Father Christmas and Me by Matt Haig

Author:Matt Haig
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canongate Books

‘It’s all right,’ I told him, and tried not to cry, even as I felt the sadness build and build and build inside me.

But then I felt my eyes hot with tears and I began to run.

‘YES! RUN AWAY!’ said a voice behind me. ‘WE DON’T WANT YOUR KIND HERE!’

I ran past the Bank of Chocolate and Mother Mayhem’s Music Shop and Clogs! Clogs! Clogs! and Red & Green, the clothes shop, and Magic Books, the bookshop, and then I found myself at Reindeer Field. Suddenly there were no elves, just reindeer, and reindeer didn’t read newspapers, so I felt safer, but I kept running all the way, as Blitzen looked up to see what the matter was. On and on and on. Until I was home. And I knocked on the door and kept knocking and there was no answer, but then I remembered that I didn’t need a key as it was Elfhelm and people left their doors open, so I turned the handle and went inside and I cried. I cried and cried and cried.

I went into the living room, full of decorations, and saw Captain Soot asleep in his basket beside the Christmas tree. I stared at the darkness of the fireplace. There was something comforting about the dark. I went over and crouched down, into the fireplace, and just stared at it. But then I heard footsteps on the path and saw Mary outside the window humming to herself and carrying a basket full of berries.

She must have been to the Wooded Hills, collecting fruit for the Christmas cake she was planning to make.

She hadn’t seen me.

I didn’t want her to see me.

I didn’t want to see anyone. Or talk to anyone.

I didn’t want to cry in front of Mary and make her sad. But in seconds she would open the door and be inside the house.

So I then did the thing I was best at in the whole world. I crawled up the chimney.

Unlike elf houses, Father Christmas’s home had been made to a human scale, and that included the chimney. So it was easy for me to fit inside. Halfway up I pressed my feet and back against the opposite sides of the sooty chimney wall and waited there, with my knees quite close to my chest, and cried some more.

I wanted to stay there for ever.

Unseen, in the darkness, not bothering or offending anyone.

As I cried it dawned on me – I wasn’t made for anywhere. I would never fit in, no matter where I was. In London, at the workhouse, I was the one that Mr Jeremiah Creeper hated the most. I had never fitted in. Even before that, being a girl chimney sweep had made me a kind of freak among other children. And now, here, it was happening again. Here of all places, where I thought life would be wonderful and magical. Where I thought I would be happy for ever.

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