by Matt Haig
‘It must be nice for you ’avin’ a friend up here in the cold,’ said Mary.
‘Well, I could do with some human company sometimes.’
And Mary’s cheeks went a little rosy at that. ‘Couldn’t we all!’
‘Right,’ said Father Christmas, sitting back in the sleigh’s comfy leather front seat, next to Mary. ‘Are you ready for the rest of the world?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Mary. ‘Especially Cornwall. Always wanted to go to Cornwall.’
‘Ho ho ho! We’ll be going a lot further than Cornwall.’
News from Father Vodol
ather Topo left the telephone, and the Toy Workshop, for five minutes to run over to the village hall. He needed to check the latest news of Noosh and Little Mim. Before he opened the short, thick wooden door, he could hear the hum of music and merriment. And inside it seemed like the whole of Elfhelm was spickle dancing to the festive sounds of the Sleigh Belles and inhaling the smells of cinnamon and gingerbread.
The song that was playing was an up tempo rendition of ‘Your Love Smells Like Gingerbread (Yes It Does)’ and so everyone was smiling and clapping and twisting. Well, not quite everyone. Humdrum was sitting down on a little red stool, looking forlorn.
‘Did you check the whole of the Toy Workshop?’ he asked Father Topo when he sat on the stool next to him. Father Topo looked at the long table behind them full of Christmas food. Gingerbread. Plum soup. Jam pastries. Chocolate money. Cloudberry pie. He felt sad Little Mim wasn’t there to enjoy it.
‘Yes, I’ve had elves look absolutely everywhere. They’ve obviously gone off for a day out.’
‘I just don’t understand it. Little Mim was so excited about going to the Toy Workshop. And Noosh loves Christmas.’ Father Topo looked at Humdrum’s hands and saw they were shaking with worry.
‘They’re n-not at home,’ quivered Humdrum. ‘They’re not at Reindeer Field. They’re not shopping. They’re not ice-skating. They’re not here . . . Do you think we should phone Father Christmas?’ Humdrum looked down and fiddled with the cuff of his tunic.
Father Topo knew this question would come. After all, Father Christmas had his sleigh and reindeer and would be able to do an aerial search. He also, these days, had more drimwickery in him than the whole of Elfhelm put together. But Father Topo also knew that the moment he told Father Christmas then the whole of Christmas would be in jeopardy again.
‘I . . .’
Father Topo noticed the black beard of Father Vodol approaching through the crowd, like a storm cloud. He was walking straight towards them. His face couldn’t have looked more urgent if he had had the word ‘URGENT’ written on his forehead.
‘What is it, Father Vodol?’
‘It’s Noosh,’ he said, looking worried. Which itself was worrying as Father Vodol hadn’t looked worried for fifty-one years. ‘She left me a note in my office. She’s gone to the Troll Valley.’
Humdrum’s jaw dropped open. ‘W-w-hat? W-w-w-hy?’
Father Vodol shrugged. ‘I think she wants to write a story on the trolls for Christmas. She’s very ambitious. She wants Bottom’s job, now that he’s too scared to leave his house. I think your wife feels a bit above having to write about reindeer.’
Humdrum began to cry and shake even more.
‘There, there,’ said Father Vodol. ‘If she really has gone to the Troll Valley there is only an eighty-eight per cent chance of her dying a really horrible death.’
‘Oh no,’ whimpered Humdrum. He said it twenty-seven more times. And then he said, ‘Do you think Little Mim is with her? Oh, my goodness. This is a nightmare! What are we going to do?’
As Father Topo tried to think above the sound of the Sleigh Belles launching into their new song about the new red-nosed reindeer who was being trained at the School of Sleighcraft, Father Vodol came up with an idea. ‘Father Christmas,’ he said. ‘He’s the only one who can save your family, Humdrum.’
‘But what about Christmas?’ asked Father Topo.
‘Christmas!’ said Father Vodol. ‘Are you seriously saying Christmas is more important than the life of your great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter and her son?’
‘No. Of course I’m not.’
