Mr Creeper’s smile had curled like a dead leaf under his broken nose. ‘No. Oh no. Unfortunately that is not possible. You are coming with me. You see, I have but one passion in this life. And that is the correction of mistakes. And your mother wants me to correct you. She told me that. You have too much of your father in you.’
Amelia knew her mother would never have spoken about her father in that way.
‘It’s my calling. At the workhouse we teach discipline. You are part of us now. It’s time to take you away.’ His nails dug into her arms.
No, it isn’t, thought Amelia.
She looked down at Captain Soot, her eyes pleading for help. The cat looked at her intensely then trotted off into the living room.
Good plan, Captain Soot, thought Amelia.
Amelia yanked her arm free from Mr Creeper’s tight grip and ran as fast as she could, into the tiny dark living room.
There were only two choices. The rotten old window or the small fireplace. Captain Soot was already at the fireplace.
‘Good cat.’
There was no way Mr Creeper could manage the chimney.
‘Get back here!’ said Mr Creeper, his long, crooked face glowering with hatred as he entered the room. ‘You little mucksnipe!’
‘Never!’ spat Amelia as Captain Soot hissed the same thing. She scooped Captain Soot up off the floor. ‘All right, Captain, let’s go.’ She crouched into the fireplace and disappeared into the darkness of the chimney.
Amelia placed her cat on her shoulder. ‘Stay still, and no claws,’ she said as she started to climb up using her elbows and pressing her feet against the sooty wall. It was extremely narrow, even by chimney standards, and the wall was crumbly and hard to stay steady against. She felt Mr Creeper’s hand grab her foot. For a scrawny man he had a very tight grip. He started to pull her down, and she felt the rough pain as her elbows scraped the chimney wall. Heart thudding, she kicked him away, three hard kicks, and lost a boot in the struggle.
‘Get back here, you demon child!’
But Amelia kept climbing up into the darkness. It was a tight squeeze, and got tighter as she neared the top. Captain Soot pushed his way through the chimney pot first. And Amelia then wriggled herself through. Amelia and Captain Soot had made it out into the light.
It was snowing now. Amelia blinked at the whiteness of the roof. Captain Soot ran along, making tiny footprints.
‘There you are!’ came a voice from the street below.
The snow was making the roof slippery. Even though she wasn’t a cat and even though she only had one boot on, Amelia managed to run along the ridge on top of the roof without falling. It was a long roof. But eventually it ended and she had to jump onto the next row of terraced houses.
‘After you,’ said Amelia. Captain Soot jumped and made it, easily. Then Amelia jumped. And she made it. Less easily.
A group of carol singers stopped singing ‘Silent Night’ and stared up at her. Breathless, she looked down to the street and saw Mr Creeper walking fast with his cane. She loved her mother and knew she had thought she was doing the best, but her mother hadn’t understood how horrible Mr Creeper was. Amelia’s mind was a storm of fear and panic and howling sadness.
‘Aaagh!’
She lost her footing and slid down the other side of the sloping roof.
She caught hold of something. Hard and wet and slippery. She didn’t know what. But then she lost hold of it and she was falling and landing flat on her back. Looking around, she realised she was in somebody’s backyard. Captain Soot ran after her and jumped and landed on her stomach.
‘It’s all right,’ he told her, in the language of cats. ‘You can do this.’
And Amelia understood him, for the first time in her life.
Amelia and Captain Soot got up and ran through the yard and into the passage behind the houses. They came out into India Street and heard the distant carol singers singing ‘Good King Wenceslas’. Amelia looked behind and saw no sign of Mr Creeper. She ran fast, into the unknown land of her future.
Father Vodol and his Long Words
‘It’s all right, Blitzen.’
The elves were all standing in the snow eating emergency sugar plums for comfort, waiting for Father Christmas to say something.
So he did.
‘Well.’ He smiled. ‘This has been a very unusual Christmas Eve. But it could be worse. Let’s try and look on the bright side.’
‘Bright side?’ scowled an elf in a black tunic and long dark beard and thick bushy eyebrows. ‘There is no bright side. It is a catastrophe. A calamity of epic proportions. A cataclysm. A ruination. A . . . a . . . poopleplex!’
Father Christmas sighed. Trust Father Vodol to try and bring everyone down further, while also showing off some very long words. Father Vodol was the elf who knew the most words. He knew all seventy-six million elf words, and sometimes even made some up, just to confuse people and sound really clever. Poopleplex wasn’t a real word, Father Christmas was sure of it.
Noosh noticed Father Vodol’s footprints in the snow. He had been walking from the west, from the hills, which was strange, as he was normally in the Daily Snow on Christmas Eve.
Father Christmas forced a smile. ‘Come now, Father Vodol. There is always a bright side. Look, the trolls have gone. We are all safe. Obviously we will have to find out why this happened. And we will. We will. But that is not for today. Yes, there were some injuries, but we have incredible Elfcare workers seeing to those. Doctor Drabble is on hand. And we have the reindeer. Some buildings are still standing. Well, the Daily Snow is still standing. Those who have lost their homes can sleep there as we rebuild, or stay at my house. My bed can sleep about eleven elves, at least. And I could always sleep on the trampoline. But, we must remember, it is Christmas Eve, and we have work to do.’
A gasp spread across the crowd. Even Blitzen seemed doubtful, and did a wee to show just how doubtful he was.
‘Christmas? Christmas!’ scowled Father Vodol. ‘You must be joking. There can’t be a Christmas now.’
‘Hooray!’ said Little Mim, who didn’t quite understand and just liked hearing the word. ‘Christmas! Daddy, it’s Christmas!’
Humdrum nodded and closed his eyes and tried to calm down by thinking of gingerbread.
Then Father Vodol stepped forward and muttered in a low voice, ‘It’s impossible.’
The crowd of elves gasped and parents put their hands over the ears of little ones.
‘Father Vodol, please, no swearing. There are children present,’ said Father Christmas, before continuing to address the crowd. ‘I understand that it looks . . . difficult. But I was once told by a very wise elf that there is no such thing as im . . . that word. And every human child in the world is depending on us tonight. We have to give them magic.’
‘I’m afraid Father Vodol might be right,’ said Father Topo.
The elves seemed baffled.