a panicky kind of breast stroke in fast tiny circles. As the chocolate lifted me off my feet, I saw Father Christmas still furiously gobbling chocolate. Mary, though, looked totally calm, with her eyes closed, even as it reached her chin.
And then it went totally dark – completely utterly pitch-black – as the lantern flames were extinguished.
I raised my hand up and now I could touch the hutch roof above me. Getting closer and closer.
This was it.
‘We’re going to die,’ said the Truth Pixie.
And I knew she was right.
It really was impossible to escape now.
I even said the word. Or started to.
‘There’s no hope. It’s impossi—’
But things can change in a moment. Things can change in the space of a word. Between the third and fourth syllable, everything changed.
One moment I was about to drown in melted chocolate deep underground, and the next I was lying on a street, soaked from head to toe in chocolate, out in the frosty air. A street sign said: ‘VERY QUIET STREET’.
I realised where I was. I was outside a simple wooden elf cottage with a tiny window and black door. Father Vodol’s house. I could see Captain Soot, also drenched in chocolate, shaking it off his paws. Then anothe
r chocolate-smothered figure – the Truth Pixie – sitting up beside me on the street and scratching her head.
‘Well, this is peculiar,’ she said.
And then the door was flung open and I could see Mary – red-faced and puffing and clenching her teeth – carrying – yes, carrying – Father Christmas. She laid him on the grass beside us.
He smiled a big chocolatey smile. ‘What happened?’ he asked her.
‘I finally found it. I finally found magic.’
‘You got through the cage? You stopped time?’
‘I did the . . . impossible, yes.’
Father Christmas beamed. ‘Those drimwick classes were worth it in the end! You’ve saved us all!’
‘Even me,’ said the Truth Pixie. ‘Thank you, Lump— I mean, Mary.’
‘Yes, I suppose I did.’ Mary chuckled and wiped the chocolate off her face.
And Father Christmas got to his feet and hugged her, and gave her a chocolatey kiss.
‘That is disgusting,’ grumbled the Truth Pixie. ‘I think I might actually throw up.’
I stood up and saw that it was getting dark. It wasn’t over yet, I realised. We were seen as criminals. There was Father Vodol and the Easter Bunny and the entire Rabbit Army and a lot of angry elves against us. There were still our lives and our freedom and a whole Christmas to save.
‘We need to get to the Toy Workshop!’ said Father Christmas. ‘Now!’
And we all started to run there – leaving lots of brown footprints behind us.
A Hidden Humdrum
his feels so wrong,’ said Father Christmas, looking around at all the discarded toys in the empty workshop. ‘Christmas Eve. And not a single elf here.’
‘I-I-I’m h-h-here,’ came a voice.
Father Christmas recognised it instantly. ‘Humdrum? Where are you?’
The nervy elf crawled out from under the table with all the spinning tops on it. ‘I’m here, Father Christmas.’
‘What happened?’
‘Well, after the rabbits took you away some of them stayed and told us you had robbed the bank. I knew it was a lie. Every elf in here knew it was a lie. But we were told to leave. They were all sent to the village hall. They had no choice.’
‘But you’re still here.’
‘I h-h-hid.’
‘That was a very brave thing to do, Humdrum,’ said Mary.
‘Very brave,’ I agreed.
‘Miaow,’ added Captain Soot.
‘You need to get out of h-h-here,’ said Humdrum. ‘All of you. They’re going to come back.’
‘That is a very good idea,’ said the Truth Pixie enthusiastically, stepping backwards out of the workshop. ‘Anyway, this has been a really fun day. But I nearly died – twice – and I don’t want to risk a third time. So, if it’s all right with you, I’m just going to retreat to my humble little home in the Wooded Hills and have a bath. Wash all this chocolate off. I’m sure Maarta’s been missing me.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘You can’t go. Not yet.’
Those pixie eyes widened. ‘I am pretty sure I can.’
‘We need you.’
‘But I really need a bath, so—’
Father Christmas knew what I was thinking, because now he was saying it too. ‘Amelia is right. We do need you, Truth Pixie. Just for one last thing.’
The Intruders
hen we marched into the village hall – following Father Christmas, as he flung the door wide open – every elf turned around, in a wide-eyed and stunned silence.
Father Vodol, with the Easter Bunny by his side, was halfway through a speech. ‘And so I will work together with the rabbits, to help restore law and order to Elfhelm, and make sure that Father Christmas and the other humans can never fool us again. We will, from now on, believe the truth and—’
The rabbit soldiers, standing around the edge of the hall, all looked our way too. I recognised one of them, and caught her eye.
‘INTRUDERS!’ shrieked 382.
And now Father Vodol was looking with wild, desperate eyes at our chocolate-covered clothes as we approached the stage.
‘Look at them! Covered in chocolate from the bank. That’s the proof right there. They did it. Can’t you see the truth with your own eyes?’
‘Truth,’ said Father Christmas coolly. ‘It’s an interesting word. A lot of people use it in different ways. But the truth is always the truth. Fortunately we have brought the Truth Pixie with us. And, as all of you know, the Truth Pixie can only tell the truth. So, Truth Pixie, could you tell us who was behind the bank robbery?’