‘Good. Then you’d better phone his sleigh.’ And then Mother Breer pulled Father Vodol onto the dance floor and Father Topo was left standing there, with Humdrum’s expectant eyes upon him.
Amelia Gets Angry
melia stared out in wonder at the world, the wind whipping back her hair, as she stroked Captain Soot. She had no words, not because she wasn’t thinking of anything, but because she was thinking of too much. Her mind was moving as fast as the air. A crazy swirling whirlwind of emotions – relief, happiness, sadness, gratitude, grief, fear, wonder, anger. The main emotion though, now, was a kind of homesickness. She obviously wasn’t homesick for the workhouse. She wasn’t even homesick for 99 Haberdashery Road. She knew someone else would be living there by now, and even if there wasn’t, a house was just a house. No, she felt homesick not for a place but for a time. Maybe it wasn’t homesickness at all. Maybe it was timesickness. She just missed those days when she was younger – seven, six, five, four years old – when she didn’t know so much about the world. She missed, most of all, her mother.
Father Christmas pointed at the Barometer of Hope.
‘You are part of the reason it glows so bright,’ he told her as they flew over Prussia – roughly where Germany is on a map now. ‘Because you believe in magic again. You see, you were the first ever child I visited. Because you were the one with the most hope inside you. You believed in every possibility. And that is very rare, even in a child. And now you believe again. You see, sometimes, a single child believing in magic – if they believe enough – is enough to restore order to the universe. Hope fuels drimwickery, and that’s the main form of elf magic.’
‘How did you become magic?’ asked Amelia.
Father Christmas stared at her curious eyes, shining like tiny planets.
‘I . . . I nearly died. I had given up hope. The elves needed to do a drimwick on me so that I came back to life. That’s what gave me the magic. That is what made me see where the elves lived, because I suddenly believed in magic, just as you do now . . . I should have died on Big Mountain but I was given another chance.’ The moment he said it, he knew it was a mistake, because two big fat tears had appeared in those eyes. He assumed she was sad.
But, actually, Amelia was angry. She felt the anger rise inside her like lava in a volcano and she erupted: ‘SO WHY COULDN’T YOU HAVE DRIMWICKED MY MOTHER? WHY COULDN’T YOU HAVE SAVED HER?! I DON’T CARE ABOUT PRESENTS! I ONLY WANTED THAT ONE THING! I HAD HOPED SO HARD! AND YOU NEVER DID IT!’
Mary tried to comfort Amelia. She put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Listen, Amelia, it is terrible what ’appened to you – proper tragic. But it ain’t Mr Christmas’s fault.’
Amelia calmed down a little. She sort of knew Mary was right. But she couldn’t stop this feeling inside her.
‘I’m sorry, Amelia,’ said Father Christmas. ‘I got your letter, but when I was drimwicked I was on the other side of the mountain. I was beyond the Northern Lights. I wasn’t in the human world any more . . . And besides, there was no way of flying to you last Christmas. There had been a troll attack and the magic levels were . . .’
‘I’m sorry. It’s just . . . I miss her,’ Amelia said.
‘Course you do,’ said Mary, and she started to cry for the poor girl.
Amelia’s head felt heavy with all these sad thoughts. So she rested it on Mary’s shoulder. ‘It’s just strange, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘You know, you love someone and they love you back and then they are no longer here. Where does that love go?’
Father Christmas thought about this. He thought about his own mother who had died after falling down a well. He thought about his father who had died years later, when he wasn’t much older than Amelia. He turned to Amelia and said nothing at first. He felt so sorry for her. He wan
ted to explain that he had tried to come to her last Christmas, but hadn’t been able to. He wanted to tell her that magic can’t do everything we want it to, but it can make life a lot happier. But he thought it wasn’t the time. So he said something else.
‘The love of a person never disappears,’ he said softly. ‘Even if they might. We have memories, you see, Amelia. Love never dies. We love someone and they love us back and that love is stored and it protects us. It is bigger than life and it doesn’t end with life. It stays inside us. They stay inside us. Inside our hearts.’
Amelia said nothing. She thought she might burst into tears if she spoke. So she was quiet for a while. And it helped. Then she noticed the Barometer of Hope.
