Dark Earth: Christmas Tales

A Christmas Tale Part 2

The cold breeze whipped around Matthew’s head as he trudged through the garden towards the woodpile behind the shed. He had thankfully finished with all his tasks in the kitchen, but now he had to be outside in this weather. Too cold to play and not cold enough for snow. Just awful. More than awful, it was boring. He looked around the garden. Many of the trees had lost their leaves, the flowers were gone and the rich green of the hedges had faded to a dull colour. The bushes and larger trees down at the back still looked as if they had some life in them, but even the fairies at the bottom of the garden had flown south for the winter a few weeks earlier. A brief flash of light caught his eye, but it was only Mr. Trumble, the garden gnome, closing the curtains of his little hollow tree home.

With nothing else to do and his fetching of the firewood quite forgotten, Matthew decided to go and pay the old fellow a visit. He was a strange, cranky old fellow, but he seemed to get along with Matthew when he wasn’t chiding the boys to stay out of the undergrowth or to mind his mushrooms. As he walked through the lengthening grass into the bushes which hid Mr. Trumble’s jolly red door, a lone tiny snowflake fell down slowly from the dark grey sky in front of him. Matthew put out his hand to try and catch it, but it slipped through his fingertips somehow and disappeared. Strange. He shook his head and ignored it as he walked on, his breath now coming out in a visible cloud of frost. Finally, he stood before the tiny painted door that was lodged firmly in the trunk of the old ash tree that rose up near the garden fence.

Leaning down slightly, he knocked on the little door. He heard a sudden burst of grumbling and crashing from inside and a few seconds later, it opened to reveal the small, rotund figure of Mr. Trumble against the bright light of his fireplace, peering up above his head to where a grownup human would usually be. His brown wizened face was set in its usual scowl and his bushy white beard and eyebrows gave him a slightly ferocious appearance that was only just offset by his twinkling purple eyes, nice little red cap, tattered blue cardigan and carefully polished brown boots, as well as the minor matter of his three foot height.

“Who the dickens is it calling – ah! Matthew.” His crinkled dour expression softened slightly to see the young boy, who was the only one of the children who still came to see him. “Come inside, I’ve just made some cocoa.”

Not needing any further invitation when offered his favourite beverage, Matthew stooped slightly and entered the little tree house. It was a crowded room dominated by the handcrafted stone fireplace that crackled cheerily with green and red flames. Two overstuffed plush armchairs and a little table covered with a dainty checked cloth sat before it and the rest of the room was stuffed with book shelves, crockery shelves, turnip shelves and Mr. Trumble’s tiny bed wedged in the back corner. He sat himself down in the visitor’s chair that seemed to have shrunk over the years of his visits and gratefully accepted the steaming hot mug of cocoa that Mr. Trumble extended to him. The first big sip of the rich, sweet drink made him feel substantially better. He looked at the battered china mug and had to stifle a smile at the sight of the rather bad watercolour painting of a lady gnome being chased by a cat around a ring of daisies.

“Now, what brings you down to old Trumble’s, Matthew?” rumbled the gnome as he sunk down in his chair.

“It’s too crowded up there and it is so unfair! I lost my room and I had to dry all the dishes after the girls messed things up and Father won’t get me a sword and stupid Phillip is no fun and Ed is still away and I had to go outside to get firewood and no one wants me to be a hero and I’m not allowed to go outside to play!” The long litany on injustice poured out of him as he felt suddenly hot and angry.

Mr. Trumble nodded, his shaggy eyebrows drawing close together. “Seems like the whole world is against you, eh?”

“Yes, it is!” muttered Matthew sulkily.

“It’s going to be a cold night. Likely it will snow.” He turned and looked into the flickering flames of the fire. Matthew watched him silently, sipping from his mug of cocoa, before deciding that he may as well be polite to the nice old gnome.

“What are you doing for Christmas, Mr. Trumble?”

“Same as I have these past thirty years, Master Matthew. Keeping myself to myself, I’d say. The squirrels upstairs and the hedgehogs next door are fast asleep, the fairies caught the last swallow to the Nile a few weeks ago and Old Man Badger down by the stream is busy with his books this time o’ year. No, I’ll just be here, listening to the winds and enjoying my Christmas turnip. Shame I could get no chestnuts this week. I has always been partial to roast chestnuts of a Yuletide.”

“That’s nice, Mr. Trumble.” he replied, a tad unsure of anything else to offer.

“That it be, Master Matthew, that it be. Hrmph. In regards to your little problem of the season, I’d say that I’ve seen this sort of thing before. I reckon I know just the thing for it.”

“Do you?” Matthew leaned forward eagerly. The old gnome’s remedies didn’t taste nice, but the whole family swore by them.”

“Reckon, I do, my lad, reckon I do. Seems to me like you’re in need of some spiritus nativitatis.”

“That sounds…foreign...”

“It isn’t originally from round here, that I’ll grant you. But we’ve grown the ingredients in these parts for many a year, although some seasons there has been less than others.”

“Well Mr. Trumble, I’d be awfully obliged if I could have some, please.”

“I’d be very glad to oblige you, Master Matthew. There’s only one slight problem. I don’t have any spare here.”

“Oh.”

“I’d say you should try Master Astorius. He’s bound to have something in that tower of his.”

Matthew blanched every so slightly at the mention of Astorius, the village wizard. He lived up in his rickety old tower in the village square of Ashford and only occasionally went outside. Strange noises and flashes of light were said to emanate from the tower at nighttime. He had never actually seen or heard them himself, but Michael Sutherland swore he had crept in there at night and found an old finger bone of a witch. Matthew had traded five marbles and a piece of fools gold for it last month, but he was starting to suspect that there was a sneaky reason it looked a lot like a chicken bone. All of the village boys had been sternly warned not to bother the wizard on pain of being turned into toads.

“Are you sure there is nowhere else?”

“Quite sure, my boy. If you run along quickly now, you might just be able to catch him as he has his afternoon breakfast. Tell him I sent you to get some.” Mr. Trumble’s eyes seemed to twinkle a bit more than usual and the edges of a smile seemed to appeared beneath the undergrowth of his beard.

“Righto! Thank you very much for the cocoa and the help, Mr. Trumble.”

“You’re most welcome as always, Master Matthew.”

He watched as the boy quickly gulped down the rest of his drink and then clambered to the door. As he opened it and disappeared into the cold afternoon, a pot of sparkling dust was disturbed atop the doorframe and a few sprinkles caught the unsuspecting Matthew on the back.

Mr. Trumble went to close the door,sat down again next the fire and smiled.

