by Matt Haig
‘Who are you?’ she asked. ‘Sneaking in here uninvited in the middle of the night in your tight pantaloons?’
And there was something about the way she asked it that made him tell the truth, without even thinking. She may have just knocked him out with a flying saucepan, but she had a face you could trust.
So he just said it.
He said, ‘I’m Father Christmas.’
The woman laughed. ‘And I’m the Fairy Godmother!’
Father Christmas smiled. ‘Ah. Hello, Fairy Godmother!’
The woman laughed even louder. It was nice to hear laughter in a place like this. ‘You actually believe I’m the Fairy Godmother?’
‘Why not? You said it.’
‘Well, I’m not.’
Father Christmas laughed now. He had forgotten how peculiar humans were. ‘Well, I am Father Christmas. But don’t tell anyone.’
The woman was confused. ‘Why would you tell me?’
‘I don’t know. But I’m serious.’
‘Well, why are you spying on maids on their night shift rather than delivering presents?’
‘It’s a long story.’
The maid had never seen a face so easy to trust as the one she was now looking at. But still, Father Christmas! She’d heard Father Christmas was a man who had managed to fly around in the world in a single night. How could this big fat man with a white beard do that?
‘Do something magic,’ she said. ‘Guess my name.’
Father Christmas thought. He rubbed the emerging bruise on his forehead. ‘The thing is . . . the magic levels are low. That’s why I’m here.’
‘Excuses. Guess my name.’
‘Jenny?’
‘No.’
‘Lizzie?’
‘No.’
‘Rose?’
‘Nope.’
‘Hattie? Mabel? Viola? Cedric?’
‘No, no, no, no. And Cedric is a boy’s name.’
‘Oh yes. So it is. Sorry. I was just on a roll.’
She frowned. ‘No. You don’t seem that magical to me. I’ve seen more magic in a lump of coal. Now, if you’d please leave me alone I got to be gettin’ back to work, sir. Mr Creeper’ll be cross if I stand ’ere talkin’ to you. Especially if you keep sayin’ you are Father Christmas. He’ll have both our guts for garters.’
‘Well, Mr Creeper thinks my name is Mr Drimwick and that I am here to conduct a surprise night-time inspection authorised by the Queen, but I’m telling you the truth. And I am here to find a child. Without her, it might be impossible to save Christmas . . . You see, it’s about hope. The girl who had the most hope now has the least. And that messes up the cosmic order of things.’
And then he looked at the maid’s face and the sparkles of crossness were looking a bit more like sparkles of kindness, and maybe he had been away from humans too long but he felt just slightly in love with those eyes. A kind of warmth. It was a weird feeling, but a magical one, and he hadn’t had a magical feeling in a while. Indeed, there was enough magic in the feeling for a name he had never known to come to him, and he spoke it out loud.
‘Mary Ethel Winters!’
She gasped. ‘Never told anyone my middle name.’
‘Born on the eighteenth of March, 1783. And you always sweeten the slop to make it more edible.’
She couldn’t believe it. ‘This is most peculiar!’
‘And your favourite toy as a child was a little tea set. And your doll called Maisie, who you named after your grandmother.’
She was pale now. ‘But how do you know all this?’
‘Just a little drimwickery.’
‘Drimwhatery?
‘It’s a type of magic, Mary. Based on hope.’
‘You are a strange man,’ said Mary. ‘I could see that from the size of your trousers.’
Father Christmas looked at the large ham hanging from the ceiling.
‘I thought everyone had to eat slop here.’
‘That’s Mr Creeper’s ham. For ’im and Hobble and his policeman friend. No one else gets a look in.’
Then a voice came from the doorway. Mr Creeper. ‘Is everything all right, Mr Drimwick?’
‘Yes, Mr Creeper. Just asking the kitchen maid a few questions.’
‘From the floor?’ Mr Creeper sounded suspicious.
Father Christmas could see Mary looking worried he would tell Mr Creeper the truth.
‘I slipped,’ said Father Christmas. ‘The floor was so clean that I slipped right over.’