‘Why have the lights gone off?’ Amelia said.
It was true. The Barometer of Hope was no longer glowing. It was down to a tiny little wisp of violet. And the clock was ticking forward again. Father Christmas stared at the dashboard and his rosy cheeks went as white as snow.
He picked up the phone.
‘Hello, Father Topo. I don’t understand it. We’ve saved Amelia, but the lights are still too dim.’
Father Topo sighed. It was the kind of sigh that says bad news is about to arrive. And it did. ‘It’s Noosh . . .’
The Troll Valley
oosh had climbed down the craggy slopes of the Troll Valley under the moonlight.
She had carefully and quietly walked across the snow, stepping over goat skeletons and loose rocks, and gave a little shudder at the occasional giant four-toed footprint.
She had a plan.
It was a very simple one.
It was to talk to Urgula, the Supreme Troll Leader. She gulped at the thought. But, after that, she would be able to write the best story for the Daily Snow that there had ever been. And, as Father Vodol had reassured her, trolls never wanted to actually kill elves. But then she remembered the giant fist that had burst through her bedroom and grabbed Humdrum. Yes, it was true that Humdrum was still alive, but, thinking about it now, she was pretty sure that without the soap something very bad would have happened.
Urgula was the troll with the power over all the untertrolls and übertrolls. She was the leader because she was the largest. That’s how trolls worked. The bigger you were, the more power you got, and the more roasted goats you got to eat. Noosh knew she lived in the cave in the largest mountain at the western edge of the valley. This was written about in The Complete Trollpedia, which Noosh had read forty-nine times while studying journalism.
Then, after a lot of walking, she saw a glowing orange light.
A campfire, in the middle of the valley. She would have to go around this if she was to get closer to Urgula’s cave. Around the campfire there were trolls of every size. Untertrolls and übertrolls. Their large shadows could be seen moving on the snowy hills all around.
Noosh could see they were drinking large (larger than her) bottles of troll ale and eating roasted mountain goat. They were wearing roughly-stitched-together clothes made out of goatskin and they were being very loud, not because it was Christmas, but because they were always loud. They were singing the old troll classic ‘Some Of My Best Friends Are Rocks’.
As trolls were on the slightly stupid side, it was quite easy for Noosh to sneak up a bit closer and hide behind a hinglebush. She listened to what the trolls were saying, once the singing had stopped.
‘Can you be ’memberin’ last Christmas?’ said one. The smallest. With one eye. An untertroll Noosh recognised from the troll attack.
‘Yeah, Thud. When we be smashin’ up Elfhelm! Why did we do that?’
‘Cos Urgula told us to,’ said Thud.
‘Yeah. But why?’
‘I dunno.’
‘Why we be out ’ere?’
‘We be waitin’.’
‘For what?’
‘Somethin’.’
Waiting, thought Noosh. And suddenly she had a very bad feeling. It was the kind of feeling that a mouse would have on approaching cheese only to realise the cheese was on a trap. Who were they waiting for?
Noosh gasped. She had made a terrible mistake in coming here. What was she thinking? She was very worried about how this conversation was going, as she cowered behind the bush, hearing these trolls, with voices as rough as the stony caves all around. And she was even more worried a second later, because that is when she heard another voice altogether. A small, high-pitched voice that she knew better than any other in the world.
‘Mummy!’
It was Little Mim.
Inside the Troll’s Fist
oosh turned and saw Little Mim standing in the middle of the valley. He stood there in his bright tunic and had never seemed so small. His head was tilted to one side and his arms were stretched wide, as if expecting a hug.
‘Mummy, I’ve been following you! I followed your footsteps all the way!’
Noosh wasted no time. She ran over to her son and scooped him up in her arms, but just as she was scooping him up someone else was scooping her up – scooping both of them up – and they were rising fast up through the air.
Three seconds later Noosh was staring at the largest face she had ever seen. It was an übertroll with hairy nostrils, warty skin and three eyes. The middle eye was in its forehead, but not quite the middle of the forehead. It was a bit too far to the left, as if the troll had been put together from a kit by a toddler.
