The Girl Who Saved Christmas

by Matt Haig

  Out of a cave in the largest of the troll mountains, with footsteps that caused mini earthquakes, came Urgula and her husband Joe. Urgula was so tall she blocked out the moon. Her hair was as wild as a tree in the wind. When she opened her mouth you could see all three of her teeth, each one the size and shape of a rotten grey door.

  Another Flying Story Pixie was whispering in Urgula’s ear.

  Meanwhile, Father Christmas had landed his sleigh a good distance from the trolls.

  ‘Listen at the front,’ he told Blitzen and Donner. ‘This is very important. Fly Mary and Amelia back to Elfhelm . . . Take the quiet route. Coming in from north-north-east.’

  ‘What about you?’ asked Mary, worry widening her eyes.

  Father Christmas heaved himself out of the sleigh. ‘Me? I’m going to make peace with the trolls.’

  ‘Take me instead of them,’ said Father Christmas as he walked over and stood in front of the gigantic Urgula. Her skin was as rough and pitted as the snowy rocks on either side of the valley. She did a burp. It smelled foul. Rotten goat meat.

  ‘Look, why eat them?’ asked Father Christmas. ‘Elves are small and bony. Look at my big belly. You’d be far better off eating me.’

  ‘Let the elves go, Samantha,’ said Urgula, in a deep booming voice that sounded how a mountain would speak (if a mountain ever chose to speak). A Flying Story Pixie whispered in her ear.

  And then, in that moment, Noosh and Little Mim found themselves being swung low in Samantha’s hand before flying through the air. They held on to each other’s hands and kept flying right out of the valley and over the Wooded Hills where the pixies lived. They landed on the soft snow of the slope not far above the Truth Pixie’s cottage. They started to roll, faster and faster, down the hill until they were two big snowballs with faces sticking out of them.

  ‘Mummy, I’m going to be sick,’ said Little Mim, shivering. He was right. (We won’t go into detail, but elf sick is actually quite a pretty purple colour.)

  As the snow crumbled off them the door of the cottage opened and out popped the Truth Pixie herself.

  ‘Hello again,’ said Noosh breathlessly as she pushed herself out of the remains of the snowball. ‘We really need your help . . . Father Christmas is in trouble.’

  A Christmas Dinner

  ather Christmas was lying down on a large raised stone in the centre of Urgula’s cave while Urgula commanded the one-eyed Thud to keep him in place. Which he did by pressing his hand on Father Christmas’s belly. It was as heavy as a rock.

  Urgula’s cave was vast. And the roof was very high. High enough for Urgula and Joe to stand up in and stare down at Father Christmas as another smaller untertroll (only three times taller than Father Christmas) sprinkled Father Christmas with herbs and rock salt.

  ‘We be ’avin’ a Christmas dinner,’ said Urgula. ‘We be ’avin’ a Father Christmas dinner. You be small. But I bet you be tasty. Nice Christmas. Good Christmas. Thud, light the fire.’

  ‘Listen, Urgula,’ said Father Christmas. He tried to sit up but couldn’t compete with Thud’s strength. His magic wasn’t working. There was probably no magic left in the air now. This was just the simple laws of nature. And so there was nothing he could do about the massive heavy hand on top of him. He started to notice that the stone he was lying on was getting hotter. And as he saw the walls of the troll cave flicker with shadow and glow with a fiery kind of orange, he realised that this wasn’t just a stone. It was a stove. Father Christmas was about to be cooked alive.

  ‘What happened? I don’t understand it. Only three years ago you signed the peace treaty. All trolls and elves were meant to live in peace. Everyone signed the peace treaty. Even the huller-folk and the pixies and the Tomtegubbs and the Easter Bunny, and she lives a hundred miles away. What went wrong? Why did you attack Elfhelm last Christmas? And why do this today? It’s Christmas. It’s the time of peace and understanding and goodwill.’ And then Father Christmas remembered the time when he was a boy, trapped in prison in Elfhelm. He had, in order to save his own life, killed an untertroll called Sebastian.

  ‘Is this about Sebastian?’

  But it wasn’t about Sebastian. ‘Nobody cares ’bout Sebastian,’ said Sebastian’s brother Horace, picking his nose somewhere behind Urgula. ‘Sebastian were annoying.’