A Christmas Tale Part 4

Professor Glimpuddle showed Matthew into the Shalimar’s bridge, which appeared to also doubled as his cabin and was apparently made out of some form of transluscent green crystal that throbbed with a inner glow in a manner than was vaguely comforting, and offered him a small flowerpot of tea and a scrumptious mince pie. He gratefully gobbled it down and looked about the strange room. Upon careful examination, he noticed that the walls seemed to grow out of the floor like some sort of plant and that what he had first assumed to be carpet was actually grass. The large window was half covered with cellophane and a weird control panel festooned with all sorts of knobs, levers and buttons lay beneath it. A loud clanging alarm went off and the Professor fussed about the controls like a demented organist until it faded away to an occasional plaintive honk, sounding to all the world like a depressed goose.

“Thank you for saving me, Professor. I’m Matthew Cavendish.”

“Not at all, my dear boy. Delighted to make your acquaintance.” The Professor shook Matthew by the hand, forgetting to remove his flying goggles and looking very much like an enthusiastic but highly disturbed insect. “Truth be told, it was the Shalimar itself that saved you, not me. I installed a set of brass arms in case I ever had to make an emergency landing on the canopy of a forest and they’ve developed quite the mind of their own. The ship is alive, you see.”

“Alive?” Matthew could scarcely believe the concept. He’d heard of sentient cars, eccentric motorcycles and talking aeroplanes, but a whole living ship was very rare in this day and age.

“Yes. I grew it at my laboratory in the jungles of Madagascar using some cuttings from a certain beanstalk I ‘borrowed’ from the British Museum.”

“I say, Professor, that’s a bit of a rum thing to do! You can’t just go borrowing things without giving them back. It’s just not cricket!”

“Oh, I quite agree, Matthew. Rest assured that I posted something much more valuable to them in return for what I needed. I gave them a stone of pure azoth.”

Matthew had no idea what that was, but it sounded impressive. Professor Glimpuddle beamed appreciatively. “Once I had the beanstalk, draconite and a few triffid clippings from the elves, I was able to grow my own ship in the short space of twenty five years. Now I can go anywhere in the world in a few hours.”

“That must be smashing. What do you do when you get there?”

“Ah, now that is the brilliant part, Matthew! I am able to observe anything with my ostroscope and conduct my experiments without bothering my beloved lemurs back home or letting anyone steal my inventions.”

“What’s an ostroscope? Is it like a microscope.”

“Why, yes, my clever lad, it is quite like a microscope. It allows you to see things that you couldn’t ordinarily see. It can go through walls, the ground and even through mountainsides. Sort of.”

Matthew was a smart lad who read plenty of spy comics, so was able to realize the implications of the device straight away. “Sort of? You’ve just invented the most useful camera in the world!”

“It depends on the mood of the ostroscope, you see. It doesn’t really feel like looking at fortress walls, bank vaults or underground bunkers and only shows what it thinks is interesting. The Prime Minister made me promise that I wouldn’t look at anything I shouldn’t and he was extremely serious. He had the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Minister of Magic with him and said they would be very, very cross.”

“Oh, that’s alright then.” He was relieved that he wouldn’t be doing anything against the interests of the Empire. He had no intention of being drummed out of the Scouts and sent to Coventry by everyone at school.

“It is a simple enough device, but quite a lovely one.. I simply distilled liquid hope through my atomic centrifuge and combined it with a wobble of ostriches. I’m just about to test it out for the first time in a few weeks. Would you like to have a look?”

“I’d love to, Professor Glimpuddle, but what I really need is some spiritus nativitatis. That’s how I ended up here on the Shalimar.” Matthew proceeded to explain his rather busy day to the Professor, who nodded sagely and sympathetically as it all poured out.

“I can’t say I have any of that on board, Matthew, but if you take a look through the ostroscope, you just might see some.”

And so the Professor and the boy hurried down a leafy ladder into the ship’s hold, where the fabled device awaited. It looked as if three metal statues of ostriches had been welded together in a rough circle and a giant golden lens wedged between them.

“Have a look now, Matthew. We should be going over London.”

Matthew looked down into the ostroscope. He heard a whirring of gears and a strange whizzing sound as the cityscape below him gave way to the inside of a little upstairs room in the East End. No carpet covered the bare boards of the floor and the fire was small and barely warmed the room. In one corner was a small pine branch dressed up with a few strands of tinsel and some faded baubles. Sitting around a large wooden table were two boys and two girls dressed in lovingly repaired old clothes and their mother and father. The parents were thin and had drawn, tired faces, but smiled nonetheless as they ate their Christmas Eve tea with their children.

“Aren’t we lucky to have to have this ham for tea, Mum?” asked the father. He had a much-used crutch propped up against the back of his chair

“Can I please have another piece?” squeaked a small boy of no more than six winters.

“No, Jimmy, we need to save the rest for tomorrow. You know things have been rough since your father had his accident and lost his job.”

“That’s alright Mum. I’m just glad we’re all here together again.” Jimmy replied with wide eyes and the other children joined in with a chorus of agreement.

“Will Father Christmas be coming this year, Mummy?” asked the smallest girl.

“We’ll see, Beryl love. We’ll see.”

The vision suddenly flickered, then disappeared and Matthew could saw fields stretching out before him right out to the southern coast.

“What happened?”

“We must have gone out of range. The Shalimar will be picking up speed again after slowing down to catch you. There go the White Cliffs of Dover…and there goes Paris.”

They sped on through the sky over Europe, which looked just like the time Matthew had bought his train set outside and tried to bomb it with his paper Valiant from the tree house. He could just see houses, farms, rivers, lakes, forests, mountains and the vast grey cities. They went over France and then Germany before slowing down over Austria-Hungary.

“Looks like the ostroscope has picked up something else again! Quick, Matthew, look before we lose it!”

He looked into the contraption once again and saw the inside of a tiny cottage in the middle of a dark forest that was covered in a thick blanket of snow. A little old lady sat in her rocking chair in front of the fire, knitting in silence. There was a small plate with a piece of bread and some cheese on it in front of her. An old broken wireless stood soundlessly on the mantelpiece. A small black kitten was curled up very close to the fire and Matthew could see its little ribs through its fur. The shelves around the room were filled with lovingly painted china, small carvings of animals and empty jars. Matthew crooked his neck and peered into the pantry and saw that it was bare. He felt a strange feeling in his chest, as if his heart was suddenly very heavy.