‘I’m sorry, Mummy,’ whimpered Little Mim, from the darkness of the troll’s fist.
Noosh stroked his hair. ‘It’s all my fault, shortbread. I shouldn’t have come here. It’s going to be okay.’
It’s going to be okay?
Noosh admitted to herself that she had never heard anything so ridiculous. There they were, a hundred metres up in the air, being half-crushed by a troll’s fist, and very possibly about to die.
But still, Noosh tried to stay positive as she waved at the troll.
‘We mean no harm. My son and I were just taking a late-night Christmas stroll and we got lost and . . .’
The troll just kept staring. Her name was Samantha. She had a purple wart on her nose, shining like a Christmas bauble. And now there were other trolls behind her. Five of them. Six, if you count both heads of the two-headed one. One of them, the one with one eye, spoke.
‘That be what we waitin’ for,’ he said. This was Thud.
Noosh decided to be honest. ‘All right, listen, I’m a journalist . . . I work for the Daily Snow. I’m their Reindeer Correspondent actually. And I was just doing an investigation. Well, not really an investigation . . . I was just planning . . . But the thing is, I’m not that happy being Reindeer Correspondent, so, you see, I thought I’d do this story about trolls that I was asked to cover. About what happened last Christmas. And the thing I have discovered is that it wasn’t your fault. You are quite a peaceful species really. It’s just that the Flying Story Pi . . .’
Just at that moment she saw one, fluttering above her. A four-winged Flying Story Pixie. This pixie fluttered down and whispered something in the troll’s ear. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good.
‘You be here to kill us,’ said Samantha. She squeezed them a bit tighter.
‘No. That’s not it at all!’ shouted Noosh. ‘Look at us. How could me and my son kill a troll? Think about it.’
‘We do not be liking thinking,’ said Thud, scratching his head. ‘It be hurtin’ our brains.’
‘Mummy! I’m scared!’ whimpered Little Mim.
And Noosh tried to comfort her son, but found it was quite hard to do so, from inside the grip of a troll’s tight, dry goat-scented fist.
She desperately dug in her pockets for the emergency bar of soap she had brought with her. There! She found it, but there wasn’t much elbow room in the troll’s fist. Wriggling her arm she managed to pull out the soap, and she rubbed it hard against the troll’s skin. It blistered and bubbled and started to steam.
‘WAAAAAAGGGHHHAAAAAGGGGH URRRRRRRRGGGGHHH!’
The no
ise of the anguished troll was terrifying. It was the loudest noise Noosh and Little Mim had ever heard, and it echoed through the valley like thunder. The troll started to shake its fist in the air. Noosh and Little Mim screamed. Noosh in her panic clenched her own fist extra hard around the soap. The soap slipped fast out of her fingers and fell through the gap between two of the troll’s fingers. She could just about see it fall and disappear with a small thud on the snowy ground far below.
‘Oh, stinky mudfungle!’ swore Noosh.
Just as the tiny bar of soap was flying through the air something else was too. It was hard to tell what it was because it was still dark, though the first grainy light of morning was beginning to appear.
Noosh saw it first. There were creatures, pulling something. She would recognise the sight anywhere. It was Father Christmas and his sleigh.
Noosh held tightly onto Little Mim and they both peeped out of the cracks between the troll’s fingers. They watched the sleigh hover in the air and saw that there were two people with Father Christmas. Humans. A woman and a girl. But that wasn’t important. All that mattered was that Father Christmas was there.
‘Mummy, we’re going to be safe! Look! Father Christmas is here!’ squealed Little Mim.
‘Let’s hope so,’ said Noosh, cuddling her son.
Father Christmas slowed the sleigh in the air, around the trolls’ heads.
‘Let them go,’ he pleaded. ‘They are peaceful elves. They don’t want to harm you. Let them go and let’s talk.’
There were more trolls out in the valley. They were hunched, crooked, knobbly grey-skinned creatures. One-eyed, two-eyed, or three-eyed. Sometimes two-headed. Some much smaller than others but all, in the emerging morning light, remarkably scary.