  ‘Is this about hewlip? Because I’ll have you know that, as leader of the Elf Council, I have made sure no one is allowed to grow hewlip any more . . .’ (Hewlip was a dangerous plant that, when swallowed, could cause a troll’s head to explode. In that moment, about to be cooked, Father Christmas wished he’d never had it banned.) ‘So what is this about? What was last year’s attack about?’

  ‘We want trolls to be left alone,’ said Joe sleepily, as if he was remembering a dream. ‘We don’t want elves comin’ ’ere. And we definitely don’t want your type comin’ ’ere.’

  ‘My type?’

  ‘The ’uman type. And if you be goin’ there into ’uman lands, they’ll be comin’ ’ere.’

  ‘Humans aren’t as bad as you think. And they don’t know about trolls.’ Father Christmas wondered what time it was, and thought of all those children who might soon have to wake up with no presents in their stockings. He had to get out of here, he thought, as the heat started to singe his red suit.

  ‘We don’t like outsiders,’ said Urgula.

  It was then that Father Christmas noticed hundreds of Flying Story Pixies darting around the cave, their wings glowing orange as they reflected the fire, wearing their shiny clothes, cupping their hands and whispering into all the trolls’ ears.

  ‘Don’t trust ’im,’ one whispered.

  ‘He’s a no good ’uman,’ said another.

  Father Christmas began to realise what was going on. ‘What about pixies?’ he asked. ‘You welcome pixies here.’

  ‘No, we don’t,’ said Urgula gruffly.

  ‘But look! They are all around you!’

  The trolls looked and they realised it was true. There really were Flying Story Pixies all around them. They had never really noticed them before, because the pixies were such delicate, whispery things who didn’t want to be noticed.

  ‘So they be,’ observed Urgula, her mouth wide in wonder.

  ‘They are whispering things into your ears . . . They are making you believe things that aren’t true . . . They’re hypnotising you.’

  All the trolls looked a bit grumpy at this. One of the heads of the two-headed troll got so angry he said, ‘Trolls be not stupid. You be sayin’ that us big clever trolls be not ’avin’ brains of our own?’

  Father Christmas was getting really hot now. His back felt like it was burning as red as his coat. Even Thud, leaning over him, was hot. A bead of sweat dripped off his warty forehead and turned, mid-air, into a pebble that bounced off Father Christmas’s stomach.

  ‘I’m just trying to tell you what is actually happening. The Flying Story Pixies make you fear outsiders . . . You are being brainwashed. That’s what’s happening.’

  ‘And what be ’appenin’ now is we be going to be finishing you,’ said Urgula. Then she pointed at Thud, who had tied up Father Christmas. ‘See, we was waitin’ for you . . . We not be wanting the elf and ’er boy.’

  ‘But how did you know I’d come?’ asked Father Christmas, his face as hot as a red coal.

  This seemed to genuinely confuse Urgula. ‘We just . . . did. Now. More fire. Let’s heat him up.’

  But then: a noise. A sound. Something cutting through the rasping sound of troll breath and the crackle of fire.

  From somewhere else in the cave. Footsteps, maybe. Quite close. Urgula had heard it too.

  ‘There be a noise.’

  Thud heard it too, and dug his large grubby fingers into his eye socket to take his only eye out. It made a small plopping sound. He held the eye out at arm’s length to see around the corner.

  ‘It be a human girl,’ he said.

  ‘Oh no, Amelia,’ muttered Father Christmas. Poor f
oolish girl.

  The Cracking Cave

  hud put his eye back in its socket as his other hand’s rough grip got tighter and tighter and tighter around Father Christmas’s neck. The heat was unbearable now.

  Moments later, a hairy untertroll appeared holding a wriggling Amelia. She was screaming very loudly. Thud turned to see what was going on and his grip loosened a little around Father Christmas’s hot, sweating neck.

  ‘Amelia!’ gasped Father Christmas. ‘What are you doing here?’

  The hairy untertroll seemed delighted with the catch. ‘We be got ourselves Christmas pudding to go with our lunch.’

  ‘I wanted to save you, like you saved me,’ said Amelia hurriedly. ‘I owed you.’