Then the picture flickered again and they moved on. The Shalimar sped over the skies of Romania and over the deep blue waters of the Black Sea, which Matthew regarded as extremely poor form, and onwards over the mountains and deserts of the Middle East. He could see a few railways crossing the land below and when he peered, he could spot caravans of camels and people trudging along through the sands in the gathering evening as they had done this night nearly twenty centuries ago. They rocketed out over the beautiful blue waters of the Persian Gulf and then flashed over the southern reaches of India, the steam engines of the Professor’s flying machine now straining away at their maximum pace.

As they slowed down over Borneo, Matthew didn’t need to be warned this time, but was at the ostroscope as it revealed a small clearing in the hot, steaming jungle, which sweltered even in the nighttime. A dozen exhausted, filthy soldiers in jungle greens and giggle hats sat in the mud at the foot of a huge tree, drinking quietly from their canteens. Some of them were British and some of them were Gurkhas, but all of their SLRs never left their grasp and all of them never truly relaxed. They looked tired, incredibly tired, but they got up just the same and moved off without complaint. All of them looked young, younger that Matthew’s brother Edward, and yet all of them looked so much older in their eyes. They went out on their way, on Christmas Eve just like any other day, doing their duty.

The scene flickered and then they moved onwards through darkness out over the vast blue of the Pacific Ocean. Matthew could see whales and dolphins rearing from the waters below and a vast grey aircraft carrier and its escorts on the horizon, heading steadily northwards towards Hawaii. He knew inside that it was impossible for any normal aeroplane or flying ship to travel this fast, but also understood that the Shalimar was no normal vessel. They raced into the lightening skies and, for the first time in his life, Matthew saw two dawns in a day.

Onwards they went, over a strange island dotted with massive stone heads and they they streaked over the cold, dry coast of South America. He could see many strange lines and shapes on a dry plain below for a brief instant before they were gone. The flying machine turned and headed up the northern coast in the shadow of the Andes, coursing through the skies over the towns and villages below. In them, Matthew saw the poor, desperately trying to eke out a living from the unforgiving soil and he saw the rich sitting in their homes full of light and laughter. The Panama Canal flashed below them in the blink of an eye and they curved up over Central America and Mexico to the plains of Texas, which were lit by the bright early morning sun. The Shalimar went over the great cities of America and Canada and Matthew saw many marvelous things and wonders of the modern world, just as he saw the poor and the hungry and the lonely amid the riches and skyscrapers, for there is nothing more marvelous than the suffering of men and women and there is no great a mystery as misery. They flew onwards and outwards past the great statue of freedom and hope into the North Atlantic.

Matthew sat back, feeling quite thoughtful. “Professor, would you be able to drop me off at home? I must have missed Christmas.” For some reason, that didn’t seem as great a tragedy as he had thought before he had left home.

“I can do that, my boy, but never fear, I do have a way of getting you back to the afternoon of Christmas Eve.” The Professor ran back up to the control room, closely followed by Matthew. He fiddled with knobs, frantically pulled at levers and smashed buttons until there a strange triumphant electronic fanfare. “Done!”

“How?” he gasped in astonishment.

“The magic of the Shalimar is such that time passes differently up here. You will arrive back having only been gone for a few minutes.”

“That’s super!”

“It is indeed. It works differently for me. It seems like I left my treetop laboratory in the rainforest just this morning, but I have been gone these past ten years. It is an old, old faerie spell.”

Matthew suddenly felt very sad for the Professor. Ten years was a long time to be away from your family, even if it was an adopted family of ooking primates. However, before he could say anything, a steam whistle went off, signifying that they were over Ashford.

“Happy Christmas, Matthew.” smiled the Professor wistfully as he pulled a large yellow lever labeled Do Not Pull. It opened up the grassy floor beneath Matthew and he fell down through the air.

Not again!

His fall was short and it took him several seconds to regain his senses. He was lying in a pile of snow in the churchyard that was growing by the second as the snow fell ever heavier. Clambering to his feet, he quickly checked to see that all his limbs were intact and functioning before springing into a run back home.

As luck would have it, no one had noticed that he had been away as he slipped back into the kitchen. Looking at his watch, he saw that he had only been gone twenty minutes. Things were different at home as well. Gone was the last minute rush and stress, replaced by a warm, bright glow of family and festival. Looking into the living room, the Christmas tree was now up, glittering with ornaments and light. Cheery Christmas music filled the air and delicious fruity, spicy smells filled the kitchen. In the fireplace, the Yule log crackled and flamed and before it was standing…

“Ed! You’re home!” Matthew rushed in and jumped into his big brother’s arms in delight.

“Hello, Matt! How’s my little goblin going?”

Philip looked up from his Eagle across the other side of the room with a look of triumph.

“Good. Great, actually. It’s wonderful to see you. I didn’t think you were coming home this year! When did you get here!”

“Calm down, matey, one question at a time. Vanguard came back into Portsmouth a week early and I got a train home from London. Father and Uncle Henry picked me up from the station about quarter of an hour ago as a Christmas surprise. Were you outside playing?”

“Yeah, playing. That’s it.”

“Ah, Matthew. You never change.”

In this, however, Sub-Lieutenant Edward Cavendish RN was wrong. The family came together for their tea and then the children went out caroling, as was their tradition. Matthew went along quite happily and willingly and sang his heart out. Alice and Angela thought they smelled a rat, but couldn’t quite put their finger on it. That night, he hung out his stocking and crawled into his bed without giving Philip a thumping and then followed that up by giving his younger brother one of the shocks of his life.

“Happy Christmas, Philip.”

“Happy Christmas, Matthew.” he responded, happy that his big brother was back at long last.

………………………………………………………………………………………………

Matthew woke up. It was still pitch dark, but there was a dim light on downstairs. He slowly got up and slipped out of bed with infetisimal care in order not to wake up Philip and padded silently downstairs. He slipped through the kitchen into the living room. There before the Christmas tree, he saw the stooped figure that he had been expecting.

“Hello.”

“Hello, Matthew.” said Father Christmas as he turned around and fixed the solemn boy with a kindly gaze. “Did you find what you were looking for yesterday?”

“Yes, I did sir. I just didn’t know it at the time.”

Father Christmas nodded. He had received several reports on this boy throughout the year. Like many children, he had gone through that phase where he did not believe in him, but he had grown out of it. A fair few incidences of sibling rivalry and juvenile head swelling, but nothing truly egregious. The last few notes he had received before he set out tonight had well and truly taken care of that.

“What did you wish to get for Christmas, Matthew?”

“Well, sir, I had been holding out for a sword, but I’d like to change my mind if I may.”

“You may. Tell me what your wish is.”

Matthew told him, taking a minute or so to explain. Father Christmas considered the matter and then nodded. “I can take care of that.”

“There is one other thing I’d like, if I may. We might need to use your sleigh. Do we have time?”