Then Mr Creeper stared over at the packet of sugar beside the stove. ‘Mrs Winters, you haven’t been putting sugar in the slop again, have you?’
Mary looked nervous. She, like everyone else, was petrified of Mr Creeper.
‘I was just telling her I think a little bit of sugar in the slop shows great dedication,’ said Father Christmas. ‘And I am going to give the kitchen facilities full marks for that.’
And Mary smiled at Father Christmas with her eyes, which was the best kind of smile, and made him feel tingly inside.
The Girl Downstairs
ather Christmas stood up. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, Mr Creeper, I would like to ask this kitchen maid some further questions about . . .’ He looked around. He saw some butter out on a shelf. ‘. . . about butter.’
‘Butter?’
‘Yes. Butter must be stored in a very particular way.’
‘I’ll be waiting right outside,’ said Mr Creeper impatiently. ‘But can I ask how long this inspection will last?’
‘It will be done before morning, don’t worry.’
When Mr Creeper left the room Father Christmas was surprised to hear Mary’s whisper, ‘Which child?’
He could see she believed him. His heart lifted with joy.
‘A girl who sent me a letter. Her name’s Amelia Wishart. She’s ten years old, and I believe she’s here in Creeper’s Workhouse.’
Mary made a kind of whimpering sound. ‘Oh, my heart breaks for that girl. The way she’s treated.’
‘I need to find her. You see, a lot is at stake. Her future. My future. The whole future of Christmas . . . Which dormitory is she in?’
‘She’s not.’
‘What?’
‘She’s not in a dormitory. She tried to escape. He’s locked her in the refractory cell.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s a room in the basement. Not even givin’ her proper food. She has to scrub the floor. Scrub, scrub, scrub. Like Cinderella. I’ll sneak her some food but it’s risky. Mind you, so’s us talkin’ right now.’
‘I’m going to help her escape. I might need your help.’
Mary nodded. She looked around the kitchen. ‘I can turn this place into a trap. If you send . . .’
Her words died as Mr Creeper returned to the room.
‘Now, Mr Drimwick, I’m sure you’ve seen enough of the kitchen. Shall we head out into the yard? Or would you like to see the dormitories?’
‘No, Mr Creeper,’ Father Christmas said slowly, ‘I would like to go downstairs.’
‘Downstairs?’
‘I would like to see the basement. I would like to see the refractory cell.’
‘No, I’m afraid that’s not possible.’
‘Oh,’ said Father Christmas. ‘The Queen won’t like that. She won’t like that at all. She could have you closed down for resisting inspection.’
Mr Creeper turned white at the mention of Her Majesty. ‘The basement,’ he said. ‘Very well. Follow me.’
As they went out of the hall and down the stone staircase, Father Christmas asked if anyone was in the refractory cell.
‘Yes, a girl. Been at the workhouse a year. But she came here as wild as anything. Really miserable she was. Asking for books to read. Moaning about the cold baths. Working slowly. Wanting animals to play with. Wailing about missing her mother. But we’re fixing her.’
Father Christmas tried to hide his horror. ‘Fixing her?’
Mr Creeper took Father C
hristmas through some windowless corridors.
And then they were there. A metal door with a small square window. Complete with bars. A kind of prison cell. Creeper put the key in the lock.
Unhappy Christmas
melia had been scrubbing the floor for three hours. Mr Creeper wanted the floor clean by morning. He was obsessed with clean floors, but even more obsessed with making her miserable. She stared at her own hands. The knuckles were sore from the soap. She would have cried, once, but she knew there was no point in crying any more. The only aim she had now was to give up feeling anything at all. What was the point of having feelings if the only things there to be felt were bad?
‘Merry Christmas,’ she mumbled to herself. What a joke! There was nothing merry about Christmas. In fact both this Christmas and the one before had been the most miserable times ever.
Well, this Christmas wasn’t going to be miserable because she was going to give up having feelings.
‘I feel nothing,’ she told herself, but then, to her horror, she saw a little fat tear fall from her eye and plop straight into the soapy bucket water.