  ‘You didn’t owe me anything.’

  Amelia shook her head, which hurt her, as the untertroll was still gripping her hair. This untertroll was called Theodore and he had one large wonky brown tooth. But Amelia wasn’t scared. She’d known so much fear in her life that she had finally run out of it. ‘No. It wasn’t your fault. I was cross anyway. Because sad things happen in life. They just do. But so do happy things. So do magical things. You did a good thing. You do amazing things. I was so happy that Christmas, opening those presents. So, so, so happy. Not because of the presents, but because of the magic that had brought them there. To know magic exists. You’ve made the world a better place. Whatever happens to us now, nothing was your fault. You’re a good man, Father Christmas. You did a good thing.’

  ‘This be boring,’ said Joe, who like all trolls was allergic to soppiness. He picked his ear and looked at the wax. ‘Let’s be killin’ ’em, Urgula. One each. Let’s go.’

  As Father Christmas thought about what Amelia had said he saw something outside. A kind of glow. As multi-coloured as the decorations on Prince Albert’s Christmas tree. Green and pink and violet and blue. As he stared he felt a familiar warming inside him, like syrup being poured into him. It wasn’t anything to do with the burning flames below him. It was the feeling of drimwickery and magic. Amelia had shown him how good and strong and how brave a human child could be. And that made him think of all those brilliant children who still needed to get their presents. It was the goodness of her that had helped filled the universe with hope. Goodness that had made her risk her life coming to save him. Goodness that created magic.

  How much magic? He was about to find out.

  He stared at the untertroll’s warty left hand, the one holding onto Amelia’s hair, and he wished for that hand never to harm Amelia, and suddenly the hand dropped the girl and the fist flung back, crashing hard into the roof of the cave. A crack appeared in the roof. Then other cracks too.

  ‘What be you doin’, Theodore?’ asked Urgula crossly. And because she was cross she smashed one of her hands against the wall of the cave, which created even more cracks. (Trolls are famously bad at controlling their tempers.)

  ‘Our cave be breakin’.’

  ‘Yes, it be.’

  ‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ said Amelia, ‘before the . . .’

  But before she had reached the end of her sentence the roof of the cave began to crumble and a rock fell towards her head. Amelia jumped out of the way just in time, the sound of it crashing like thunder.

  Then a voice. A voice that didn’t belong to a troll or Amelia or Father Christmas, from somewhere else in the cave.

  ‘Father Christmas? It’s me.’

  Oh no. It was Mary.

  He could see her now. She was holding a stone and throwing it at Thud’s head. It hit Thud hard, and green-grey troll blood started to leak out, sizzling into stone as it landed on the hot stove. He let go of Father Christmas and stamped his feet, which caused even more cracks to appear in the cave.

  As Father Christmas rolled off the scorching hot stove – ‘Ow! Ow! Ow!’ – he heard a large thudding noise. A falling rock had hit Mary on the head and she was now lying on the floor.

  Father Christmas felt grief fall over him as hard as the rocks. ‘Mary? Mary? Can you hear me? Mary?’

  The trolls were trying to hold the roof of their cave up with their hands.

  ‘You can save her,’ Amelia said, feeling the hope rise up inside her. She knew her hope could help him. She knew now that this was how the whole universe could have so much magic inside it. By the simple act of hope. ‘You can do it. You have to do it.’

  Drimwickery

  ather Christmas looked around the cave. There was no time.

  No time.

  No time.

  And he saw in Amelia’s face, even as the cave was collapsing, that hope had returned again. Light was leaking in through the cracks. The cave was now glowing a soft green that illuminated the whole of the inside. The trolls, the Flying Story Pixies, the rocky walls – everything was bathed in magical light. And the light was showing them the way out.

  And it was there, glistening in Amelia’s eyes too, that beautiful and magical green. The colour of hope. The colour of Christmas. It was clear to Father Christmas that it was her. She had brought the magic to him. Her and Mary. By coming to save him. And to help save Christmas. That was all that was needed for magic to happen again. It didn’t take a sleigh or fancy clocks and buttons. All it needed was the simple act of thinking of others. And so he closed his eyes and he wished, harder than he had ever wished for anything. He wished for time to stop.