“We have all the time in the world.”

………………………………………………………………………………………………

Father Christmas and Matthew stood next to the sleigh and reindeer on top of the brown, gentle hill. A small town stood below them, quite crowded at this time of year. Shepherds stood watching their flocks out in the fields and a bright star, brighter than any Matthew had ever seen before, shone in the sky above as a sign of triumph and love. A caravan of men dressed in rich robes entered through the gate of the town below them. Matthew was only dressed in his pyjamas, but the Judean night was not as cold as the one he had left in England. The twinkling star suddenly burst forth with an even brighter, brilliant light that seemed to shine out all over the whole world, despite the night. From the town below, far away, Matthew could hear the cry of a newborn child.

“Thank you. I think I’ve found what I was looking for. Can I go home now?”

“Of course.” smiled Father Christmas.

………………………………………………………………………………………………

Matthew awoke the next morning and joined the rush of children down to open their presents. To his immense surprise and absolute happiness, his gifts included a finely crafted sword with a brass hilt and a sharkskin handle. He laughed then with a pure joy that he hadn’t felt for some time. He hadn’t been expecting this. His family thought it was for the sword, but they were mistaken. They all trooped off to church, where his enthusiastic singing was once again noted, and thence home again for the great feast of roast turkey, roast chicken, ham, spiced beef, roast potatoes, Christmas pudding, mince pies, trifle and cake. There were songs and laughter, crackers, hats and jokes. Edward was home and his cousins were there too. Later in the afternoon, the family gathered around the television and watched the Queen’s message in reverent silence before retreating to various easy chairs and sofa with cups of tea.

In a small upstairs room in the East End of London, Beryl, Jimmy, Laura, Christopher and their mother and father sat down to a great meal of roast turkey, roast beef, vegetables and an immense, flaming Christmas pudding. Underneath the wonderfully adorned tree, the remnants of a dozen boxes could be seen and toys were scattered across the room, whilst the crutch lay unneeded in the corner.

The tiny hut in the deep woods of the Carpathians was brightly lit and warm. A large supply of firewood lay piled high outside, enough for the rest of the winter. Inside, there was music and laughter from the wireless as the old lady and her kitten feasted on goose and drank their fill of spiced wine. The pantry was full of tins, jars, loaves of bread and several large hams. Sitting across the other side of the table was her grown son, smiling.

A barrack room in Sarawak was not the most salubrious of locations in the world, but for the men of C Company, 12th Battalion, Parachute Regiment and the Independent Gurkha Parachute Company, it was heaven on earth compared to the jungle. It wasn’t the first series of patrols that had been called off for unspecified reasons, but the extraction of forward sections by Rotodynes was decidedly uncommon. Whatever the reason, it was an opportunity to enjoy a brief moment of respite and to share a hearty Christmas dinner with their comrades.

Master Astorius the wizard had never laughed so long and so hard for many a long year. He had never thought he would live to see the day when Sandra and the boys would be knocking on his door on Christmas morning and had been delighting them with illusions and fireworks all afternoon. Captain Wustymunkles was curled up in the corner, having tired of his ball of wool and a quite magnificent shining light on the carpet that he could never quite catch, at least for the moment.

Professor Glimpuddle sipped his tea and looked out at the lemurs. It was good to be home.

“Philip?”

“Yes, Matthew?”

“Grab that bowl of roast chestnuts and follow me.”

“Where are we going?”

“Down the garden to visit an old friend.”

“It is a far, far better thing I do now –“

“Philip! What are you doing?!”

“Finishing off with the Dickens quote like you told me.”

“It isn’t that one!”

“…Please, sir, I want some more?”

“No, silly! Why is it cold in here all of a sudden?”

“Must be that fourth wall breaking down again. Ah, I think I got it now.”

“Well, hurry up, Phillip. We don’t have all Christmas.”

“A Merry Christmas to us all; God bless us, every one!”

A Christmas Tale II: Part 2

The air seemed much chillier as the three children ran breathlessly down the lane towards the Cavendish house and the wan shine of the sun was just a tad more sickly. Speed was of the essence, given the uncertain fate of their comrade in arms. They barely paused as they slipped through the loose plank in the back fence that served as their primary means of ingress and egress and slipped and slided their way across the back garden and up the steps into the warm kitchen. Mrs Cavendish was busy over her baking and spared them only the briefest of glances.

“Hello there, children. Philip isn’t in at the moment, I’m afraid.”

“That’s alright, Mrs. Cavendish. We just needed to see Matthew about something.”

“Oh, righto. He’s just up in his room, no doubt with his nose stuck in another book.”

Matthew Cavendish was indeed reading at that point in time, but the text in question was rather different from his previous preferences. His travels of the previous Christmas had given him a taste for real adventure and life , most certainly, but chief among the reasons for his new material were the neat bundle of neat letters that had arrived several weeks after he sat his 11-Plus tests. Several schools had been quite interested in offering him a scholarship after seeing the results of his English, history and magic exams and so he found himself swotting up over Christmas from an old copy of A History of English Magic in order to kill three birds with one stone. The details of the 17th century changes to styles of conjuration had passed peak boredom, rocketed through the suburbs of sluggish ennui and were now approaching the juncture of utter lassitude and profound accidie, which made any interruption a welcome one.

With nary a knock, his door burst open and three distressed children bowled into his room, skidding across the room and ending up in a very vocal ball on the rug before him.

“What ho, gang! Where’s Philip?” There was barely time for his cheery inquiry to pass his lips when Carey began blubbing, which was most uncomfortable and quite out of character.

“What’s going on?” Matthew instantly became serious, putting aside his book and rising from his bed.

“He’s…he’s…he’s been taken into this, somehow!” cried Susan, thrusting the strange bauble into Matthew’s hands and babbling the whole story to him in choking sobs. He quickly calmed them down, feeling as uncomfortable with such emotion as any good English boy would and sat back down to think. There was no immediate sign of anything inside the globe and it felt normal to touch.

The responsible thing to do would have been to tell Mother or Father at once, but he didn’t know how that could get Philip back home and, even if it did, he would be in a world of trouble for taking suspicious magical objects from foreign strangers. That would be a terrible fate at Christmas time. He on the other hand had a little bit of experience with this type of thing that he’d never told anyone about, apart from Philip. He’d even tried a few of the spells in the books Father had bought, albeit without any great success. The least he could do was try and fix things up first; he owed the little goblin that much.

He got up, went over to his desk, grabbed a few useful items from his drawer and beckoned to the younger children. “We’ll head on out to the back lane and try something there.”

