A figure stepped out into a shaft of sunlight. It was the piper.
He spoke to Luke and Elfie. ‘I am a Bargain Maker. I made a bargain with the Woman of the Mountain to bring her a child.’
‘And the other children?’ cried Luke. ‘My brothers and sister, and all the children of the town? Were they part of the bargain? Why do you keep them too?’
‘The children are mine,’ insisted the piper adamantly. ‘They became mine when the mayor of your town broke his word, and the boy I brought to the Woman of the Mountain needs playmates, doesn’t he?’ His voice became as flowing as honey. ‘But let us make a bargain together. Bargain with me and all will be well.’
‘We don’t want to bargain with you!’ shouted Luke. ‘We can’t make bargains. We want to go home, and take all the other children home too. You’re nothing but a thief.’
‘Me, a thief? Oh, no. It is you out there who are thieves; you and your mayor, and all your greedy counsellors – you are the thieves. You steal justice; you steal from the poor and ordinary, decent people. I make bargains, and I always keep my side of the bargain. I can make things happen. I can make deals with angels or devils. I fulfil wishes – but always at a price. If you break your side of the bargain, then you must pay the price. Come, let us bargain together. Listen to me. I have brought spring and summer into this mountain. Out there is nothing but winter and starvation. Here there is eternal youth and joy. Stay in the mountain.’ His voice was soft and enticing. ‘There is nothing for you outside. Stay with the Woman of the Mountain; she is Everymother. Stay here and be happy for ever.’
The piper put his hand into his jacket and drew out his pipe. He blew a soft note across its tip. Luke stared in horror, instantly feeling his blood quiver in his veins, and his brain blur as if a net of enchantment was being cast over him. If the piper played his pipe, and played that tune, they would be trapped in his power for ever, and would never leave.
Suddenly, the hall darkened to a leaden grey. It became deathly cold. The piper shivered. A flurry of snowflakes blew round the hall, and there, standing before them, all white with snow, and hair rigid with frost was Everychild. A strange, starry light seemed to glow all over its body as it lifted an arm and waved at Elfie to play her pipe.
Elfie thrust the pipe to her mouth and blew. It was a gentle tune which floated out; a melody she and Erik used to sing with their mother.
The tune soared free into the air. It brought Erik to his feet.
‘No, no!’ The Woman of the Mountain clasped Erik in her arms as if she would never let him go. ‘I can’t lose my boy. He’s not anybody’s child but mine. He’s no one’s son, no one’s brother. Not any more. I made a bargain with the piper. I paid him three bags of gold to bring me a child.’
Elfie ran round the hall, piping away: she played all the nursery tunes and folk tunes that they had ever heard. She thrust her head through a window and played so that her notes floated over the deserts and forests, all the way to the playground of everlasting childhood. And all around them, the castle of sand began to crumble away.
From far in the distance, they heard the sound of laughter and joyful clamouring. The stone children had reawakened. They came nearer and nearer, and though the piper tried to play, his tune was drowned out by their voices and Elfie’s piping.
Erik pulled his hand away from the woman and rushed to his sister’s side.
‘Don’t leave me, boy!’ begged the Woman of the Mountain. ‘Didn’t I give you everything a child desires?’
‘I want to go home!’ cried Erik.
‘All any child really wants is to go home,’ said Everychild.
Everychild walked over to the woman and took her hand. ‘I’ll bargain with you,’ it said. ‘I will be your child if you will let the other children go home.’
‘That sounds like a good deal to me,’ said the piper. ‘A good deal, madam,’ he nodded. ‘And, as you don’t need me any more, I’ll be on my way.’ With a wave, he skipped into the swirl of sand and snow and vanished.
Then from every side of the mountain – from the north, south, east and west – great doors began to slide open and howling winter winds swept inside. Now the sandcastle walls were tumbling down. Sunshine and sand whirled about and mixed with snow brought in by winds from Russia, winds from the ice caps, winds from the Alps and Himalayas, whirling winds of icy snow which swept round the children and tossed them about. Now the mountain itself was open, and the children were flowing outside, and the animals, too: the lions and tigers, monkeys, bears and flights of glorious birds, all heading for their own homes.