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. And she tried to forget that magical morning two Christmases ago when she had awoken to see the full stocking at the end of her bed. No memories hurt more than happy ones that you can never get back.
In that moment, she hated Father Christmas as much as Mr Creeper. Father Christmas had let her know that magic was real, but what was the use of magic when it couldn’t give you what you really wanted?
The sound of a key in a lock.
Then, that familiar voice, behind her.
‘Stand up, Amelia,’ said Mr Creeper.
Amelia was too tired and weak to do anything but obey it.
‘Turn around.’
She turned around and saw that Mr Creeper was with someone. A man in too-tight trousers and a long coat with a white cloud of a beard. This odd man smiled at her. It was a warm smile, a totally different kind of smile to the one that Mr Creeper always had. But still, she could not smile back at the man. She wondered if she still actually knew how to smile.
‘Hello,’ the man said softly.
She said nothing.
And the man winced as Mr Creeper barked at her, ‘TALK TO THE MAN, YOU RUDE GIRL!’
Amelia stared back at Mr Creeper with the kind of look that could have frozen water. But Mr Creeper wasn’t water. He wasn’t even blood. He was just skin and bone and hatred, and there was nothing a stare could do to him.
‘It’s all right,’ said the other man.
‘No, Mr Drimwick, it is not.’
‘Hello,’ said Amelia suddenly. She hated how her own voice sounded. The word ‘hello’ was a soft and trembling thing that died in the air. The man with the beard was looking at her with sad eyes. She liked this man and his silly trousers, but how could she trust him? What was he doing with Mr Creeper in the middle of the night? And not just any night. The night before Christmas.
‘SIR!’ shouted Mr Creeper. ‘Hello, SIR!’
‘Please.’ Father Christmas couldn’t help himself. ‘Please don’t speak to her like that. She’s still a child.’
Mr Creeper’s eyes narrowed as they studied the man. Amelia recognised the look on Mr Creeper’s face. It was called suspicion. ‘Mr Drimwick, may I be so bold as to ask you your first name?’
The man hesitated, and in that moment had nothing to give but his real actual first name. ‘Nikolas,’ he said.
‘Nikolas Drimwick. How interesting. My name is Jeremiah. Jeremiah Creeper. Now that we are on first-name terms I am going to be frank with you. A child needs to know manners and discipline . . .’
‘And happiness. And laughter. And play. The three ingredients of life.’
‘What kind of workhouse inspector are you?’
‘One with a heart,’ said Father Christmas. And he stared quite sternly at Mr Creeper. Amelia was now looking at Father Christmas. She was tired and she was hungry and soap water was itching her skin but her brain was now ticking. Tick, tick, tick.
Nikolas.
There was something about that name. Something familiar. Even though she searched her brain and realised she had never actually met a Nikolas. She had a weird feeling that she knew this man, but couldn’t think where from.
‘So, Mr Creeper, why is this girl in here and not in the dormitory?’
‘Because she was caught trying to climb out of a window,’ said Mr Creeper.
‘Well, to be honest, I’m not surprised.’
‘She wants to escape. So we locked her down here. And stopped her food. Except breadcrumbs and water.’
This man – this ‘Nikolas Drimwick’ – was turning red with anger, noticed Amelia.
‘And you thought locking her in a cell in the basement was going to make her want to stay?’ he said, the words flying out of his mouth.
‘I don’t care what she wants,’ spat Mr Creeper. ‘Who would care what a child wants? All that matters is what a child deserves. And I can tell you that I have known this girl for some time. Her mother was soft with her. She had it too easy. She was a rude and lowly chimney sweep, who was as grubby in manners as the chimneys she swept. I suppose if you are surrounded by soot all the time it dirties your soul.’
This made Amelia feel very cross indeed. She felt the crossness rising inside her like a brush in a chimney. She had not had an easy life. Yet there was Mr Creeper acting like she had been a young Queen Victoria or something. And how dare he criticise her mother when her mother wasn’t here to defend herself!