Once they had made their way out into the cold, cobbled lane, Matthew tried all the standard methods of arcane release – chanting the words backwards, calling on it to release its secrets and trying all of the words of command that came to mind; apparently ‘Izzy Whizzy, let’s get busy’ didn’t work without a wand for some reason.

There was nothing else for it. He held aloft the strange green bauble as Susan, Carey and William crowded in front of him and loudly declaimed the magic words that his brother had uttered so very recently to disastrous effect.

“Clek, Clak! Paster, Vaster! Sinaruat Elleg!”

Nothing seemed to happen for an instant and then the ground fell out from underneath them and they went hurtling away through the air as if caught on a gigantic invisible waterslide. The familiar landscape of the back laneway stretched and then gave way to a blaze of starlight and a roaring whoosh like the explosion of a thousand fireworks. Matthew found himself screaming along with the others, but was careful to try and note exactly what he was feeling and seeing and which direction they seemed to be sucked towards.

With an anticlimactic squelch, they landed on something very soft and wet. On the bright side, the incantation had apparently been successful in transporting them elsewhere, as this certainly wasn’t the back lane behind the Cavendish residence, or even Ashford. It was an impossibly large yet dank great hall, lit only partially by flickering torches that lined each of the muddy walls, interspersed with crude paintings and rotting tapestries. They sat in the middle of a huge bowl filled some sort of horrific ichor, itself positioned in pride of place on a gigantic wooden table in the centre of the hall. On the not-so bright side, any satisfaction as to their journey swiftly evaporated as their spinning vision began to return to normal and they fully took in their surroundings and the small matter of being surrounded by several hundred rather shocked goblins.

“’Ere! Wots those yoomans doing in the trifle?! They’ll go and ruin it all!” growled a particularly large specimen, whose bestial visage, fanged maw and frighteningly sharp cleaver was only slightly offset by a neatly coloured label pinned to his jerkin identifying him as Graknak.

“Oooh, and after all those hours I spent shaving all them rats! It’s a bleedin’ liberty, it is!” replied his off-sider Krenzag, a small, wheedling goblin labelled with long curly ears, bright red eyes and a nice little checked handkerchief secured around his neck so that he didn’t get his good top all messy.

“To the boss with them!”

“YEAH!”

With a roar, the goblins charged and seized the four children before they could even cry out, held them aloft by their limbs and carried them out of the disgusting dining hall through a short, cleaner passageway and into a much cleaner and evilly-lit throne room dominated by a granite dais. A black robed figure ceased playing a hauntingly creepy tune on his skeletal pipe organ and whirled about swiftly, fixing the goblins with an angry stare.

“STOP! Did you remember to wipe your feet?”

“No, boss, but –“ The shrill explanation provided by Zenghi, a small, pale goblin, was cut short as the figure gestured imperiously with a glowing green wand he produced from his sleeve. A fizzing emerald ray shot out and enveloping the wretched monster in a crackling halo of sorcerous power as he seemd to shrivel up from the inside, leaving only a pile of clothes on the floor. Susan involuntarily gasped at the horror of it and William hid his eyes but, a second later, a small mouse wriggled out from Zenghi’s sleeve and streaked away towards the relative safety of the side of the hall, eyed hungrily by more than a few of his former comrades.

“Feet first. Explanation about the captive children second.” intoned the black robed figure coldly, making Carey briefly wonder if he was somehow related to his mother, given their similarly strict policies on cleanliness. The goblins sheepishly obeyed and then desposited the children in front of their master.

“They came out of midair and landed right in our dinner, boss! It’s not normal, begging your Magnificence’s pardon, and certainly not healthy – we could catch anyfing from them lot!”

“Yeah, I read somewhere vat they takes a bath more than once a year. It’s bleedin’ dangerous!”

“Silence, Krenzag, you disgusting little creature.” This compliment seemed to please the goblin, as he squared his shoulders and looked around smugly at his impressed fellows. “Simply add some more mule essence and powdered bat’s droppings to your dessert and you will be fine. Now, what am I to do with you?” The wizard, for such he must be, turned towards Susan, Carey, William and Matthew and eyed them carefully from deep within his shadowy cowl.

Matthew had recovered the quickest of all of them and saw that it was his responsibility to take care of the younger ones, as he was the oldest and had got them here in the first place. He looked straight at the wizard without any sign of fear and spoke politely yet defiantly.

“I’ll tell you what you are to do, sir. You can start by giving us back my brother Philip and then you can send us back home. Or else.”

“Or else what, you charmingly brave little tyke?” The wizard seemed quite amused.

“Or else we’ll cast you down and get the Army and the Royal Navy and the RAF to come here and destroy you until it jolly well hurts!” As the threat left his lips, Matthew felt somewhat chagrined; it was pretty banal as heroic promises of retribution went, but he was making it up as he went along, after all.

“You? Cast me down? Ahahahahaha!” The wizard threw his head back and erupted into a ringing burst of stereotypically evil laughter, joined by the goblins and a conveniently timed peal of thunder from outside the throne room. After a short while, he stopped, thinking to see an intimidated gaggle of children huddling together on the floor, despairingly clinging to their last vestiges of their sanity as the hopelessness of their situation struck home. Instead, Matthew looked at him with a cocked head and an expression of distinct disappointment.

“You…you really think that you could do it? You, a mere English boy, foil the carefully laid plans of Tauranis Gelle, Supreme Master of Wizardry and Dread Lord of Schloss Tarlenheim? You think that you could undo my masterly scheme to capture thousands of children from all over Europe and America on the eve of your pathetic celebration and, in doing so, destroy Christmas once and for all?!” Gelle stalked over to the other side of his platform, raising his arms in the air in fiendish exhultation as he gloried in the sheer nastiness of his scheme and how the convenient lightning framed him through the leaded windows of his lair.

“Let me guess, you want to destroy Christmas as the first step towards taking over the world?”

“OF COURSE!” Tauranis Gelle whirled around, cowl falling back on his shoulders. He was a fairly young fellow for an evil mastermind and not that bad-looking apart from a hideously twisted nose. “Take them away, my goblins! Take them away to the dungeons, lock them up, throw away the key and then throw away the last one to touch that key! Nothing can stop me now!” He turned back to engage in more evil plotting, not even stopping to notice the fleeting flash of happiness in Matthew’s eyes.

The goblins picked the children up once again, none too gently, as they had no love of humans, but not exactly cruelly either, as none were too keen on throwing their backs out at work, and carried them off down the stone corridors of Gelle’s castle. As they went, they began singing a horrible little song in their horrible little voices.