Elfie stopped playing. They listened to the winter wind moaning and sprinkling snow on the sand dunes, and the distant sounds of children’s voices as they ran for home in every direction.
Luke, Elfie and Erik stepped out of the mountain. The world glistened like a wonderland, and a pale sun set the crystals of snow on fire. Erik turned round to look back inside and wave farewell, but Everychild and Everymother had gone, and the door into the mountain had closed up again. They were free.
Before them, the children of the town streamed towards home, skipping and laughing. And there among them were Bruno, Wolfgang and Susanna. ‘Wait for us!’ shouted Elfie and Erik, running and laughing to catch up with them. ‘Wait for me!’ Luke called out. So they stopped, and turned round to wait for him.
As they waited, they heard a sound coming from the frozen river; a sound they always listened for at the end of every winter: the crick . . . crack . . . crick. The ice was cracking. The thaw had begun, and spring was on its way.
Somewhere, along another road,
The piper skipped his merry way,
Wondering what other lucrative deal
He could make this day.
Piers Torday
Let me tell you a story about this thing which happened when I was a little girl, and you can decide if I am lying or not.
I was just ten years old when my grandmother gave me a present for Christmas that would change my life for ever.
At the time, I had two grannies: Granny Bike and Granny Car.
Granny Car was my stepmother Christine’s mummy, and she was super rich, because she had invented Skinny Pop – the amazing fizzy drink, which made you thinner and thinner. I didn’t like Skinny Pop, because I didn’t think I needed to be any thinner, and also, it tasted of nail polish.
Christine always told me to be on my best behaviour when Granny Car came to visit.
Granny Car liked to arrive in her chauffeur-driven Bentley, and her driver Godfrey would take off his coat and put it down on the front path so her feet didn’t have to touch the ground we lived on.
‘Frightfully common!’ sniffed Granny Car, as she trampled his jacket into the mud.
Granny Car thought that about lots of things. Like my name, Ethel. ‘Frightfully common!’ she said. Or my dad, because he worked for the local council and hadn’t invented a global soft-drink sensation. ‘Frightfully common!’ My school, because we didn’t wear the same hats and skirts she used to wear when she was little. And my pet goldfish, Silver – because he wasn’t a poodle dog. ‘Frightfully, awfully, vulgarly, obscenely, hopelessly COMMON!’ she squawked.
The only person in our entire family Granny Car didn’t think was common was her daughter, Christine.
‘My princess,’ she used to purr. ‘My golden duchess, my peach, my prize,’ she cooed. ‘Why did you have to marry into such an embarrassingly common family?’
(That is another story, but it has quite a lot to do with my real mum dying when I was little, my dad being quite lonely and something called a holiday romance.)
And every Christmas, Granny Car always brought us lots of presents.
Lots and lots.
They were always wrapped in glittering gold paper, tied up with silk ribbon in frilly bows. There were always loads of boxes, which Godfrey struggled to carry from the car. The pile always made Silver’s eyes pop out of his head when he saw it stashed under the tree
.
And the presents were always, always, never anything we wanted.
Like last year – Lycra jogging bottoms for Dad, who hated running or exercise of any kind other than walking in the park and whistling, which he did a lot. ‘Frightfully slimming!’ said Granny Car.
The latest mobile phone for Christine, covered in so many diamonds that she had to keep it in a safe. ‘Frightfully smart!’ said Granny Car.
And a designer dress for me. WHEN SHE KNEW I HATED DRESSES. ‘Frightfully pretty!’ said Granny Car.
Silver always hid in his toy plastic cave whenever Granny Car visited. But he reappeared as soon as he heard a certain noise coming up our path.
Squeak! Squeak!
That was the noise Granny Bike’s ancient bicycle made as she wheeled it along. It was an old-fashioned cycle with wonky handlebars and a basket tied on with string.