  When he opened his eyes he saw Amelia, standing totally still. And not just her. Everything. Everything was still. There were stones and rocks hanging suspended in the air.

  He had stopped time.

  So, in that timeless moment, he got to his knees and looked at Mary, at her dying face, and he hoped. He saw the goodness in her eyes and he kissed her forehead and said, ‘I love you, Mary,’ and that was the first time he had said it, and saying it now he realised the truth of it. He loved her. They were outside time and so it didn’t matter that they had only known each other for one night. He felt he knew all her past and all their future. He wanted to stay with her for ever. He could see their wedding day. The hope wasn’t just an ordinary one. It had magic in it. Drimwickery. The drimwick, this unthinking hope spell, found goodness before it died and made it into life. And Mary’s eyes flickered, just a little, like shadows behind a curtain.

  ‘Mary? Mary?’

  And then the eyes were fully open, shining up at him, and she was alive again.

  ‘Mary,’ he said, without even thinking, ‘I love you.’

  ‘I love you too,’ she said, and she was speaking directly from all the truth and hope and love and magic inside her. And Father Christmas couldn’t have asked for a better present than those words.

  Then Mary saw all the rocks hanging in the air and her face filled with fear. ‘Why is nothing moving?’ she asked. ‘Why is Amelia still as a statue?’

  ‘We’re outside time. We need to restart time to get her out of here . . . We need to follow the lights. They’ll lead us out. You go. Go on ahead.’

  Mary shook her head. ‘I’m staying with you, Mister. I’m not waiting this long to find the love of my life and then leave him behind me in a troll cave!’

  Father Christmas looked at the trolls. Most were busy trying to hold up the roof of the cave. But Thud was lying motionless on the floor where Mary had knocked him over, holding his one eye to get a better look at them.

  Before he restarted time Father Christmas climbed up on a piece of rock to take the eyeball out of Thud’s hand. He placed it by his feet.

  ‘Still gives him a sporting chance.’

  So Father Christmas released his grip on time and shouted at Amelia, ‘Quick! This way! Follow the lights!’ He was about to leave but then had a guilty feeling filling his stomach. It was Christmas Day and he was leaving dozens of creatures to die under the snow. Now it was quite a strong feeling in his stomach, and he had quite a big stomach. It was Christmas, after all. Christmas. The time of goodwill to all. Even trolls. So he stopped and turned and told them, ‘You won’t survive. The m
ountain is going to collapse. You have to follow the lights. They are leading us out. Quick! Oh, and, Thud, your eyeball is by your feet!’

  The trolls looked confused. They had been trying to kill Father Christmas and now he was helping to save them.

  And so Father Christmas and Mary and Amelia ran as fast as they could, dodging the stones and rocks and moving through dust thicker than London smog until eventually they were outside in the open air of the valley. Just as the cave was collapsing trolls of all sizes emerged from the rubble, crouching forward or on their hands and knees, coughing up dust. They stood there, all the trolls, like a small mountain range, in front of Father Christmas and the others.

  ‘You be saving us,’ said Urgula, between coughing whole clouds of dust into the night.

  Joe nodded humbly by her side. ‘Thank you. You be changin’ my mind ’bout ’umans,’ he said.

  ‘Be we not still killing them?’ asked Thud.

  ‘Kill ’im,’ said the two-headed troll’s right head (the wartier one).

  ‘Leave ’im be!’ said the two-headed troll’s left head (the kinder, beardier one).

  And while the two-headed troll had a fight with itself, Urgula thought. Then she said, ‘I be confused. Cos you be good and kind, Father Christmas. I be knowin’. But it not be what we be told.’

  ‘It is true,’ came a voice.

  Everyone turned around and looked to see a small wingless pixie standing with her arms folded and staring up at Urgula with truth in her eyes.

  Footprints in the Snow

  ruth Pixie!’ cheered Father Christmas.

  Amelia looked at this little creature in the moonlight. She also looked at the two slightly less small creatures with pointed ears, mother and child elves, on either side. The pixie was half the size of the elves, dressed in a yellow tunic, with a delicately mischievous little face. Amelia thought she was the cutest thing she had ever seen. But she also wondered if the trolls were about to kill them, and suddenly Creeper’s Workhouse didn’t seem quite so bad after all.