Grab them! Nab them! Pick them up!
Take them down where frogs do sup!
Beat them! Cheat them! Carry them away!
Lock them down for many a day!
Chew them! Hew them! Make them cry!
Grind them up in a great big pie!

This awful tune was very frightening to all three of the younger children, although Matthew had gathered that these were not exactly the garden variety evil goblins one might read about in National Geographic and was thus able to spend the journey working on his plan, when bumps, lurches and scrapes would permit, naturally.

At last, the goblins threw open a wooden door and entered a small room with a cage across the back. They marched over to it, dumped the children inside and carefully locked the huge iron door. As they marched out, they heard the sound of a key being hurled away down a well, followed by a short scuffle and then a long goblin scream that ended in a distant splash. Their horrid song began again and faded gradually away.

There was a sniffling sound from a bundle of blankets at the back of their cage and the children rushed over to investigate. Pulling them back, Matthew gave a great cry of joy as there, of all the goblins cages in all the evil wizardly castles in all the world, was his little brother Philip! They all pulled him up and hugged him and shook him by the hand vigorously, somehow cheered that at least part of their quest had been successful.

“However did you get here?” Philip asked in amazement. “One moment I was showing the others my new bauble and the next moment I was in this dungeon.”

“We said the words while holding it. I think it must have been some sort of cursed teleportation device. Those things are illegal for a dashed good reason.” Susan blanched at Matthew’s strong language, but figured that this counted as one of those stressful occasions when one could understand such verbal excess.

“Do you know if anyone else is being held down here?” asked Carey.

“I haven’t seen anyone, but I have heard a fair bit of crying through the walls.”

“The beast. He’ll pay for this.” Matthew promised coldly. He stood up and walked to the cage door. Locked securely. The bars were out as well – almost two inches thick. Looking out to the rest of the room, he spied exactly what he needed – a sturdy bakelite telephone sitting on a crude wooden table up in the far corner, seemingly well beyond the reach of any prisoners. He smiled.

“Righto, all, turn out your pockets. It is time to give this nasty Ruritanian wizard a good old British style thrashing!”

“How do you know he is Ruritanian?” asked William in wonderment.

“He mentioned the name of this place – Schloss Tarlenheim, or Castle Tarlenheim to use its proper English name. Unless I’m very much mistaken, we are only 12 miles away from the German border.”

They all looked down at the pile of their collective possessions. Five penknives, twelve pebbles, six marbles, three handkerchiefs, one rather old and furry boiled sweet, two battleship cards and a grand total of ten pennies.

“Well, look’s like bribery is out of the question.” sighed Philip. Then he looked up at his brother, then over at the telephone, then back at Matthew. Now he understood.

Using handkerchiefs and shoelaces, they carefully put together a makeshift rope and fastened one end to one of the penknives and made a lasso out of the other. Matthew proceeded to swing it round and round through the bars and cast it across the room at the telephone. All those long hours playing at cowboys and Indians paid off as, on the seventh attempt, he managed to get the telephone, pulled it off the table (wincing as it hit the floor) and dragged it towards them.

“Well, we’ve got a telephone, but who could we possibly call, Matthew? The police?” Susan asked worridly.

“No, I’m afraid we’re out of range of the British police for the moment. But there is one thing I’m going to try. Wish me luck.”

Matthew closed his eyes and thought back carefully, making sure he remembered the long number exactly as he had been told. It had been emphasised that this was strictly for emergencies, but he thought that this probably counted as one. He dialled in numbers one at a time, all twenty-five of them, and then listened as the telephone whirred and hummed in a most unconventional manner.

After almost thirty seconds where none of them scarcely dared breath, someone finally picked up at the other end.

“Father Christmas speaking.”

A Christmas Tale II: Part 4

To say that the goblins of Castle Tarlenheim had experienced a busy day would be to understate the matter profoundly. There had been the regular chores that pile up in every evil lair, the continual child deliveries courtesy of the master’s Great Big Plan and the unscheduled interruption to their feasting. Goblins are of course creatures of habit and any disruption to the approved schedule is bitterly resented.

“I bitterly resent all this fuss and bovver! It’s not normal!” shouted Graknak as he stood on the upturned chair at the head of the messy mess hall.

“YEAH!” chorused his fellow goblins, pumping their clawed fists in the air and scowling.

“We deserves better!”

“YEAH!”

“I propose we form a committee to take our greivances to the Master. We wants more rats and less yoomans in our trifle!”

The other goblins were about to reward him with a resounding endorsement of his fist-waving industrial militancy, but were somewhat distracted as, at that very instant, the roof above them began to warp and twist. Something seemed to be dripping down with ever increasing urgency upon them. Krenzag put out a finger and caught a drop in midair.

“Ere! Why’s there jelly comin’ down off the roof on us?”

Any answer was sadly not forthcoming as the roof gave way and a huge flow of raspberry jelly filled the room, sending many of the goblins surfing away into the walls or out of the open door, whether it be to a sticky end or merely their just desserts.

Matthew’s plan had been quite ingenious, involving using the smallest children as scouts to find the kitchen storeroom and the mess hall, the medium sized children to pass up the supplies of jelly and the oldest children to help the Fabulous Four to saw away the beams of the attic above the mess hall. He allowed himself a brief smile of satisfaction at the sight of the gelatinous sea below him and then turned back to his friends and the cheering children.

“Now, the throne room must be somewhere close by, based on how long it took the goblins to bring us there earlier on. We’ll go through and deal with Tauranis Gelle and teach him not to mess with Christmas!”

Alas, all their initial forays did not reveal any throne rooms, but simply a circular series of passages. Their sorcerous opponent must have sealed himself off from normal means of access so he could enjoy a good old fashioned fiendish gloating session. All of the exits to the outside world were fused solidly shut and defied all belabouring attempts to open them. A more careful search did give them something to get rather excited over in the form of the discovery of a secret door leading to a dusty staircase. They crept down the stairs and found themselves before an immense oak door that seemed cold to the touch. This, they thought, must be the threshold of Gelle’s inner sanctum of wickedness. Unfortunately, to their great disappointment, it lead not to the spooky throne room they had expected, but to a large room filled with mirrors arranged in an ingenious pattern.

“A mirror maze!” shouted Harg in delight.

And what a maze it was. It would around and around, leading to dead ends, false paths and convoluted circular routes right back to where they started. Frustration began to creep in and gnawed away at the sinews of hope. Rylé stood back thoughtfully, observing each failed attempt to solve the puzzle. Finally, he spoke in a quiet voice.

“This isn’t a maze. It is a decoy. We shouldn’t be trying to get through the maze, we should be trying to get through it.”

The others looked at him blankly.

“We’ve got to smash every mirror that can be smashed and the one remaining should be the portal through to Gelle.”

