by Tom Holt
He took the bike in both hands, wheels parallel to the ground, then threw it down hard, like a basketball player bouncing a ball off the court. The heavy coil springs in the front and rear shock absorbers compressed and expanded, and the bike jumped back into the air, salmon-on-a-waterfall fashion. While it was still airborne the elf vaulted into the saddle, third-handedly dragging Daddy George up onto the pillion. The bike landed and bounced again; by dabbing down with his feet, the elf managed to turn it through twenty degrees, so that it was pointing across the carriageway when the springs expanded again and launched the bike upwards like a leaping bullfrog. It cleared the entire width of the road on that bounce, and the next one carried it seventy yards into the field beyond.
‘Not bad,’ the elf conceded, as the springs bottomed out under full compression. ‘More efficient than I’d imagined,’ he added, pulling the front end round as it started another titanic bunny-hop. ‘So tell me, what’s the grey bit with all the explosions in aid of?’
‘Unnnng,’ Daddy George replied, as the bike touched down and his spine tried to shoot up through the back of his skull.
‘What?’
It’s an amazing tribute to Japanese engineering that the bike lasted for as long as it did; the poor thing went well over a mile before the frame finally gave way, with a terrible graunching of sundered welds that sounded like icebergs scraping together. The elf, however, wasn’t impressed, maybe because when the dead bike threw him off, he landed in a very large, well-matured cow-pat.
‘Pathetic,’ he growled. ‘Are they all as trashy as that, or was that one just a rotten example?’
Daddy George tried to explain that, although the elf’s interpretation of motorcycling technique was entirely valid and every bit as good as the regular method (in many respects better) it wasn’t really the nit-pickingly orthodox approach, and accordingly the machine hadn’t been built to withstand the effect. Short-sighted people, these motorcycle designers. No imagination.
They left the shattered corpse where it lay, and walked on. The elf was making louder and more querulous are-we-there-yet noises with every step they took, and Daddy George realised that pretty soon he was going to have to think of some cunning plan or other, before the elf realised what he’d been up to and lost his temper. Unfortunately Daddy George’s creativity and imagination appeared to have been shaken out through his ears at some point in the bike ride. In fact, he’d have been hard put to it to tell you his own name.
What neither of them knew, of course, was that the meadow they were tramping through was part of the grounds of the large and magnificent house that Carol’s dad had bought with the newspaper money. All they saw was a big grey shape looming up at them out of the night.
‘Now how far is it?’ the elf demanded.
‘Nearly there. Really nearly there,’ said Daddy George, in one of the most accurate and truthful statements of his life. ‘In fact, if it wasn’t so dark you could practically see it from here.’
The elf sniffed suspiciously. ‘You’d better be right,’ he said. ‘Because if I find out you’ve been playing games with me—’
One of the features of this particular house that had most impressed Carol’s dad when he was considering buying it was the security system. Infra-red beams latticed the perimeter; once triggered they switched on more floodlights than Wembley Stadium and set off a devastating array of bullhorns, sirens and other musical instruments. To an elf, accustomed to the Arcadian calm of pastoral, unmechanised Elfland, the effect was extremely offputting. He dropped to his knees, hands clamped firmly over his pointy ears, while with his third hand he tried to find whatever it was you turned, pulled, pushed or pressed to turn the damn’ things off.
Daddy George, by contrast – well, he wasn’t in his element exactly, but he’d been a distinctly third-rate burglar long enough to be able to cope with a suddenly triggered burglar alarm and a few bright lights. As soon as the elf relaxed his invisible grip, he was off like the electric hare at a greyhound track, heading straight for the house. In consequence he had his back to the elf at the crucial moment, when the elf contrived to wrap all ten of his highly conductive fingers around the main live cable.
This was a slice of luck as far as Daddy George was concerned, since looking directly at a flash like that could easily have left his retina as crisp and charred as a transport café fried egg. Having guessed what’d happened, he slowed down, grinning hugely, and gradually turned round.