‘Oh no,’ said the Truth Pixie, as all the elves and rabbits stared at her, waiting for the answer. ‘This is awkward.’
‘Tell them the truth.’
Father Vodol stormed to the front of the stage and tried his best dark drimwickery to silence her. But, as all the elves knew, there is no magic in the world that can stop the Truth Pixie from telling the truth.
‘Father Vodol and the rabbits robbed the bank,’ she blurted. ‘The humans are innocent. Father Vodol and the Easter Bunny just wanted them out of the way. That’s why we are covered in chocolate. They were trying to drown us with it, in the warren they’ve built under Elfhelm.’
The whole hall gasped.
‘It’s true,’ said a voice in the crowd. We turned to see Noosh standing there. ‘I went inside the bank to investigate. Under the vault there’s a hole leading under the ground to a warren. And it’s full of chocolate.’
‘F-F-Father Vodol is lying to us,’ agreed her husband, Humdrum, standing next to me. ‘He has always been lying to us.’
‘Can I go now?’ asked the Truth Pixie.
Father Christmas shook his head. ‘No. I have one more question. Did Amelia crash the sleigh deliberately? Was she trying to hurt someone, as Father Vodol told us in the Daily Truth?’
‘I saw her on the very day it happened, and she told me all about it. And even though I can’t tell a lie, I can spot them better than any pixie who ever lived. And I can tell you it was an accident. Amelia is a very good person – kind of annoying, and she gets me into all kinds of trouble – but she would never want to hurt an elf.’
‘I knew it!’ said Mother Breer. ‘She’s a good girl!’
‘That’s what I’ve been saying!’ said Pippin, the Letter Catcher, with the last of the Christmas letters bulging out of his pockets.
‘I love humans!’ said Little Mim.
There was a massive commotion now.
The rabbit soldiers were waiting for their orders to act, but the Easter Bunny was standing, speechless, next to Father Vodol.
‘SILENCE!’ screamed the black-bearded elf. ‘SILENCE! It doesn’t matter who robbed the bank, the humans are a danger to us all.’ Then he shouted at the rabbit soldiers as he pointed to us, ‘Capture them!’
The rabbit soldiers did nothing.
‘I knew that Easter Bunny was evil!’ said Mother Miro.
‘He always was!’ said Columbus.
I stared at the Easter Bunny. He looked bewildered, as if the goodness inside him was still there and trying to come out, but he didn’t know what to do about it. I remembered something Father Christmas had told me. If you choose to see the good in someone, you will see it shine back.
‘No!’ I said to the elves. ‘The Easter Bunny isn’t evil.’
‘Amelia!’ Mary laughed. ‘What are you talking about? He and Father Vodol just tried to kill us.’
‘Yes, but he didn’t start off that way. The rabbits were good. They were peaceful before the war with the elves.’
‘See!’ shouted Father Vodol. ‘Listen to her anti-elf propaganda. She hates you all!’
‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t. There is nothing to fear from the truth.’
And then the oldest elf in the room stepped forwards. The one with the long wispy white moustache. Father Topo. Everyone listened as he spoke to me.
‘Amelia,’ he said, ‘I am probably the only elf here who can remember seeing the las
t battle with the rabbits, all those hundreds of years ago. I was only six years old at the time but what I saw shamed me and has shamed me ever since. The cruelty some elves showed on that day was terrible. It is the reason I have always tried to be different to that kind of elf. To be welcoming to outsiders. That is why, once, when I was climbing the mountain with my daughter Noosh, I decided to do a drimwick spell on a dying human boy – a boy called Nikolas, who would eventually become this man you see before you.’ He pointed at Father Christmas, who was smiling and wiping a warm tear from his eye. ‘It was because I never wanted to fear outsiders. Now, Father Vodol can’t remember the old wars. Maybe if he had seen what I had seen his whole attitude would be different. But I want to tell you two things, Easter Bunny . . .’
‘What things?’ asked the Easter Bunny, holding his pendant, his droopy left ear becoming alert with interest.
‘First,’ said Father Topo, ‘I want to tell you not to trust that elf you are standing next to. Father Vodol only cares about one person in this room, and that is himself. And the second thing I want to tell you is that I am sorry for what happened to the rabbits. We should never have forced you off your land. It wasn’t right. And I believe if every elf in this room knew the true story, they would feel the same.’
The Easter Bunny didn’t know what to say. His mouth opened, but no words came out.
‘What’s the delay?’ Father Vodol asked the rabbit soldiers. ‘Seize the humans! What are you waiting for?’
‘Me,’ said the Easter Bunny. ‘They are waiting for me. They don’t take orders from elves.’
Father Vodol’s bushy eyebrows rose and fell furiously, like the flapping wings of a dying bird. ‘Well, you order them!’
‘I don’t take orders from elves either, as it happens.’
And that seemed to shut the elf up.
Father Christmas went to the stage and faced the Easter Bunny. ‘We need to be at peace. I am sorry that you were forced out of Elfhelm. I would like to say, as Leader of the Elf Council, that you and your rabbits can live here in peace. What would it take for that to happen?’