They took to their task with great gusto, breaking, smashing and shattering their way through the room. Only one gold rimmed mirror resisted their tender attentions and, when Harg thrust his cricket club at it, is passed right through the rippling surface as if it had been thrown into a crystal clear pond. This was the way forward.

Matthew went to go first. As he stepped through the looking glass, he felt like he had been doused with a bucket of icy cold water and a beehive tipped on his head. The others proceeded to pile through and join him in a pile on the floor. Once the shock wore off, they discovered they were in a small storeroom. Seated on an empty jelly barrel was a transluscent child-like figure that looked rather thin and morose.

“Oh, hello there.”

“Are you a ghost?” asked William in a mixture of fear and fascination.

“Yes. I’m the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

“I’ve read about you! You visited Scrooge!”

“Did I? Sorry, I can’t really remember; I’ve been here so long. Wouldn’t put it past me, though.” The ghost gave a pained snort that the children realised was meant to be a laugh, which they responded to with a perfunctory titter.

“How long have you been here?” asked Riain, eyes wide with sincere concern.

“I’m not really sure. I think it was shortly after the war finished.”

“Oh my goodness! Since the end of the Second World War?”

“Eh? What’s that? No, I mean the one with all those big three-legged walking machines from Mars. What one are you talking about?”

Gosh. The ghost had been trapped in the castle since the War of the Worlds over sixty years before. All the children were quietly shocked, apart from Harg, who was busy trying to walk like a Martian war machine.

“Never mind the history lesson for now, Mr. Past.” Philip’s interjection was urgent. “What is more important is how and why you were trapped here!”

Matthew raised an eyebrow, quietly impressed with his brother’s grasp of what was really important.

“I had been sent off from headquarters for a Christmas evening haunting - pretty standard for the time. Our quarry was a young wizard named Tauranis Gelle who looked to be on the downward path to perdition. I was supposed to set him right and show him what was really important.” The ghost moaned pathetically as he relived the memory for the two hundred and eighty-sixth thousandth, four hundred and seventy-ninth time, not that he’d kept count or anything.

“Didn’t he react in the right way?” Jebediah showed hithertofore uncharacteristicly genuine concern at the plight of the depressed spectre.

“He got very angry and shouted a lot and trapped me inside this spirit level.”

“Can you show us what you showed him, by any chance?” asked Susan.

“But of course! Wooo! Wooo! Wurtle, wurtle, wubble, wubble, wooo!” The Ghost began to dance around waving his arms in wild, swinging circles as the room faded away before their very eyes. There was a tinkling of bells and then a flash of light…

They were standing on a snowy hillside in what appeared to be some sort of school. A small boy barely seven summers old dressed in rather old-fashioned clothing stood crying under an old oak tree, surrounded by a vicious circle of jeering children.

“Big Nose!”

“Big Nose Gelle!”

“You’ve got a big nose, Tauranis Gelle!”

“What are you getting for Christmas, Gelle? Handkerchiefs?!”

“Who nose what he’ll get?”

“Perhaps that explains why he smells so much!”

The tormentors burst out in laughter, knocked the crying boy to the cold, hard ground and then rushed off towards the warm, inviting glow of the school room. The young Gelle lay down in a heap weeping loud, shuddering sobs for a few moments, before unsteadily raising himself to his feet and staring off at the sight of the disappearing bullies with complete and utter malice.

“I swear that one day, somehow, I’ll get my revenge. Let’s see how they like what they’ll get for Christmas!” He fairly spat out the last word with pure venom.

Their vision began to swim and then they found themselves back in the room with the Ghost of Christmas Past, who had just finished wubbling as he saw them return. Matthew looked around at his friends and cocked his head confidently.

“I think that gives us something to work with, don’t you?”

“Rather!” they chorused, particularly Jebediah who had a wicked twinkle in his eye.

“Mr. Christmas Past, would you be able to send us on to Gelle’s throne room, by any chance? We might be able to help you leave here, at long last.”

“Oooh, oooh, that would be a dream come true! I can’t remember if I left the window open.” The ghost began dancing around and around and wubbling once again and they felt themselves being sucked elsewhere, landing right in front of a very surprised Tauranis Gelle.

“What is this?! How dare you interrupt me at the moment of my triumph? I’ll blast you to smithereens!” shrieked the enraged wizard, raising his wand threateningly until Jebediah tapped him politely on the shoulder.

“Excuse me, sir. Sorry to interrupt your big vengeance, but, just before you do kill us all effortlessly, can you do my one last good turn, from one magician to another.” The boy sounded utterly sincere as he gazed up at the black robed instrument of his destruction.

“Very well, professional courtesy and all that. What is your last request, craven child?”

“Smell these.” He produced a tatty bunch of flowers from deep inside one long, purple sleeve and thrust them right up in Gelle’s face.

“What is this?! Wait – AH-CHOO!!” He let loose with a mighty sneeze, scattering arcane itching dust all over himself. There followed a most undignified display of scratching, howling and rolling about on the floor, enabling the children to relieve him of his wand and bind his arms tightly to his side with shoe laces. He finally stopped wriggling and sneezing and sat on the steps of his vacant throne under the watchful weapons of the Fabulous Four, tears of humiliation openly running down his face.

“Ha! Your evil plan to wreck Christmas is at an end, Tauranis Gelle!” Philip proclaimed triumphantly.

“Yes, and I would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for you pesky children!”

“Wait.” Matthew walked forward quietly. “There is another way this could end.”

“What do you mean, infernal boy?”

“We saw how those children treated you back when you were little.”

“Oh.”

“It was simply awful. They were real rotters!” piped Susan.

“Yes, you did nothing to deserve all those horrid names. It was very wrong indeed.” agreed Carey as the others all nodded their concurence.

“I don’t even think it is that bad a nose at all.” said Harg sympathetically.

“You…you…you really think so?” Gelle looked up with new tears welling in his eyes as, for the first time in more than a century, he felt a faint glimmer of long-forgotten hope and happiness flicker in his soul.

“Of course we do. It is never right to be cruel and beastly to someone just because of something they can’t help.” Matthew laid a kindly hand on Gelle’s shoulder. “What they did was very wrong indeed, just as what you’ve done in return is wrong. But it doesn’t have to end like this.”

“Yes, you’re right.” Gelle rose unsteadily to his feet, arms still pinioned to his sides. “There is so much I could have done and so much I wish I had said to so many people over all these long years. All lost, so that I could pursue a hollow quest of revenge.” He now wept silently, thinking of his long-lost family and friends, of decades of life and love.