Dad told me that it had been his granny’s bike before it had been his mum’s and before that, it had been her mum’s bike, and before that . . . well, that didn’t matter, it was such a long time ago. But Granny Bike looked like she might have been around even longer than that.
She was tiny and wrinkled. Her pale skin looked like it was made of paper, or the material wasps built their nests out of. And she had a crooked nose, with whiskers on her crooked chin.
She also never spoke.
Granny Bike had got seriously ill once and the doctors had to take out her tongue. This was before I was born. I had never heard her speak.
I didn’t mind.
She always had a nice, big, lopsided smile for me, and a twinkle in her ancient eyes.
Granny Bike wasn’t super rich. She hadn’t invented Skinny Pop. I never was quite sure what Granny Bike did. She didn’t live in a big mansion like Granny Car. She lived in a little tumbledown cottage on the outskirts of town, and was either always cooking something that bubbled in a pot or growing strange-smelling herbs in her garden.
When I asked Dad what she did, he would mutter, ‘It doesn’t matter, and anyway, she’s retired now.’
Christine always shuddered when Granny Bike visited. She said she smelled of dishcloths and old cheese, which wasn’t true, she didn’t. If anything, she smelled of bonfires and autumn leaves, which were two of my favourite smells.
Now on this Christmas Day, Christine decided to be meaner to her than ever before.
‘I don’t want her dragging that filthy old bike in and stinking up the place,’ she said between gulps of a special seasonal Skinny Pop, which tasted of Christmas pudding and grown-up chocolates. ‘If you want to go and see her, why don’t you visit her on Boxing Day? Or the day after? You can take her my present.’
Christine held up the tiniest bottle of perfume you’d ever seen. ‘Mummy’s latest,’ she said admiringly. ‘Eau d’Skinny Pop. You spray it on anything – your skin, furniture, old ladies – and they smell like a sticky, fizzy drink for a whole week.’
‘That’s kind, dear,’ said my dad, from his favourite chair, where he was busy reading his favourite book, The Birds of Britain. ‘We’ll do that.’
I knew Dad loved Granny Bike as much as me. But I wished he would stand up for her once in a while.
The snow had been falling all morning, and I wanted to go outside and play in the park with the other children in our street. A few of my friends were pressing their faces against our window, wrapped up in woolly hats and gloves, making funny expressions, until Christine shooed them away.
‘You’ll catch your death, or worse, if you go out and play in that filthy park!’ she said. ‘Just imagine how much dog mess there is out there under the snow.’
I said there were plenty of other things I would prefer to imagine.
Then Christine went red and grabbed the golden necklace around her throat, which she always did when she was upset, and called for my dad. ‘Stewart!’ she yelled. ‘Your daughter seems to have forgotten what day it is.’
‘Don’t upset your mother,’ said Dad, still looking at pictures of lesser spotted tits.
I hated it when he said that as well. I mean, Christine wasn’t my mother. She was just pretending to be. Besides, how could I forget what day it was? There were endless Christmas songs burbling out of her state-of-the-art laptop in the kitchen. They all sounded cheesy to me. I was wearing the horrid Christmas jumper Granny Car had given me last year, which was decorated with a picture of a huge knitted bottle of Skinny Pop, covered in holly and snow. It made me feel stupid and I hated it.
Before either of us could say another word, there was a loud honking outside.
‘Mummy!’ said Christine, and she ran to the door, to let Godfrey in, who was struggling under a heap of golden gifts. I may have been imagining things, but I thought I heard Dad let out a long sigh as he stood up to help him. Silver blew some bubbles to the top of his bowl and dived back into his cave.
I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. It was kind of Granny Car to get me the jumper the year before. And this time, as I opened the layers of thick, expensive paper, to discover a huge, professional make-up set, I did smile and say thank you.
I knew there were lots of other children who might have wanted the glossy box, with photos of glamourous models on the front, and all the different weird-smelling pots and creams inside. But I wasn’t one of those children, and I was sad that Granny Car never seemed to notice that.
I was sad that Granny Car, Christine and even Dad never seemed to notice lots of things. Perhaps sad isn’t even the right expression. Boiling mad might be better.