‘Fuck’, said a small voice from somewhere under the mushrooming pall of smoke that hovered a few feet above the ground.
‘Are you all right?’ Daddy George called out.
‘Do I sound like I’m all bloody right?’ the voice whimpered. ‘What the hell was all that about, anyway?’
‘Where are you?’ Daddy George asked. ‘I can’t see you.’
‘Down here.’
It took him about thirty seconds to figure out where the little squeaky voice was coming from. ‘You’ve shrunk,’ he observed.
‘You don’t say. Dammit, I think you may be right. Of course I’ve bloody well shrunk, you stupid tall—’
The elf got no further. Daddy George had picked him up between forefinger and thumb, and was shaking him. He was being quite gentle, at least by his standards, but the elf didn’t like it at all.
‘Well, well,’ Daddy George said. ‘Now this changes things rather, don’t you think? A little jolt of electricity, and suddenly you’re not nearly as big and mean and nasty. Doesn’t look like your super-special magic powers are working too well, either.’ He flipped the elf over into the palm of his hand and was about to close his fingers and squeeze very had when someone shone a powerful torch in his eyes and recommended that he keep absolutely still.
As far as Daddy George was concerned, it was love at third sight. First sight was mostly just blinking, thanks to the powerful torch I just told you about; second sight didn’t get any further than the two large, malevolent-looking bull terriers straining at the leash gripped in the speaker’s left hand. Third sight, however, got past the light and the dogs to the extremely beautiful, if unsympathetic, girl who’d just spoken to him, and apparently it liked what it saw.
The logical explanation is that the mutual attraction between Carol and the elf somehow adapted itself to the transdimensional shift, with the elf’s human-side counterpart taking his place. My personal theory is that the vast majority of drive-by shootings by the kids with the wings and the arrows are unaimed area fire, and it’s anybody’s guess where the shots are going to land. I’m not sure that either hypothesis fits all the facts of the case; regardless of that it was undeniable that no more than two minutes after first setting eyes on each other, Carol and Daddy George were deeply and inextricably in love, a state of affairs, no pun intended, that carried on more or less unchanged throughout the sixteen years that followed, right up to the point where I’d waved them goodbye in the station car park on my way back to school for the new term. Nor did I have any reason to believe, as I reviewed the downloaded memories in my mind, that anything had happened to change it since.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Now I remember. So – what happened to the elf?’
Melissa pulled a sad face. ‘As far as we can judge,’ she said, ‘your stepfather just shoved him away in his coat pocket, under a handkerchief and a roll of peppermints, and forgot all about him.’
I frowned. ‘He just sat there in the pocket, did he? No shouting or screaming or trying to cut his way free through the lining.’
‘He never got the chance,’ the Neil elf put in. ‘Apparently he bashed his head on the peppermints and passed out. When he woke up, your stepfather’d got him securely imprisoned in a jam jar. There wasn’t any risk of him suffocating because your stepfather had poked some holes in the lid with a nail to let the air in, but there was absolutely no way he could unscrew the top and get out. Luckily, your stepfather hadn’t bothered to clean the jar out properly before stuffing your father in it, so he was able to
stay alive by licking the last traces of the jam off the walls and floor while he was waiting for the effects of the electric shock to wear off.’
‘And did they?’ I asked. He shook his head.
‘No chance,’ he told me. ‘Not without another electric shock. What’s more, it’d have to be exactly the same, not stronger or weaker. Not enough power and nothing’d happen; too much amperage and you’d get toasted elf. At least, we think that’s what’d happen. Melissa here’s the only elf who’s ever been zapped and managed to get back home again, so you’ll understand that our data’s all a pit patchy and vague.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘Are you saying there’ve been others? Apart from you and my real father, I mean.’