“You can change that, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re getting the greatest gift of all, Master Gelle. The gift of a second chance.”

At that, Matthew cut open the wizard’s bonds and stepped back.

Tauranis Gelle looked at the children in bewilderment and then up at the roof. He shook his head in wonder as all the magic of memory and the myriad ghosts of Christmases past flowed back into him. He saw them all now in his mind’s eye. He remembered a time before the taunts, felt once again the warmth of the fire and the sound of their happy voices and remembered love and joy and hope. He let loose with a long, rich laugh, not evil and cackling, but high and resounding. He pointed at the wall with his hand and blasted it asunder with a bolt of lightning, then spoke a word of command that opened all the doors of the castle. The light of the sun now streamed in through the windows, bright and pure and the sound of cheering children rushing outside to freedom echoed into the sundered room.

“Yes! I shall use this second chance! I will do more than release all of the children – I’ll give all of my treasures to the miserable peasants of this valley! All of my potions and research shall go to help those in need and all the stores of my kitchens shall be put into a grand Christmas feast!”

And at that moment, a most peculiar thing happened that left the children astounded. A shimmering light surrounded Gelle’s face and his twisted snout began to shrink and change. An instant later, it had finished and there was a new, perfect nose! Matthew looked up to see the Ghost of Christmas Past flying off through the hole in the wall, giving them all a little wink as he went.

Once they made their way outside the keep, Rylé and his fellow agents were met by a very official-looking party of British, Ruritanian, American and German soldiers, wizards and policemen.

“Well done, boys! You’ll all get medals for this!” said a white-moustached colonel as he pumped them vigorously by the hand.

“Can I have mine in the shape of a dead bat?” asked Harg, thoroughly confusing his audience.

“Whatever shall happen to the goblins, sir?” Matthew asked the British Ambassador.

“I believe we shall be able to find suitable employment for them with one of our American contacts; I believe his name is Mr. Jareth or something like that.”

“Look!” Susan pointed back behind them, where a smiling Gelle was being lead away by four Ruritanian secret policemen towards a Black Maria. “What are you doing with him?”

“He must answer for his many crimes against our land. The King himself has ordered it.”

“What will happen to him?” Philip said, taken aback.

“The traditional treatment for dark wizards in our land – his hands and feet will be hewn off and he shall be cast into a leaden cell for ten years.”

“That’s horrid! You can’t do that to him, not now he’s come good!” cried William.

Gelle turned around with a kindly and wistful smile “Now, now, children. You have done me a great service this day and taught me that it is important to keep Christmas in your heart. What is a bit of justly-earned time in prison compared to that? Although, if it were up to me, I’d prefer to keep my appendages – they’re just so handy.”

The senior Ruritanian secret policeman looked intently at Gelle as he spoke, then pulled out a small radio and moved away behind the Black Maria to speak into it. He returned two minutes later, the hint of a smile playing around the edges of his stern face.

“I have spoken to the King’s chief minister. We are not a people who set no stead by redemption nor without mercy. Tauranis Gelle, your penance is to serve the people of Tarlenheim for twenty years, using your magery to do good instead of evil.”

“This I accept.”

“Very well. Men, take him away. And hew off his nose for good measure!”

After the loud objections of the children to this act of amputative justice were received and the wizard departed, all limbs and protuberances intact, it was time for the children to say goodbye to their new friends. The boys all shook hands and clapped each other on the back like jolly good chaps and did so somewhat more awkwardly with Susan.

“Goodbye! Thank you for coming to save us! Goodbye Riain! Goodbye Harg! Goodbye Rylé! Goodbye Jebediah!”

“Goodbye! Merry Christmas!”

After they had ran off to their British government supplied steam powered flying machine, Matthew turned around to the others, who all looked very tired and overwrought from a most busy day.

“What time is it, Philip?” asked Carey as they walked down the hillside towards the gathered cars, tanks and carriages that had been bought in to return the children to their homes.

He looked at his watch and blanched in horror. “Eight o’clock! We’ve missed tea and dinner!”

“Oh no! We’re going to be in ever so much trouble!” cried Susan, aghast at the thought of missing the festivities of Christmas Eve.

“Hold your horses, everyone. I know just the fellow who can get us back home in time.” said Matthew with a knowing smile as he walked towards a radio telephone.

Professor Glimpuddle was ever so pleased to hear from Matthew and more than happy to fly up to Ruritania in the Shalimar. As they raced through the skies around the world, Susan, Carey and William squealed with delight and wonder, picking out all the magnificent sights and features far below them. As they passed over Burma, Matthew thought he heard the jingling of sleigh bells somewhere above them and felt a warm sensation of happiness course through his bones.

They all made it back to Ashford just in time for the clock in the village square to tick over to 11:00 in the morning of Christmas Eve. Nothing seemed to have changed and no-one noticed their absence as they jogged back to the laneway behind the Cavendish house. All four children exchanged a few knowing glances and grins that night at the Christmas Eve church service as the choir sang their hearts out.

Trudging back home through the snow, Philip and Matthew had a chance to talk at last.

“Thanks for coming to save me, Matt.”

“What else could I do, Philip? You are my brother after all; blood is thicker than water.”

“So is jelly.”

Matthew laughed out loud at that, white frost spreading in front of his mouth.

“No, but I really mean it. I’m certainly not going to be going accepting any gifts from foreign strangers again any time soon. Come on, I’ll race you back home!”

“In a minute, I just dropped something. You get a head start; you’ll need it, my little goblin.”

“Says you.” Philip then took to his heels and dashed off through the snow along the path towards home.

Matthew turned around to the trees that lay beside them and saw who he knew would be there.

“Good evening, sir.”

“Good evening, Matthew Cavendish. It is good to see you once again.” replied Father Christmas. “Your brother seems to have learned his lesson well enough.”

“I think I have as well, sir.”

“And what was it?”

“I should have been more responsible and told Mother and Father what happened to Philip. I thought I was all grown-up and could handle it on my own. I was wrong.”

“Then truly, you have received a precious gift this day, that of wisdom. And you have done more than that.” The old man smiled with infinite kindness. “You helped save someone else. That was a noble deed.”

“Thank you, sir. Merry Christmas.”

“You are most welcome, Matthew. Merry Christmas.”

As the two brothers lay in their beds later that night, all the outside world enveloped in a silent wonderland, Philip rolled over and looked across the room at Matthew, who was lying back and staring at the roof.

“Matt?”

“Yes, Philip?”

“That was the best Christmas ever.”

“It has hardly begun, Philip. And there will be many, many more. Good night.”

“Good night.”

Given that this is more of a comedic and child-friendly tale, the goblins have been toned down a bit.