Granny Car ran her bejewelled fingers through my hair. ‘You’re turning into a young woman, my gel. Don’t keep it cut this short – frightfully common. Start with this kit to sort your face out, and then Mummy can make an appointment to see my hairdresser, Gustave de Florie – you’ll love him.’
If I stared through the snow piling up against the glass, I could see other kids making a snowman in the park across the road. I wished more than anything I could join them.
In fact, this Christmas, I wished I was anywhere but here in our overheated front room, with Granny Car not only beaming down from her gold-framed portrait above the TV, but sitting at the end of the table, talking loudly over us. I wished my real mum was here instead of Christine, and I wished Dad was like he used to be.
The Dad who used to laugh a lot and put me high on his shoulders, and run around the park till we could both hardly breathe for having so much fun.
I wished Dad would smile at things rather than sigh.
I wished many, many things.
I suddenly didn’t like my life, and I wished it not to be my life. I wished it so much that I nearly snapped the pencil I was holding. (I was a bit of a doodler, always getting told off at school for drawing pictures of our teachers in my exercise book. I always kept a pencil and pad to hand because sometimes losing myself in drawing and colouring in a picture was the only way I could stay calm.)
But before I could do any drawing, or go and join my friends outside, we had to have Christine’s special microwaved Christmas dinner. ‘Just pop it in and voilà!’ she said.
She popped it into the microwave, and it popped out moments later. I had just popped a forkful of the rubbery goo into my mouth – and can assure you there was nothing voilà about it – when I glanced out of the window to see how my friends were getting on with their snowman.
It was beginning to snow harder and harder, and I couldn’t see them clearly any more. I hoped that they hadn’t been turned into snowmen themselves.
But what I saw instead, dimly appearing through the white swirls, was a familiar bent figure wheeling something along.
Squeak! Squeak!
‘Granny Bike!’ I said.
‘Oh, how frightfully dreary,’ sighed Granny Car, trying to spear some rubbery peas with her fork.
‘I thought we agreed she wasn’t coming,’ said my stepmother, looking at Dad.
Dad shrugged. ‘You know how she is.’
Silver was at least pl
eased, swimming up from his cave and blowing bubbles along the surface of the water. I pushed my chair back and ran to the door.
‘I don’t remember saying anything about getting down,’ said Christine.
‘Frightfully rude,’ muttered Granny Car.
I didn’t care. It was Christmas Day after all.
I opened the door, and a gust of snow blew in, stinging my face. There was Granny Bike, wrapped in a raggedy bundle of scarves and shawls, her crooked nose poking out like a beak. With great care, she leaned her bike against the wall.
‘Happy Christmas, Granny Bike!’ I said. ‘We’ve just sat down to dinner. Do you want to come in?’
She shook her head, showering snow over the doormat.
‘Are you sure?’ I said. ‘Don’t you want to get out of the snow?’
Granny Bike gave me one of her biggest, warmest, most lopsided smiles, and a large snowflake fell off her nose onto her whiskery chin.
Suddenly, I wanted to tell her everything. How unhappy I was, how no one understood me, how horrid Christine was, how snobby Granny Car was. ‘Granny Bike,’ I started to say.
But she put a mittened finger to her lips to quieten me, and, turning around, began to rummage in the basket on top of her bike. It was full of yellowing newspaper scraps, a ball of wool and some twigs. Eventually, she found something at the bottom, which she handed to me, beaming.
It was a parcel, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string.
‘For me?’ I said.
Granny Bike nodded, her whiskery chin bobbing up and down, and then she enfolded me in a hug. She was cold and damp from the snow, and she was as skinny as a skeleton, but I can promise you, it was the warmest and cosiest hug I had that Christmas.
Then she patted me on the head, and slowly began to wheel her bike back into the swirling flakes.
‘Goodbye, Granny Bike,’ I called after her. ‘Happy Christmas!’
I dimly saw a frail hand waved in reply, then she was gone.
‘What did she want?’ called Christine, as I closed the door.
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