Melissa smiled very sadly indeed. ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘Ever so many. As you well know,’ she added. ‘You’ve seen at least two of them for yourself, in your own back garden. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. There’s hundreds of them – of us – trapped there, and all because of him. Which is why,’ she added, turning and facing the Fuller elf with a sort of grim, determined look on her beautiful face, like a supermodel who’s just quit smoking, ‘I’ve decided I’m going back.’
The Fuller elf was horrified. ‘You can’t,’ he gasped. ‘You’ve only just escaped, after all this time. What if he catches you?’
She shrugged. ‘I’ll have to make sure he doesn’t, that’s all. I’ll be careful,’ she added. ‘At least this time I’ll know what I’m up against. But I can’t just leave them there. You do see that, don’t you?’
‘Just a minute,’ I interrupted, ‘I don’t remember any of this. What’s she talking about?’
The two elves looked at me as if I was a four-year-old four days before Christmas who’d just found out where all the presents were stashed. ‘We didn’t give you that memory,’ Melissa said. ‘We thought – well, you’ve got enough to come to terms with already, finding out about your mother and your stepfather, and coming here for the first time. Besides, none of this is your fault, you can’t be expected to get involved.’
That sounded like an entirely reasonable argument to me. Unfortunately, the way I saw it, I was already involved up to my unpointed ears. ‘Won’t you let me be the judge of that?’ I said.
They looked at each other. ‘No,’ they said.
‘Ah.’
‘Really,’ Melissa went on, ‘you definitely don’t want to know, because it truly is very—’ She shuddered, with such a magnificently expressive gesture that I could almost visualise an imaginary ice cube slithering down the back of her neck. ‘You’ve got an expression on your side of the line, I remember: you don’t want to go there. That puts it very well.’
I shook my head. ‘I didn’t want to come here, either,’ I told her, ‘but I don’t recall being given any choice in the matter. Not since I was a little kid, and I saw one of your people in the vegetable patch. Ever since then, I’ve been the boy who saw an elf – have you any idea what it’s been like, living with something like that? Don’t you dare talk to me about getting involved.’
The look of genuine pity, remorse and regret on both their faces was enough to break your heart. And as for sincerity – if only there’d been a way of extracting and bottling the sincerity of those sad expressions I’d be rich and politics would never be the same again.
‘We’re sorry,’ Melissa said. ‘Truly we are, and if there’d been any other way – or if I’d been me, instead of the rather nasty person I turned into while I was there . . .’
That reminded me of something, but I tagged it and put it aside for later; this was no time to get sidetracked. ‘That’s really nice of you,’ I said. ‘And you know, if I was really me – the meek, gutless, won’t-stand-up-for-himself, lets-everybody-walk-all-over-him little weed I seem to remember being all my life, though how I could’ve been so pathetic I really can’t understand – if I was still that same me, I’d tell myself that you two know best and let you get away with it. But I’m not, and I won’t. You’re going to tell me the rest of the story, or there’s going to be big trouble.’
There was enough hopelessness in the looks they exchanged to fuel a whole fleet of Booker Prize runners-up. ‘We’re only thinking of what’s best for you,’ said the Fuller elf. ‘Please don’t make us do this.’
Well: I may have suddenly sprouted a tungsten carbide backbone and a will of high-carbon steel, but I could still feel compassion. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I guess I’ll just have to find it out for myself. Which I’ll do,’ I added, ‘just as soon as you send me back where I belong.’
To judge by the way they looked at me, I might as well have been talking in Klingon. ‘But that’s where you are,’ Melissa said. ‘Where you belong. Home. Here.’
I scowled. ‘Absolutely not,’ I said. ‘This is some crazy place, the Disneyworld that time forgot. If you think I’m staying here—’
‘But you’ve got to,’ Melissa said. ‘You can’t leave.’
‘Thanks,’ I replied, ‘and I appreciate the hospitality, but I’ve got an English essay to write, for one thing. So, which way’s the exit?’
The Fuller elf shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I think you’re missing the point, or we haven’t explained properly. It’s not just that we don’t want you to go – though of course that’s entirely true, we don’t – but you can’t. It’s impossible. There’s no way back across the line. I’m sorry.’
