‘Come on, Ma, it’s Christmas Day tomorrow. Magic will happen, you’ll see. You’ve just got to believe . . . Christmas is when miracles can happen. Just wait, I promise . . .’ And Amelia smiled and thought of the letter she had sent Father Christmas. She tried her very hardest to believe a miracle could happen and that – even in a world full of people like Mr Creeper – magic was always possible.
Her Mother’s Hand (quite a short but very sad chapter)
Her mother didn’t speak much now because it seemed to take too much energy. But Amelia could see from her mother’s frown that she had something to say.
Her mother shook her head. ‘Amelia, my love, I’m afraid this is the end.’
She was breathing slowly. She looked as pale as milk.
‘But you’re not coughing.’
Her mother smiled the faintest of smiles. Amelia could tell it was a great effort for her mother to speak.
‘Life will get better for you one day,’ she told her daughter, as she had told her many times recently. ‘Life is like a chimney – you sometimes have to get through the dark before you see the light.’
And her mother smiled a weak smile and closed her eyes and Amelia felt the hand she was holding grow heavy.
‘Ma, you can’t die. I won’t let you. Dying is absolutely forbidden. Do you hear me?’
Jane Wishart closed her eyes. ‘Be a good girl.’
And that was the last thing Amelia’s mother ever said to her. There was no sound to be heard except the tick tock of the clock out on the landing and the sound of sadness weeping out of Amelia.
The Barometer of Hope
‘Is that the infinity sack?’ a short barrelly elf asked him, pointing to the sack he was holding.
‘Yes it is, Rollo.’
‘It doesn’t look very big.’
‘No, it isn’t big. But it is infinite. You could fit a whole world in . . .’
And then the ground started to shake. Elves looked at each other with wider than usual eyes. Hobby horses clanked onto the ground. Toy carts slid back and forth across the stone floor. Rollo fell over hundreds of balls rolling across the floor and landed on his – fortunately large and cushiony – bottom. Then it went quiet and still again.
‘What was that?’ said Rollo.
‘I’m scared,’ said Dimple.
Bella started to cry.
Father Christmas turned to everyone.
‘Just a little tremor, folks. Nothing to worry about. Even the ground gets excited near Christmas! Carry on as normal. We have a very big day – and night – ahead of us.’
And then Father Christmas swung the infinity sack over his shoulder and travelled up the chimney to the top floor of the workshop tower, to the Toy Workshop headquarters.
The moment Father Christmas stepped out of the chimney and into the Toy Workshop headquarters he saw the wise old elf Father Topo standing on the stone floor and stroking his long white moustache.
‘All well, Father Topo?’ said Father Christmas.
‘Not exactly, Father Christmas. Didn’t you feel the ground shake just then? I thought the whole tower was going to collapse.’
‘Well, I felt a little tremor. But it will be fine. It must be all the magic in the air.’
‘Hmmm. About that,’ said Father Topo. ‘Look at the Barometer of Hope. ‘It should be bursting with light.’
He pointed at the Barometer of Hope, a small round glass jar positioned on a pole in the centre of the room.
The Barometer of Hope usually glowed with a dazzling display of multi-coloured, gently moving light. Green, purple, blue. These lights had been scooped up by Father Christmas from the Northern Lights in the sky above Finland. On Christmas Eve the light should almost be blinding, since it was fuelled by magic that grew out of hope and the goodness of elves, humans and all creatures.
But when Father Christmas looked up at the Barometer of Hope on this day there was just a faint wisp of glowing green, flickering like a weak flame.
‘Oh, I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about,’ Father Christmas said. ‘It’s glowing a little bit. It will pick up through the day. Come on, Father Topo. Cheer up! All the letters are still getting through!’
Just at that moment the normally smiling Mother Sparkle, from the letter room, ran into the headquarters, breathless. ‘Something’s going wrong! None of the letters are getting through to us. I’ve just heard from the letter catcher. They’re not getting over the mountain.’
Father Christmas smiled. ‘Oh well. The letters aren’t getting through and there is a little glitch with the Barometer of Hope. It’s not going to stop Chri . . .’
A distant but quite loud noise interrupted him. A roaring, crunching kind of noise. Father Christmas headed to the large window. In the distance he could see devastation on the Street of Seven Curves.
Whole houses were collapsing or disappearing into the ground. Elves were running along the cracking street in terror. Father Christmas gasped, and in no time at all Mother Sparkle and Father Topo were by his side.
Father Topo pulled his telescope from his top pocket. He saw a family running amid the chaos. And one of them was just in his underwear.
‘Oh no. Noosh, Humdrum, Little Mim.’
Noosh was Father Topo’s great-great-great-great-great granddaughter and the elf he loved most in the world.
It wasn’t just the Street of Seven Curves that was under attack. The buildings of the Main Path were going under too. Workers from the Bank of Chocolate ran for their lives just before the bank was swallowed up into the ground.
Father Christmas could see something else. Where the Bank of Chocolate had once stood. He saw something crash through the heap of bricks and dust. First, a huge swathe of what looked like wild black hair was poking out of the ground. And then, slowly, a warty forehead. The kind of forehead that could only belong to a troll.
Father Christmas saw a rock flying through the air, coming from beyond the hills. It was heading – wait, oh no – it was heading