But then the tight-trousered Mr Drimwick said something rather peculiar while looking at Amelia straight in the eye.
‘Oh, I don’t know, Mr Creeper. I think you could still be surrounded by soot and be a captain of a person.’
Yes. There was no doubt about it. He was giving her a signal. He had emphasised those two words. ‘Soot’ and ‘Captain’. He was telling her that he knew about Captain Soot.
And then something even stranger happened. He moved. The man moved. Not stepped or walked but moved without anyone seeing. He was now standing a step away from where he had been. And not just that. Something had happened in between. She had imagined he had leant into her ear and whispered, ‘I am not Mr Drimwick. I am Father Christmas, and I am here to help you escape this place.’
She had imagined that he had called to his reindeer, Blitzen, at the top of his voice.
But how could that have happened in the fraction of a second?
‘Mr Drimwick, you really are a very strange man,’ said Mr Creeper, with dry amusement.
‘Yes,’ said Amelia, trying to give Father Christmas a clue that she knew what was going on. ‘Like a captain. I understand.’
Amelia stared at Father Christmas and tried to send a message with nothing but her eyes. The message was: You’ve got to get me out of here. It’s horrible in here. I can’t stand another day!
And Father Christmas was quite good at understanding the language of eyes.
‘Well, Mr Drimwick, I assume you have seen enough!’ said Mr Creeper. ‘Let’s find somewhere else for you to inspect, shall we?’
Amelia felt a desperate sinking feeling in her stomach at the thought that she was going to be left in that basement cell. And she realised that something she thought had died was still inside her.
Hope.
The hope of escaping.
The hope of a better life.
The hope of finding Captain Soot.
The hope of being happy again.
Father Christmas seemed to understand all this too, because he winked at Amelia. It was a very small wink. Too small for Mr Creeper to spot. But it was there. And the wink seemed to say, ‘It’s time.’
Mr Creeper’s Shoelaces
ather Christmas pointed at Mr Creeper’s shoes and said, ‘Look, your shoelaces have come undone.’
And Mr Creeper looked down and frowned. ‘That is impossible. My shoelaces are always double-tied. They never com
e undone. And yet, you are right. They are undone . . . Amelia, tie my shoelace!’
Amelia hesitated for a second, then she crouched down and tied the shoelace. Just as Father Christmas was working out what to do, Amelia stood up quickly and pushed Mr Creeper hard, with all the force inside her, with every last piece of feeling she had, and he toppled back as Amelia ran out of the room.
‘STOP HER!!!’ screamed Mr Creeper. And then he shouted it again. With even more exclamation marks. ‘STOP HER!!!!!!’
But Amelia was out in the corridor and heading up the stairs. Mr Creeper stood up and tried to run after her, but his shoelaces had been tied together and so he fell forwards and landed flat on his face, his keys flying and landing near Father Christmas’s too-small shoes.
‘That girl!’ he shouted. ‘I told you she was wild! STOP HER!!!’
‘You just stay there, Mr Creeper. I’ll get her.’ Father Christmas bent down and picked up the keys.
‘What are you doing?’ wailed Mr Creeper.
But it was too late. Father Christmas was shutting the door and already turning the key.
‘Mr Drimwick. Mr Drimwick, I demand you open this door at once. Do you hear me. Mr Drimwick!’ spat Mr Creeper through the barred window he was now locked behind.
‘I’m actually not Mr Drimwick. The name is Father Christmas. Pleased to meet you.’
And then Mr Creeper screamed a wail of hatred. ‘Aaaaaagh! Hobble! Mr Hobble! I’m down in the basement! Get me out of here!!!’
Child on the Loose!
melia kept running. Up the stairs. Through the corridors. She knew that Mr Creeper’s staff were on night duty, patrolling the workhouse, so she threw glances in all directions. She hoped Father Christmas was on her side but he had let her down before. She just had to get out. She was running past the dormitories, knowing she had to keep moving.
Then, just as Amelia reached the dining hall, just outside the kitchen . . .