I was beginning to get seriously annoyed with both of them. Odd, in retrospect, how easily it came to me, back in my old life and my old personality, other people got annoyed with me, not the other way around. But here I was losing my temper like a seasoned professional.
‘Bullshit,’ I said. ‘She just said she’s going back, so it’s got to be possible. If she can go back, so can I.’
Long silence, extremely awkward and embarrassing. Eventually, the Melissa elf heaved a huge sigh.
‘We’d better tell him,’ she said.
The Fuller elf frowned. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Hey!’ I yelled. ‘What about asking me if I’m sure? Because I am. Absolutely fucking positive. So tell me.’
I don’t think elves use bad language – unless they pick up the habit when they find themselves over on the human side – though they would appear to know what it signifies. They stared at me disapprovingly, as if I’d just farted in the nave of Westminster Abbey in the middle of a royal wedding. ‘All right,’ the Melissa elf said. ‘But don’t blame us if you don’t like what you hear.’
‘Thank you,’ I said.
Another pause; I think each of them was waiting for the other to go first. I guess the Melissa elf must’ve drawn the telepathic short straw, because she was the one who eventually broke the silence.
‘Back home,’ she said, ‘where you lived; that’s a really nice garden, don’t you think?’
I nodded. I had a feeling I knew what was coming.
‘But your stepfather,’ she went on, ‘doesn’t do much to it himself, does he?’
I shook my head. ‘Nor does Mum,’ I said. ‘I’ve wondered about that myself.’
She nodded. ‘And your stepfather’s business,’ she continued, looking at a spot in the air about two feet to the left of me, ‘he does quite nicely at it, doesn’t he?’
‘I suppose so. To be honest I never took much of an interest.’ I grinned. ‘I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.’
‘Understandable,’ the Melissa elf acknowledged. ‘But you’ll agree, he must be making money at it. I mean, your standard of living’s pretty high.’
‘In material terms, I suppose so, yes.’
The Melissa elf dipped her head a couple of times. ‘And that’s never struck you as odd?’ she asked. ‘At a time when all the shoes you see in the shops are cheap imports, from China and Eastern Europe and all those other places where they can make them so cheaply because their labour costs are so much lower than in Britain, your stepfather’s making a good living runn
ing a small shoe factory in the Home Counties. That’s never struck you as just a little bit curious?’
Now she’d lost me. ‘I suppose so,’ I said. ‘Like I said, I’ve never really thought about it.’
‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever visited the factory?’ she said.
‘Never wanted to.’
‘I’m sure that’s right. But did he ever offer?’
I didn’t reply. Come to think of it . . . ‘Diplomatic relations between us have never been exactly wonderful,’ I said. ‘He doesn’t like me, it’s as simple as that.’
She looked at me. ‘Nevertheless,’ she said. ‘You’d have thought that once, just once, he’d have offered. Wouldn’t you?’
She’d set me thinking, sure enough. ‘You don’t know him,’ I said. ‘I do.’
A very strange expression appeared on her face. ‘Oh, I know him, all right. Haven’t you figured it out yet? Or do I have to spell it out for you?’
This time, I was the one who looked away. ‘I think Daddy George has got elves doing his gardening for him,’ I said. ‘That’s where I’ve seen elves, and neither him nor my mum ever do a hand’s turn out there. But what’s that got to do with the factory?’
She clicked her tongue. ‘When you were a child,’ she said, ‘didn’t your mother ever tell you the story of the shoemaker and the elves?’
The penny didn’t drop exactly, but it teetered on the edge, like the coach on the cliff edge at the end of The Italian Job. ‘Actually,’ I said, ‘no. First time I heard that story was at school. And,’ I went on, ‘it was in a book someone gave me for Christmas one time, but before I could read it for myself, someone cut those pages out with scissors. Never could understand that.’